Earth Hour?

I was reading a friends blog (very funny by the way!) and he blogged about Earth Hour.

Now although I am a fairly well read sort of guy and keep up to date with the different news media, this one almost slipped under my radar this year.

It's not that I don't want to "save the planet", in fact most of my friends would describe me as a bit of a green nut; which I probably get from my father, who has been "into" recycling for about 20 years or so, long before it was the "thing to do".

I push my family to recycle more at home, we are a one car family (I don't drive) and I love the idea of composting and growing your own food, reducing energy consumption (which also reduces my fuel bills) and above all I don't like to waste things. I think that is pretty green.

So why don't I support things like Earth Hour?

I'm sure that everyone taking part was doing it for the right reasons, sitting in the dark, feeling ashamed about Mankind's negative influences on the Planet, and it probably got a very nice "and finally" on the evening news. But how many peoples attention was drawn to the topic by all those sitting in the dark? And how many peoples attention was caught who didn't already know about Earth Hour and worry about climate change?

It would surely have been better to use that hour (and the electricity) to have coordinated mass email and letter writing campaigns to make various stores and companies more aware of consumer power and call for them to "do their bit". It would have been better to spend the hour sorting household rubbish and walking down to the local recycling point. It would have been better for the organisers to think up something more novel to do this year, rather than the same group of people doing the same thing, with diminishing press coverage and interest. It might have been better to donate some cash to charities and bodies that actually achieve green things (like all those firms that will offset your carbon for a fee).

Personally I think Mankind has an incredibly inventive streak, and yes we are responsible for messing our planet up a fair bit. But I think we will be able to figure out a way forward, with everyone playing their part. The one thing I am certain about is that not much is going to be achieved in figuring out a solution with the lights out!

An "expense"ive form of entertainment

Every media outlet this morning that I read/listen to from my newspaper to the blogs I read, are all still talking about Jacqui Smiths husbands recreational habits.

At first I was (I know you will be shocked here) sorry for the way she was being treated by the media, after all I reasoned, its not her fault that she is married to a muppet, and anyway mistakes do happen in expenses claims and its only a tenner.

Then I read and thought more. It turns out that the muppet is actually her employed assistant. At £40k. Which is a damn site more than most assistants earn. You start to put that together with her bagloads of cash claimed for her second home... or was that family home (I get confused) and add in Mcnulty's claims on his mums house, and you start to see a pattern emerging amongst Labour MPs.....

Locally Jacqui's collegue Bill Rammell, despite claiming over £100,000 himself, is calling for a review of the system, which I totally support. I also think that any review should cover issues like husbands and wives not being allowed to be "paid for" by tax payers cash; I wonder what Mr Rammells view on that is too........

More Leaflets.....

Waking me refreshed from my exhausted Friday, my alarm on my phone has the words flashing at me "time for more leaflets!!!"

Is that just my mind playing tricks or has Mrs J (the other Councillor Johnson) been up to no good with my phone? Hmmmmm

In case you hadn't realised from my previous blogs, we have a by-election coming up in Staple Tye ward in Harlow. The close of nominations for candidates is April 1st, but we already have our candidate chosen - Lorraine Calderella. She and her team have been working hard every day for months to knock on doors and deliver leaflets in the ward telling people about all the good work that the new Conservative council in Harlow is doing. Today we are having an action day to get a specific letter out to the whole ward and keep up the knocking on doors.

A team of about 20 people meet at the Party office at half nine and are all given handfuls of letters to deliver, those knocking on doors will be there at eleven (we try not to wake people early on Saturday) and lunch is provided from midday, before another session in the afternoon.

It's a miserable day! Rain, hail and wind are all not great when you are delivering anything, as your hands get very cold and the leaflet/letter gets very damp. But we soldier on. Meeting residents in Harlow and getting information out to them is very important to us.

It funny but when you have a group together to do something like that there is often very good humour despite the weather, and so it is today. Which makes the bad weather bearable.

All in all a good day, with over 3000 letters delivered and two big estates knocked on.

A good days Holiday!

WOW

What a day. I said at the beginning of the week that it was going to be a roller coaster, culminating in Friday.

Every month, I try and take at least one day "off" work to spend in Harlow. Its a killer for the Holiday record at work but very worthwhile and means I am able to deal with those issues that cant be done over phone or email, or in the evening.

The morning starts with a nice lie in (if you call nice being jumped on by your two year old, excited that "daddy hasn't gone to work!" and then breakfast with the Wife and daughter (which is rare in itself) marred momentarily by the fact that our heating seems to have broken down.

On to the office (leaving the indomitable Mrs J to deal with heating situation) and the first hour is taken by paperwork with my hardworking PA, responding to invitations, letters and the like and making sure the diary till Easter is "right"

Then its time to stop and have a meeting with the Chairman of the local Hospital trust, who wants to talk to me about how far they have got with their Foundation trust application. It's always good to hear that the hospital are doing well, and important that leaders of big organisations in Harlow take the time to sit down and have a coffee and "catch up" - sharing intelligence and just briefing each other pays dividends in the end.

Then on to a meeting with the Head of Regeneration, an area that I have put top of the councils priorities. As you will have read me say before, Harlow is aging all at the same time, and many bits of it really do look over 60 years old. We need to regenerate the "experimental planning" of the 50's and 60's now, or risk handing little on to the next generation of use.

Lunch is outside of the civic centre, as I want to discuss the Conservative party plans for fighting the by-election, and rightly we are not able to use the council building for party political reasons. It may be a small difference to some but it's a big issue for me, so I eat just a few steps away from the civic.

At half two I put my leader of the council hat back on and it's down to "the grove" for the end of Harlow's first ever Youth Conference, organised by the Youth Council. I am there to participate in a Question Time style panel session, with The Labour MP, the youngest Harlow Councillor Joel Charles, a police officer and a youth worker amongst others; all chaired by the Chairman of the Council Tony Hall. The questions are superb, showing a lot of thought, and range from "Wouldn't it be better to legalise drugs and remove dealers from the streets" to "Why do the papers only report bad things about young people? We are not all bad". The latter question prompts some considerable anger from the young people in the audience, members of the youth council, the young Essex assembly, the princes trust and representatives of each school council, are all very upset that the local press didn't turn up to see or report on the event, and conclude that the press only like bad news stories about young people. Overall it is a wonderful conference and I hope the first of many!

From there it is a dash back to the civic centre (my thanks to Cllr Charles for the lift!) and a meeting with the Chairman and Chief Executive of Harlow Renaissance Limited, to clarify some challenges I set them recently as part of their ongoing business plan. Its a good meeting, and I always feel excited when we talk about regeneration of Harlow.

From there its off to the Latton Bush centre, which Harlow conservatives have hired for the Evening for a party meeting followed by the AGM of the party.

All in all a good but exhausting day. My wife jokes moments ago - "did you have a good days holiday?"

Would it be too sad to say "yes"......?

Essex Yeomanry

Tonight was one of those good evenings, where the Full Council in Harlow got to talk about the good things about Harlow; and the future.

Full Council is a chance for all of the councillors to get together and discuss important issues, move motions for consideration and ask questions of me as Council Leader, and the Committee Chairmen.

The First motion that I had put forward for discussion, was one that I was really proud to speak on.

It was granting the Freedom of Entry to the town by the Essex Yeomanry as part of our St. George's week of celebrations. Its the first time that the freedom of entry to Harlow has ever been granted, and to do something to support our boys and girls, who are based in our town, we felt was important. The Essex Yeomanry, who have a 220 year connection with Harlow, are territorials and shortly due to head out to Afghanistan. We thought it would be a nice way for our community to show how valued they are. Its also nice to make it part of St. George's week (note WEEK not DAY!).

Since taking control of the Council last year, The Conservatives have made a number of these small but important firsts. We have hung a portrait of Her Majesty for the first time ever, appointed the first Council Chaplain, and held the first ever Civic service. Now the first ever Freedom of Entry, with full parade raising money for the Armed Forces Benevolent Fund, Help for Heroes and the Chairman of the Council's charity Child Victims of Crime. It promises to be a great day. So if you are in or around Harlow on the 25th April, then do please come to the town centre and see the parade!

Community Partnerships

Not so many years ago, Harlow had a form of community engagement called Community Partnerships. I am sure if you have never been you can imagine the type of meetings that they were.

Go on - just imagine....

A school hall or a church hall, small child size chairs and an urn of tea. Just the same few regular faces turning up to complain about the same old thing.... Well that's how the Labour and Lib Dem wards CPs were, and that's why the Labour/Lib council cancelled them; and went for a series of focus groups instead.

The CPs in Conservative wards were, without exception, successful and well attended by concerned citizens who wanted to take a chance to interact with their councillors and be informed about what the council was doing. Yes you did get some people coming along with single issues, but if the councillors knew their audience, lived in or had a good understanding of the ward, then that was easily dealt with.

All of this became a large political campaign in the town, and a key manifesto pledge for the Conservative Party in Harlow was the reintroduction of CPs.

That's why I am really pleased that last night, at the Policy and Resources Committee, I was able to vote for just that. The scrutiny committee had been looking at it, and referred it to the Environment and Community committee who also referred it on to the Policy and Resources Committee for final decision, (A big danger of an Enhanced committee model of local Government is this type of referral and the associated scheme of delegation), which we gave.

The Lib dems, having scrapped the CPs in administration, voted for reinstating them, which rather makes me wonder what their "real" motives were for both courses of action. The Labour leader decided not to vote either way because "the report got to me late, so I haven't had time to properly consider it"..... this being despite the fact that the working group who produced the report had the previous labour leader as their rep on the group, the original report had been published at scrutiny committee on 10th Feb, had gone to the E&C committee on 19th March, and then come to our meeting on the 24th March.

I would normally expect an opposition group leader to be aware of all the reports that go to all the committees of the council, else how can they lead their group properly?

Anyway he abstained, but the Conservative Administration kept another manifesto commitment and I was pleased to be able to vote to bring back Community Partnerships.

Advice success

Tonight's meeting of the Policy and Resources meeting was always going to be a tough meeting, the main item of business being the future of advice services in Harlow.

The day leading up to the meeting saw a number of twists and turns in a well reported saga. But culminated in what I believe to be a success.

We were able to agree a way forward that should see the advice centre remain open for a budget price that the council, and taxpayer, can afford. It also secures the future of CAB in Harlow.

The key movement today, was when the people from the Welfare Rights and Advice centre admitted that they could provide a service for £120,000. Something they previously had not admitted to be possible. My only sadness is that had they been reasonable about the issue in the first place, we could have reached this point much sooner.

We were always very open with people about what the council could afford to pay for advice services. We benchmarked the amount we were able to spend against other councils to ensure that the amount we had was reasonable compared to others, and it was.

Anyway, we have a way to move forward now, and the council has also secured CAB's services in the town as well.

All in all a good result.

Its a shame that the Labour and Liberal Democrats voted against all of the proposals, including the cash for CAB, which they had previously said they supported.

The week ahead

OMG (for those of you not able to speak TXT that's Oh My God!) what a week!

Monday is never my favorite of days.... alright its my least favorite of days... but this morning I feel like I am about to be hit by a hurricane.

My week consists of four very busy days of work in my full time job in the Health Service, onto which I am piling:

• Audit and Improvement Committee meeting on Monday.
• Policy and Resources Committee meeting on Tuesday.
• One to One with the Chief Executive of the Council on Wednesday &
• Meeting with the Chairman of the Local Strategic Partnership (Harlow 2020) and Chief Executive of Rainbow (she is double hatted) also on Wednesday.
• Full Council on Thursday.
• Full day in the Council on Friday, including a meeting with the Chairman of the local Hospital trust, the Harlow Youth Conference and a meet with the Chairman and Chief Exec of Harlow Renaissance.... to name just three of the many things during the day.
• Friday night - no not a relax, but not Council business, I have a special Executive Meeting of the Party, followed by the AGM of the Party... and at some stage I have to write my report of the year as Deputy Chairman Political of the Harlow Conservatives.
• Weekend consisting of campaigning for the By-election, we have an action day on Saturday if anyone wants to help beat the Lib Dems in an election.

Mrs J (the other Councillor Johnson) is understandably not chuffed, although we do get to have dinner together on Friday, since she is also going to be at both the Special Executive and the AGM.... I feel takeaway beckoning already!

Weeks this busy are not the norm, but spare a thought for my daughter whom I will carve out as much time as possible for during weeks like this, and who (bless her) already understands that daddy has three different offices to work from!

Mothers Day....rest.....almost

So, it's Mothers Day and that means a rest right? A chance to visit with and spend time relaxing in the comfort of your dear mother.... and no politics right?

Wrong!

The morning started well enough, getting up with the 2 year old daughter, to give Mrs J (the other Councillor Johnson) a lie in as befits the day and her station in our household. Then onto both sets of Parents to see our respective mothers, and shower them with gifts and attention. Easy right? No Politics can creep in there right?

Except for:

• The A&I agenda for tomorrow night that I was flicking through here and here.
• Checking through the latest leaflet ideas that had been produced by Cllr Lee Dangerfield.
• Talking about the upcomming P&R with my dad, when I was with him.
• Talking about the latest canvassing plans with my father-in-law, when I was with him.
• Answering some emails sneakily to constituents and members of my group, whilst my wife was not looking......

and so on and so forth.

Because even a day off is never really what it seems to be.....

Still - all three mothers (mum, mother-in-law and wife) liked their presents and cards, so brownie points there!

New powers for community safety officers

Harlow Council's Enforcement and Licensing officers were yesterday granted new powers under an accreditation scheme run by Essex Police.

The Community Safety Accreditation Scheme is a scheme that allows Police forces to pass on powers to organisations and individuals in the community that are carrying out enforcement or safety work.

It means that they have additional powers and gives them extra protection equivilent to police officers.

Harlow Council's officers will be able to use their powers for issuing fixed penalty notices for offences like graffiti, anti social behaviour, and littering. They will also have powers to remove abandoned vehicles. All things that the people of the town want the Police and the Council to deal with.

Cllr Eddie Johnson, who is the Chairman of the Environment and Community Committee on Harlow Council received the accreditation on behalf of the Council. Speaking afterwards he said "This is really good news for Harlow, under this scheme we can work together to ensure that those who don't obey the rules get caught."

Party Chairman visits Harlow

Eric Pickles visited Harlow today.

He came as Conservative Party Chairman to see how the association was doing, and to Support our future MP Robert Halfon.

It was another great chance for us to show a senior member of the Conservative Party just how wonderful Harlow is.

Eric is MP for nearby Brentwood and Ongar, so knows Harlow well. He has often come over with supporters to help us in elections, and it was great to see him again.

He visited Harlow Town Football Club to see their new stadium and the Norman Booth Centre, where him and Robert took on all comers at Table Tennis.... Yes photographic evidence has been secured for later amusement!!!

In the evening, Eric was guest of honour at a Ladies Committee "supper club" and spoke about how very prepared for a General Election the party is. Although having seen Gordon Brown bottle one attempt at an election, I wonder if he now will just hang on till May 2010. Nomatter. The Conservative Party under Eric's Chairmanship will be ready for the election fight!

The Ladies succeded in raising some money for our election efforts and a really good night was had by all.

Knocking on Doors

Last night I spent an enjoyable evening with a large group of friends.

No we were not down the pub, or having dinner, but we did have a lot of fun.

We spent the time knocking on doors in the Staple Tye ward, which will shortly be having a by-election. We were making people aware of the election, and finding out how they were going to vote. It was also a great chance to get feedback from them on the first 10 months of a Conservative Council in Harlow, and a feel for what people thought nationally of Gordon Brown and his government.

I'll be honest, not everyone liked the things that the new Conservative Council were doing, but those who didn't understand why we had to do them. The people of the town clearly understand the poor financial position we inherited from the Liberal/Labour led council, and that we were having to make difficult decisions.

One woman I spoke with, alongside Cllr Sarah Dangerfield, was impressed that we didn't try to spin or gloss over the problems, and that I was upfront and told the truth, even if she wasn't going to like it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if other political parties fighting the by-election were willing to be equally honest?

The thing that most impressed me was how well known and liked Cllr Lee Dangerfield, the current Staple Tye Conservative councillor, was by the people we met; and how well known our candidate Lorraine Caldarella was! She has obviously been doing a lot of work!

My thanks to the many people, who were out helping last night, and have been helping every night already. If you want to come out and join us, have a good laugh with the team and help win the Staple Tye ward for the Conservative Party, then drop me a message.

Drug and Alcohol testing

At tonight’s meeting of the Environment and Community committee a group of private hire drivers (cabbies to you and I) presented a petition against random testing for drugs and alcohol.

It was one of those rare moments when all three political parties agreed, and told the petitioners so.

All groups were in favour of the new rules, which will help keep passengers safe and encourage use of the cabs in the long run.

Parking changes confirmed

Tonight I was a guest at the Environment and Community Committee.

There were a lot of people in the audience and it was a heated meeting; then again it always was going to be. Parking is an extremely emotive issue.

What made the situation worse, was the attitude and position of the opposition councillors.

When I led the opposition, if we opposed an issue we always offered a suggestion for what we would do instead, or how else we would solve the problem. I think that's the role of a responsible opposition and it gives the public a chance to know what your party "thinks" on issues.

Tonight we heard a lot about what the liberals don't like, a lot about what they are against, but nothing positive in it's place. No suggestions. No alternatives. Just abuse to the administration.

I shouldn't be surprised really; it's what they did on budget night too. Criticise but offer no alternative.

What the Conservative Councillors did tonight, was to explain in detail why we have the problems with car parking that we do, why enforcement is needed and what we did with the consultation responses received.

We listened. For the local shopping areas we suggested an hour of free parking. We suggested creating dedicated spaces for businesses and that their staff could have annual permits, for less than £1 a week. We have even started to create extra car parking for businesses in a disused council depot area.

Not everyone was happy, but not everyone ever was going to be on such an emotive subject, but we showed that we were willing to listen to people.

Caroline Spelman visits Harlow

Because Robert Halfon got so close to being Harlow's MP at the last general election, and because Harlow is important to the national Conservative party, we often get Shadow Ministers and senior members of the Party visiting Harlow.



I love it when they do, especially since we took control of the council, as we get to showcase what is good about Harlow, and how we are changing the town.



Today we were visited by Shadow Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman MP, who told us much about the policies of a future Conservative Government; for example the next conservative Government will:

• Abolish the East of England Regional Assembly


• Abolish centrally imposed housing targets


• Scrap the Government's Regional Spatial strategy.

But we didn't just listen to her; Caroline took the chance to have a lunchtime discussion with Conservative Councillors and then went on to visit a Crucial Crew session and to meet with the anti-social behavioural team.

Mrs Spelman was so impressed with improvements in the last year, that she said would seek to replicate the work of Harlow Council's anti-social behaviour team in her own area in Birmingham.

Robert Halfon who accompanied her for the day told me afterwards "I was pleased that Caroline visited Crucial Crew and the anti-social behaviour team. The work this team does for Harlow is ground-breaking and is having a significant effect on reducing anti-social behaviour."

Overall a really good visit. Next one we have is Eric Pickles the Party Chairman on Friday.

A Civic Service

This morning Mrs J (the other Councillor Johnson) our Daughter and I went to St Paul's Church for Harlow's first ever Civic Service.



The Civic Service was arranged by Harlow's Conservative Chairman Tony Hall who was also responsible for suggesting that we appoint the first Chaplain to the Council last year.



It was a lovely service, attended by lots of people who are involved in the civic life of the town, and a great chance to showcase something good about Harlow to the rest of the county, who sent representatives in the form of many Mayors and Chairmen. Lord Petre, the Lord Lieutenant of Essex was also in attendance, welcomed by both the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Council.

There were readings and thoughts from Tony, Robert Halfon the Conservative candidate for Harlow, the Council's Chief Executive and the Labour MP - who snuck out part way through the service (I'm sure he had some important Government work to do on a Sunday afternoon) and a former MP for the town who is the Chairman of Harlow's Civic Society.

The congregation were also in rather good voice for the Hymns, and the National Anthem at the end of the Service.

The whole congregation were all then invited back to the Civic Centre for light refreshments by the Chairman.

There were only two things wrong with the morning, the first, something that irritated me - I sat behind Stan Newens, the former MP for the town, an ardent socialist who I don't get on with at the best of times. To give you an idea of his outlook on the world, he wrote a book praising Nicolae Ceauşescu, and his exploits in Romania. Anyway at the national anthem, Stan visibly shuddered and clamped his mouth firmly shut. I am sure it was only coincidence that the entire row behind him sang with even more gusto.

The second thing, which annoyed me, but really should annoy everyone in Harlow, is that there was not a single member of the opposition in the congregation; and just so I am not being biased with the evidence, the majority of the Conservative group were in attendance.

Now I know Councillors are busy people (seconded by Mrs J!) and I know that not everyone can make everything, but not to have any members of the opposition, either from the nine Liberals or the five labour members, is frankly disgusting.

An evening without politics.... I doubt it!

When a work friend asked me what I was doing Saturday night, I told him we had friends coming over for dinner.

He remarked about how nice it would be to have a "night off" from politics.

And then I thought about it......

The couple who are coming for dinner are both District Councillors. My wife and I are both District Councillors... All four of us on the same Council. But its worse than that, it wont just be four Councillors round the dinner table.

Between the four of us there will be the Group Leader and Group Whip. The Chairman of the Conservative Association and the Deputy Chairman Political. The Chairman and Secretary of the Ladies Committe of the Association.

Yes - Politics take up a fair chunk of our life and time.

So to misquote the advert

Ingrediants £30
Wine £20
The ability to get to dessert without talking politics - Priceless!

By-election

A by-election has been called in the Staple Tye ward of Harlow. A notice of casual vacancy for the ward was published yesterday, following one of the Councillors for the area not having attended a meeting for six months.

Well known local campaigners Lee and Sarah Dangerfield, immediately delivered letters to the Council calling for an election, which the Council has now announced will be held on the 30th April.

Lee told me after calling for the election "I have called for the by-election because the Independent councillor has not taken part in council meetings for six months. Staple Tye deserve a councillor who works hard to represent them. The Conservative party really cares about what happens in Staple Tye, which is why I work so hard here."

With the three seat ward having one Conservative Councillor and one Liberal Democrat Councillor already, with the Labour Party having an active campaigner in the ward, it's sure to be an interesting and close race.

I will keep you informed of developments and bring you details of and an interview with the Conservative candidate shortly.

Anyone for Bowls?

An interesting visit last night to the Tye Green Indoor Bowls Club, which is one of the largest indoor bowls clubs in the country.



I went to meet them to talk about their concerns over the introduction of car parking charges for car parks in the area.



The club is lovely, and provides members with a bar and eating area and plenty of entertainment besides the bowls.



Whilst there was a good mix of ages in evidence, they admitted that the majority of their members were more mature, and had been worried by the consultation.



I was able to talk to them about and show them the details of the recommendation that is going to committee on the 17th which includes offering their members passes at less than a pound a week, like we are offering the shops in the area.



No one likes parking charges, but they understood all about falling income and rising prices, and understood why the council had to look at measures like these. By the time I left they were far happier about the situation than when I arrived.



A nice bunch of people and lovely to find out a bit about a sport, that as I admitted to them, I knew very little about. I might just pop back there sometime and learn a bit more about the game.

Council hosts business advice

Harlow Council are tomorrow hosting a drop in advice service with Business Link, for anyone thinking about starting their own business, perhaps following redundancy, or for anyone who is already in business and needs advice about coping with the recession.

The surgery is on between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm. Further details can be found here.

When we took control of the Council, one of the immediate changes we made to the corporate priorities as well as the daily business of the council was to promote and work with business in the town - something the previous Labour led administrations had done little about.

I think a thriving business community is very important for driving the other changes that we need in Harlow, like improving our towns infrastructure and our in many ways our towns image.

I think it's that important that back in December I agreed to sit at a table with the prince of darkness him self - Lord Mandelson, at the opening of the new Business Incubation Centre in Harlow. Although as many commented at the time I did not look happy when he started to talk!!

Parking Consultation

Monday afternoon was spent being fed back the results of the consultation into parking changes and charges that we have just conducted.

Now car parking is always an emotive subject to most people. And I admit sometimes I can be a bit dispassionate about these issues as a non driver, which is why when thinking about such items I always like to have other people to bounce ideas off. In this instance both my Deputy Leader Simon Carter and the Chairman of the Environment and Community Committee Eddie Johnson.

We had consulted originally on 20p for first half hour, but had said at the launch of the consultation that we ourselves favoured the first half hour being free. Having read the results of the consultation there is clearly the need for a period of time to be free or low cost, so that people are able to nip to their local shopping areas and buy a loaf of bread and some milk, grab lunch or put a bet on; all the sorts of things that people do at a local shopping areas. It was also clear that there were people who were abusing the parking at the moment, for whom steeper longer term parking charges are needed to dissuade them away from these parking areas.

So in the end we have settled on making the first hour free, which should enable any one to grab a few bits even if their mobility is severely restricted, and I hope people will be happy with. We have also suggested making the charge for between one and two hours parking 60p, with progressively steeper charges for over two hours.

I am sure not everyone will be happy but I don't think when you talk about car parking charges everyone ever is.

For me though its important that we have listened to the consultation.

Why do we do it?

After my back to school experience yesterday, I headed to the civic centre.

I try and take at least one day a month, but often more, annual leave from work to spend time in the Civic centre.

Council politicians, contrary to popular myth are not well paid for the role they undertake; at least not in Harlow. The allowance that councillors receive is a small recompense to cover the time that they spend doing council "work". Frankly it works out far less than the minimum wage for the time we all put in. But we don't do it for the money! If I was just interested in money, my full time job would not be in the Health Service, and I certainly wouldn't spend so much time in public service.

It's an interesting debate though, If you rely on "volunteers" which is essentially what most councillors are, then you get people who have availability in the evenings and at weekends, which is why so many council meetings are in evenings.

However there is a strong argument to have councillors, even if only the senior ones, as professionals, working in their town halls 9-5 every day. This has the benefit of being there when the officer corp. are, being able to give strategic direction directly, instead of in the evening to the few, or via telephone and email. This happens in some local authorities now, but invariably as its not paid highly, becomes the preserve of those who are retired or have their own means of supporting themselves. Hardly representative of the people. I know I could not afford to make the Civic centre my "day job" without a reasonably pay packet attached.

Businesses are supposed to give time off for council duties, but this can be unpaid and very few "professionals" would risk even asking for this time, for fear of showing a lack of commitment to the job which pays their mortgage. So it comes down to should we pay councillors salaries?

The disadvantage of paying salaries to councillors is that you risk inventing the role of the professional politician, a career path all of its own, with people leaving university and seeking election, before gaining any life skills in the "real world". I think also that the general public already view the political system as corrupt - "they are all just in it for themselves" is a comment I have heard many times, usually inspired by the misdeeds of just one or two individuals around the country hyped by the national and local media. Very few councillors are "just in it for themselves"

Sometimes I am sure that all councillors wonder, like me, when sitting at a late night meeting of the tedious variety (there are a few) or looking at their annual leave at work and knowing that they wont be able to take a two week summer holiday this year because of the amount of time they have taken to spend in their council role, why they do it at all.

The truth is that most councillors, and in this I include those from all different parties, really do enjoy and want to keep serving their communities.

I know I do.

Back to School

This morning I had the daunting task of speaking to a theatre full of sixth form pupils at their school.

Why is this daunting for me, when I speak regularly in front of large audiences?

I think its because for once I was an educator, and was conscious that I needed to not just be political, but stick to my brief and make sure I covered the issues that I was meant to, as part of their ongoing understanding of politics. And I think because most of these kids were likely to be able to vote next year (if that's when the general election is) and I might be the only Conservative to speak to them before then.

I have spoken in this school for 4 of the last 5 years and always seem to get a good session going.

The pupils listen to me explain my personal view of what makes me a Conservative, and what the Conservative party stands for; then we get to my favorite bit - the question and answer session which goes on for about 50 minutes, only stopping when the lunch break interrupts.

The questions I got, were really no different from the questions that adults ask when we knock on their doors, but are delivered in a more basic and honest manner; they really want to know the answers.

The questions range from - What is the Conservative Party going to do about the economy? What are our views on sentences passed by judges? What would we do differently to the Labour Government in our first term?

I have to say I love question and answer sessions like this and totally see why Cameron Direct has been received so well by people. There is something so very honest about a politician in a room answering all questions.

The session ends, and some of the pupils remain behind to chat with me and their teachers, taking the opportunity to ask more questions and take my email address so that they can get more detailed answers to some issues. I also get the chance to direct them towards a few Conservative websites (which I don't think they were expecting!)

My only regrets about the session is why I am there at all - you see the school in question is not in Harlow. But the teacher who organises the visiting speaker at this school is a friend, and has had trouble getting representatives from the different political parties over the years. This year just the Conservatives and Liberals will be doing a pitch, as the Labour party have still not been able to confirm attendance, despite what my friend said was "a dozen emails and five phone calls"!

We often, as politicians, wonder why young people are not interested in us. Perhaps if more politicians were interested in young people it would go some way to improving their interest in politics.

A Very busy Saturday....so far

This morning started with some leaflet delivery. I actually love to get out and deliver leaflets. I think there is something comfortable about putting the Ipod on and the rhythm of door after door, plus I am told the walk and the fresh air are good for me. Here in Harlow we put out a lot of leaflets, all year round to keep people informed about what we are doing both locally and nationally.

Then Shopping with Mrs J and the daughter, something that I don't often manage to get out of! It has to be done!

Change clothes and off to Mark Hall School, for the Try Sport and Olympic Conference. I can't stay all day, but as Leader of the Council I have been asked to go along and support, and help publicise the event with a press photo call. Why do photographers insist at events like these, that are cross party, in standing me next to the Labour MP and asking me to smile?!?!

One thing that did make me smile was the Chinese Lion Dance. Very good. It makes me remember the Beijing Olympics. I wonder what sort of dance we will use to hand over the Olympics post 2012?

Back to Church Langley, to meet up with some of the other Councillors at Tesco, where we hold our monthly surgery. We are joined by Robert Halfon our parliamentary candidate. Its always good to speak to the people you are responsible to. A number of issues are raised with us, including litter, traffic and the details of a new zebra crossing.

Then its time to grab a quick drink and head out to knock on some doors for a few hours. We are knocking on doors all over the town, but this afternoon I have a chance to knock in my own ward. The other political parties in Harlow tend to knock on peoples doors only when there is an election on, but we try to do it all year round.

Finally I get to go home and spend some time with my daughter, catch up with some emails and spend a few minutes on the blog.

Tired already and the day is not over yet!

An evening of Housing issues

An interesting evening at the Civic for me at the Housing Committee last night - as a Substitute for Mrs J (the other Cllr Johnson) who is unwell at the moment and can hardly speak.



Now, housing is not really my specialist subject, but I keep up with what is going on at the committee and read their agendas (if not always with glee!) But I found last night interesting because of the debates that took place, some good news, some really good news and a piece of bad news

Lets go with the bad news first (it helps me cheer you up at the end)

The discussion on "delivering decent homes" focused on Governments targets for council houses, really highlighted how badly Harlow has been treated recently by Gordon Brown and Co. Basically Harlow tenants have been mugged of a million quid!

Our housing subsidy this year shows a "significant reduction" (paragraph 12 here for those who want to see the document)

I asked for more details on this and was told that it would be somewhere between £800,000 and £1,300,000 that we have just lost from this years budget.

And the government had not yet clarified the details. Now remember that we had to set our budget a couple of weeks ago for the coming financial year and a gap this size is significant to our spending plans. Knowing that the new financial year starts in 20 days time, we asked when would the government let us know what the situation was. Sometime either late Spring or early Summer was the answer. What more can I say! Either the government doesn't understand that we have to set our budget while they keep us in the dark or they just don't care!

The Good News? We looked at a "Review of Housing needs and allocations strategy" for Harlow.
With this piece of work we were looking to strengthen the definition of local connection (which aids people in getting a house in Harlow) because previously it's been allowed to be too broad. My colleagues still thought that being resident in Harlow for 6 out of the last 12 months was not really much of a local connection - but we were told that this is Government legislation and we can't make it tougher than that. Shame really.

The really good news is that we added an amendment asking for a review of policy for homeless ex service personnel (who make up about 2/3rds of the homeless population). We may not all agree with the various wars that our armed forces have been asked to fight by this government, but we can surely get behind our troops when they come home. I look forward to seeing the result of this piece of work.

Renaissance and Rivers

Tonight saw me at a meeting of Harlow Renaissance Ltd (HRL) of which I have recently been elected Vice Chairman.

HRL has been running since July 2006 and is focused on driving the regeneration and growth process in Harlow. Their key role is to deliver a range of renewal programmes in the short to medium term whilst having one eye to the longer-term growth opportunities of the future.
the company brings together four key members:

Harlow District Council
Essex County Council
East of England Development Agency (EEDA)
Homes and Communities Agency

As well as having people like The Government Office for the East of England (GO-East) and the Chairman of Harlow’s Local Strategic Partnership, Harlow 2020, and four independent Directors bringing a range of additional expertise all under the Chairmanship of someone from the private sector.

Its a lot of expertise to assemble around one table and should theoretically be able to bust through any problems holding up the regeneration of Harlow.

At the moment they are working on spending the "Growth Area Funding" that Harlow has received, with regeneration programmes for Old Harlow, Clifton Hatch, Prentice Place and Staple Tye.

The evening was good, with lots of work to get through, but the most interesting thing was a presentation from British Waterways.

The thrust of the presentation was to ask us think differently about the river Stort. Most councils etc see rivers as boundaries but we were encouraged to think wider about the Stort, as a key feature of the town, and as a gateway.

The comment that really hit home, was when talking about the fields around the river, near the A414, which for those of you who know Harlow well are the ones that flood all the time; So the chap from British Waterways said "why not flood them properly and make the area a water complex" When you think about it homes and businesses and leisure around water is very popular and doing something like that to this area could really make an iconic statement about an entrance to Harlow.

What do you think? Can every bit of river around Harlow be as well presented as loved sections like Parndon Mill (below)?

Tesco and Turbines

Last night the Planning Committee of Harlow District Council voted to allow two new "micro wind turbines" at Tesco in Church Langley

Now I have been pretty interested in these, as a Councillor for the area, and so have a number of my constituents.

But I have kept quiet about it at home as Mrs J (the other Councillor Johnson) sits on the Planning Committee and I would not want to prejudice her in anyway, or bait her into forming an opinion before the meeting (yes the laws on planning are that stupid!)

In the meantime I have told a number of people how they can find out more, explained the details as I knew them to others and told people who wanted to object how to do so. I also got a phone call from a gent who wanted to support the application on environmental grounds but didn't want his name used in case his "neighbours found out"

There has been some confusion about these micro wind turbines, with a number of people I spoke to thinking that Tesco were trying to install huge 3 bladed propellers, which is not the case. I have attached an article here on them, (and have added a photo so you can see what they look like) and whilst it needs to be noted that the article is by the people who are working with Tesco and so are probably biased, they are certainly not what I thought of when someone said wind turbine either!

They are about 10 metres tall, which is the size of most lampposts and apparently produce little or no noise. Another Council, whose local Tesco has installed them claims you can stand next to them and not hear anything.

I think its admirable that a major retailer wants to do something about its carbon footprint, and I hope this is not just for show but really is about changing the way they operate. I would love it if more people and businesses in Harlow wanted to do more for the environment. But I think if they do they need to spend more time telling people about it before they do it.

Tesco's as far as I can tell undertook no publicity of this with their shoppers and neighbours during the planning process. The council did its statutory bit (advertising in papers, putting signs on lampposts and writing to those in very close proximity) but still got blamed for not consulting widely enough - even though we were not the applicants. I wonder if there isn't some way to pass the cost of increased consultation to the applicants in cases like this?

Essex as a joke....again

My attention was drawn to this

Now I like a joke as much as the next man.

And I may have told the odd Essex Girl joke in my time... I am allowed as I was born in Essex

And I don't even have a problem with MP's having a sense of humour - and I know they do - have you seen some of Bill Rammell's suits?

What I do object to is the use of time in parliament to make such snide remarks about what I frankly think is a cracking county!

In the middle of a debate about what legacy the Olympics will leave behind it, following a question from Chelmsford's MP about serious issues, this Muppet thinks its OK to joke about white high heels and medallions.

Does he really care so little for Parliament and the honour he has in representing his constituency?

If that's the way he sees parliament then he should leave... then again he has already announced his intention to do so (on 12th May 2008), so it looks like he is "just having a laugh" until the election then.

There's something fishy going on......

Last week the Department for Local Government and Communities (DeCLog) announced grants totalling £100M “to boost to council coffers as they help communities through the credit crunch.”

Harlow got (drum roll please!) £6,016 awarded, which frankly is an insult to Harlow and discriminates against the town.

The average amount going to all district councils in Essex is over £75,000, with Chelmsford receiving £190,000 and Epping Forest £165,000. Harlow is suffering just as much as other towns in the recession, so why are we losing out?

Everyone knows we have had to make to some very difficult decisions in setting our budget this year, and if this grant was the boost the government says it is things could have been very different.

Calculation of this grant looks very complex with plenty of room for manipulation. I think there has probably been some skulduggery within the Government. As to why, I can only speculate but previous LABGI awards to a Labour controlled council were very much higher. I wonder if that has anything do with it?

Cup loss....

Ok - so an afternoon out from politics sees me at my parents house, on the couch with my Dad and Brother, glued to the TV.

My brother and I are both Spurs fans and with Dad being a Chelski fan, we were united (pardon the pun) in cheering against Man U.

It was great to spend some "boys time" with my Brother and Dad, and not to think about Council budgets, or writing political leaflets.

Football is of course the greatest of levellers, and sometimes its nice just to "be normal"