An interesting Neighbourhood Committee this month with presentations about plans for the Royal Liverpool hospital and the Building Schools for the Future programme to renew our city's secondary schools.
We also passed a resolution from Labour Cllrs Jane Corbett, Frank Prendergast and John McIntosh about Soho Street Post Office, supporting residents' campaigns to keep it open. We also called on the council to work with post offices by allowing people to access some council services through them, to make them more viable.
There was a rather acrimonious discussion where the LibDems tried to scupper it by first extending the motion to cover all of Liverpool which is outside the remit of our neighbourhood and then to get us to actively condemn the Government (which is also outside the remit of our neighbourhood and obviously unlikely to receive Labour support). Then when this attempt failed they argued that we could not ask for inclusion of support of post offices in the Local Area Agreement because we had not agreed it yet. Well no, that was rather the point, we wanted it to go in at this draft stage.
Thankfully the clerk managed to sort it all out and with a bit of tweaking the resolution went forward to the next stage.
You might ask why they would not want to support this perfectly satisfactory resolution - because they didnt want Labour to get any positive publicity out of it, that is pretty much why they oppose many of the motions we ever propose at any committee about anything. It is party politics at the expense of the public.
Great reports from our three Police Inspectors about the falling crime levels in our wards, great news about the big reduction in trouble on mischief night, halloween and bonfire night, great news about some good arrests and convictions for drug dealing and burglaries etc.
I noticed the LibDems very properly congratulated the police for their sterling efforts and welcomed the reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour. It was only a shame that LibDem Cllr and Liverpool Wavertree Parliamentary Candidate Colin Eldridge wasn't there to listen to them, so that he doesn't put out any more leaflets about dreadful rising crime and poor police numbers. Hopefully one of his colleagues will let him know...
4 comments:
Louise, you are wrong when you say that the Lib Dems "argued that we could not ask for inclusion of support of post offices in the Local Area Agreement because we had not agreed it yet." Using the excuse that it should go in as a first draft misses the point. There is no Local Area Agreement for City and North [which includes Everton, Kensington and Picton] because your party opposed it originally and, as far as I know, still does. Didn't Steve Munby actually try to take over the first meeting in the Foresight Centre until he was voted down by the delegates? Then he had the nerve to stay on to give his "input"? No, your motion on saving the Soho St Post Office makes good political capital for you but it can't be part of a LAA because it still hasn't been agreed yet. Simple fact. As is the fact that HMG still have a 51% stake in the Royal Mail.
Well that just proves what a crap councillor you are and how rarely you bother to turn up to local neighbourhood committee meetings or joint neighbourhood commitees either.
We are all agreed (those of us who bother to turn up or last to the end of the meeting) that we are in favour of the notion of a LAA and looking forward to getting into the detail.
We are all chairing the key blocks of the neighbourhood- things like community safety, young people, health and older people, physical regeneration and economic development.
While you have been studiously ignoring us and failing to do the job you were elected to do and failing your residents, we have been meeting with hordes of partners to get the show on the road.
We are currently writing the LAAs, and we will presenting our drafts in very good time
One of our recommendations will involve local post offices, no thanks to LibDem opportunists.
You are so absent as to be irrelevant, lets hope the voters recognise that in Picton as they have in K&F.
Crap, eh? OK...let's see what happens when you put your "Save the local Post Office" item into the LAA, then. I think your being totally naive to think that this will achieve anything more than something to put in your grubby leaflets which end up littering the pavements. Alternatively, you could try campaigning against Gov. policy? Oh, I forgot, you can't [or won't]. Also, far from being "irrelevant" or "absent", you'll find the opposite to be the case. Still, you never let the facts get in the way of yet another "bad-news" angle so typical of your party these days.
I think I will apologise here for what seems to have been a bit of a rant on my part.
What I was trying to say, but perhaps didnt quite elucidate to my normal standard, was that LibDem councillors have not all been giving the LAA meetings their full attention and might not therefore be aware that we are currently WRITING the draft LAAs and so we are in a prime position to include any priorities we want to.
I also wanted to say that LibDems have refused to chair a partnership working group, despite being offered one, so an officer is now chairing one of the five, with Labour councillors chairing the other four.
For the record, I doubt very much if post offices will feature in any newsletters that K&F Labour Party distribute as we do not have any that are under threat.
I remain confident that the proposed new chair of Economic Development and Local Enterprise, Cllr Nick Small, will do what he can to incorporate reference to the importance of the council delivering some of its services from Post Offices in the area.
Readers will recall that our area includes the city centre so that ought to strengthen the possibility of such joint co-operation, the city centre post offices being of particular strategic importance.
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