Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Adur’s results are in

The bottom line is that the Conservatives retained all their seats and with the postal votes counted it’s a reasonable turn-out and satisfying majorities in every ward.

Congratulations to the successful candidates and thanks to the electorate for not subjecting us to nuisance politics.

The numbers in Worthing are similarly reassuring with the Conservatives picking up one seat and the Lib Dems retaining their tally.

The National Union of Teachers strike tomorrow will affect some West Sussex schools including some in Adur. Check out the list on the West Sussex County Council’s website: List of schools affected

What a wonderfully varied week this past one has been when it comes to local politics.

On Monday I attended a party committee which concerns itself with the organisation at a very local level of the party machine. The people who do all the work to support the three of us at that meeting who are elected by the general public (two District Councillors – Debbie Kennard and myself – and the County Councillor – Clive Williams).

Tuesday was a Council committee meeting of the Housing and Central Services committee. And an entirely frustrating rubber-stamping exercise it was. All of the decisions we had to make were no-brainers: Increase Council home rents because the government’s slapping us with a negative subsidy or (you’ll love this) burn our reserves and increase them by even more next year? I think you’ll agree there’s no choice.

And the same was true of all the other agenda items – we had a choice but it was a non-choice.

But the variance came into play tonight with two of Adur District’s and Worthing Borough’s joint committees meeting one after the other. At these meetings we discussed the budget for the shared services (the refuse and recycling collection service and the joint management structure) as well as a report on coastal erosion.

The first item was great news. The Councils have saved, already, £67,000 through being able to buy fewer vehicles because of shared efficiency and we effectively did not have to pay for the new bins because of savings due to economies of scale in the procurement process as well. We have also saved £32,000 in the nine months to the end of the financial year that the service has been running just because of the increased quantities of recycling that are now being collected!

But I cannot be all positive. There was something much more important that came out of this evening’s meetings. The first meeting was of the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Worthing Liberal Democrat members did not have a single negative comment to make about the services or the savings. They did, momentarily, suggest that Worthing’s Council tax payers are being subsidised by Adur (which isn’t true), but they could not see anything wrong with the savings etc. being made.

It didn’t stop them making a fuss though. And when it came to voting on the recommendation before them, they decided to abstain even though they did not disagree with the recommendation and, as I say, could not find anything negative to say at all.

As a result of this experience I want to make a plea to the residents of Adur and Worthing who may be reading this: Please don’t vote Lib Dem in May – if they win seats the members elected will just be a nuisance and if they win one of the Councils they won’t do a better job because they cannot see anything being done that they would do differently!

Vote Conservative at the local elections in May 2008 and ensure that your Councils continue to run smoothly and efficiently despite the government’s obsession with attempting to run the country’s Councils remotely.

I don’t doubt Tim’s seat is safe: he’s been a brilliant MP to almost everyone who has contacted them and, when he disagrees, he tells you so and why.

But it is interesting that Emily Benn will stand against him at the next election (BBC).

Emily’s blog and Tim’s website

Maybe I’m age prejudiced, but I now know what I didn’t know at seventeen and, frankly, I wouldn’t want seventeen-year-old me to represent anyone. Won’t Emily feel the same in eleven years?

And won’t she be too young if we have a snap-election? Is Emily to dictate Mr Brown’s decision!?

Tonight there was a consultation held at the Shoreham Centre. I have loads to write, and there are people to mock, but it’ll have to wait. I left the house at 7.25am this morning, returned just now and I haven’t yet had dinner. Oh, and I’ll be leaving tomorrow at around 7.45am with a Council meeting in Worthing straight after work, so that will be nice.

Still sign the KWASH petition if you haven’t already.

The local campaigns to save major hospitals have been going for quite a while now. KWASH, for example, which aims to save Worthing and Southlands Hospitals — and particularly Worthing’s A&E, Intensive Care and Maternity functions — has been running for over a year.

So some may ask why it has taken until now for David Cameron to call for the protection of these massive NHS assets: BBC News.

But I think he’s right.

If he’d mentioned it when the campaigns started the media and the public would be bored and cynical. By mentioning it now, when the decisions are nigh, he’s able to gain nationwide support, raise the profile of the pillaging Mr Brown’s government is undertaking, and actually run a risk of getting the great apathetic public to be motivated for once!

…

And how can I let this go without pointing out that this isn’t happening in Scotland or Wales. Oh no! This is happening in England where a significantly smaller amount of tax is spent per person. Upset by that? Join the CEP.

The PCT proposes that Worthing or Chichester’s hospital loses its Accident and Emergency and related facilities. It also proposes that Haywards Heath’s hospital be closed.

Our MP, rightly, asked the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health Services whether she thought this was fair. Tim said:

Last week, the Worthing Herald reported that Worthing’s accident and emergency department had 1,258 admissions. That equates to 65,500 people visiting every year. Under reconfiguration proposals—not scare stories—the PCT proposes to close that accident and emergency department, and it expects people to join the car park that is the A27 and go to either Chichester or Brighton. How many of those people does the Minister believe are timewasters who do not actually need an accident and emergency department in the hospital of the largest town in Sussex?

They say ‘honourable’ but they cannot mean this response from Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Health Services), Department of Health):

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue on accident and emergency services, but how could I possibly know who was attending the accident and emergency department without looking at the figures? I would expect the local management and the local PCT to do that, and I would expect the local MP to conduct a responsible consultation to ensure that patient care is delivered appropriately in accident and emergency department. That is why reconfiguration of the health service can be good for patients, as I am sure he would agree.

That was taken from They Work For You.

Support KWASH

Oh, and why on God’s green Earth would you vote Labour and live near here?