For the third year running Uttlesford District Council will shortly end a financial year with much more money in its coffers than it forecast at the start of the year. At this time last year the Conservatives forecast a surplus on the original budget of only £2,000 when all income and expenditure had been added up. The truth was almost £1.5 million more than budgeted. This year the budget is already in surplus by over £1,000,000 and likely to be still higher when the books have been audited. This cash is equivalent to over one-fifth of the amount taken from the public in council tax each year. Put another way, if this year’s council tax had been CUT by 20%, the council’s budget would still be on track.

When the current year’s budget was set in February 2009, the Liberal Democrats predicted big surpluses but were attacked by Conservatives and Independents for wanting to give back money to taxpayers. Only two weeks ago at a finance meeting the Lib Dems again said that the council’s then proposed tax rise for 2010/11 of over 4% was unnecessary. We proposed it should be no more than 2%. Again we were attacked by Tories and Independents as “irresponsible” for wanting to slash the tax rise.

Yet only two days later the Tories announced their intention to put up Uttlesford’s council tax by just below 3%; closer to the Lib Dem proposal than their own previous plan for a 4.4% increase. Are they now charged with their own “irresponsible” jibe or have they at last exposed the extent of their own party political rhetoric and financial exaggerations over the past three years?

Three years ago they claimed the council would be bankrupt. In fact there was a small surplus. In 2008 the Tories alarmingly forecast a £1.8 million deficit. The truth was a surplus of over £1.3 million that cannot be accounted for by their cost cutting. They paid out £300,000 on recently exposed “gagging orders” when “unnecessary staff” were made redundant. Yet they replaced the most expensive staff with people on higher salaries. Some service costs have been shifted onto Saffron Walden Town Council taxpayers. Uttlesford Tories continue to collect more tax but they deliver fewer services.

The Tories relish telling the public they will get far less income from the government than is the case; they make up the difference from residents’ council tax and then put the spare money in the council’s bank account. One such example this year would have paid for a 9% council tax cut. Council leader Jim Ketteridge only tells one side of the story when he talks about government grants being held down. That amounts to misleading the public.

All councils are facing challenging times because of the recession and national financial crisis. But so are the people who have to pay for them. It’s time for Uttlesford Tories to stop “crying wolf” and playing party politics with the council’s finances. It’s time to treat the hard-pressed people of Uttlesford with respect and financial honesty.

I have had good news from Essex Police about parking on pavements. They are to run a campaign with leaflets to persuade people to be more considerate about where they park their cars, whether that is on yellow lines or across pavements and grass verges. Please look out for publicity on the campaign as your help may be needed. I have had complaints about inconsiderate parking in Lower Street which I have passed on to the police. 

The intended developer of the old school house next to the Free Church in Chapel Hill is based in Epping. He told me in early February that he aims to start work in February. Fingers crossed! 

I know that some people feel aggrieved that the 510 bus from the airport to Stortford and Harlow does not come through the centre of Stansted. I have used the 510 and walked from Pesterford Bridge, but that would not suit many people. A review of the 7/7A bus is currently underway so I have asked whether this bus could be extended up Church Road to Walson Way when that road opens. This would then provide an interchange with the 510. I have complained about the poor timekeeping of the 301 bus. There seems to be a defect in the timetable that needs sorting out.    

Uttlesford has been trying to save costs by running some service in a partnership arrangement with other councils. This means that costs such as management and computers can be shared and so duplication can be cut out. Car parks are already managed this way under an agreement with Braintree and Colchester councils. Since last summer discussions have been underway with South Cambridgeshire to join together the two councils’ teams that collect taxes and pay out benefits. At the end of January the deal seemed to fall apart when South Cambs council asked for what appeared to be terms that suited them but would be unreasonable to Uttlesford. As I write at the start of February the deal seems to be in the balance, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that common sense will prevail on both sides. After all, if upwards of £500,000 of taxpayers’ money can be saved each year for as good or better service, then the two councils should do all they can to bring off the deal.

Several residents have commented favourably on the improved snow clearance and gritting of main pavements during December’s first signs of winter. Both Essex and Uttlesford have introduced better plans since a petition and complaints were made last February. I would like to see more grit bins located in particularly tricky areas so that residents can help themselves and their neighbours. I am writing this on January 3^rd and as the New Year has got off to a cold start, it seems likely that these safety measures will have been tested again before Link is delivered.   

The environment committee meeting in November decided a fresh round of consultation on the local development framework will get underway in February. The council intends to run it far more professionally than two years ago; with better information including exhibitions on future locations for homes and jobs. We are still waiting to see the final highways report, which should spell out in plain English why Elsenham is a poor choice for a new town. Members have been pressing for this report to be published since it was first promised in November, but it has repeatedly been delayed and is said to be politically sensitive.  I have received an acknowledgment from the Essex Chief Constable to my support of the Royal National Institute for the Blind over parking on pavements but I have not yet heard whether the police will take action. I think it is likely that a carrot and stick approach will be favoured.  I have been in contact with the intended developer of the old school house next to the Free Church in Chapel Hill and that has been in an untidy state for many months. I was told there should be some action in January. I do hope so. 

The council has added a new page to its website to cover scrutiny at Uttlesford. This can be found at http://www.uttlesford.gov.uk/main.cfm?Type=SCRUTINY&MenuId=976 or via the Your Council link on UDC’s homepage. It shows how the public can try to hold the council to account by submitting a petition. We can also request other organisations such as the NHS, Police and other councils to explain their services and make improvements.  

Now we are in general election year the public might reasonably expect leadership from politicians. Will the next election be about ideas or just more cynical, managerial manipulation to con ’middle England’ electors in marginal seats that there are soft options to deal with tough issues?

One such tough issue is climate change. Despite widespread disappointment that international leaders could not pull off a better deal at the Copenhagen climate change conference in December, some commentators are putting their faith in local leadership to cut carbon emissions.

Across the UK getting on for 100 local authorities have signed up to the 10:10 campaign to cut their own carbon emissions by 10% during 2010 as a symbolic and significant step in the right direction. It is, therefore, disappointing that Uttlesford council and its neighbour East Herts have failed to grasp the opportunity to demonstrate ambition and local leadership. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, as few of the campaign’s council signatories are Conservative controlled.

Uttlesford is half way through a five-year plan to cut its global warming gases by 25%. Now in its third year, the council has already slipped by a full year. It was on course to achieve only two-fifths of its five-year commitment until new measures were agreed before Christmas which should both cut council tenants’ heating bills as well as help to bring the plan back on track.

So the council needs to achieve a 10% cut in 2010 to catch up on its own plan, but the ruling Conservatives would not sign up to the 10:10 campaign because it is someone else’s idea. In my 22 years on Uttlesford I have seen many instances when Tories reject good ideas from anyone but themselves. I think it’s part of their philosophy that they want to be in control, even if that means doing nothing. They are also scared of taking risks, which is why Uttlesford council continues to pile up £100,000s in surplus money that they weren’t prepared to count as income at the budget setting time.

The planet and its peoples cannot wait for politicians who will not learn from and cooperate with each other on climate change, whether they are from China, the USA or even those who straddle the M11. Uttlesford Lib Dems have an opportunity in coming weeks to lead the public debate on climate change and carbon reductions, and perhaps show how some of the council’s mounting cash surpluses can be used to benefit future generations.     

Last night’s meeting of Uttlesford’s environment committee went smoothly compared with experience over the past two years. It was agreed that there should be a further round of public consultation on the local development framework in the light of emerging hard evidence against which the council’s preferred options can now be be tested.

So far, evidence seems to be stacking up against the new town concept, at least at Elsenham/Henham.

Last night was not the occasion for those opposed to the NE Elsenham new town to try to dump it but rather to go along with the need for a thorough examination of its viability. Also included in the consultation at the start of 2010 will be other new settlement proposals at place like Great Chesterford, Great Dunmow and Stebbing, plus a dispersal strategy across all towns and villages in the district. Nothing is yet fixed and nothing is yet ruled out even though UDC still has an official preferred option which now is: 3,000 homes at NE Elsenham(Henham), 500 at Great Dunmow, 250 at Saffron Walden, 50 at Newport, 30 at Great Chesterford, 30 at Takeley, 30 at Thaxted, 20 at Stansted Mountfitchet and 90 in total in smaller villages.

The debate was spoiled when Cllr Simon Howell from Saffron Walden continued to promote the Elsenham new town and called it ”an airport town”. This gave the Elsenham/Henham protagonists the feeling that the consultation would be tainted and that the Tories are fixed in their support for Elsenham regardless of public opinion. We shall have to wait and see whether they take more account of objective evidence than personal opinion and prejudice from now onwards.

All members supported carrying out the consultation, though the Liberal Democrats abstained on the clause that specifically mentioned Elsenham.

I brought up the public petition in April 2008 that demanded better quality consultation methods to those used in December 2007/January 2008 and that has not yet been followed through. The chair of environment and her LDF officer will be invited to the council’s scrutiny committee on December 8th to continue that dialogue between now and the next environment committee on January 19th, when the plans for consultation will be finalised. I remain hopeful that progress can be made.   

I also made the point that there needs to be more education for the public about what ‘housing need’ means. There were still some members at last night’s meeting referring to ‘these unwanted, imposed houses’. The council’s own recent survey of housing need has confirmed the ‘imposed’ targets are about right. I made the point that failure to build does not stop people moving into the district; it has the effect of driving out the chidren and grandchildren of existing residents who can’t afford a home. More on that another day.

Long-awaited technical reports on Uttlesford District Council’s development plans (the “Local Development Framework”) have been emerging in November. These reports indicate that the Conservative plan for a new town at Elsenham would be badly located. Of all the locations that have been put forward by landowners for a new settlement, Great Chesterford has been given the most favourable score in the transport assessment report. Traffic from an Elsenham new town would have to be directed via Takeley with some road improvements.   

Some of the reports are still only in draft form but will be taken into account on Tuesday 24^th November at 7.30 p.m. at the council’s environment committee. Some of the papers can be found here: http://ggpweb.uttlesford.gov.uk/CMISWebPublic/Meeting.aspx?meetingID=9020 The reports, called background studies, that have been published can be found on Uttlesford District Council’s website at: http://www.uttlesford.gov.uk/main.cfm?Type=PLCSD&MenuId=583 Reports that are not available there can be requested from Melanie Jones in Uttlesford’s planning department (email: mjones@uttlesford.gov.uk ). 

This meeting will be asked to approve another public consultation starting in January. In January the public and other interested parties are likely be asked whether the council’s preferred Option 4 for 3000-home new town at Elsenham plus a further 1000 or so homes spread around other town and villages is the right approach in the light of the new evidence. The Conservative-led Council is not currently planning to consult local residents about other options for spreading the housing across the district, but this will be another opportunity for the public to say that new towns are not wanted and that dispersal to most towns and villages is preferable. The last time the Council consulted local residents, a new settlement (Option 4) came bottom of the poll. 

In the transport report, roads in and out of the Elsenham are described as poor and unacceptable. The route through Stansted Mountfitchet is described as narrow and already congested. The report does say there is one solution to a new town at Elsenham; link it to a new road network needed for a second runway at the airport! However, as the likelihood of a second runway is now being downgraded, the only alternative is to encourage road traffic to go via Takeley and the Four Ashes traffic lights. This route would have to be improved, but would not avoid a big increase in traffic through Takeley and is a cause of much consternation in that part of the district.   

It remains to be seen whether a majority of Uttlesford councillors takes note of this technical advice and eventually changes Uttlesford District Council’s preferred future housing option to either a concentrated new settlement at, say, Great Chesterford or  a dispersal strategy across the district’s towns and villages. There will not be an early decision on this.

It seems that January’s consultation has to happen before the proposals can be reconsidered, so blight and uncertainty will hang over parts of our district for many more months to come. Uttlesford District Council made a decision in September 2007 to go for the Elsenham new town without any robust evidence to justify it. It has lumbered itself with that much derided ‘solution’ until it can either prove that it is a credible way forward (which is looking increasingly unlikely) – or until it can come up with a more acceptable solution and demonstrate (with evidence) that it has at last done a proper job of planning for the future. If the Council doesn’t act in a professional way by following the proper planning procedures, it risks being taken to court by one or more aggrieved prospective developer and/or having its core strategy thrown out by a planning inspector after an examination in public.

Another report commissioned by the Council confirms that the number of homes allocated through the regional process to Uttlesford is about right to meet future housing needs. This conclusion knocks on the head the argument from the Council’s Conservative leadership that these houses are unwanted and unneeded.    There is also a report on land availability. This lists lots of small to medium sized sites around the district’s towns and villages, but also contains a growing list of big sites for new settlements which have emerged since the ruling Conservative councillors signalled in 2007 their willingness to contemplate alternative settlements when they chose the Elsenham new town as the Council’s preferred option. So there are enough sites for a dispersed solution, but not enough work has yet been done to produce a workable scheme. Most time and energy has been spent in the past two years on new settlements and eco-towns.    Residents may well wonder why on earth Uttlesford District Council is consulting for a second time on what seems the same, flawed housing option. It is at last following due process based on evidence about housing need, transport, water and sewerage - evidence that it and the public should have had before Elsenham new town was chosen.  

I guess the highlight of the week was seeing the leader of the BNP humiliate himself on BBC1’s Question Time. This sad but nasty thug failed totally to present himself as the moderate face of right-wing politics, as was his claimed intention. Instead he came over as a shifty, shallow character whose racist views are both vile and dangerous but based on such a stupid rationale that it was difficult to know whether to cry or laugh. He claimed those of us who look like his ‘indigenous British or English’ are the ‘aborigines’ who have been around for 17,000 years. Well, 17,000 years ago the inhabitants of these islands lived in caves and were not English, nor Irish, nor Scottish nor Welsh!

Yet there is a message for those whom Mr Griffin would attack as ‘middle class liberals’. Get to grips with a society increasingly divided between have and have-nots and understand the fears of those who might be attracted to the BNP because they think Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories don’t care about them. But that doesn’t mean pandering to the prejudices that the BNP exists to exploit.

Uttlesford’s council meeting on Tuesday was a strange event. The Council agreed without dissent to continue to pursue merging the tax collection and benefit payment sections of this council with South Cambridgeshire District Council’s. The main word of caution from me was to avoid fragmenting the council into so many pieces that what is an attempt at more efficient service delivery becomes the cause of a different type of inefficiency as the council becomes unmanageable. Then the right solution will probably be a larger unitary authority such as Bedfordshire recently introduced by merging district and county county councils.      

The Conservative leader opposed a motion from the Lib Dems to sign up to the 10:10 climate change, carbon reduction campaign on the grounds that UDC was already making progress and didn’t need to be associated with campaigns that are for beginners and non-starters. Where’s the community leadership?

Then there was a debate in private about an offer from Sainsbury’s to do a land swap with the council so that the planned museum heritage centre can be built on a different plot and the supermarket giant can push ahead with a planning application for Saffron Walden’s third supermarket. The Lib Dems opposed the deal. Mostly Tories voted for in a recorded vote so the deal was approved. Those opposed felt it pre-empted a pending planning application and compromised the council’s planning position. Assurances to the contrary did not convince me. I suspect there is more to come out about what has been going on behind closed doors that may fuel the inevitable controversy.

Public anger at elites who continue to line their pockets from the public purse whilst more and more ordinary people are genuinely finding it harder to make end meet has exposed something seriously rotten in our country.

Not all in our democracy is bad. There are good examples of local people getting involved in shaping their own towns and villages. Yet too many people feel no one will listen to them; that politicians are only interested in themselves. So they don’t bother participating in consultations and elections.

Ninety percent of MPs exposed this year for scrounging their expenses are in safe seats, where it is all too easy to become complacent and even arrogant. They represent parliamentary seats that never change party allegiance regardless of who the candidates are. These seats have the same MP for decade after decade. Our antiquated voting system perpetuates safe seats.

There is even local evidence that councils in which one party has had a monopoly of political control for years on end complacently abuse the members’ allowance system. It becomes a reward system for party loyalty rather than for public service.

National politicians should now be acting and not just talking tough on the renewed abuse by people in the City who are lining their pockets with outrageous salaries and bonuses – paid from our taxes since taxpayers bailed out the financial system last year. But MPs have become so mired in their own greed and lack of scruples that the bankers and others think they can get away with their own version of the same selfishness.

It does not wash for MPs to say ‘we were following the rules’ they loosely created. There are laws. There are rules. There are ethics. It is possible to abide by the first two but still avoid the last. Parliamentary expense claims to pay shopping, gardening and cleaning and general repair bills for the family home hardly class as wholly necessary to fulfil the role of Member of Parliament. The idea that an MP of ministerial rank or equivalent is entitled to twist the system even more than a lowly back-bencher suggests that the higher you climb the lower the ethical standards become.

It is quite clear that Parliament cannot clean up itself without help from the people. What is needed is a Citizen’s Convention to draw up a fresh approach to democratic accountability and ethics in this country. More information about a proposed Citizens Convention (Accountability and Ethics) Bill can be found at the website: http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/?page_id=2033     

District councillors are carrying out a review of day centres. People who run and use Stansted’s day centre will be invited to contribute. As with most council services, the use of day centres has been changing over the years so the time seems right to have a fresh look at making best use of these community facilities. 

I am part of a team within the local strategic partnership called Uttlesford Futures which has commissioned a survey of over 300 local businesses to get their views of what it’s like to do business in Uttlesford. We are still analysing the results, but two caught my attention. Four out of five businesses have five or fewer employees and one in eight of these businesses are thinking of leaving the district in the next three years because either they can’t expand locally or they find premises too expensive in Uttlesford. This suggests that a fresh approach is needed to planning in Uttlesford if the local economy is to climb out of the recession in the best possible shape. I have for some time felt that the planning system in Uttlesford is good at stopping what it doesn’t like but bad at promoting the area to encourage enterprise.                   

New bus shelters around Stansted were installed in early October after a further month’s delay, but in time for the autumn and winter wind and rain. The revised bus service to Stortford is far from ideal, with the two services 7 and 301 timed to trail each other within a few minutes in each direction. In fact I was on a 301 that was competing for space with a number 7 at the Silver Street lay-by. The poor timing has been pointed out to the county council, but no solution is on offer.  

However, from November 15^th the Arriva 510 service between the airport and Harlow centre will be diverted via Forest Hall Road.This bus will use Walson Way when the road opens early next year. The 510 service will provide a direct service every 20 minutes for much of the day to the airport, Bishop’s Stortford and Harlow. It runs all day and also throughout the night every hour so will be a big boost for local bus travel even though it only touches the edge of Stansted. There is even an hourly service of Sundays, which will give Stansted its first Sunday bus service for many years.  

Other good news on Foresthall Park: the footpath to Stoney Common is now open; the footpath which provides a temporary link into Church Road has been improved; architects have been appointed to design the new primary school and finally the children’s play area in Walson Way will open at the time the road opens, but not before for safety reasons whilst some nearby homes are still being built.