Regretably, the appraisal reports are gathering ethereal dust on Uttlesford District Council’s website. The work to bring in legal orders was dropped as part of the cost-cutting by the present adminstration and that remains the case despite the council having banked £600,000 of government grant for planning work like this.

Last night’s meeting of the environment committee agreed to ask the finance committee to release the money needed to finish the conservation project. The Conservatives on the committee were less than enthusiastic and some didn’t vote, so optimism that this proposal will get through the Conservative-dominated finance committee is low. It leaves the question open about what Conservatives are there to conserve.  

By the way, there are real concerns about this neglect in Stebbing and also in Stansted, where a Victorian flint and brick wall was recently demolished to make way for a car hard-standing. The council was impotent to do anything.

In 2007 UDC drew up a comprehensive plan for Stansted’s conservation areas. The plan contained many recommendations about looking after and improving features such as railings and walls around homes in the village. Unfortunately, the council didn’t follow up on these suggestions by voting through orders would have given them the force of the planning system. This has come to light recently following the demolition of a brick and flint wall that was described in the report as ‘a distinctive feature to be protected from demolition’. I am pressing the council to employ someone to finish off the work from 2007 on the basis that there is little point UDC saying it wants to conserve the character of our villages if it fails to put in place rules that tell people what is expected.     

There have been complaints on behalf of pedestrians about the appallingly long-standing unsafe surface of Water Lane near the railway Black Bridge. Discussions with Essex Highways have been arranged, though I don’t want to raise expectations about an early improvement as everyone has been avoiding responsibility and action to repair the surface for years.  Walson Way is expected to have been opened through to Church Road by Easter. Once that is done, the 510 bus will be routed along Walson Way and will use the smart bus stops that have been installed. Essex County Council has told me that there isn’t time for the 7/7A bus route to be extended to Walson Way to provide a link to and from the 510 and that part of Stansted. I have told them that I disagree as I believe it would add only 30 seconds to the journey of the 7/7A.   

Don’t be seduced by Tories who think they have a divine right to rule on behalf of themselves. Don’t vote Labour for fear of getting the same old Tories. Vote Lib Dem if you want what they want!

This was the most highly charged speech right from the heart I have heard in years. The spent force of Labour hardly needed to be mentioned. The latest Tory threat that they would bring the markets crashing down on all our heads if they don’t get they way on May 6th was aptly described by Nick as a ‘political version of a protection racket’. With a sideways reference to the Ashcroft scandal, the Conservatives were accused of being the world’s first off-shore political party.

The BBC was running the speech as its main story on Sunday afternoon. Labour was saying the Lib Dems couldn’t possibly work with a Tory minority government. The Tories were saying the Lib Dems were confused about whether to support an ongoing Labour government. And Nick said the Lib Dems were close to confusion - confusion in both Con and Lab!

He warned the electorate not to vote negatively by backing either of the old parties, for what’s just good enough, as that is not good enough any more. His audacious speech was an impassioned plea to vote for what you want - the Lib Dems, of course!

I just arrived in time for the evening rally on Friday to hear Shirley Williams (for second consecutive Friday), Paddy Ashdown (first conference speech since standing down as leader) and Nick Clegg; all in very good form. This is a conference of anticipation about a general election expected in 50 days with a far from certain outcome. Labour is down. The Tories want power for its own sake and change - but to what. The Lib Dems promise change to a better, fairer Britain “that works for you”. I guess that contrasts with the growing public perception that Tory change is for an elite “us” from what are emerging as the same old Tories after all!

There was a capacity turnout at the town’s day centre for the most successful party event in years. Shirley was in good form and held the audience’s attention for over half-an-hour on topics from morality in politics to the Lib Dems’ key policies for the (May?) general election. Amorality and deregulation in financial markets got the country into the current economic mess. This week’s admission that Tory peer, Lord Ashcroft, has fooled or been part of a conspiracy with other senior Tories over his tax cheating is just the latest example of a political elite that is now despised by the public.

The final answer to questions confirmed that Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems will not respond with a demand for minsterial seats to a  post-election parliament in which no party has an overall majority. There will be no formal coalition. Lib Dem support for a minority government will depend on its support for key Lib Dem policy priorities. 

This rerun of a consultation over two years ago is far from perfect. A report has been produced which compares various new settlement proposals with future housing distributed across more of our towns and villages. All have been scored against 24 sustainability criteria and, surprise, surprise, the council’s official, preferred option – Elsenham - has been rated the best.  The problem is that no one has yet bothered to suggest what weighting should be given to the 24 criteria, which range from maintaining historic buildings to educating children, improving public transport and business growth. Some criteria seem to me to be far less consequential than others and there is lots of overlap. So I can’t see that much value can be put on the arithmetic which has come up with the claim that Elsenham is the best.  

It seems that the council wants the public to tell the council which of these criteria matter most; to do the work that UDC members should at least have had a go at already. The problem is that these documents were all published without any (known) input from elected members and I can only assume that officers rightly bottled out from suggesting what matters most and what matters least. After all, that is the job of politicians. But at Uttlesford the Conservative administration tends to prefer to hide behind professional officers rather than risk the public knowing their opinions!  

Of course, with a general election coming up, it doesn’t pay for politicians to have opinions that are too clear just in case some people don’t like them! So is Elsenham the best solution? That’s not very likely. Then is there a better solution? Don’t look to UDC for the answer, but write it on a postcard (or visit the website) so they can ignore you like they did in 2007!    

Take housing. Last year the Conservative Westminster housing spokesman, Grant Shapps, launched a green paper on housing. He said that the Labour government isn’t building enough homes. See “Housing Policy Paper - Strong Foundations” at this link: http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Housing.aspx 

Mr Shapps is right. Not enough houses are being built to meet people’s needs. There is a desperate requirement for more homes in places like Uttlesford, so on that we agree.  Yet if you believed the website of the local Tory MP, Alan Haselhurst at: http://www.saffronwaldenconservatives.com/index.php?sectionid=3&pagenumber=332 you would think that the need for new homes was an invention of the Labour government and nothing to do with young people having to stay living with their parents into their 30s because they can’t afford to get on the first rung of the housing ladder. He must be in denial of the fact that people from places like London and Harlow are moving to rural areas like Uttlesford when they have children or retire. He even attacks local Liberal Democrats for supporting the provision of homes in our local towns and villages.    

Uttlesford council leader Jim Ketteridge similarly denies the need for what he regularly calls ‘unwanted houses’, yet his council’s recently published Strategic Housing Market Assessment: http://www.uttlesford.gov.uk/main.cfm?Type=PLCSD&MenuId=583#Strategic_Housing_Market_Assessment , confirms the same level of housing need which the Tories keep saying are not needed and have been imposed by the government and the regional assembly.  

It is time local Tories stopped trying to mislead the public by grabbing headlines that deny people the right to a home, especially when their own party’s official policy says the opposite. Yet it seems that would be too much to expect of a party which says it wants to replace air travel and airport runways with rail travel and railway lines until it has to tell voters where the railway lines will run! (See last blog entry.) 

Then the Conservatives took up the cause and backed a new line to the north that would take in Heathrow Airport. The Labour government joined in what seemed might become an all-party initiative. They came up with real plans with routes that their Lord Adonis wanted to discuss with the Tories.

But last week the Conservatives backed off discussing the proposals. Apparently they are afraid of losing the votes of Tory-supporting residents in Buckinghamshire, through which the new railway would pass. They seem happy to talk about the principle but are afraid of getting down to detail.  

Where does this leave Tory policy on airports? Does their flip-flopping on rail travel over election votes signal that their opposition to a second runway at Stansted is also only to get more Tory votes in this area? Is their aviation policy only as skin-deep and opportunistic as their railway policy? Our nineteenth century railways weren’t built by Sunday headline-grabbing opportunists. 

See what the local Conservatives say:

http://www.saffronwaldenconservatives.com/index.php?sectionid=3&pagenumber=331

They effectively backed the Labour and Liberal Democrat approach to taking care in managing the economy and the budget deficit rather than the flip-flopping of the Conservatives around their preference for quick and deep cuts in government spending. The economists warn against the risks of damaging Britain’s fragile recovery by “reckless” early cuts.

The national Tory approach is reminiscent of the way local Tories set about correcting spending at Uttlesford District Council three years ago. They took a hatchet, caused massive personal distress and created a council that was at least temporarily dysfunctional. It then required an emergency squad of external experts to start to rebuild it; akin to the IMF having to be called in by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It is said that Uttlesford’s recovery could be used as a test case. I suggest the reckless Tory downfall of Uttlesford would also serve as a lesson to Mr David Cameron and Mr George Osborne on how not to go about ruining the economy so that you can claim credit for having restored the nation’s finances.

At Thursday’s council meeting, the Tories spent too much time on pessimism and continued forecasts of doom and gloom, hoarding money for a rainy day, rather than saying what they might do for local people and the local economy. Uttlesford doesn’t deserve four wasted years.

We were presented with the annual corporate plan out of the blue a few days ago – after they’d effectively set the budget. The plan of what you want to do should come before the budget that pays for it. When I asked how the plan had influenced the budget, say by putting up expenditure on high priorities and reducing it elsewhere; the response was “it’s obvious”; a tad short of “even an idiot can see”; not an ounce of evidence was forthcoming, because the Tories don’t know. 

This is because council Conservatives leave nearly everything to the officers. They don’t worry themselves with detail. It’s their job to rule, but not to do too much thinking.  

When pressed to hold some detailed discussions on the purpose of the £5 million in reserves that they have accumulated out of truly unprecedented budget under-spending in the past two years, again the response was “no need, it’s obvious”. Their finance spokesman then buckled and floundered when pressed with more detailed questioning about when and for what some of the banked cash would be used.  

They don’t seem to have much of a clue! The Tories have so much spare money swilling around after their over-hasty slash and burn, cost-cutting campaign two years ago they simply have to stuff it in the bank, give it a name and pretend they know what it’s for.  

These challenges from the Lib Dems were too much for their leadership. They had to attack; to adopt their emotional mode. They accused me of denying there was ever a need to make savings on what the council was spending three years ago. One of them even accused me of lying. I guess that must have been about what they imagined I have said rather than anything I have said. 

Let’s be clear, there were plans by the Lib Dems four years ago to reduce expenditure in an orderly manner over a four or five-year period. Then some accountants made big budget errors and everyone was thrown into confusion. The new Tory administration in 2007 was even more confused than most incoming administrations are. Instead of acting maturely they panicked and also saw an opening for political opportunism to blame the Lib Dems for a manageable problem that they turned into a crisis by losing some of their more intelligent staff. It was akin to the passengers throwing the captain and much of the crew overboard in the depths of a storm just as the ship is about to capsize.   

So they had to call in advisors from here and there at great public expense to help rebuild a council that worked. Thankfully, the worst is probably over but the jury is still out on whether improvement will continue as a result of the subsequent recession and predicted public spending cuts – which Uttlesford Tories have tried to pin on the Lib Dems by slashing their staff levels long before other councils have and before Uttlesford needed to take drastic action. 

So last night Uttlesford Conservatives wasted one of the most important council meetings of the year. They didn’t or couldn’t tell the public much about their priorities. They had asked residents whether they thought tackling health inequalities was important. The public said it was the most important thing for the council to do something about. But last night the Conservatives didn’t have a clue what to do in response and said local people must have misunderstood the question!    

That’s power for the course. Blame everyone apart from yourself! Just to prove it, the Tories called the Lib Dems “irritants” for putting them on the spot. I take that as a compliment. After all, irritants are pearls in the making! I suspect the public at large also irritate the Tories by wanting investment in services from their council tax money rather than depositing it in the bank waiting for an idea to turn up.          

I have made myself very unpopular over the past two years by claiming that the Tories overreacted two years ago with their draconian staff cuts and cash savings in 2007 and 2008. I have repeatedly challenged their claim that the budget shortfall was never as large as they said. I have been telling them since mid 2008 that recurring budget surpluses, now over £1 million a year, mean they have in effect demolished a debt mountain when there was only a debt molehill; so they now find themselves wallowing in a rather large cash-filled crater without a plan to get out of it.

Each time I have been attacked for rocking the (life)boat!   Last night it was admitted round the committee table for the first time that the council is running an annual cash surplus. And the reason is, as Councillor Ketteridge admitted, because his party likes collecting people’s taxes with no more purpose than to hoard the cash in Uttlesford’s bank account. Last night they hadn’t even issued the annual corporate plan, which should come before the budget to say what they intend to do with the money. This confirms for me that the Tories’ first interest is money and that public services are an afterthought.    

The Lib Dems proposed last night cutting the council tax increase so that the extra cash collected from April would be no more than the latest inflation rate above this year’s tax level. But the Tories voted that down; they want more money, confirming their policy of taking what they think they are entitled to rather than what they need.  I wonder how long local residents and electors will put up with Conservatives unnecessarily taking money out of their pockets, even if the recession is officially over, when local people could instead be spending it in local shops, so helping to boost the local economy.  

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. 

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.  

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.  

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.     

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.

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.  

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     

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.                   

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. 

Last year Uttlesford created an internal performance measure to get positive stories into the local press. Although ‘positive’ has now been removed from the measure, press releases are still being spun in my opinion at the expense of neutral, objective reporting.

It happened again yesterday in a press release about the fact that the Audit Commission has raised the council’s annual rating for its use of resources from the bottom, poor category to the second bottom of four categories, adequate.

This welcome improvement has been billed as demonstrating that the council ‘has put its period of instability well and truly behind it’. Yet only last week the 2008/09 audited accounts were published showing finances £1.1 million adrift from the original budget and £3.4 million adrift from the alarming deficit forecast not long before that year’s budget was set.

Whilst the audited figure is a surplus and not a deficit, at a time of deep recession it was wrong to tax local people on the pretext that the council was bust when it clearly wasn’t. Stability is about setting a budget and sticking to it, not being adrift by about a third of your net budget from what you told the public would be the case.

Party conferences are not just about listening to or making speeches on policy. There are numerous training events; and I have been shown how to get this website underway as a means of informing my constituents in Stansted what I am up to and what is going on within Uttlesford District Council and more widely across the political landscape.

So here goes!