St Mary's finds a new Home

A new home has been found for St Mary's ABC.

Local Councillor's have been working and supporting the St Mary's Amateur Boxing Club in securing a new location after the club was faced with eviction from its site on Luton Road.

We have been working with the club owners, trainers and players to fund raise and fight for the award winning club to remain in the ward.

The boxing club has secured a new site on Shipwrights which will see significant improvement of surrounding derelict land.

We are also working with the Shipwrights Resident Association to secure funding to improve fencing to reduce quad-bike behaviour.

Downsview Clearance

Dumping & fly-tipping. Councillor's worked with residents to get land cleared

An older story this; a number of residents on Downsview had major complaints about land being used a dumping ground behind their properties.

The Luton & Wayfield team worked with the residents to ensure the land is cleared.

Commercial land owners need to be sensitive to their environment. As local Councillor's we will be working to ensure people are not blighted by industrial waste

If you have problems with fly tipping on dumping please do contact us.

Save Nelson Court Update

We were disappointed by the poor response from the Tory administration at the Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Meeting last week on the Nelson Court care home.

Local businessman and blogger Jonathan Primett also attended the meeting and has blogged here about his experience. It is worth a read

This meeting was called by Labour as an opportunity to present alternative proposals, which would avoid the privatisation of three Medway care homes.

Cllr Vince Maple (pictured) spoke from the floor citing the poor consultation by the current administration

Cllr Tristan Osborne and Cllr Christine Godwin also addressed the meeting calling for alternate proposals to be considered. Alternatives included ideas such as the Co-operative or Local Authority Trading Company models, as showcased in other local authorities of all political affiliations.

However, at the meeting, the Conservatives remained closed to new ideas, and seemed resolute on limiting outside input, stymieing the chance to make the meeting a meaningful part of the decision process.

The chair, supported by his fellow Conservative members, insisted on the use of formal votes, and refused to allow any members of the public to speak. Interested councillors were also disallowed from speaking at the meeting.

Taking this closed approach was completely unacceptable, as the point of the meeting was to promote further discussion and help present new ideas.

Though the meeting was called by Labour to help offer a further opportunity for concerned service users, carers, families and staff to express their opinions, it seemed clear from the outset that these opinions would not be fairly listened to.

Cllr Teresa Murray, Medway Labour’s Spokesperson for Adult Health and Social Care said,

“The Tories showed how politically motivated and small minded they are by refusing to support our proposal for a pause in the tendering procedure to privatise the care homes and investigate alternative arms length staff-led models. This would enable the people who run the services to identify the key priorities and efficiencies, and keep the much loved specialist staff in place to maintain quality.”

“Even Tory led Essex County Council has done this successfully for it’s social care services, but Medway Tories are political dinosaurs who only want to contract out. They don’t want hard working social care staff in Medway to have a chance, although when we met staff they were keen to try.”

New Dog Bins

After resident demand we will be fitting an additional two dog bins on Tobruk Way and Eden Avenue.

Luton Recreation Groud

We have been liaising with residents on the Luton Recreation Ground and the concerns expressed by a number of residents, led by Ben Pranczke (who has blogged here) from Chatham Hill, that the site is unfinished.

Luton Rec play area was originally designed to be "open plan" i.e. not fully fenced, to open up the play area onto the surrounding grassed area.

Many residents have expressed concerns that animals are gaining access to the play site which poses risks to children. A photo below indicates this is indeed happening:

Spot the dog!

The Council has confirmed a fence will be extended round the whole play area and a self closing gate will be installed at the end of the footpath allowing easy access to the play area from the pavilion end of the park.

There is a footpath that links the play area from both ends of the rec but these have become weedy over the years and need to be refurbished.

We are also concerned that this path is incomplete and will be chasing this.

Path to nowhere?

We have received assurances that a request has been placed with the Community Payback Offenders unit asking them to undertake the path refurbishments but we do need to know why this path is not complete

Luton Road Wall Replaced

BEFORE

AFTER

The wall has now been replaced by the Council. It seems the 'right kind of bricks' were eventually sourced from the contractors.

A win for all