The last week has been an exceptionally busy one for me. Constituents have been contacting us in their droves about issues as diverse as parking, rats, problem alleyways and streetcleaning.
I also had a number of Council meetings. I kicked off another year as Chair of the Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny Panel with a meeting with officers and members to plan our July meeting.
The plan is to have a strong housing focus with a number of topical items including an update on the impact of the credit crunch on housing in Reading and an update on work to tackle the number of empty homes in the borough.
On Friday I held a meeting with the new Area Director of Berkshire PCT, Bev Searle, and we discussed ways in which we could make the scrutiny of health issues more effective. I have so far lost the battle to create a dedicated health scrutiny panel (and to be fair resources being as they are it probably isn't feasible at the moment).
We agreed at the meeting that public health is an area where potentially councillors can bring useful insight and pressure to bear. In September HHCC Scrutiny Panel and the Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Panel will be revisiting children's health and the issues behind poor health (notably health inequality).
Bev was a breath of fresh air and I felt encouraged that we could make real progress on some of these issues this year.
I am keen to make scrutiny even more focussed this year, perhaps by reducing the number of issues the HHCC Panel investigates (I hesitate to say 'looks into' as my Chief Executive regularly reminds me, this is not the job of scrutiny!) Certainly we have come a considerable way from when I started and when all members were asked to do was simply 'note' reports. You can read my rant about this approach here.
On Wednesday I visited Dee Park and received an update on the long-awaited regeneration scheme.There is relief that the Homes and Communities Agency (formerly the Housing Corporation) has stumped up some cash to get the scheme off the ground. However, 'Phase 3' (penciled in for 2016) which contains many of the community benefits (notably the provision of an expanded primary school) is dependent on Council cash which makes this bit look much more uncertain.
Who knows what money will be left for local councils by 2016, or indeed who will be running the Council by then? Influentialfigures have already signalled that the future looks bleak for our public finances. This was borne out by a meeting I had with the Chief Executive recently in which he explained that SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives), led by former RBC Chief Exec Trish Haines, are conducting workshops with LAs to discuss future planning along the lines of
"What services will councils be able to provide in three years time...when there is basically no money?"
What struck me as I wandered around Dee Park was how much green space there was. Admittedly it is underused and probably poor quality. However, as a councillor for south and east Reading I was struck by the fact that here was more green space on Dee Park than much of Katesgrove and bits of Whitley put together! The size of Dee Park and the fact that land can be sold off for private housing to pay for other goodies is what makes the scheme viable. Regeneration is clearly needed, it's just such a shame that residents have had to wait so long to see progress.
Smaller scale regeneration which is so needed in places like Whitley Street Estate, Hexham Road, Orts Road and parts of South Reading are far harder to achieve. This is why the Council's new decent neighbourhoods fund (which we campigned for) is so needed.
Back to the ward and our inboxes and answerphones have been filling up with objections from residents to proposals to introduce yellow lines on Lydford Road. This follows the Council's annual consultation on revisions to parking restrictions.
The reaction is understandable: any reduction in available parking for residents was always likely to be met with frustration from residents as we told officers earlier this year. A number of residents have cited visitor parking and notably the impact of parking connected to the University as causing problems.
We will be calling on RBC officers to conduct a proper review of parking in the University area and continuing to heap pressure on the University to do more to reduce overspill parking. Other institutions have responsibilities to act too: the Hospital and Alexandra Road Mosque being two other examples.
A constituent from Alexandra Road wrote to me in the week to complain about the quality of street cleaning and general maintenance of the streetscene. He mused that the lack of local elections seemed to be the key factor...I couldn't possibly comment!
However, I agreed with him that the current state of our roads and pavements leaves a lot to be desired. As I've said before, one of my biggest bug bears is the fact that street cleaning is still not as good as it could be and I am saddened that I've been unable to change that yet despite a considerable amount of nagging - but I live in hope.
Rats are still causing a nuisance for residents with one constituent contacting me to say the number of rats she's seen in and around her garden has caused her to stop wanting to go outside. Glenn has done a lot of digging on this issue and I've asked him to see if he can get some action to reassure residents.
Glenn and I also had a very productive meeting with officers about tackling graffiti which I will post an update about shortly.
All in all a busy week, but I wouldn't swap this job for the world.
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