Redlands Liberal Democrats

Helping Residents Make Their Voices Heard on Houses of Multple Occupation

Last week the Council held an open meeting inviting feedback from residents on plans to make changes to planning rules affecting houses of multiple occupation.

I attended the event and spoke to the small number of residents who attended.

We know from talking to residents on the doorstep that the issue of HMOs in the University area is of concern to more than just the handful of residents who attended the meeting last week.

We would like as many residents as possible to have their say on this important issue so we have set up an online survey.

We will pass on all comments on to Reading Borough Council.

The deadline for comments is 30 November 2011.

Working together to Cut Crime in North Whitley

Worrying news this week about an attack on a pizza delivery man on Newcastle Road in Redlands. Residents or readers with any information should report it to the Police on 0845 8 505 505.

However, overall the picture in relation to crime in this part of the ward is positive. According to the latest crime statistics published by Thames Valley Police crime in North Whitley has fallen. Burglary has fallen by 25% to 59 reported burglaries in the past 12 months. Theft from vehicles and theft of vehicles are both down (to 33 and 9 in the past year).

Anti-social behaviour incidents remain static at 54 - suggesting more work needs to be done to make inroads into this persistent problem in our area.

You can find out crime statistics for your street and your neighbourhood at www.police.uk - via the Home Office's recently launched website.

If you want to be updated about local crime matters you might also want to sign up for Thames Valley Police's Community Messaging service. I recently did this and the updates come via email. You can do this via their website - http://www.tvpcommunitymessaging.org/.

 

One of the reasons the crime statistics are as positive as they are is down to the hard work and dedication of our local Whitley North Police team - led by Inspector Penny MacKenzie (Inspector for South & East Reading). I am pleased that staff numbers in the team have not been cut and the number of Police on the beat in our area remains the same - despite budget cuts.

The latest Police update reports that two new PCSOshave recently joined the team PCSO Donella Morahan and PCSO Navdeep Gohsal - welcome to them!

I recently met with Inspector Mackenzie to discuss crime issues in our area and to get an update on action to tackle ant-social behaviour in Northumberland Avenue -something I've been campaigning on for a number of months now.

Inspector Mackenzie reported that the new CCTV installed by the betting shop Corals has had a big impact. It's really encouraging to see local businesses working with the Police, the Council and the community to stamp out anti-social behaviour that had made this area a no-go area for locals.

It's also positive to see the extral patrols by the Police team we called for have led to a reduction in crimes in the area.

The Dispersal Order currently in force around the shops is time-limited - making it even more crucial that the Police and the Council ensure that Northumberland Avenue does not drop off the radar even if crime levels fall. We will be campaigning to ensure that North Whitley continues to get regular patrols and Police attention to help residents go about their daily lives without fear of crime.

Finally, I asked Inspector Mackenzie if there were other emerging issues that residents should be aware of. She mentioned that there had been a spate of thefts from vehicles at the top of North Whitley - around Christchurch Road area. She told me that residents can help reduce the chances of this by removing all personal items from their cars - including and especially SatNavs: a particular targets for thieves.

Obviously the Police can only tackle crime if residents report crimes. Please do report anything untoward you see in this or any other part of the ward or indeed Reading to the Police on 0845 8 505 505. I have reported issues to the Police this way many times - it is quick and easy and I would encourage all residents to use it to help the Police cut crime.

A public meeting is being held by the Whitley North Neighbourhood Police team and Neighbourhood Action Group on 24 November at the South Reading Youth and Community Centre at 7pm. This meeting is open to all and I would encourage any residents with crime concerns to attend.

Tidying up Bede Walk

 
Today I went down to Bede Walk (off Hexham Road) to update residents about the action we had taken to sort out some issues that had been causing them some frustration.

Litter and blocked gullies

Last month residents reported problems of litter and blocked gullies. Reading Borough Council officers have since confirmed to me that Bede Walk will be added to the list of locations on the estate in receipt of enhanced litter picking. They are also investigating the possibility of adding Bede Walk to the gulley clearance contract which will ensure that overgrown vegetation is cut back twice a year

Overgrown trees and litter in the fence
A number of residents complained about the trees on Bede Walk which are reducing light into properties and also blocking the street lights. The trees on the edge of Bede Walk are the responsibility of Reading Girls School.

Over  the past few years we have repeatedly raised the need to prune them with the School. We would like to see the School being much more proactive and diligent in regards to its responsibilities to the neighbourhood.

I recently wrote to the Chair of Governors and former Redlands Labour Councillor Peter Kayes about this issue and to request action by the School. I'm pleased to say the School has responded today to say that a contractor will be trimming the tree line of Bede Walk during the October half term (24-28).

The School’s Facilities Manager has also promised that a litter pick of the area will be carried out by the School following the trim. This is welcome news.

I have written to him about the state of the fence which attracts litter and really needs to be replaced. 

Over the years we have led a number of improvements to Bede Walk including:

• Got the Council to introduce anti-motorcycle barriers to reduce anti-social behaviour
• Got RBC to tackle flooding issues  
• Successfully campaigned for additional street lighting

Today following my visit to the area I have written to officers requesting additional litter bins, a sweep of the gullies (which are full of lives and are at risk of flooding) and calling for action to sort out the overgrown area adjacent to number 31 Bede Walk.

We will continue to campaign all year round to make Bede Walk a pleasant place for residents to live.

News on the University-Hospital area Transport Study

I wanted to update you on the latest news I have about the University-Hospital parking study.

I, along with Cllr Goodall attended a meeting of the steering group yesterday where the following information was made public:-

There were 376 responses to the RBC transport survey: a response rate of 10%.

Therefore, although a relatively high response to a Council transport consultation the views expressed do not reflect the majority of residents living in the area.

92% of respondents were ‘permanent’ residents, 2% were ‘temporary’ residents and 6% were not residents in the area.

47% of the respondents were customers in local shops.
The main frequent travel destination (other than work) was Central Reading as highlighted by 34% of all of the respondents.

9% of all of the respondents travel to London for purposes other than work.

52% of all of the respondents utilised on-street parking within the area.

45% of all of the respondents utilised off-street residential parking within the area.

The most popular bus service was 9/144 as highlighted by 31% of all of the respondents.

Main issue highlighted by 65% of all of the respondents related to on-street parking congestion.

47% of all of the respondents selected ‘Other’. 

The responses of the 47% that selected ‘Other’  of these responses, 37% highlighted parking as an issue.  

122 respondents provided their contact details and indicated that they would like to be part of a neighbourhood working group.
  
RBC will now be setting up resident and stakeholder workshops to start to scope the sort of solutions that residents would like to see put into action. 
 
RBC will also be organising an open public meeting to explore possible solutions to transport problem. 

I will let you know when a date has been agreed.
 
Officers have also been meeting with the hospital and university to talk with them about how they might contribute to solving some of the issues identified by residents. 

This is something we urged officers to do some time ago and we are glad these discussions are continuing.
 
Points to note

So far there has been very little details what any possible schemes might look like or what options they could include.

There was a discussion last night about what it might include - however, due to the Council's protocols I am unable to publish further details.

However, I would encourage residents to keep a close eye on this study as it develops - particularly if they are opposed to the introduction of pay and display/parking meters - something the Lib Dems have long been opposed to in residential areas such as this.

Last night I asked officers if introducing parking meters in the University were part of the Labour administration's plans.

The Labour administration is keen to progress the study and proposals via public meeting/workshops - all part of their 'new approach to consultation', apparently.

To have credibility there must be maximum public involvement as part of this study.

While these are good in principle, I am concerned that not all residents will get to hear about the plans to take part so I have requested that the Council takes advantage of online consultation tools as well.

Any future proposals must not not be forced on residents without their prior consent.

We do not want another Shinfield Road!

We will continue to campaign for maximum public involvement before any decisions are taken or schemes are progressed.

Keeping Erleigh Rd Clean & Tidy

 
We work hard all year round helping to keep Redlands clean and tidy for the benefit of residents.

Earlier this week a constituent contacted me to complain about this eyesore on Erleigh Road.

There is no excuse for people leaving rubbish all over the place like this. It adds to a sense of degradation at local level which we have worked hard over the years to stop and turn around.

However, it is a constant battle - particularly in streets with a high turn over of residents like this one in the University area.

I have written to the Council asking them to contact the property owner directly to clean up this rubbish.

Please let us know of any other problem areas in the ward and we would be happy to raise these with RBC.

"We Need To Talk" Exercise Comes To Redlands

Earlier this week the Council issued a press release about 'a series of consultation workshops spread across the borough begins later this month and marks the next stage in Reading Borough Council's on-going 'We Need To Talk' campaign.'

It continues:

'Residents are being invited to attend one of the events which involve informal, small group activities, designed to tease-out the things that matter most to people in their own communities, the council services that are most valued, and how local people can work with each other and the council to improve the places in which they live.

With public spending being reduced there are difficult budget decisions to be taken over the next few years. It is therefore more important than ever to listen to people's views on how the Council should spend their money.

Feedback from the events will be added to the views that hundreds of residents have already provided via the on-going Council leaflet and website campaign. These will be analysed to identify common themes and the results will be used to help shape council spending decisions that will need to be made over the coming months.

The consultation events have been arranged to ensure everyone in the borough can have easy access to them, with a choice of day-time or evening events in each of the borough's 16 wards.

All residents need to do is to register their interest in the event which suits them best, either by telephoning 0118 937 3783 or on-line at www.reading.gov.uk/letstalkevents, and then turn up on the day to make their views count.

Jon Hartley, Labour Lead Councillor for Service Delivery and Improvement, said:

'These events will play an important part in helping us to gather as many views as possible. We always said we didn't just want this to be a box ticking exercise - this is a new way of engaging with residents and I'd ask as many people as possible to try and find the time to attend.'

Let's hope that Cllr Hartley is right and it isn't a box-ticking exercise.

Labour's track-record to listening to residents in the past is not great ergo the One Way IDR exercise, the introduction of fortnightly bin collections - the list is endless.

For Labour, nine times out of ten 'one-size fits all'.

Labour councillors are promising the earth with this catch-all exercise so it will be interesting to see if it actually changes anything.

We will wait and see before declaring it a success or a failure but at least at the moment it bears all the hall-marks of a top-down exercise driven by the Civic Centre.

Will residents in Redlands be listened to?

How will the Council respond if residents in Redlands have different views to residents in Caversham?

Or residents from Tilehurst disagree with residents in Whitley?

We'll have to wait and see.

We would like to see genuine resident involvement in Reading by this we mean introducing democratic local area committees where local people get to decide what happens in their community.

This already happens in places like Lib Dem-run Eastleigh Borough Council and elsewhere. In Eastleigh residents in different areas set different priorities and as a result they receive different services.

When Labour's "We Need to Talk" plan was launched on 19 they overlooked to involve ward councillors.

A letter from the Chief Executive was dispatched two months later to 'explain' what was intended. Why did this not come from the Leader of the Council?
This tells you all you need to know about how Labour 'run' the Council.

The letter read:

"It is fairly well known that we must reduce our budget by at least 25% over the next few years and we will capture the information we gather from these events to help shape the future of Council services with this backdrop of shrinking resources.  The Council wants residents and customers to help transform the way the Council operates and work together more effectively to respond to views and opinions and ensure Reading continues to be a great place to live.

We are planning to create an informal atmosphere for people to voice their opinions and we also want to help more people to get involved in their neighbourhoods by signposting them to volunteering opportunities or advice that could help develop an idea."

Below are details of events in or near Redlands - please note you need to register in advance - see above:

29 September from 12.30-2.30pm & 7.00-9.00pm at Hamilton Road Children's' Centre, 135 Bulmershe Road, RG1 5SG

29 September from 1.00-3.00pm & 7.00–9.00pm at Cintra Park Pavilion, Cintra Avenue, RG2 7AU

HMOs in Redlands - Public Exhibition to be held in October

Back in July I blogged about plans by the Council's Labour-run administration to consult residents about introducing a possible Article Four direction to potentially limit the number of new Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in the University area, a date has now been set for a public exhibition on the issue in Redlands.

The power that the Council is consulted on is called an Article Four Directive. It would require people to seek planning application in a particular area should they wish to convert it into an HMO.

This event is designed to provide members of the public with more information and to gauge local views towards this proposal.

Councils are required to consult before bringing forward changes to the local planning system such as these.

We would like to encourage as many residents as possible who live in the area to attend.

It will be held in St Joseph's College Annexe on Upper Redlands Road on Thursday 13 October, between 4 and 7.30pm.

Other events are planned in Katesgrove and Park wards.

The Green Party has belatedly come out in strong support of the proposal.

However, this is not a panacea which will fix every problem we face connected with high numbers of HMOs.

It is worth saying that while they could reduce the number of new HMOs that are created in particular streets these powers if brought in could not be used to turn existing HMOs into single-occupancy homes.

Several streets in Redlands the number of HMOs is about to or in some cases already has outnumbered the number of single-occupancy homes and this has long been a source of frustration for residents leaving near by who have struggles with parking and waste-management issue.

This happened after the Labour government failed to act for a number of years to empower councils in place like Reading to address the issue.

As Cllr Tony Page, Labour Lead Member for Planning & Transport recently acknowledged:

"We are committed to seeing what further use we can make of planning powers to ensure whole roads do not become multi-occupied.

"But unfortunately in some areas the horse bolted some years ago - parts of roads off the Oxford Road for example have been majority multi-occupied for 30 or 40 years, as long ago as that, and parts of Redlands and Park near the university."

 I will post more details on the exhibition here when they become available.

Hexham Estate - Community Meetings (5 & 9 September)

Council officers will tomorrow be distributing leaflets about opportunities for residents to have their say over the future of Hexham Road Community Centre and also to hear the findings of a recent survey of residents living on the estate.

Both meetings will be held at the Community Centre.

Meeting Details:
Monday 5th September 7pm-9pm

Friday 9th September 11-1pm

The meetings are being held to discuss:

• Hexham Community Association 15th Anniversity - Find out about the Centre's plans to hold 15 events throughout the next twelve months. Do you have an idea about what one of these events could be? If so come along and let officers and volunteers know. There will also be a discussion about volunteering opportunities at the community centre and current activities being held.
• The results the recent Neighbourhood Management Survey. What do you think about them? Do you have any ideas about how we can use our the Decent Neighbourhood Fund make further improvements to the area?

We would like to encourage as many residents as possible to attend these meetings  to ensure the voices of local people are heard by the Council and so their ideas can be taken forward.

We will be attending as we are keen to hear what local people think about these important issues.

Locally we have led the campaign for improvements on the estate and we will be monitoring closely what the Labour-led Council does to respond to issues raised by residents.

Action on Parking nuisance - Hexham Road & Hadrians Walk West

It has been brought to our attention that some drivers are parking inconsiderately in parts of Hexham estate which is causing a real nuisance for residents. One wrote to us and said: 

'[problems] include on Hexham Road parking all over the pavement which means people cannot get through especially at weekends, at nights and early mornings.'

We have also had reports of up to 6 cars parking 'at all angles' on Hexham Road.

Problems like this can create local tensions so it is important that they are tackled before they become serious problems.

I brought this problem to the attention of the local Neighbourhood Officer Ashley Blackwood last week who has responded by saying where cars can be traced back to properties tenanted by Council tenants tenants will be reminded of section 3.3.22 of their tenancy agreement regarding appropriate places for them to park their vehicles.

'Should they fail to adhere to the terms of my letter I will take the appropriate action to address the breach.'

It is more difficult for officers to take action where cars belong to people living in private rented properties but if problems continue we will encourage them to raise the issue with letting agents.

In Hadrians Walk West residents are reporting cars parking on the grass rather than the road. in addition we have had reports of delivery vehicles from a variety of companies driving along the Walk. Residents are understandably concerned about threats to pedestrian safety.

I have raised these issues with RBC to see what action can be taken.

Due to among other things an increase in rental properties over the years parking is at a premimum on Hexham estate but the Council has worked hard to improve parking for residents following lobbying by ourselves.

If you live in the area and are having problems please do get in touch and we will do our best to help.

Burglaries in Redlands - Update

Since I posted earlier this week about the worrying problem of burglaries in Redlands I have written to residents relaying crime prevention advice and encouraging them to report any concerns to the Police.

Today I received a response from inspector Penny MacKenzie (Neighbourhood Inspector for East & South Reading) to my email:

"In relation to this particular incident our CID team are continuing to conduct a thorough investigation – the really good news is that a man has now been arrested and charged with this offence.

The burglary figures do still cause me some concern and we have tried several crime prevention and reduction initiatives in this and other areas.

Although these initiatives work for a little while, people have busy lives and keeping their things safe is not always first and foremost in their mind.

The two messages you could continue to spread the word about are

Please shut and lock doors and windows, particularly when a house is empty (even if you are only popping to the shops)

Please contact the police, at the time, if you see anyone acting suspiciously."