Thanks for logging on! Have a look at the blogs and let me know what you think. You can do that by making comments direct on the blogs or you can email or  telephone me direct.

If you would like a chat face to face I have confidential ”drop in surgeries”  in Knaresborough Library as follows

Saturday 28 January 10-11am

Saturday 25 February 10-11am

Saturday 31 March 10-11am

Saturday 28 April 10-11am

Also see my latest update (13 September 2011) on the Allerton Waste Proposal planning application. The latest estimated date for the planning application to be considered is in May or June this year.

Please note that the North Yorkshire County Council have set up a web page for the waste proposal planning application process. All documents may be found there. The address is :-www.northyorks.gov.uk/allertonwrp  

Bedale Bypass £14M shock
Two weeks ago the Department for Transport(DFT) announced that North Yorkshire County Council Taxpayers would have to find at least £14M to build a bypass to Bedale Aiskew and Leeming Bar (BALB).

Liberal Democrats at County Hall have always opposed the BALB bypass bid which originally committed the Council to between £6M and £15M cost but has met with a Government that is determined to continue to move the goal posts at every turn.

The main change that rang alarm bells was in April 2011 when the DFT withdrew the “safety net” that would underwrite half of any overrun of costs up to a certain level.

This meant that although the minimum of £6M would remain any under spends would have to be borne by the County Council tax payers which meant that the top price of £15M became £30M overnight.

In view of this the Liberal Democrats at County Hall asked that the Council “throw in the towel” rather than risk taxpayers money on what at best was a marginal scheme. However the Tory led Executive decided to continue with what had now become a high risk project.

The latest move by DFT is to reduce their grant so that the amount to be found by the County Council is increased to a minimum of £14M+ the costs of any overruns

The County Council has until the end of January 2012 to decide whether to accept the revised offer or abandon the scheme.

At the Full Council meeting on the 14 December Cllr Bill Hoult the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats at County hall made this plea to the Executive “Please do not  saddle the County Council tax payers for years with such an enormous debt, particularly in the uncertain financial future that we face.”

Lib Dem Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has outlined a £1 billion pound Youth Contract to tackle youth unemployment. The aim is to ensure that all jobless young people are earning or learning again before long-term damage is done.

• Over three years, the Youth Contract will provide at least 410,000 new work places for 18 to 24 year olds into work. Starting April 2012
• Including 160,000 wage subsidies and 250,000 new work experience placements.
• In addition, there will be at least 20,000 more incentive payments to encourage employers to take on young apprentices.
• A new programme to help the most disengaged 16 and 17 year olds – getting them back to school or college, onto an apprenticeship or into a job with training.

The proposal by Harrogate Borough Council to sanction over 700+ houses on Greenfield next to the Eastfield Estate has been delayed as a resul;t of the huge number of objections received from the public on the Local Development Framework. The new timetable has been delayed by 5 months with a report to be submitted to Councillors in July rather than March 2012 as originally proposed.

I welcome the delay as the proposals as put out for consultation have generated a considerable amount of opposition, certainly here in Knaresborough. It is gobsmacking that the Tories are proposing to allow the building of more houses and extend the Eastfield estate to a level in excess of that kicked out last time by the Inspector. The other point is that currently builders are just not building on currently approved sites simply because they cannot sell houses at this time.

The application to erect a 14metre high mast on Aspin Lane has been refused by Harrogate Planners. The reasons follow:-

For your information after considering the proposal the Borough Council’s decision was to Refuse the proposal for the following reason(s):

1. The proposed telecommunication installation by reason of its design, siting and height will unreasonably detract from the visual amenity of the locality, the general amenity of neighbouring play and recreation areas and the residential amenity of nearby dwellings such as to reduce the level of residential amenity that any occupier of those dwellings would reasonably expect to enjoy.  The proposal is therefore contrary to Policies EQ2 and SG4 of the Harrogate District Core Strategy and Saved Policies CF10 and HD20 of the Harrogate District Local Plan.

2. The proposal would unduly encroach into the footway and be likely to cause pedestrians to the use the vehicular carriageway to the detriment of pedestrian safety.

3. The proposed development when being installed and maintained would lead to parked vehicles obstructing the junction of Aspin Lane and Aspin Way to the detriment of highway safety.

Introduction

A recent uproar over the Alzheimers Society’s decision to close a day centre in Stokesley raises all sorts of issues in North Yorkshire in regard to the future funding of Social Services. Fortunately the day centre has received emergency funding to stay open until the end of the financial year (April 2012) which is welcome but merely a stop gap measure.

The real problem is that the North Yorkshire County Council has taken the decision not to provide “Core Contracts” for day care and move to what is known as “personal budgets”

Core Contracts
Core Contracts have been provided for those residents with an assessed need for day care and voluntary bodies such as the Alzheimers charity were given contracts over say a three year period to provide day care, transport also being financed by the County Council. Under this system the “core” finance was provided for each day care scheme whether or not those assessed as needing it turned up or not. With this system the “core costs” of the service were provided by the contract and the provider also had the option of encouraging others who had sufficient means to pay for the service (self funders) to use day care. In this way the providers were able to cost the service and ensure that it was viable.

Personal Budgets
With personal funding, which is a Government driven approach each client is provided with an individual “budget” to deal with their assessed needs and has the freedom to purchase different types of care, for instance individual support, drop in centres etc., rather than always going to day care. The problem for the day care providers is that if clients choose not to use the service or use it intermittently they do not receive income for that session; the result being that the service can quickly become loss making due to staffing and accommodation costs. 

The Future
There are ways and means of encouraging day care provision under personal budgets but it does depend on the provider being guaranteed an income to provide the service (day care in this case) as no one can continue to run at a loss.

I fear that this will mean a decline in day care provision across the County Council (not just restricted to dementia sufferers) but to others who have special needs.

Benefit or Disadvantage?
This is difficult to judge. The claim is that personal budgets give choice to individuals to spend their benefit in the way that serves them best. On the down side if day care is not financially viable it can be seen that one element of choice has been lost.

What do You think? Please have your say by clicking on the “comment” button at the head of this article.

Liberal Democrats in North Yorkshire support the County Council’s aims  to improve participation by young people. To encourage that  the Young People’s Scrutiny Committee is making contact with the 16 Youth Councils across North Yorkshire.  Each youth council is made up of young people from across their local area and there is a County Youth Council made up of representatives from the area youth councils.  The youth councils meet to discuss and act on issues that matter to young people.  Recent topics have included healthy eating, first aid training, access to affordable transport, and a young carer’s card. 

Cllr Keith Barnes (Lib Dem member of the Scrutiny Committee) says. “It’s not about sitting around boardroom tables and always being serious.  What it is about is:

having your voice heard
getting involved
influencing things for the better
contributing to your local community

As a youth councillor you meet and deal with all kinds of people.  You get to speak up aboout your local area,  lots of planning and decisions to make, fun trips away, events to go to and speak at, radio broadcasts and lots more.’ 

For more information Google ‘Yorkshire Youth Councils’. ” 
 

Cllr Keith Barnes

Deputy Prime Minister addresses the Party Conference in Birmingham. You can read the full text of the speech here.

Thousands of Liberal Democrats gathered for their annual conference in Birmingham this week. They discussed what has been achieved in the first 500 days of Government and policies for the future. Highlights include:

• After decades of campaigning, and thanks to Lynne Featherstone: Equal marriage, straight or gay.
• More power for consumers over the energy companies
• Calling time on rewards for failure in boardrooms
• New powers to turn empty homes back into family homes.
• A £500m investment in growth.

The Lib Dems are opposing calls for an immediate cut in the 50% tax rate paid by higher rate taxpayers.

Nick Clegg’s party instead wants to give more help to those on middle and low incomes who need it the most.

NIck Clegg: We need fairer taxes to help ordinary people, not tax cuts for the richest

Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said, “At a time when the whole country faces serious financial challenges, the priority needs to be people on low and middle incomes.”

A key part of the coalition agreement was the Lib Dem commitment to making taxes fairer. The Lib Dems are well on their way to delivering on their pledge that no one should pay tax on the first £10,000 they earn.

Nearly a million low paid workers are no longer paying income tax thanks to this. All basic rate tax payers are paying £200 less in income tax.

Each year more and more people on low and middle incomes will gain more thanks to the Lib Dem fairer tax plan.

Danny Alexander said, “Fairer taxes is our goal. I don’t see why, in the next parliament, we shouldn’t be trying to get to a situation where people in a full-time job on the minimum wage are paying no income tax at all.”

This would mean that no one would pay tax on the first £12,500 they earn.