Posts from — March 2008

The parliamentary decision on post office closures was close but hardly surprising that it went the way of the Government despite a rebellion by quite a few Labour MPs.

So, that means 2500 fewer POs countrywide and, in turn, a substantial number of the closures are likely to be across Staffordshire. It is a difficult one… Post Office Ltd needs to be efficient and good value for money for the tax payer bearing in mind the £100million plus it is subsidised by.

But, what is being missed is the importance of the local post offices as far as social interaction is concerned. Elderly people and those without transport in rural areas see the ‘village’ post office as an important meeting place as well as somewhere to use services which without it would mean a long trip using ‘non existent’ public transport.

It’s all about knowing when the cost (within reason) is worth the status quo and in a large number of cases across the UK (and Staffordshire) that is probably not taken into account, instead being sacrificed to plug holes in areas of financial waste which themselves should be addressed.

When the local post office goes it is likely to mean the end of the local village shop either directly or indirectly and the £100million pounds it costs to subsidise local POs is a tiny amount of money in the bigger scheme of things nationally. Less than a day of the cost of the Iraq, Iran conflict for this country and, probably, a small amount compared to the ceremonial side of Parliament.

But, to a lot of people, the local post office and shop is important. The County Council could, itself, have followed the lead of Essex and one or two other UK counties by finding ways of making local, and particularly rural, post offices more sustainable by providing more public services through them. But it is principally a rural issue so the Labour Party at County aren’t really too bothered.

As well as being socially important I think local post offices are a tradition of rural communities in this country. We are pretty quick to get rid of those but a little slower to get rid of other things which most people aren’t bothered about but, for what ever reason, are gold plated and ring fenced.

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The ongoing saga around Labour’s proposals to sell off almost all of the County owned farms in Staffordshire has taken a new twist this week.

It all started back in August as the County Council’s appalling financial position became even clearer. With Labour’s back firmly against the wall after years of bad management and questionable political leadership of the County, plans for the sell off of public assets started to emerge as clear Labour policy. The farm sell off was the latest attempt to grab £100million in an effort to plug their growing financial black hole.

But no sooner had the Labour leadership kicked off their plans they ran into difficulty when we won a crucial vote at committee, supported unexpectedly by Labour back benchers. Since then they’ve been on the back foot with Tories continuing to point out the many flaws in their sell off proposals and an extraordinarily biassed and misleading ‘consultation’ on them.

The final straw for their ill advised plans came after a public meeting packed with farmers and NFU representatives at the County Showground near Stafford. It was fronted for Labour by the County’s Deputy Leader, Robert Simpson and served as further evidence that their proposals were running out of steam.

That was in December and the culmination, then and since, of public opinion, political pressure from us and a continued lack of general direction in the County Council led to this week’s decision by the Labour Cabinet to U-turn on the original intention to sell almost all the farms.

Instead, a much more sensible future for County farms is now on the table meaning they will continue to provide significant annual income to the County and a potentially valuable contribution to the rural economy. It’s a good outcome so I’ll forgive the extraordinary spin Labour’s spin doctors have put on their backtrack this week!

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Today, my first bike ride into the patch since the end of summer last year confirmed my suspicions that it wouldn’t be quite as easy as it was back then.

I used the bike a lot last summer but despite my visits to the gym over the winter the hills on the 19 mile round trip to Fazeley seemed to have grown particularly steeply in the last six months. But at least that’s the first one of the year out the way and, actually, although a bit cold it was satisfying.

Time is usually the problem because a 20 minute car journey is nearly an hour on the bike but after a few more decent trips out I’m determined to tackle the 50 mile round trip to Stafford when I can make the time. Beats going to the gym though… I really don’t enjoy that!!

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The County’s latest policy document setting out how alcohol and drug abuse will be tackled across Staffordshire does little to convince me it will make a significant difference.

Now, to be fair, the issue is not easy to deal with… across the entire country we are witnessing an explosion of anti social behaviour, thuggery and violence, much of it down to excessive alcohol consumption and drug abuse. I’d like to say the County is taking a robust approach, but it is not.

It’s not joined up. There’s little evidence of a tangible link in approach between different departments such as Education, Youth Offending Teams, Youth Service, Police and the NHS. One of the problems in two tier local government areas (County Council with local councils) is that it is the local councils across the county which are responsible for Licensing.

Talking to police, I’m unconvinced that the Government’s change to 24 hour drinking has had the effect they hoped it would and whether it has or hasn’t the whole issue around problems associated with drunkenness need a joined approach with local councils and their Licensing Panels. One of the many things the County’s latest plan does not have.

As I said, this is a tough nut to crack and that’s why County Conservatives are developing a suite of new ideas using all the agencies linked to this agenda to achieve a more coherent approach. Watch this space.

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Because we live in a rural village with fields and woods all around we get all sorts of birds and animals in the garden.

Pheasants are regular visitors at this time of year… normal brightly coloured reddy brown male birds and dull grey females wandering around the garden pecking at the ground and occasionally squawking their familiar kwok-kwok noise.

But the last few days we’ve had a rather more exotic looking visitor making its presence known with regular and much louder than normal kwoking noises. Still clearly a pheasant but this one is a vivid green colour with speckles similar to a peacock and the traditional long tail feathers.

Certainly seems to be pretty comfortable in its surroundings if the amount of seed its eating is anything to go by. Nothing about it in the normal bird books I looked in but a quick look on the web revealed it to be a Green Pheasant (the clue’s in the colour!!) which also happens to be Japan’s national bird.

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