Credibility & Ethics Vs Securing Finance - CAB Medway & Wonga

I was incredibly shocked and surprised at the news that Medway Citizens Advice Bureau is to receive funding from wonga.com (Yes the 4200% APR villains) towards a survey/enquiry into personal finances and debt in Medway.

Yes in the current climate finding funding must be ever-increasingly difficult and I do empathise with the CAB in regard to this, however money is not simply money, surely it matters where it actually comes from, and in this case money is coming from an incredibly unethical, ruthless capitalist machine that actively and systematically targets the poorest and most vulnerable - people already in a precarious financial position, as potential customers.

CAB is an independent charity and as such, I think they will inevitable lose a fair degree of credibility and respect due to this willingness to take money from such a dubious source, money that ultimately will be partly provided by the very people who come to them for help, in effect this is financial cannibalism as they are feeding on those for whom things are so bad, they need the assistance of the CAB.

This stinks of a slick PR Move from Wonga.com, a business with a poor reputation that receives huge amounts of hostility from the press, from the public and of course from politicians (despite the Conservatives being all-mouth no-trousers on this) and perhaps they see supporting CAB Medway as an opportunity to say "look, we are socially conscious as a company and doing good work with the CAB" and secondly, it could even be implied that they have some sort of endorsement from the CAB.

I anticipate CAB Medway receiving a lot of negative response to this move, and personally I would urge them to rethink this partnership as ultimately it can only be damaging to the CAB to be seen getting involved with such an unscrupulous and unethical company that actively exploits people in financial peril.

Surely for the CAB, acting with integrity, being socially-conscious and ensuring funding comes only from suitable sources ought to be a priority. Surely no funding at all is better than funding from dubious providers?

Millions wasted yet Medway Tories planning a public-funded jolly-up

Over recent times we have witnessed repeated incidents of gross mismanagement of fiscal matters by the Conservative-Run council here in Medway.

We have seen an unwanted bus-station, a project the public are hugely critical of cost millions of pounds and indeed be vastly over budget, £2m is a conservative figure as to the current overspend.

We have seen the Stoke Crossing, another project received with scepticism by residents and parish councillors and indeed another project grossly over budget, £1.2m is the figure mentioned.

We have seen the council fritter away a huge sum of money (£350k) due to photocopier contract cancellation issues and then of course there is the catastrophic amount of money involved in the "Woodlands school scandal" which runs into £1.2m or so.

Here we have completely avoidable wastage of public money, a waste of some £4,750,000 which is an absolute disgrace. Questions would be asked and people held accountable you would imagine but no, this is Medway, and unfortunately the Tory administration is a mutual back-patting society who all compliment each other on a job well-done regardless of abject failure and mismanagement.

With this in mind, I am livid to hear that Medway Tories are planning on a tax-payer funded celebration for the new mayor, a ceremonial position that has been shamefully politicised by the administration. This comprises of a ceremony in Rochester Cathedral followed by a meal in the Corn-Exchange which I very much doubt will consist of ham egg & chips and a glass of water. Make no odds about it, this will not come cheap.

These Tories will have their noses firmly in the trough whilst local residents see this as having their noses rubbed in the dirt.

This administration has decided to privatise valuable care-home facilities despite obvious private-sector failings and of course the absolute sham of a consultation (Jarrett had budgeted for this before consultation had closed) which overwhelmingly showed that Medway said NO to these proposals.

We are seeing job-cuts at Medway Council, good hard-working public-sector employees who are losing their jobs as a direct result of the fiscal mismanagement that has gone on under Conservative rule.

We are witnessing cuts to frontline services, cuts to services which will inevitably have a negative impact on some of the most vulnerable people in Medway.

I mean for crying out loud, apparently they can longer afford road-signs. Clearly finances are in a very very bad way for Medway Council so the question resident want answered is.............

Why should the tax-payer fund a nice Jolly-Up for the very same people who have systematically wasted and mismanaged public money???

Medway Labour Group has decided to boycott these celebrations and rightly so. This action is to be commended and is a key indication of how Labour in Medway act in the best interests of the people, not what best serves themselves. Everyone is partial to a free knees-up at sometime in there life it could be argued, but by boycotting these celebrations the Labour Council Members are showing great integrity, but most importantly empathy with Medway people who are seeing public money mismanaged and wasted whilst their own finances are stretched by this incompetent coalition. They are witnessing key services and facilities sold-off to private companies or savagely cut by the administration.

OK so the cabinet are all in league, but what about the back-benchers? Well, this is the Conservatives we are talking about, they vote as one, and and sit still nodding when told to do so. They are frankly gutless, any fool can see the mismanagement, can see the antiquated old-boys club the administration is, yet not one will stand-up, speak out or offer any sort of challenge or criticism to their senior members. 

This is plainly wrong, a councillor should serve Medway residents as best as they can, representing their best interests, yet the Conservatives do not, they tread the party line, do as they are told, and to hell with what is in the best interests of Medway, as long as they do what Chambers, Jarrett & Co want them to do all is well.

There must surely be Conservative Councillors who can see these celebrations are an insult to the tax-payer yet they remain silent, failing their constituents to safeguard their position in their party-group.

These celebrations will surely see eyebrows raised amongst the local media. I also imagine there will be a presence on the day in question acting in protest at what is a vulgar and distasteful waste of money at a time when we are told the purse is empty when it comes to road repairs, street signs, service funding and green-space improvement.

I hope that even just one Conservative member has the conscience, the personal quality and the integrity to realise this and also boycott or speak out against this celebration.

I will also be interested to see the Liberal Democrat position on this matter.

Luton Millenium Green - The tragic decline of a valuable facility

Luton Millennium Green, which is located via the top of Albany Road, Luton, and via Shipwrights Avenue is an expansive open-space in the middle of a densely populated area. It has been a popular facility and was well-loved and well-used by communities from both Luton and the Shipwrights areas along with walkers who would access via the coney/daisy banks. It was a wonderful facility with a nice children's play area and it was indeed something local residents could be proud of.

The years have gone by however and now, this facility is in a state of ruin, it is simply tragic to see how a once greatly used, and well-loved facility has been effectively abandoned (with the exception of simple grass-cutting and litter clearance) and been allowed to go to waste.



Charred Remains Of Children's Play Area


The picture on the left is what remains of the children's play area. Destroyed soft-matting with the footings for the long-gone play equipment still in place, charred from the fires started on it by people who have seen it abandoned, and in a typical-case of "broken window syndrome" see fit to vandalise what is already damaged and left totally unfixed. Neglect, abandonment, and failure to repair is proven to directly lead to further destruction and damage.

Further evidence of the decline of this much needed open-space is pictured below. When you enter the site the first thing that greets you is the seriously damaged signage. I find this particularly saddening as the first thing you are reminded of when entering the site is the neglect it has suffered just by seeing this rather pitiful looking sign.



 Damaged Signage At The Millennium Green



Fly Tipping  At The Millennium Green

There are issues with fly-tipping. 90% of the time when I go for a walk there, I find tyres discarded across the site, there are sofas, carpets and other household detritus scattered about the place and in the bushes on a terribly regular basis and once again, this is directly linked to the abandonment of the site and the way it has been allowed to decline. If people see it being used as a dump, why should they be concerned if they do the same as in their minds, there must be the thought that it has been given-up on long ago.



Other Problems noted in the area include anti-social behaviour and underage drinking from groups of youths, drug-use and drug-dealing (unverified by me personally), and vandals attempting to set-fire to benches within the grounds.

It is an absolute tragedy that a valuable and much-loved facility like this has been allowed to decline to this state, and indeed been allowed to remain as such

With this in mind, at full council last night (26/04/12) I asked the portfolio holder in question, Cllr Howard Doe what the legal status of the site is, and as a supplementary question, what the councils intentions are with regard to the site, indeed asking whether they would take steps towards the restoration of this facility to its former glory.

Cllr Doe clarified the current legal status (the council are not directly responsible as they do not own the lease but do undertake basic maintenance) but did mention that they are looking at various options in terms of acquiring responsibility for what he acknowledged is a site in need of attention. He added that finances are tight, which we all know, and that things have to be evaluated and prioritised accordingly, he did however say that it has not been forgotten, The Millennium Green is on their radar as it were, and that they are looking into it.

My view is that this is a valuable facility in one of the most deprived areas of Medway where residents have a generally poorer health-profile and lower life-expectancy than in more affluent wards. To me, the restoration of this facility would get people using it again, like it was when it was initially constructed, it will get families taking the children to the park, children playing in the fresh-air and getting exercise as opposed to playing the latest computer game, and importantly, it will send a message to the 2 communities this facility bridges that the council does care about the deprived wards as well as their own controlled wards, and that the council is interested in carrying out work which will directly benefit those communities as at the moment, residents of these communities feel as if they consistently get a rough-deal from the council when it comes to deployment of resources.

I will continue to use the facility and of course monitor developments as they progress.



Council job-losses courtesy of fiscal mismanagement

It was with a heavy heart that I heard today's news that Medway Council are to cut a further 70 jobs as part of cost-cutting measures on-top of the 150 jobs cut just 5 months ago.

Recently we have seen a scandalous £1.8m (and still rising) overspend on the Dynamic Bus Facility and Regeneration of Chatham, and also a £1.2m overspend on the so-called "bridge to nowhere" at the Stoke railway crossing.

That is 3 MILLION POUNDS over-budget on just 2 projects. It is unforgivable that such bungling goes on, and even more so that those responsible are protected by their gutless back-benchers who do and say what they are told to do by their cabinet colleagues.

How many jobs have been lost as a direct result of this poor financial management?

How many jobs could have been saved if these headline projects and other departments were better run?

What line of spin will the ruling group put on this latest calamity to blemish their record?

It is not good enough, its as simple as that. If these people were employed in the private-sector and showed such failure in their role they would be fired, and they would struggle to gain new employment with such a failure on their CV, but thanks to the Tory clique of mutual back-patters and nodding-dogs nothing will be done, no-one will be taken to task, and the same mistakes will inevitably be allowed to happen until 2015 at the earliest.

You only have to look at Cllr Les Wicks to see how dysfunctional the Conservative group actually is. The man is a walking disaster, everything he touches turns to dust, yet he retains a cabinet position.

What is it David Cameron said? "We are in this together" wasn't it? Well try telling that to the latest 70 people who will been told they are losing their jobs.

If only these Tories looked after the public and best interests of Medway as well as they look after each others backs................

Roads to Ruin - My Take.

A familiar scene on the roads for Medway residents

The above picture is one of a scene I stumble, or rather rumble across many times a day. Medway has a vast proportion of roads in a state of abject disrepair and by-and-large nothing is seemingly done about it other than occasional quick patch-up jobs that last no time at all.

I would be interested to know exactly what the relevant contractor charges per-hole and then in certain roads that look like absolute patchworks, measured against the cost of resurfacing the roads as a whole.

Potholes like the above are to be found everywhere. I took the above picture in Mountbatten Avenue, Wayfield, and the road was appallingly bad. There were deep potholes everywhere, multiple potholes within inches of each other, and the picture above shows how the road itself is literally crumbling away around these holes.



Further holes and road-surface breaking-up in Wayfield area

This is not isolated, drive around roads in the same locality and you are greeted with exactly the same scene, along with various patches of part-repaired road surface.

I know that previously Cllr Phil Filmer has spoke of funding to repair pot-holes, but this is not the answer. These roads cannot be sustained by simple patch-ups, there are roads all over Medway in urgent need of resurfacing and action is required. Also there are many scheduled works that have not been completed.

Does Cllr Filmer not realise that repairing 10,000 potholes (as recently quoted) is a short-term quick-fix that will not make the problem go away? Temporary repairs are a quick and cheaper alternative yes, but they are more costly in the long term and there are roads in need of urgent resurfacing where this quick-fix approach just simply will not do.

Roads like the above are a danger to car drivers, cyclists and motorcyclists and can cause significant damage to both vehicles and passengers, for example broken suspension, buckled wheels, and for bicycle and motorcycle users there is the real risk of being dismounted. Local garages (and my family own one) are seeing so many repairs due to pothole damage, repairs to potentially dangerous faults, indeed one lady's front near-side suspension had completely collapsed as a result of hitting a particularly bad pothole.

Questions really do need to be asked of the council as to what exactly they plan to do about this. Yes money is tight, yes times are hard, but to be £1.2m over budget on a single bridge, and with the ever-increasing overspend on the regeneration of Chatham and its "Dynamic Bus Facility" it has to be asked why the council consistently cannot deliver on-budget projects, and why money is available for big headline projects of questionable necessity when fundamental matters like ensuring roads are safe and well-maintained seems to be pushed down the list of priorities.

It has been mentioned previously that because of overspends elsewhere, it seems the budget for highways has simply been reduced to accommodate those overspends.

All the time there seems to be a wall of silence from the council over resurfacing and repair of roads. Residents have mentioned that they have reported these problems and yet been offered no timescale whatsoever as to if and when their roads will be repaired.

During the ten minutes I was taking photographs in Wayfiled I was approached 3-times (they thought I was a council surveyor finally doing something) by people wanting to talk to me on the subject, and they were all speaking along the same lines when they said they had been fobbed-off, and furthermore that they feel if they lived in the Tory Utopia of Wigmore & Hempstead or another more shall we say "prestigious" ward the roads would never be allowed to get this bad, and if required repairs or resurfacing would be promptly arranged.

Full Council is next Thursday, I wonder if this subject will be bought-up, and indeed what response the council will offer to what is becoming a serious, and ever-increasing problem within Medway.

Luton & Wayfield Community First Panel

The Luton & Wayfield Community Panel has now been established. We have funding of £80,000 available to be allocated to local groups and projects within the ward.

A set of group priorites has been established by the panel and we welcome applications which fit atleast one of the panels priorities as follows.

1) Enhance the health profile of residents of Luton & Wayfield

2) Bring different communities within the ward closer together

3) Increase the range of activities available for young people

4) Steps to reduce the effects of anti-social behaviour

Groups/Projects are able to apply for between £250-£2500 once a year and applications will then be assessed and decided on by the panel members, who are local ward councillors and local community members.

Anything which does work towards improvements in the community can only be a good thing in my eyes, so if anyone is involved or knows anyone involved in a group or project who would benefit from funding spread the word about this available funding and help make improvements to our community!!!

For more information or application form please email: luton-wayfield.medway@hotmail.com

See our panel website at http://luton-wayfield.posterous.com/



CCTV Victory for Luton Residents

Delayed news yes, but I am very pleased to write about the great success in receiving the £20,000 funding required for 3 new CCTV cameras plus a remote hub for the cameras in the Luton Rd area.

I have since spoken to many local residents and businesses and they are universally pleased to hear that this CCTV is to be installed.

As previously blogged, I felt this was an essential investment in community safety in what is one of Medway's most deprived areas, and a road in which crime and anti-social behaviour are rife despite what official statistics may say due to a culture of non-reporting as criminal acts and general yobbish behaviour had become so frequent, it was a non-event, something completely day-to-day and therefore begrudgingly accepted in a way by the community.

Although this matter only recently went public, it has been being worked-on for some time. Our local Labour ward councillors had been consulting and working with residents, PACT's and local businesses for some 3 months and had applied for funding some time ago which was initially warmly received but ultimately was refused, subsequently a priority funding bid was awaiting decision.

Once this matter was made public via a twitter exchange initially and local press interest became apparent, Cllr Mike O'Brien - Portfolio holder for community safety, got quickly involved and as regular readers will know rapidly established a meeting with me to discuss this matter, a meeting which ultimately proved very fruitful as immediately afterwards, he looked into this and approached finance chief Cllr Alan Jarrett to request that this funding be made available.

Cllr O'Brien stated that "Sometimes you need to do what you think is right" and in this instance that has been the case. It was nice that we could put our different party politics put aside for a moment and as people from opposing political positions do something for a deprived community that can only be a good thing for the area.

This victory is a shining example of how the hard-work of ward councillors and socially-conscious community activists/campaigners can work together, and work hard to serve their community, and ultimately achieve improvements to the area in question.

I shall look forward to continuing to work for the betterment of our community with my colleagues on the Community-First Panel and of course wherever possible, on any campaigns with our ward councillors.

A big "Thank You!" to all involved with this matter.

(Copyright for article above belongs to Medway Messenger Newspaper)