My week ahead, 31 March - 6 April 2014

Monday – 31 March, 6pm Labour campaigning

Tuesday – 1 April, 8am, Start of a march from Ipswich (Tory MP Ben Gummer office) to Norwich, to protest about cuts to Mental Health services

Thursday – 3 April, 6pm, Ipswich Labour Party meeting

Saturday 5 April, 10am – Labour campaigning – South West Ipswich

A superb Saturday, (other than a mistake of a re-tweet by myself giving local Tories an opportunity to have a go at me) starting in the morning at Cherry Lane Recreation where we had the ‘Grand Opening’ of the new play area by the Mayor of Ipswich. The project had taken over two years and the final result was thanks to all the hard work put in by local residents with Jim Jenner leading the project and with the great support he received by Sam and Ipswich Parks team. It was also good to see so many local councillors at the opening, money had come from County Councillors plus a large grant from the North East Area Committee and these grants then enabled to get match funding from Viridor (land fill tax).

I hope the success of this project and the ability to gain match funding will show those within the Tory Group that area committees can gain far more for their communities than the old area forums or by just giving each councillor a small locality budget. The opening was attended by 5 of the Tory Group so let’s hope in the next municipal year they decide to work with us on the area committee action plans rather than sniping from the side. By attending yesterday they should be now have no doubt the good work that an area committee can achieve. The other good news about yesterday was that the event was attended by a couple from the West of the town who are now attempting to repeat the success of Jim and his team on a park in Castle Hill.

On Tuesday, I will be at the office of Ben Gummer to see the start of a march to Norwich, to protest about cuts to Mental Health services in both Suffolk and Norfolk. I wonder if Ben will be there?

My week ahead, 30 September - 6 October 2013

Monday 30 September, 4pm – Culture portfolio meeting
6pm – Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich

Thursday 3 October, 7pm – St Clements Hospital Housing development, Public meeting – Ramsey and Robson room at St Clements

Saturday 28 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

This week it seems we will see a number of Tory proposals emitting from their annual conference – and seems many are being rushed out- why? Because the Tories seem rattled by the performance of Ed Miliband last week. The first two announcements seem to have been met by a luke warm response from both the media and the public.

Even there Lib Dem coalition partners are not happy with announcement of tax breaks for married couples.

Back here in Ipswich local Tories were interviewed by Radio 4 as our town is significant marginal seta. The two senior Ipswich Tories interviewed gave very different answers, Former Councillor and Tory Chair, Gavin Maclure is no longer a Cameron fan and would like to see him go, whilst former Tory leader Liz Harsant would be happy to see a further Tory/Lib Dem coalition! I would think that is not a view held by Gavin or many other Ipswich Tories, and nationally a recent survey indicated that the vast majority of Tory councillors (those who replied) would like to see an election pact with UKIP.

This indicates tow points, for all his attempts to take the central ground, Cameron still leads a party whose activists would rather a more right wing stance and secondly when it comes to politics many Tory councillors will see self-interest above party policy and the proposed UKIP pact is more about saving their own skins than helping Cameron.

On Thursday we have a public meeting to be held at St Clements to give residents a chance to listen to the NHS present their proposals for the hospital site. Their recent submitted planning application proposes that 227 housing units will be built on the site.

The public meeting has been organised and hosted by the North East Area Committee, a number of Tory councillor have admitted (in private) that the committees are an improvement on the 'old‘’ Area Forums – this public meeting just another example of the good work the committee has done – wonder if it was now time that the Tories stopped their public opposition to Area Committees and started working with all Ipswich Councillors to promote the benefits of Area Committees to their constituents.

Campaigning continues, even though the is it is now getting dark earlier, two highlights of campaigning this week were yesterday in Holywells where a 19 year old informed me that he would be voting for the first time next year and it would be for Labour after being inspired by what Ed Miliband had to say last week in Brighton. The second highlight was a conversation on the doorstep in Rushmere when a family they would always vote Labour as their parents had informed them when they were made homeless from their home in Wherstead Road in the 1920’s and the family were just left sitting by the road it was only the Labour Party who came forward to help them. Some things never change!

My week ahead 16 -22 January 2012

Monday 16 January 2pm - North East Partnership Meeting

4pm - Culture Portfolio meeting

6pm - Meeting on Youth Provision on Rushmere Estate

Wednesday 18 January 5.30pm - Elections working group

Thursday 19 January 6pm - Scrutiny Meeting, Grafton House

Saturday 21 January 1030am - Labour Campaigning South Ipswich

This week we had our first Area Committee, the main aim of the Committee idea is to get more resident participation that we did have with the Area Forums.

Now only one resident turned up on Wednesday and she lived in the South East! Tory bloggers have jumped on this to say that Area Committee's are a failure.

The first committee meeting was to elect the chair and work out what we hope to achieve. So we were not expecting a large number of residents to turn up. The success of the Committee's will be down to how uch effort all councillors put into promoting the idea. the good thing is that the Tories on the council seem keen to get them working pity they can't get that message over to their fellow Tories who blog- the three who are so negative, one is an ex councillor and the other two are hoping to be candidates in May.

I have no doubt that they will be a great success and by the end of the Summer the resident participation will be far greater than the forums ever had.

The next North East Area Committee will be held on the 20th March and though the venue is to be confirmed it will be back in the North East of the town

My week ahead 28 November - 3 December

My week ahead 28 November - 3 December

Monday 28 November 9am - Radio interview ICR

Tuesday 29 November 5pm - School Governors Meeting, Sidegate Primary School
7.30pm - Suffolk Fabians Meeting, Citizens Advice Bureau

Thursday 1 December 6pm - Councillor training, Grafton House

Saturday 3 December 10.30am - Campaigning in North Ipswich

The highlight of my week was on Tuesday when I attended the launch of 'Labour Friends of the Forces' at the House of Commons and it was an honour to be chosen to be the advocate for the Eastern Region. I have already had some good conversations with Labour colleagues from Cambridge and Colchester about the way ahead.




This week we have had a number of senior Tories (with support from Lib Dem Cllr Ken Bates) moaning about the possible loss of the area forums - possibly to be replaced by area committees. These committees would have real power and also possibly a small budget. So strange the Tories so against it when they were so keen on locality budgets. The Tories talk about there being no consultation, in the North East of Ipswich we had a partnership meeting where the Area committees were discussed - guess what? None of the five Tory councillors turned up!

Taking Decision Making Closer to the People

The Tory/Lib Dem coalition talk about their 'localism' agenda, but in reality all we have seen is Eric Pickles telling councils when they must empty their bins, or on the other hand we are told 'localism' will mean more say for communities but in reality again it means we will allow developers able to build what they want, where they want.

In Ipswich we have for a number of years tried to enable the local community to have more say in local decisions, we currently have area forums, these have had success in getting information over to local residents but they have not had any real power. Councillors have attended but not been put in a position where they can answer to the public for the deeds they have carried out. There has been money available to each forum area but both local councillors or residents have had no real say in how that is spent. Ipswich Labour had seen the influence of the forums wane under the last Tory administration where it seemed the power just sat in the hands of one person- not even the leader but John Carnall.

We have now started changing that, we have already seen the all party working groups have their first meetings, the one I attended worked well. It gave backbench councillors an opportunity to have a say in policy, and that was backbench councillors from all 3 party's. It was then slightly disappointing that the Tories did not attend two of the working groups.

Labour are keen to hear what local residents think about these new proposals, including area forums being replaced by area committees -Here is the statement from IBC.


Ipswich Borough Council is looking at ways of moving power closer to the people through an ambitious programme to give communities a real say.

"We are looking at options for devolving decision-making to the local level," says the Leader of the Council, Councillor David Ellesmere.

"This would involve ward councillors working with community groups, businesses and residents on a wide range of services, based geographically on the five existing forum areas.

"In order to deliver this, we have published for consultation a paper entitled 'Taking decision-making closer to the people'."
Among its key proposals are:

Developing local Area Committees to devolve specific powers to ward councillors.
Giving councillors more opportunities to be informed by residents and users on how services can be improved through Panels.
Giving backbench councillors a role in developing policies and advising the Executive on its forward plans through active Working Groups.
Making better use of new technology including websites, social networking and Twitter; to reach and engage new people and improve services.
Reducing the number of other meetings that take place, as we seek to focus decision and policy making in these new and cost effective bodies.

Councillor Ellesmere added: "I believe these changes could make a real difference to how Ipswich is run. They would enable councillors of all political parties to take a more active part in the running of the council and better able to represent their constituents."
More information is available in the report Taking Decision Making Closer to the People. Comments must be received by 11th November 2011 and should be submitted by email to areacommittees@ipswich.gov.uk or by post to:

Councillor David Ellesmere
Ipswich Borough Council
Grafton House
15-17 Russell Road
Ipswich
IP1 2DE