My week ahead 22 - 28 July 2013

Monday 22 July – 4pm, Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm, Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich

Tuesday 23 July – 2pm, East Ipswich Housing Panel tour

Wednesday 24 July – 8pm – Visit to Gainsborough Sports Centre

Thursday 25 July – 7pm – North East Ipswich Area Committee, St Johns Church – Cauldwell Hall Road

Friday 26 July – 2pm, Meeting with Football Leagues about use of park pitches,
4pm, First meeting of the Ipswich World War I Centenary steering group.

Saturday 27 July - 10am, Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

Sunday 28 July – 7pm, North East Ipswich Labour, Curry night.

A bust week ahead with a number of meetings linked to my role as Deputy Portfolio Holder for Culture and Leisure. This week will see a meeting about park football pitches and a chance to attempt sequence dancing! It is a very varied portfolio. Last week we also launched our next cycling event in Ipswich. A major road race being organised in conjunction with UCS and Suffolk Coastal. With Chis Froome likely to win the Tour in Paris tonight, cycling is still on a high and it is great that Ipswich is one of British Cycling’s biggest partners when it comes to putting on top events’

Another interesting meeting this week will be the first steering group meeting for the WWI Centenary. It is important that we remember the losses this country suffered between 1914 and 1918, and that the centenary is used to remind all of us the dreadful consequences of a World War and it does not become some jingoistic flag waving event.

Olympic Year - but will the drug cheats win?

I can’t wait till 2012 and getting closer to the Olympics coming to London. I have my tickets and I hope and believe it will be one of the greatest games ever – and that there will be a sporting legacy left behind.

I was disappointed not to get tickets for cycling, as it is a sport that I love to watch and one that Britain has come to dominate but not only on the track as we now are a force in road racing.

I also expect GB to collect medals in a number of sports and for all our athletes to preform to their highest level but I do have one worry and that these games are again overshadowed by the use of performance enhancing drugs.




I have just finished reading the fantastic, ‘Racing through the Dark’ by GB cyclist David Millar. Not only is it a fantastic book on cycling but it gets you close to the seedy world of the sports doper.

We keep coming up with new drug tests, but the chemists keep coming up with new drugs. We catch cyclist, athletes but they appeal and come back but we need to do more.

The reason why Millar’s book is so readable is that he admits he took drugs and in most cases names to doctors, trainers and managers who either advised him to take the drugs or turned a blind eye to the doping.

People will always cheat, always dope but we need to not just catch them and ban but it is those who supply both the drugs and the knowledge of how to use them who need to be caught then both banned for life and if a criminal offence has been undertaken – jailed.

As a young soldier I was on a mountaineering trip in the Italian Alps – one of our climbers had been a promising female hurdler, she was in the top 3 in the UK in the early 80’s but she gave up. I asked her why, she said her coach told her she had reached her ceiling and that if she wanted to go further she needed to use chemicals and he could supply. At that time she was at one of the leading Athletic clubs in the UK, I believed her and remembered what she had told me after a leading British female was caught at a later Commonwealth games – she was a member of the same club!

When an athlete is caught in particular a young g one, we need to find out who supplied him and whilst he is banned his coach should be banned at the same time.
David Millar could soon be allowed to appeal against his Olympic ban alongside Dwaine Chambers. Millar would have far more support than Dwaine because of his honesty but I believe they should stay banned. Millar does not ride for the Sky team as they have a nil doping policy but he was welcomed back by the GB and Scotland teams for the World Cycling Championship and the Commonwealth Games but even so the Olympic ban should stay and all countries should follow the GB lead.

We need to catch not only the athletes but the coaches and managers who pedal this filth – there is a pressure to win, even more so as the host nation. This has been highlighted by the recent bans placed on Indian athletes are the Commonwealth Games.
Let us just hope London 2012 are the games where the cheats do not win – and that will only be achieved if other competitors who do cheat come clean and tell us of those who helped them. A certain Lance Armstrong is one ex cyclist who could help so much – did he cheat?

My Week ahead, 6 - 12 June 2011

Monday 6 June - Afternoon meeting at Grafton House looking at a number of Culture and Leisure matters, including the 2012 Olympic legacy.
6pm Ipswich Labour Group meeting, reports from portfolio holders.

Thursday 9 June - 2pm Attending the funeral of C/Sjt KC Fortuna at St Peters Church, Colchester.




A sad occasion as I pay my respects to a fellow Rifleman, killed in Afghanistan on the 23rd May.

Saturday 11 June - 1030am Labour campaigning in North West Ipswich




Sunday 12 June - 10am Ipswich Sky Ride. I will be attending (and joining in!) with the cycle events in the town, the event is being jointly run by Ipswich Borough Council, Sky and British Cycling.

Last week I campaigned in Rushmere and Whitton Wards in Ipswich and attended the Ipswich Labour Party Victory Celebration, sadly (even with a special quiz hat)my team failed to come close to wining the quiz.

I have also been dealing with casework from constituents, issued dealt with this week have included housing, planning disputes, bus shelters and parking.

A vision for sport in Ipswich

As a councilor you do get invited to a number of events, you can't go to them all but I do feel it is my duty to attend as many as possible. As a great fan of all sport, I do try to attend as many sport events in Ipswich as possible. This week I went to town hall to help celebrate the announcement that Ipswich will host the 2012 European Cyclo-Cross Championship. the event will be held in Chantry Park.

The council and Team Ipswich have helped Ipswich get the event but most of the hard work has been done by local Cycling guru, Steve Grimwood.

The highlight of the launch event was the attendance of the BBC cycling commentator, Hugh Porter, who spoke about how proud he had been to commentate on the GB cycling golds at this years Olympics.

It is great news that we will host such a big event in 2012 and this along with the gymnastics centre likely to be used as an Olympic training venue by one of the competing nations are all feathers in the cap of the council and Team Ipswich.

But it did get me thinking- do we have a vision of where sport is going in Ipswich?

I remember as a school kid in Ipswich we had very few facilities in the town but an Officer at the council- Randal Bevan had a vision and with the Labour run Ipswich Borough Council was able to deliver, sports centres at Whitton, Maidenhall, Northgate, an athletics track at Northgate, Crown Pools, a cycle speedway track at Whitton and the Gymnastics centre at Gainsborough.

But now we seem to have promises of more facilities- a cycle velodrome was mentioned by Hugh Porter at this event but Cllr Judy Terry seems keen to make such announcements, as she did over a 50M pool for Portman Road but we never seem to see any concrete proposals. at the same time we have Broomhill Swimming Pool being refused a Lottery Grant, with the lack of council commitment being given as one of the reasons for the failure to get a grant.

At the same time Crown Pools is need of urgent repairs but all we get is statements in the press saying how keen they are on Broomhill, how a cycle velodrome will be built and so on.

What is needed is a proper plan for the provision of sport in Ipswich over the next 20 years, what new facilities will be built and what money will be spent on improving and maintaining present facilities.

I am afraid that all we get at the moment from Judy Terry are some great idea's but with little chance of any being pushed through. Maybe if Mrs Terry can't deliver she should take up cycling or as Norman Tebbit would have told her- "get on your bike!"