Ipswich Tories are right- house building has stalled (but stalled by who?)

Ipswich Tory leaflets have always read more like a fantasy story than a document of facts and public information but this year they have really gone out of their way to persuade the Ipswich public that they (the Ipswich Tories ) do live in a world of self denial!

One of my proudest achievements is to have been part of a Labour Council that is just completing one of the largest council house building projects in a generation in Bader Close and my proudest personal achievement as a councillor has been that I helped enable two roads of new Council houses and flats in Whitehouse Estate be named after two Ipswich (and Whitehouse) soldiers who lost their lives serving their country.

But if you read the latest Ipswich Tory leaflets you would have thought we have not built a single home – the Ipswich Tories (make it up as we go along) PR machine informs us;

“House building in Ipswich has stalled and more needs to be done. Ipswich needs family homes yet this council is failing to provide them. We would make building quality family homes – and the infrastructure accompanying them – one of our top priorities.”

Fact is we would like to build more Council homes and see developers start some large building projects – but we keep coming up against barriers – and these obstacles have been placed in front of us by local Tories from MPs ben Gummer and Dan Poulter to local Tory leader Nadia Cenci and a combination of Tory Borough and County Councillors.

You could suggest ‘I would say that’ but unlike the Tory leaflet I can back my views with facts.

Labour run Ipswich proposed and gained permission for a large development of council houses at Ravenswood in South East Ipswich. Tory Cllr Cenci called our decision in, they were not happy with the amount of social housing – after her ‘call in’ was thrown out they then got Ben Gummer the Tory MP to get Eric Pickles to call the Borough decision in – this was disappointing but only to be expected as Mr Gummer looked for easy votes but what has been disgraceful is that over a year later we are still waiting for this Tory Government to tell us if we can or can’t start to build these much needed family homes. So Cllr Cenci – your right house building has stalled but not because of a Labour Council but because of the actions of you, Ben Gummer and Eric Pickles.

Then we have the Northern Fringe development, the original plan was actually put through by the last Tory/Lib Dem administration – but they needed help from us as 6 Tory Councillors voted against the plan as they wanted NO HOMES built north of Valley Road.

But once we took back power in Ipswich the Tories (and Lib Dems) have become slightly less keen on the building of a large estate in the north of the town. Mr Gummer at first complained about the proposed location of the cricket green! Since then he has written to many residents ( in the build up to the election) stating why he could not support the proposed development. Cllr Cenci went further and distributed an expensive leaflet (with her name on) stating that the new build would see current residents have their commute to work or leisure time increased, they asked for residents views that they would then pass to to Borough Council. I filled in their consultation – but have heard nothing back! Did they ever hand the consultation findings (13 months ago) to the Borough? I ask as some may have seen the whole campaign as a way of farming email addresses! I look forward to reading the results of their consultation – after 56 weeks you would have thought it was ready for publication.

Now I agree with the Tories, we need infrastructure to support the Northern Fringe development but to bill for that must fall to the developer, the TORY County Council and the TORY Government – you may have spotted a theme here.

So have the Tories helped get that much needed infrastructure – no! Dan Poulter MP, declared rather than a northern link road we should just have a tunnel under the Orwell (along with the pie in the sky) Mr Gummer has managed to gain funding for a road- but not the much needed northern link road but for a (possible) Wet Dock Crossing. Which of those two schemes (Northern link Road or Wet Dock crossing) would lead to the building of much needed homes?

Then we have the housing development in East Ipswich – St Clement’s – the local Tories wanted the application turned down and a park built instead!

Ready for a shock statement? IPSWICH TORIES ARE RIGHT! House building has stalled in Ipswich – but the people who have helped stall it are Tories – Ben Gummer, Nadia Cenci, Dan Poulter, John Carnall, Eric Pickles, Robin Vickery, David Goldsmith, all take a bow you have helped deprive Ipswich residents of homes.

The leaflet also has a few other classics from Tory fantasy land – it tells us congestion in the town has become unbearable – forgetting to add that TORY run Suffolk has just wasted £20 million on ‘Travel Ipswich’ and to finish the leaflet off and to pretend they are community minded – they have a picture of the Whitehouse Skate Park – not surprising they forget to mention it was built with help from funding by the local Area Committee – the same committee they wanted to scrap!

If you want homes built for your families in Ipswich – Vote Labour not for the ‘Stalling Tories’

Most people do not use council services?

Yesterday Tory run Suffolk County Council, made their ‘big decision’ – as expected a 0% Council Tax rise for 2013/14 but then they went further and said that tax will be frozen for the next four years! At first you would think residents would be happy with this – but what about services?

How do they know what the Government will give them in grants over the next 4 years? We did not even know this year’s settlement till a few weeks ago. Of course the County is fortunate that they will not face the uncertainty caused by bedroom tax and benefit changes that District Councils will.

So will the County just drain the reserves over the next four years or is the truth that New Strategic Direction is still alive and that the County will continue to sell off/ close down and cut local services?

So we are at the bottom of league tables for Education, but Tory run Suffolk are not intending to increase education funding over the next four years?

Highways – the plan to hand over to Balfour Beatty is in pieces – but the County still know that extra funding for roads will not be needed?

Libraries – Community Groups are already struggling to find the £100,000 they need to keep the library service open – will there be even less county funding over the next four years?

Mobile Library service – down to just one stop in Ipswich (in Tory run Bixley ward) – sign of things to come?

But as leading Tory Suffolk county Council Jane Storey stated yesterday;

"most people don't use council services" so why should they pay council tax?


This epitomises Tory selfishness! So no residents drive on roads, walk on pavements, send their children to schools, call trading standards (horsemeat?), have elderly relatives in care homes?

Maybe we should just be glad that it is Borough and District Councils that empty our bins, look after council houses and even though it should be a County task – in Ipswich run the museum service.

They have decided on a 4 year council tax freeze – because they have an election in May – and are so happy with that they have sent a letter to Eric Pickles – to say ‘look at us, we are just like you’ – maybe they should write to another Tory Minister – Mr Gove – and tell him how they are going to improve education standards but at no extra cost to council tax payers!

Pembroke may no longer be leader, Andrea Hill may have gone, Mr Bee may be more PR savvy but that is just a smokescreen as Colin Noble, Judy Terry, and Guy McGregor are still pushing through the ‘New Strategic Direction’ and why not as Cllr Storey tells us – residents do not use council services!

Education, education, education.

This Week schools in Suffolk were hit with a second set of bad results, leading to education becoming the lead story in local papers over the last few days. Ben Gummer has even managed to get the head of Ofsted along to Ipswich this morning to talk to all Heads. I say all Heads, in fact only Heads of schools in his constituency – this has made a number of other Heads unhappy especially as they teach a number of Ben Gummers residents even if their school sits outside the Ipswich constituency.

The school I am involved with, Sidegate Primary has just had a disappointing Ofsted report and has led Ipswich Spy to be critical of myself (and to be even handed also Cllr Terry) as we are governors of the school and we were also criticised in the report.

There is no doubt in my mind that many Ipswich primary schools will now find themselves classed as ‘inadequate’ or even placed into ‘special measures’. This week we saw Broke Hall School in Bixley (with Tory Cllr Governors) slip from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’

So Ipswich Spy may be right all leaders in education need to be held responsible. I am not talking about Gove (though many would like to see him moved) but let’s look at the Tory run Suffolk County Council – we now have a council that has some of the worst preforming primary schools and now this week we are shown that we have some of the worst preforming Secondary schools- when you take away the City Education authorities from the table, Suffolk as a county is at the bottom.

These poor results have even seen Ben Gummer be critical of the Tory run council – we are normally told very quickly by Tories that when an organisation fails so miserably that those responsible should go- but Cllr Newman is still sat as Head of Education in the County. But I would not like him to go, I find him a decent man who has the best interests of the children of the county as his priority but though he is in the paper every day we have heard nothing from Mark Bee the County Leader, or any other members of his cabinet, the likes of Colin Noble who seem more interested in promoting ‘Free Schools’.

Ipswich Spy may accuse governors in failing Sidegate School what about the County cabinet – of course Cllr Terry sits on both bodies.

But Sidegate is not failing, if Ipswich Spy had been able to see the full detail of the report they may have a different view, on Tuesday we had a parents meeting at the school and over 160 parents attended plus staff and members of the governing body (Cllr Terry could not attend as in London) and the feeling of the parents was that the school is not failing their children and the praise for the Head and her team were most warming.

But Suffolk is falling behind nationally in education standards but the first people to be held responsible should be the Tory County Cabinet.

But what of central government? Mr Gove has been quiet this week but Mr Pickles has now told us that 'Free Schools' can set up in any building they wish and do not even need planning permission- but if a state run school would still need planning permission just to build new classrooms (though not many can afford to build anything under this government).

My week ahead, 10 - 16 September 2012

Monday 10 September 3.30pm – Culture and Leisure Portfolio meeting

6pm – Campaigning in Castle Hill, Ipswich.

Thursday 13 September 6pm – East Ipswich Housing Meeting

Saturday 15 September 10.30am – Campaigning in East Ipswich.

This week we received the disappointing news that Greene King had won their appeal and will now start work on converting the Golden Key to a supermarket.

Local residents were concerned about the loss of custom to our local shops but the biggest concern is the danger of increased traffic and the problems that will cause for local residents. I am very concerned about the safety of the many children who pass their twice a day. Greene King showed themselves to be a business who had no interest in listening to the concerns of local residents.

A number of residents have contacted me since the news was broken and though they thanked me for campaigning for them they were both angry with Greene King and the planning inspectorate. All were concerned that the new planning measures rushed through this week by Eric Pickles would make it even harder for local residents to get their voices heard.

Tories lead in 'Democracy?'

Eric Pickles has been in most of the broadsheet papers recently claiming that the Tories are leading the way in giving politics back a good name (did it ever have one in the first place?) How are they doing that you may ask?
Well even before the expenses scandal, the Tories have been using the open Primary to select candidates in some of their seats, in Totnes they have even used a Postal Primary. Now for many the word Primary smacks of copying the US system, hardly one that lends itself to the cleanest way to run politics.
Pickles forgets that the Tory party suffers more than most for having MP's who contribute little to public life but sit in Shire constituencies with large majority's- we have a number who fall in that category in Suffolk. Once sitting there seems little chance of a Primary being used there. It just seems to be for seats that the Tories currently don't hold.

Now I talk from first hand experience as I attended the Ipswich Primary where Ben Gummer, was selected. well run? It seemed so at first but take away the party members, there were very few members of the public there, and even after the selection the local constituency management committee can throw the choice out. (As happened in Plymouth Devenport)
Why was Ipswich a failure (other than selecting a candidate who will jump to Suffolk Coastal, once his burger eating Dad retires)
Well those who were not Porty members (not including me) seemed to come from the Far Right Christian movement, and as only some of the candidates got asked about abortion and such like, the questioning was not fair. this done for Chloe Smith- who may have had the last laugh as she is now the MP for Norwich North!
So the contest was a straight shooing for Gummer with his Fathers religious views helping. Of the Tory party members who were there, an obvious split between the younger Gummer supporters and those who were after a Council leader from Surrey who had led a Unitary Council.
Some of the Tory members who did not even live in the constituency were also able to vote, I saw a number from Ipswich and Central Suffolk voting. Wonder if that is the last time they will vote together as they divide into build/don't build on the Northern Fringe debate!

So Eric, yes- all parties should be doing more to restore confidence in democracy and politics but pretending these gimmick Primary's are the answer is a joke. Maybe a start will be to stop Tory Councils calling a council meeting that costs hundreds of pounds and had only one thing to discuss but in the same year cancel council meetings when councilors would have had the opportunity to discuss the proposals for unitary Councils. Plus all the working groups that seem to never meet. Well Mr Pickles- democracy with or without a Primary certainly does not look alive in Ipswich Tory circles!

Tory run Suffolk in a pickle!

The 'do nothing' party seems to be getting ready to start 2009 with some idea's. Now don't get excited, they don't seem to have done much research into them as you will see with the latest one.


The Times online has the story that a Tory Government would cut the salaries of 'fat cat' Chief Executives of Local Authorities. Now you would think that would seem like a good idea, especially to the Tory faithful, and by looking at the comments at the end of the 'Times' story, it seems the blue rinse brigade are keen on this plan.. I am sure they will be joined by all the readers of the Daily Mail. But this is when research may have been useful. Of the eight highest paid Chief Executives in the country, six are at Tory run administrations!


So why wait till after an election, Eric Pickles - get your Tory run councils to cut these salaries now. Oh that is the problem, they like to pay high salaries to the likes of Andrea Hill in Suffolk and at the same time cut services to those who need them most.


Yes it is that Andrea Hill- Suffolk (Tory run) has the second highest paid Chief Executive in the country.

Andrea Hill giving Eric Pickles a call?

So if Eric Pickles can't even get 6 Tory run administrations to cut the salaries of 'fat cats' how the hell are they going to control those in the City!


Back to the drawing board Mr Pickles.