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 3 - 9 September 2012

Monday 3 September 6pm – Labour campaigning in South East Ipswich

Tuesday 4 September 6.30pm – Walking tour of Ipswich – Mayors Charity

Wednesday 5 September 4pm – Attending the Public Consultation on redevelopment of St Clements Hospital
6pm – Culture and Leisure working Group – Grafton House

Thursday 6 September 6pm – Scrutiny Call in, Tories calling in the Labour decision to improve the Ipswich Angle

Friday 7 September 7.30pm – New Wolsey, Mod Rox

Saturday 8 September 10.30am – Labour campaigning in North Ipswich

A busy week ahead as all spare time is spent campaigning but now into a full week of meetings but I have still found time to attend the New Wolsey and also learn some more about the history of our town on a guided tour of the Town Centre –and also giving us an opportunity to contribute towards the Mayor’s charities.

On Wednesday we have our Culture and Leisure working group, you may be surprised to know we have thsese meetings after reading Tory Cllr Terry’s article in the ‘Ipswich Flyer’ - she seems to use every opportunity she can to attack us on Culture and Leisure – no words of praise for the Ipswich hosting the ‘Grad Depart’ of the Tour of Britain this Sunday or the outstanding success of the Maritime Festival. But what she also forgets to mention the readers of the ‘Flyer’ is the constant pressure we are under to cut spending due to the Tory Government making drastic cuts to Council funding. Just this week a leading Tory Council leader in England, Sir Merrick Cockell has informed residents that the Tory Government cuts will bleed council reserves dry within 5 years. So Maybe Mrs Terry should also praise Ipswich Borough Council when we have achieved good results and be less critical when cuts have to be made due to her own government drastically cutting council funding.

On Wednesday I will be attending the Public Consultation on the redevelopment of St Clements Hospital. The event is being held both on Wednesday and Thursday, within the pavilion at St Clements between 4-8pm on both days. This consultation is being organised by the NHS Trust. The North East Area Committee are looking at holding a further public meeting about the plans later in the year.

Though St Clements is not in our ward, the increased traffic may affect Rushmere residents. Interesting today the Mr Cameron wishes to make it easier to build on the
Green Belt – whilst in Ipswich we have both Dan Poulter and Ben Gummer keener to build on sites within Ipswich and keep the Northern Fringe clear. So we have Cameron saying one thing, our local MP’s something else, the local Tory and Lib Dem Cllrs saying we should not build on the Northern Fringe but voting for development – what do they really want? Your guess is better than mine. Seems to me they just say what they think the voters want to hear.