Good news for Brunswick Road Recreation ground - new play area

Brunswick Road Recreation Ground - You said - We listened - Many local residents they would like there to be more for children to do on our local park - We spoke to local people and two messages came across, loud and clear.

Small children need their own space, where they can play and explore in safety. So the Labour run, Borough Council is going to renew the equipment in the toddlers' play area, with swings and a slide and new things to do, and a new safe surface to help prevent any injuries.

Older children need something to challenge them, where they can hang out - literally! The Firefox climber (see picture below) has proved really popular with youngsters on Cobham Rd Rec, and so we will also have something similar installed on Brunswick Road Rec.

We want to know what you think of what is planned? Can you let me know by 14 July, please send vires to alasdir.roos@councillors.ipswich.gov.uk

The plan is for the current play area to close on 1st September 2021, and the new area to be open by 1st October.

We will also be looking at installing some 'outdoor gym' equipment for older teenagers and adults, possibly early next year, and we would welcome your views on that proposal.

You can now follow your local Rushmere Labour team on Facebook - here

My week ahead 10 - 17 June 2013

Monday 10 June – 6pm, Labour campaigning- East Ipswich

Tuesday 11 June – 6pm, East Ipswich Housing Panel

Thursday 13 June – 4pm, Meeting at SCC about proposals for Rushmere Hall School
6pm – Ipswich Borough Council Scrutiny meeting

Friday 14 June – 4pm, Pearl Izumi Cycle Tour series, Ipswich town centre

Saturday 16 June - 10am, Labour campaigning, North West Ipswich

This week has been both satisfying and difficult – the good part was being able to inform residents that their bus service (22 and 31) were not to be lost. The first cuts by the Tory run Suffolk County Council are starting to leak out (no mention in any Tory election leaflet) and subsidies to bus routes are one of the first cuts to hit Ipswich. The good news is that the 22 and 31 will be replaced by a new service – the 39 – though it does cease working earlier in the afternoon as it then moves to the County run school bus service later in the afternoon. I will continue to both fight with residents against these Tory cuts and also work with the Borough Council and Ipswich Buses to try and help in areas where a bus service is lost.

The frustrating part has been dealing with residents’ concerns about the building of the new supermarket on the ‘Golden Key’ site on Woodbridge Rd. Chaos is the best way to describe what Rushmere residents woke to on Monday morning. The traffic jams and chaos were not acceptable. Fortunately our new Labour County Councillor was onto the task straight away and managed to get the County Council to change part of the road layout.

We now have a further 6 weeks of this chaos on one of the town’s main arterial routes! We (Ipswich Borough Council) did turn down the planning application because of traffic concerns – Monday was just yet one more example of where we (and residents) were right. Pity the Government Inspector did not listen – or visit the site during term time!

But to finish on a positive note, was a pleasure to visit the Beverley/Whitby Rd Community 'Front garden' sale today - after the success of the 'Big Lunch' held on Brunswick Recreation Ground last week, it is nice to know that we live in a ward with a real community feel.

My week ahead 2 - 9 June 2013

Monday 3 June – 4pm, Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm, Labour Group meeting

Tuesday 4 June – 5pm, Sidegate School, Full Governing Body

Wednesday 5 June – 6pm, ‘Hope not Hate’ meeting

Saturday 8 June - 10am, Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich


Last week was quite positive with a meeting of the Ipswich Town Independent Supporters Trust, where I was honoured to be made Chair. We will be launching a number of campaigns that we feel will be supported by most Ipswich Town fans over the coming season.

On Thursday we had our regular councillor training session, this time the topic was the use of social media. Disappointingly not one Tory or Lib Dem turned up- I will give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they will be attending the second session on this topic.

They both obviously need training on the use of social media, as both the Lib Dem and Tory websites and twitter feeds are so out of date. The Lib Dem website now just features posts about the Lib Dem MP for Colchester! Not even in the same county.
Whilst the Tory twitter feed has not been updated for over a month!

I was disappointed to see an EDL March take place in the town over the weekend, at least it went by peacefully. But both the Army and more importantly the family of the murdered soldier had asked for the EDL not to march- their wishes were ignored by the Far Right group. Only 50 turned up in Ipswich some would say that is still 50 too many! This week I will be attending a ‘Hope not Hate’ meeting in Ipswich as we look at ways to campaign against the menace of far right extremists groups. It is hard to understand why anyone would support the EDL but we have at least one local Tory supporter willing to use twitter to pass on the EDL message and even act as an apologist for their leader. She also seems to like to re-tweet supporters of UKIP!



On a far more positive note, I write this post just after returning from the Brunswick Road residents ‘Big Lunch’ or better described as ‘Big Picnic’ – all were having a great time in the park, with a larger attendance than the EDL had in the town yesterday – this says far more about how great our town is to live in than a far right march.

Brunswick Road to celebrate the Queens Jubilee

Residents of Brunswick Road and surrounding roads

Brunswick Road Community Group thought it would be great if residents could join as a community to celebrate the Queens Jubilee by having a table top garden sale on Monday 4th June 2012 between 10am-1pm followed by a picnic on Brunswick Road Park at 2pm

Queen’s Jubilee

Table Top Sale

BANK HOLIDAY
MONDAY 4th JUNE 2012
10am – 1pm

Followed by picnic on the park at 2pm

Participating roads:

* Brunswick Road * Beverley Road * Whitby Road * Somerset Road
* Kingsgate Drive * Lancing Avenue * Queensgate Drive * Stuart Close

• Toys • Electronics
• Clothes • Bric-a-brac
• DVDs / CDs • Fabrics
• Tools • Plants
• Books • Food/Drink
• Baby items • Anything else

Come and join in the celebrations

Email: brunswickroadcommunity@yahoo.co.uk
For further details

And the runners are.......

It seems like the longest election campaign ever and still 20 days to go...we are now well into leaflet delivering, knocking on doors, handing out posters and the more up to date election techniques of phoning residents, tweeting and blogging.

I am standing in Rushmere Ward, Ipswich - the fourth election I have fought in my own ward- losing the first two before winning in 2008 by 13 votes!

Those four years have gone fast including a year sabbatical in Afghanistan where I was involved in a slightly different election.

Back to the election this year, it seems the Tories are again hoping to win the ward back but sorry to disappoint the Tory blogger Kevin Algar, we are not being complacent and have just spent the last week, delivering 4,000 leaflets and knocking on doors - but unlike the Tory party in Ipswich, we also campaign in every ward in the town- and the residents of Bixley and Castle Hill will also receive our 'Local Voice' paper.

The full list of runners for the election in Rushmere is:

CHAMBERS
Christopher Kantara, The Heath, Tattingstone, Ipswich, IP9 2LX The Conservative Party Candidate

NELSON
Eric Robert 36 Leopold Road, Ipswich, IP4 4RP Green Party candidate

ROSS
Alasdair Donald Mackenzie 58 Lonsdale Close, Ipswich, IP4 4HD The Labour Party Candidate

WHITMORE
Robin Thomas 269 Cavendish Street, Ipswich, IP3 8BQ Liberal Democrats

At least this year we will not have the Tories basing their campaign on the fact that their candidate used to live in the Ward (moved at least 6 years ago) and our candidate lived in a different ward. But they still seem to think it is OK to attack other Labour candidates for not living in the ward they are standing in but keeping quiet about their own candidates. Not sure it is such a big deal to the residents, all they want is someone who will stand up for them, especially when times are tough, as they certainly are now.

The Lib Dems and the Greens are also standing,I used to moan about the Lib Dems standing as they do no work in the ward and have not produced a local election leaflet for at least six years but since the last General election, I have changed my view and think that Labour should stand in every seat in the country to give people a chance to vote for the party they support even if they can't win. This has become even more important since the Lib Dems have jumped in bed with the Tories. The good news is that in the East of England only Labour has a candidate in all 362 wards that are being contested.

The Greens are never going to stand in every ward and as their candidate is local I can understand why they wish to stand in Rushmere, disappointing after all the effort that I and my Labour colleagues put into saving Kiln Meadow and promoting the local Bus service that they wish to stand against Labour candidates.

But on the day it will be Chris Chambers who will be my main rival, I have met him briefly and it was great to see a young person with a passion for politics (even if it is the wrong sort!) he seemed intelligent, keen and most of all enthusiastic and will be a formidable opponent.

Like myself he has also got his own website and uses twitter to help get his message across - his blog is here.

It is disappointing that a number of the posts on his blog are inaccurate and though he did remove one post about the potential Youth Club on the Rushmere Estate he has still left posts on that are not factual about a phone mast and the pre-fabs.

Chris has also got involved in a number of campaigns including one to set up a 'Friends' group for Brunswick Road Park. I did email Chris and said that I would be interested in joining such a group (both as a local Cllr but also as a resident who lives next to the park and walks through it every day) but even after sending a second email have not received a reply- willing to believe that is down to him being busy on the campaign rather than being told not to reply to me.

It is obvious that Cllr Judy Terry is very involved in the campaign, can't remember her making the park such an issue when the Tory administration attempted to leave the parks open 24 hours a day and she also seems to forget that it was her party who introduced the 'long grass' policy in the park and the savings were included in their budget and are still included in the alternative budget they produced last month.

We want more young people like Chris involved in politics and he has informed me, win or lose in May he is here for the long term but it does seem to me that he is being used as part of a 13 month campaign for Judy Terry to retain her County Council seat and a 25 month campaign before she has to fight for her Borough seat - or if I do hold the seat in 20 days time - will she try and find a safer ward to fight? Not that there are many safe Tory wards left in Ipswich.

Promoted by John Cook c/o Ipswich labour Party, 33 Silent Street, Ipswich, IP1 1TF on behalf of Alasdair Ross and the Labour Party Candidates, . Hosted (printed) by Blogger.com (Google Inc) of 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts

Ipswich Parks - update

I have had a fantastic response from residents in Rushmere Ward Ipswich after I delivered a leaflet asking for residents views on Brunswick Road Park.

The overwhelming view of residents was for the park to remain locked at night but many of us are keen on more flexable timings.

The Ipswich Labour Party has also distributed a similar leaflet around Alexandra and Holywells Park. Rather than being thanked for getting the views of the public, I have been accused by the Lib Dem portfolio holder of scaremongering. It is true that the portfolio holder has preformed a U turn at Full Council and declared that parks will remain closed at night but it was obvious from the last Executive meeting that many of her Tory/Lib Dem colleagues are still keen to make cuts to the Park Service and keep them open 24/7.

Even her fellow Lib Dem councilor from her own ward wants Christchurch Park to remain open his comment at Executive was that his residents had "strange views" and that he would respond to the consultation by stating that the parks should not be locked.

Consultation - well Inga Lockington states that the Parks 'Vision' was only what it says on the tin- a vision not a policy and that the policy would be produced after consultation. But consultation with who? If it was not for Labour and the 'Friends of the Parks' groups no one would have known about the consultation. There are no signs or notices in the three parks I have been in over the last 4 days - Christchurch, Holywells and Brunswick Road. There is not even a mention of the Parks Consultation under 'Consultations' on the Ipswich Borough Council website.

So I ask you all to send in your views on the Parks 'vision' to the council. It is obvious from the Executive that the Portfolio Holder may not be able to deliver on her promise to keep the parks locked at night.

The vision can be found here. and you can comment by sending an E mail to: parks.services@ipswich.gov.uk

Leave Ipswich Park's open?

Cllr Alasdair Ross on his local park - Brunswick Road

Many of you may have heard in the local Ipswich Press recently that the Tory/Lib Dem run Ipswich Borough Council had decided without any consultation with the public, to open all the parks in Ipswich 24 hours a day.

Some Ipswich parks are left open all day already and some cannot be secured but Christchurch Park, Holywells Park and our own Rushnmere park of Brunswick Road are some of those that are currently locked at night.

There was such an outcry led by the Ipswich Labour Party, local residents and the local paper that Inga Lockington the Lib Dem portfolio holder for the Parks, announced at Full Council that she had changed her mind and that the parks will now still stay locked at night.

You may then say why are we still campaigning on this subject. A number of reasons, the statement to the press only mentioned Christchurch and Holywells Park so Brunswick Road and Newbury Road may still be in danger of being left open. Secondly Inga still has to find savings of £600,000, so it is important that a Park Rangers service is still maintained and that we do not just find that they are replaced by members of the 'Big Society'.

If you wish to look at the Council 'Vision' for Parks and open Spaces in Ipswich you can find it here.

It is important that we protect our parks and open spaces, a much loved part of the town by all our community. It is quite hypocritical of the Tory/Lib Dem coalition to take the plaudits as Christchurch Park wins it's third Green Flag award at the same time set out a vision that would have left this park unprotected at night and also seen a big reduction in the Park Ranger service throughout the town.



A number of residents have asked about setting up a 'Friends of Brunswick Road Park' group. If you support such a n idea , please feel Free to contact me: alasdairross@hotmail.com