My week ahead 21 - 26 March 2016

Monday 21 March – 6pm, Labour Group meeting

Tuesday 22 March – 11am, Activ-lives ‘Support our Hub’ event at the Town Hall

7pm- Suffolk Fabians meeting – ‘Democratic Reform’

Thursday 24 March – 7pm – Central  Ipswich Area Committee

Saturday 26 March – 10am, Labour campaigning in North West Ipswich

The wheels have fell off the Tory train this weekend, and for once we have silence from local Tory activists!

The problem with the Tories is to work out who is telling the truth!

Did IDS resign over the proposed cuts by Osborne?

Or as Cameron and Number 10 state, he resigned over Europe?

And if IDS was as bad as other Ministers are now saying why didn’t Cameron sack him ages ago?

The budget – I always thought when something was in the budget it meant it was going to happen – but now we hear the cuts that would have hit the disabled, may now be kicked into the long grass!

Now I think we all know what this spat is all about- Europe – and Gove may have spoken in both defence of IDS and Cameron – ‘leader in waiting’ Boris Johnson seems to be only noticeable by his silence!

Then I wonder how Ipswich Tories are going to react – most seem to be in agreement with IDS about the need to leave the EU but at the same time they are very supportive of the cuts being imposed by Osborne!

What we have is a party tearing itself apart – all for selfish reasons – leadership aspirations of certain Tories being more important to some than the future of our younger generations!

In Suffolk we have had the Tories oppose a motion that would have put a stop to the cuts to the Fire Service- on the day of the Council meeting, Tory MP for Felixstowe suddenly supported the campaign to save at least one fire station in the East of the county but her Tory councillors ignored her. The Sudbury Tories also voted for the cuts to be imposed – they seem to have forgotten the recent fire that decimated their town centre.

Press those apples, food, gardening and education

Today I visited Britannia School in Ipswich as they started an educational project with East Feast . Eastfeast is a team of professional gardeners, artists and teachers that helps schools deliver more effective learning based on working a school allotment through the seasons, culminating in a community feast. 

East Feast have been working with Copleston School for a while and I had witnessed the great work they had done there so was happy to help secure funding from the North East Area Committee so they could start working with local Primary Schools.

The children seemed very keen to start with having an attempt at apple pressing was of the most sought after activities.

I am sure this project will be a success and anything that helps promote healthy eating is going to be very welcome. As we saw today with the comments from David Cameron about ‘sugar tax’ it is important that we have as many facts as possible at hand when we decide what we are going to eat and to give our children to eat. It was just disappointing that it has now become obvious that Cameron did not have the full facts about a ‘sugar tax’ – as he had not even read the report!

Good news is that with the help of East Feast and local schools it will be our children who will be telling their parents what to eat!

My week ahead, 23 - 28 September 2013

Monday 23 September, 6pm – Labour campaigning, East Ipswich

Tuesday 24 September, 5pm – Sidegate Primary School, Steering group

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

A not so busy week as the main two political party’s join the conference season. So it gives us the chance to campaign in our part of town.

This week we will be out collecting signatures for a petition asking Suffolk County Council to change their mind about their refusal to subsidise a bus service in the East of the town. We will also be informing residents about the public meeting to be held next month at St Clements Hospital. The meeting will hear about the latest plans to turn the site into a large scale housing development. The meeting has been organised and will be hosted by the North East Area Committee.

This is the second public meeting that the Area Committees have organised after one was held in the South West about wind farms. The ability of area committees to be able to organise these meeting is just one more example where area committees are far more beneficial to residents than the old area forums.

We held a very successful Area Committee in the North East this week, we managed to agree to fund a number of projects, but what was more of a surprise (after previous meetings) was how all the councillors agreed on most subjects and even if views differed were willing to listen to others and come up with a compromise. So at St John’s we had held a meeting which was very different in its feel to the Full Council meeting held the night before. At Full Council we had a series of very poor questions from both Tory councillors and Tory activists. Such questions included should we let Bury St Edmunds be the County town and why is Ipswich closed on a Monday. Other questions were just repeats of questions already asked (and answered) at both Scrutiny and Human Resources. I am sure that the Tories soon realised that the questions they were asking were both poorly researched and in many cases meaningless. They were also not very clear and in most cases the Labour front bencher had to use his first answer to ask the opposition to explain the meaning of the question! I am sure the tone of questioning may have led to Cllr Pope reacting in the way he did when he was pulled up about his spelling. Richard Pope quickly informed us all that in fact he had dyslexia, this was the first we had heard of this and of course if we had known beforehand we would have not highlighted the spelling errors. I know that Cllr Jones has since apologised to Cllr Pope.

But you do wonder why the Tory questions are not checked by the Leader of the Tory group in the first place. The comment on bad spelling and then the revelation that Cllr Pope suffered from dyslexia was not handled well by all sides but was certainly blown out of all proportion by Cllr Cenci and her ‘attention seeking’ walk out. Best thing was once she left all other council business went very smoothly with the opposition happy to second a number of Labour proposals. The following day at the Area Committee, Cllr Pope was very involved in all aspects of the meeting and his views and comments were all of high quality and I for one took on board a number of his points. Then again I feel the North East area meeting was far more productive than normal due to the absence of Cllr Judy Terry – her not being their made the meeting run much smoother in fact her absence had the similar effect that Cllr Cenci had when she walked out of Full Council!

My week ahead 20 - 27 May 2013

Monday 20 May - 4pm Culture portfolio meeting
6pm Labour campaigning in South West Ipswich

Wednesday 22 May - 7.30pm - Fabians meeting - 'Asylum and immigration - have we got it right?'

Thursday 23 May - 7pm - North East Ipswich Area Committee, St John's Church Hall, Cauldwell Hall Road

Friday 24 - 27 May - Trip to Verona and last stage of the Giro D'Italia

Saturday was like the first day back at school after the summer holidays, seeing your friends for the first time in ages and catching up with the gossip - but this was not our first day back at school but our first day back campaigning after two weeks off! We had 16 of us out in South West Ipswich, delivering thank you leaflets to our residents.

This is the way to deal with UKIP, getting out and talking to residents about their concerns. It is also important to be able to talk about issues like immigration and the Suffolk Fabians have a meeting about this issue on Wednesday.

But what are the other two main political groups doing to counter the rise of UKIP and to deal with the issues that concern the people of Ipswich? The Lib Dems have gone back into their 11 month hibernation, just counting the days when they are out of the coalition and they can go back to being a minor opposition party - whilst the Tories seem all over the place, blaming UKIP, thinking of joining UKIP and then attacking each other!

Locally an Ipswich Tory activist called me a moron on twitter - water off a ducks back, but I thought that sort of behavior just puts more people off politics and gets all politicians a bad name. trouble is there seems to be no self-discipline or leadership in the local Tory Party to stop it. Two of their members/candidates who have blogs seems to enjoy calling opposition Councillors names (when not attacking each other) but then it seems that this sort of behavior is also rife at the top of the Tory Party with the accusations that a senior adviser to Cameron called Tory activists 'swivel-eyed loons'.

Getting back to dealing with good news, this week the Ipswich HEARS service has now reached the target of 1,000 customers, this is a great service that looks after our senior residents and gives families peace of mind. When we took over at IBC, the Tories were planning to hand HEARS over to Suffolk County Council and we know that they would have looked to get rid of it (like the library service) as soon as they could. Well done to all those involved in HEARS.

Ipswich Prefabs and Judy Terry - 'Looking for Colin Noble'

On Thursday we held our latest North East Area Committee meeting and though we have had a healthy attendance at most of our meetings at this one we had over 70 residents attend, our best attendance so far.

Many attended for the first time and they came along to question Tory Councillor for Rushmere, Judy Terry about her statements in the local press about their homes – the much loved prefabs

These bungalow type houses were built just after the war and were at first were expected only to last 25 years but over 60 years later they are still going strong. Other prefabs in the town have been knocked down, but the proximity of the Rushmere prefabs tom the Suffolk countryside and the long gardens have made these dwellings much demanded.

The reason for the sudden interest in the prefabs is that Cllr Judy Terry mentioned her plan for their demolition and replacement with new houses and a care home at a Suffolk County Council meeting – now this is quite strange as the prefabs are the responsibility of Ipswich Borough Council and Richard Pope is the Tory spokesman for housing and he also seems to have been caught unaware by the plans of Judy Terry. She indicated that she already had been in discussion with two developers and a local architect and had even take her County colleague Colin Noble along to ask him advice on the site for a care home. ( a point of information it is worth reminding everyone that the prefabs sit 400 metres from two existing care homes that the County has handed over to Care UK and that Judy Terry sat on the planning committee that approved a care home to be built 200metres further up Humber Doucy Lane.)

Within hours of the Judy Terry making her proclamation of this new development in Rushmere (the announcement of this proposed development did seem to be another excuse to be used to back up the Tory view that the Northern Fringe development is no longer needed) residents were up in arms, and quite quickly Judy Terry had issued a press release to say all she was calling for was a debate about the future of the prefabs and was not calling for their demolition.

The press release was used by Ipswich Spy and even received a comment from her Tory colleague Colin Noble – who tweeted: “Cllr. Terry recently took me for a walk around the estate and shared her vision, I could not agree more with this campaign, clearly residents do what they can to make the best of the situation but Ipswich Borough Council should be ashamed to have these pre-fabs in their stock. Time to rebuilt, residents deserve better than the pathetic sticky plaster proposed by the Labour Leadership. “

Now what followed was number of letters from residents and ex residents of the prefabs, all unhappy with Judy Terry’s plan – many of the residents are some of our senior citizens (not all) and they were very concerned that were suddenly to lose their homes.
It quickly became quite obvious that her ‘vision’ for Inverness Rd was not one shared by the residents and this led to a number attending the area committee, two had also sent in formal requests for a detailed answer on the future of the prefabs from the council.

At the start of the meeting, one Tory councillor asked me why so many people were at the meeting showing that the Tory Group were oblivious to the uproar Judy Terry’s statements had caused.

As chairman of the committee, I read out the two questions and also the prepared answer I then allowed Judy Terry to comment. Her only line of defence was that she wanted to start a debate- not sure you start a debate by talking to two developers and getting plans drawn up before you speak to either the landlords (Ipswich Borough Council) or the residents.

Her excuses did not seem to please the residents and a number then asked Judy Terry a number of questions, one asked why she had taken Mr Noble round the area- Judy Terry said she did not know anyone called Noble, I then indicated that they meant her Tory County colleague, Colin Noble. She still seemed to deny that she had taken Cllr Noble round the area of the prefabs.

Two 24 year old sisters then stated that they were unhappy with Cllr Terry’s claim that the majority of the residents were aged or disabled. A number of the prefabs have been purchased from the council by the tenants and one lady who had purchased hers was almost in tears as she informed Judy Terry that her irresponsible comments had now made it impossible to sell her own home.

After 15 minutes of questions we had to move onto other agenda items but I allowed Judy Terry to make a closing statement, she then blamed a Labour councillor for saying that the homes need to be demolished. I then added the closing remarks to the debate, stating that we know the prefabs will not last forever but when we do make a plan for their future it will be the residents who will be the first to hear and they will be consulted. I then asked Judy Terry two direct questions in front of the audience, did she invite Colin Noble to visit the area and if she did not why did he say he had visited the area of the prefabs? She stated for the third time that evening she had not taken Cllr Colin Noble round the prefabs and did not know why he had said he had visited!

At the end of the meeting Judy Terry spent a number of minutes discussing the prefabs with residents as her two Tory colleagues seemed in a hurry to leave. I and my Labour colleagues also spoke to some very angry and upset residents who informed us that they would call for the resignation of Cllr Judy Terry at the next are committee.

An eventful meeting that left many of us shocked and rather unsure what Judy Terry had planned. We did not have to wait long – under 10 hours to be even more confuses! The next morning Ipswich Spy spoke to Judy Terry and reported her view of ‘prefab gate’. She now informed us that she had invited Colin Noble round the area of the prefabs (she had denied this in a direct question from me only hours earlier) she still stated that she only wanted to start a debate (no mention of developers and plans already drawn up). She also indicated that by myself saying the ‘prefabs will not last forever’ that we do have a plan and we were hiding it from the residents. Only a week earner she said she had only raised the matter because we did not have a plan!

She then accused Labour of inviting residents to the meeting (not that would be wrong) in a leaflet we had delivered on the estate – the leaflet we did issue to allay residents’ fears does not mention the area committee. (The false accusation about the Labour leaflet was then repeated by another Tory blogger here). But most upsetting was her comments on why Labour councillor Tracy Grant was not at the meeting, implying that Cllr Grant was scared to attend in case she was asked about her views on the prefabs. Again Cllr Judy Terry is wrong Cllr Grant had given her apologies over two weeks before the meeting and before Cllr Terry had raised the prefab issue. Tracy works for Suffolk Police and they are so short staffed she was not allowed to have time off for the meeting. I hope Judy Terry has the decency to apologise to Tracy Grant (this inaccuracy about the attendance of Cllr Grant was again repeated on an Ipswich Tory blog)

So it seems Colin Noble did visit the area of the prefabs and thinks we should be ashamed of these much loved houses – people’s homes!

This still leaves a number of questions for Judy Terry to answer;

1. Why did she say Colin Noble had not visited the prefabs?

2. Why did she make an incorrect statements about the attendance of Tracy Grant without checking the facts?

3. Who are the two developers, did they approach her or did she approach them?

4. Are Care UK involved with the proposed care home?

5. Will the replacement 220 homes be council owned?



Alasdair Ross and Sandra Gage looking for Colin Noble in Inverness Road

More worrying is that Judy Terry seems to have difficulty in remembering what she has written or what she has done. At the last Full Council we had #Flyergate where Judy seemed to forget what she had written only weeks earlier in her Flyer column (her excuse then was she must have written it last year and had forgotten what she said) and now we have even more worryingly her inability to remember inviting a fellow cabinet member round the Inverness Rd area. She also seems to have none or little support from her Ipswich Tory colleagues, the Tory housing spokesman, Richard Pope did not even know of her plans for the prefabs. Maybe the pressure is getting too much for her.

I hope she will use the comment section on this blog to answer the 5 questions I have asked, and also that she has the decency to apologise to Tracy Grant.

But I think that this episode shows that many residents no longer have confidence in her ability to look after their best interests- and that many of them will use their vote on May 2nd to say that she is no longer wanted as their elected representative.

Footnote: Cllr Tracy Grant could not attend the Area Committee because of her work for Suffolk Police but on the same night the Police and Crime Commissioner attended the South East Area Committee – but he also seemed to lack the support of his Tory colleagues as all 3 Tory Borough councillors in the South east failed to turn up!