Purple Book Tour - comes to Ipswich

Good news for Labour members in Ipswich - Progress have chosen Ipswich as one f their locations for their Purple Book Tour, it seems we are the only political party in Ipswich that is interested in political debate.

With the launch of The Purple Book, Progress are going round the country to debate the ideas it contains. These events will give local members a chance to hear from authors of The Purple Book about their chapter and discuss the wider theme of the book, redistributing power. In particular, the event will explore, whether or not Labour should get back in touch with its decentralising tradition and if so how it should achieve this.

Progress will be in Ipswich between 7:30-9pm on the 7 December 2011 in Ipswich Library Lecture Hall (Northgate Street IP1 3DE)

Speakers:

•Author: John Woodcock MP
•Author: Richard Angell (Progress)
•Speaker: Cllr David Ellesmere (Ipswich PPC)
•Speaker: Cllr Carina O’Reilly (Cambridge)
•Chair: TBC
Sign up for the event here
Buy your advance copy of The Purple Book here:

Not another supermarket

Today I joined local residents and other Labour colleagues at the Golden Key pub in Woodbridge Road, Ipswich.
Not in the pub for a lunchtime drink or a Sunday campaigning session but to join residents in protesting against the plan to turn the Golden Key pub into yet another supermarket. Rumours abound that Tesco are the supermarket chain who wish to buy the site from Greene King.




If you wish to know more about the planning application visit the Ipswich Borough Council website here and the application reference is 11/00740/FUL

Time is running out and submissions have to be in by the 17th October (tomorrow)



Cllr Alasdair Ross, speaking to residents

But this is only the start of our campaign to stop this development. we are not just against supermarkets or Tesco, but we are fortunate in Rushmere, Bixley and St John's that we have such a variety of small shops in our wards. This development could see the end of our little row of shops on Woodbridge Road

Portman Road- safer under IBC rather than in the hands of club owner.

IPSWICH TOWN FOOTBALL CLUB’S PORTMAN ROAD GROUND



The last generation has seen a common theme amongst a number of football clubs – a new owner arrives, acquires the ground from the local authority (if they need to), and then looks to sell the land for a significant profit, while either not building an alternative, or being financially assisted by multinational companies to build a replacement on greenbelt land, in an out of town location, in order for the multinational companies to capitalize on the land losing its greenbelt status.



This summer, Brighton & Hove Albion finally moved into their new ground, fourteen years after their owners sold the Goldstone Ground, without buying a replacement (the site is now a retail park), instead agreeing a deal to ground-share with Gillingham FC, over seventy miles away.



The last decade at Wrexham has seen a number of property developers look to acquire the club, purely with a view to being able to sell the well located Racecourse Ground. It has only been in the last month that their fans have been able to engineer a deal to buy their club in order to secure their future.



If we look at the current financial turmoil at Plymouth Argyle, we see a club that just two seasons ago were preparing to host Ipswich in a Championship fixture, yet today sit at the bottom of the football league, in administration, with the future of their Home Park ground as key as the future of the club itself. The Pilgrim’s largest debt is that owed to the mortgage company that funded the recent improvements of the ground, and attempts to sell the club have revolved around the future of the ground, with the original preferred bidder seemingly intent on passing the club on (but not the ground) for a nominal fee, as soon as they purchased the club.



Ipswich Town have always been a fortunate Club in terms that they own all of the buildings on the land that the ground is situated on, yet the land itself is owned by Ipswich Borough Council. Such a situation has always protected the club from property developers and asset strippers, because the value is in the land, and not the fixtures and fittings situated on that land. However, over the last 24 hours, news has surfaced that Simon Clegg has again confirmed that the club had offered to purchase the land that the Club is situated on. Such a deal would put us in the same situation as those other clubs who have been forced out of their homes in the past.



These words may seem alarming, but with an owner who has talked to the fans on just a handful of occasions since he acquired the club four years ago, it is impossible for us to know his intentions – and those of his successors. Marcus Evans may be looking out for the best interests of the Club, in light of the current disagreement between the club and Ipswich Borough Council, but having seen so many clubs lose their homes through the actions of an unaccountable owner, we have to consider all options, even if those options may not come to pass for years, or even decades. However, if the Club buys the land, any attempt to stop a future sale of the land for personal profit will be at best difficult - which is why we have to speak up while the land is still owned by the Council.



Instead of changing the ownership or freehold status, we instead call on the Club, having resolved the current rent dispute, to look to the long term future and withdraw from attempting to buy the ground. Moreover should the Club continue to pursue this avenue, we call on the Council to stand firm and refuse all offers, regardless the temptations to cash in on such an asset at a time of austerity.



In amongst this story, the comments we find most disappointing are those from Simon Clegg regarding the suggestion that he may need to increase the cost of season tickets to cover the extra rent. The Club already has one of the most expensive ticket policies within the division, and for a Club that has an annual turnover of around £15million, £111,000 per year rent is not excessive (we are aware of higher private rents for much smaller buildings on the edge of town), and is less than 0.7% of the staff costs for the last year of annual accounts. In the current climate, Ipswich Borough Council, like most councils up and down the country has reduced funding from central government, and at a time when local public services and jobs are at risk, the Council and local taxpayers should not be subsidising private business activities.



The Committee

Ipswich Town Independent Supporters Trust

13th October 2011

Suffolk Mobile Library Service

Suffolk Mobile Library Service - last chance for you to have your say on the future of the service.

Consultation ends on October 16th 2011, just under a week to go.




Suffolk County Council are now consulting the public on the Mobile Library service, and how savings can be made.

More information can be found on the consultation and the consultation paper can be found online here, or in paper in any public library.

In the 2010 Modernisation Review of Public Libraries, Suffolk’s mobile service was shown as an example of best practice in the ‘Stronger Communities’ section, noting that the mobile service

“has longer stops for community activities allowing other advisers and services to reach rural communities. New satellite dishes on the vans provide full online use of the internet and the library catalogue’.

Will leave the last line to those great campaigners from Rosehill Library:

Mobile libraries are a lifeline to those who can’t easily make it to a public library, hopefully the Council will carry out this consultation with more grace and intelligence than the full library consultation.

My week ahead 10 - 16 October

Monday 10 October 4pm - Meeting about Ipswich Museum
6pm - Labour Group Meeting

Thursday 13 October 6pm - Scrutiny meeting - Ipswich waterfront

Saturday 15 October 10.30am - Campaigning North Ipswich

Only one council meeting this week, a scrutiny meeting that just seemed to be an opportunity for certain Tory councillors to make political statements, seems all the good work carried out by scrutiny under the chairmanship of Gavin Maclure will be forgotten as the Tories just see scrutiny as a way of making cheap political shots. More about the meeting here.

Spent a couple of mornings campaigning in St Margaret's Ward, we may not have won the seat since 1919! But there was a positive reaction from most residents we spoke to, the Lib Dems will find it hard to get back to the level of support they used to have in the ward.




Thursday was a meeting of the Suffolk Fabians, a debate on what history can teach us about the future of Europe. Not sure I agreed that we needed a system based on Athenian democracy but an interesting debate never less. Great to see a large attendance and such a vast spread in age of those participating. The Fabians in Suffolk have a bright future.

Scrutiny call - in - Locality budgets

Ever since I was elected to be Rushmere Ward councillor, I have sat on Overview and Scrutiny. The first three years were as a member of the opposition. The first two years were wasted as the chair of Scrutiny used the committee for his own personal reasons. Then along with most of the Tory/Lib Dem Executive failed to turn up for training. Scrutiny improved in 2010 under the chair of Gavin Maclure. We saw the use of task and finish groups and we managed to achieve results and even undertook joint scrutiny with the County Council.Gavin even seemed as critical of the Tory executive as we were at times.

But much of scrutiny was taken up with call-ins. We, the Ipswich Labour Party Group found the call-in procedure the only way to get our message over as we were refused a seat on the executive (even though we were the largest party).

This week we had our first taste of a call-in by the Tory opposition, some may say time we learnt how it felt to have a decision called in, the difference of course is that the Tories were offered a seat on the executive but refused to take it up.

There is also another difference with Scrutiny under Labour, as is recognised 'best practice', we have given the chair of scrutiny to the opposition.

This call-in was about the Labour decision to stop the implementation of locality budgets for Borough councillors.

Tory councillor Nadia Cenci called in the decision and gave her reasons on her blog. Though they may no longer be in a coalition in Ipswich, she seemed to be supported by the Ipswich Lib Dems - here.

There main argument seems to be now they feel Libraries in Ipswich are safe and that we have also been told that we will retain all our school crossing patrols, the money Ipswich Labour put aside is not needed. They even got Tory County Leader Mark Bee and Ben Gummer to meet the press at Rosehill Library and plead for the locality money to be introduced as they never meant to close any libraries.

Well first off Mark Bee would have been better off using his talk with the press to call on his fellow Waveney Tory councillor Andrew Draper to resign after assaulting a police officer. But we still wait to hear him mention that but what Cllr Bee also forgot to mention is that we are still waiting for the re-introduction of school crossing patrols at Alan Road and also near Sprites School.

We will also not even know till November, when the Tory County Cabinet sits that the libraries have been saved.

But let's say that they are safe, of the £240,000 saved by not introducing locality budgets, £186,000 was to go into IBC reserves. That money is still needed as we have found gaps in the last Tory budget including not receiving as much money from the Tory Government in the form of the 'New Homes Bonus' as the Tory budget had us down to receive. So it is only sensible to keep that money in reserve.

Cllr Cenci gives her view of the meeting here, not so much a report on the meeting but just her opening statement. After she and Cllr David Ellesmere had given their views it was then a question and answer session. Big difference to Tory run scrutiny is that the questions came from both sides. Under the Tories only Cllr Debman used to ask questions with the remainder of the Tories sitting still then voting against Labour at the end.

Paul Geater from the Evening Star was at the meeting so Tories, Liz Harsant and Kim Stroet decided instead of asking questions to make prepared political statements. We did eventually get down to some serious questioning with Cllr Cenci creating some laughter with her answers about council reserves and Labour propaganda.

Then when that part of the meeting was over, and the press had left. We should have then debated the decision and there is a debate needed. For example, should even County Councillors still have locality budgets when the County is about to shut care homes and close Youth clubs?

But there was no debate, the Tories put it straight to a vote- with Liz Harsant stating, 'now the press has gone let's just get on with it'.

This statement more than any showed that the whole meeting had been a charade, they had no interest in debating the decision. The vote was lost and locality budgets will not be introduced this financial year.

There was also a sub plot - big hitting Tory, Judy Terry is a member of scrutiny but a sub replaced her. Instead we expected to see Judy Terry be called to give evidence as a County Cabinet member with the responsibility for libraries. But she never turned up - I asked Cllr Cenci, why? The answer given was that she had been advised not to turn up. 'By whom?' I asked. Cllr Cenci said she did not know who by.

So Ipswich Conservative group, two questions:

1. Who advised Cllr Terry not to turn up?

2. Why did she take that advice, has she something to hide?

My week ahead 3 - 8 October

Monday 3 October 6pm - Campaigning in North East Ipswich

Wednesday 5 October 6pm - Scrutiny, Call in of decision to delay paying of locality budgets

Thursday 6 October 7pm - Fabians meeting - Debate on Europe

Saturday 8 October 10.30am - Campaigning all over Ipswich, focus on Tory plans for NHS

Only one meeting this week but an important one as we looked at the plan to manage the refurbishment of Crown Pools, making sure that we look after those who have used Crown Pools regularly over the last few years.

We have also started campaigning hard in St Margaret's Ward, Ipswich. Maybe not our most fertile area for votes but have had some excellent contacts with local residents. Many seem to be keen to vote for us as they feel they have been badly let down by the Lib Dems, issues such as tuition fees are important to many in St Margaret's and they are not willing to allow the local Lib Dems to distance themselves from the decision that Clegg and his colleagues made to vote for Tuition fees at Westminster. Even Tory voters were keen to talk to us, as they are confused what the Tory policy is on building on the Northern Fringe. The Tory Government seem to be saying developers can build anywhere, Dr Poulter said it does not mean this and even the local Tory Cllrs seem split one what should happen. We still wait for Ben Gummer to make a public statement on the issue.

One thing for certain is that most residents have not got a clue what the Tories plan is for developing this part of the town and maybe the Tories are not even sure themselves!