Owen Temple

 The Lib Dems will be delivering on another manifesto commitment when car clamping on private land is banned.

Liberal Democrat ministers Lynne Featherstone and Norman Baker have announced that car clamping on private land is to be banned as part of the Freedom Bill this Autumn.

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone MP when making the announcment said:

“The Government is committed to ending the menace of rogue private sector wheel clampers once and for all.

“For too long motorists have fallen victim to unscrupulous tactics by many clamping firms. Reports of motorists being marched to cash points or left stranded after their car has been towed are simply unacceptable.

“A ban on clamping and towing on private land will end this abuse and companies who decide to flout new laws will face severe penalties.”

Durham County Council will be holding advice sessions throughout September for people applying for money through its Arts Development Small Grants Scheme.

The grants scheme offers funding of up to £500 for projects that contribute to the creative and cultural development of the county and which support the council’s arts development priorities.

The 20-minute consultations will give people the chance to find out whether their project is eligible and pick up tips on how to complete and submit an application form.

Advice sessions will take place on the following days:

Wed, 1 Sept 4.30pm to 7pm Lamplight Arts Centre, Stanley
Thurs, 2 Sept 4.30pm to 7pm Gala Theatre, Durham
Mon, 6 Sept 4.30pm to 7pm East Durham College, Peterlee
Tues, 7 Sept 5pm to 7.30pm Bishop Auckland Town Hall
Wed, 8 Sept 5pm to 7.30pm Witham Hall, Barnard Castle
Thurs, 9 Sept 4.30pm to 7pm Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre

Appointments must be booked in advance by contacting the arts team on 0191 370 8803 or emailing artsgrants@durham.gov.uk

The scheme is open to professional artists, community and voluntary groups, arts organisations, social enterprises, and parish and town councils. However, applicants must live or operate in County Durham and their project must also benefit the county’s residents.

The deadline for applications is noon on Thursday, 30 September. Applicants will be told if they have been successful within four weeks of the closing date.

For more information and to download an application form visit www.durham.gov.uk

In August the council takes a break. There are few if any meetings and little business.

I propose to take much the same approach so you can expect little if any news on this website.

When the council gears up again in September expect me to rev up the site again.

I often sing the praises of the Audit Committee.

It’s a good example of councillors working together in robust inquiry into the way the county council is run. And in Wednesday’s council meeting its chair gave a very honest appraisal of how things stand. You can judge it for yourself:

For 2009-10, the responsibility for approving the Annual Statement of Accounts, which includes the Annual Governance Statement, has been discharged to the Audit Committee. I would like to thank the Committee members for the commitment they have given to meeting this responsibility, and in particular the robust challenge they have made.

The Council annually reviews the effectiveness of its governance framework, and from the sources of assurance provided, we are confident that the Council has a reasonably sound governance framework. Nevertheless, as a result of this review, and the work of both Internal and External audit, a number of issues have been identified where improvement in the Council’s governance arrangements are required to continue the positive direction of travel.

On the 27th July, the Audit Committee approved the statement of accounts.

The Audit Commission will now undertake detailed testing of the accounts in audit. There was concern on the part of the Committee that the delay in the Committee being able to approve the accounts has delayed the start of the audit process. This may in turn result in the Committee not being in a position to approve the final accounts in September.

The Committee identified that the root of the difficulties in producing the accounts lies in the manner in which the Oracle system was implemented, running from Vesting Day with separate systems that were used in the former district councils.

The Committee welcomed the assurance given by the Interim Director of Resources, in his role as Section 151 Officer, that he will work to the speedy discontinuance of the former district systems and identify the areas where Oracle implementation needs to be amended; and have those changes ready for implementation for the new Corporate Director of Resources when he arrives.

It’s been remarkable to see how easily and naturally the Labour Party has slipped into its role as the opposition. That’s not surprising at Westminster, but at County Hall it’s a revelation. They still have a commanding majority in the council, but you wouldn’t have guessed they had any authority today.

“We have little choice but to do what is handed down by Westminster”, bemoaned the leader.

Then we got another of those fake motions put by the Labour Group asking the council to write to County Durham’s MPs calling on them to vote against the rise in VAT. Had they not noticed that all the MPs are Labour MPs and had already voted againt the increase? It happened weeks ago.

No-one should under-play the impact of tax rises, or of the cuts that are to be made locally and nationally, but for the party in charge at County Hall to wring it’s hands as though it has no power of action left is both defeatist and dishonest. It has the power to decide how to use not only its General Reserves of £28 million, but also much of its allegedly “ear-marked” reserves, many of which are ear-marked in no real sense of the word, like the “Cabinet Reserve” or the “Special Projects Reserve”. Everyone knows that you can’t use reserves to solve every problem. But nor can you sit on what the Acting Director of Resources described as “a whopping £95 million” of earmarked reserves whilst pleading that you have no capacity to act.

Incidentally, with £112 million of capital which remained unspent from the 2009-10 budget (they call it slippage) the cabinet could usefully direct its energy to ensuring that that money is spent, and spent well, rather than just wringing its hands.

I wan’t admirer of the Labour Group when it was in control at County Hall. I’ll have even less respect for it, though, it it’s simply going to capitulate and become the party of opposition even when its in power.

Durham County Council planning committee voted 13-1 to reject the planning depatment’s advice and instead approved the proposed Tesco store at Puddler’s Corner on the grounds of economic benefits, job creation and job retention, and the regeneration benefits of reclaiming this brownfield site.

Only then did a slight “fly in the ointment” emerge. After the vote the planning officer stated that the government office (whicjh had previously looked at this proposal and decided not to “call it in”) had let it be known that it wanted to look at it again.

This may call into question Tesco’s intention that the new store could open in time for Christmas 2011, but I hope we’re not going to get any more delays and confusion. The proposal has now achieved councillors’ support twice, 14-2 at Derwentside and 13-1 at the county. It’s harder to be clearer than that.

One final note. I was the only one of the four councillors elected for Consett to attend the meeting - and I was refused permission to speak because the new store is not in my county ward! It’s on the other side of the road. You may well wonder whether this is what you expected when you turned out at the polls to elect this unitary council last year.

The Consett North PACT (Partnerships And Community Together) meeting took place this week.

There weren’t many local residents there so I’ll share the bits and pieces that came out of it:

The local crime statistics for June are on this PDF file: police-consett-north-june-2010.pdf : You’ll be pleased to know that arrests have been made is respect of all 6 cases of theft.

The Official Durham Constabulary newsletter, “Out of the Blue”, can be read here: out-of-the-blue-newsletter-july.pdf

Consett Neighbourhood policing team can now be found on Facebook by searching for “Consett Neighbourhood” or clicking this link

I had a great morning on Wednesday visiting two of the three schools involved in an environment project with the Benfieldside, Blackhill, Bridgehill, and Shotley Bridge Partnership, alongside two councillor colleagues and organisers of the partnership.

Under the guidance and prompting of the partnership Year 5 pupils at St Mary’s, Benfieldside and Shotley Bridge schools had each taken one aspect of the environment to consider, and produced materials for a leaflet they will be distributing during the next school year.

Saint Mary’s had taken the theme of Green Spaces, and written a review of each of four spaces: Consett and Blackhill Park, Bridgehill field, Benfieldside field and the Shotley Bridge play area and field. They had produced an excellent summary of the strengths and weaknesses of each, but rather than just have the experience on paper they got together to present their view to us. All five visitors were fascinated by the child’s eye view of our area. It was instantly recognisable by us all, but just from a subtly different perspective.

We then moved on to Benfieldside where the pupils had been considering litter. There were excellent posters and poems on the subject, and like St Mary’s they had also made good use of their technology skills to put together stylishly designed leaflets. We shared an assembly with them, and each child who had participated received a certificate.

Shotley Bridge Juniors have completed their work on dog ownership, and we’re all looking forward to visiting them and hearing about that in the new school year.

The process has obviously been very worthwhile, with the children getting really involved, and shows the value of the grass-roots work partneships do in their communities. Look out for the finished product when the leaflets are ciculated in September.

The poster at the head of this piece is reproduced by kind permission of Adam Brown. The message is deceptively simple, and this ex-English teacher always love’s to see the apostrophe accurately used.

I don’t know how many readers remember  Alice Cooper’s song of this title (or Mary Whitehouse’s successful campaign to have the video banned by the BBC), but you won’t have missed the fact that by tonight all of our local schools will have started their six-week summer holiday.

Throughout the period the county council puts on a programme of coached sports, tasters and pay and play sessions. There are family activities which include guided cycle rides and walks. Local communities and clubs are arranging activities.

You can find out more about them by visiting www.durham.gov.uk/schoolsout , phoning 0191 372 8165 or calling in at Belle Vue Leisure Centre.

And if you’ve only read this far in the hope of winning a Wii you can find out details at the same website.

I learned today of a new county council service in the area, the Landlords Initiatives Team.

As I understand it the team is primarily in place to provide an advisory service to private landlords, with the intention of enabling them to provide better management of their properties and relationships with tenants.

At the same time I understand that they will also respond to queries from tenants of private landlords.

It’s easy to forget how many people are living as tenants of private landlords and how important this sector of housing provision is. In some areas it is the main source of housing, and the wellbeing of individual tenants and whole communities can rest in the hands of private landlords.

The contact number for the team, which is based at Green Lane, Spennymoor, is 01388 816166.