Owen Temple

Readers of the local paper, and people like me who read the laminated yellow signs on lamposts, will know that the mortuary chapels at Blackhill Cemetery have planning applications in process to convert them into homes.

It appears that the chapels were last used as mortuaries in the 1950s, served for a while as gardeners’ stores until 1970, and have lain empty since.

For myself, I’m delighted that these two landmarks will get some loving care and attention, after years of neglect and decay. You can see the designs on Derwentside’s website at http://www.derwentside.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=8427&step=4&ref=1/2008/0672

In my virtual travels I also came across a blog about these chapels which offers an interesting historical insight and query. You might like to look at it and the film attached to it. It has some fine detail of the stonework, and is a reminder of how much they add to our local landscape. It’s at http://woodmousesdiary.blogspot.com/2008/11/blackhills-gothic-chapels.html

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never known exactly what the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland was smoking in that hookah.

And sometime I wonder if I, or the writers, must have been under the same influence when I read some documents from County Durham. The most recent document to induce this feeling of total unreality is the latest on “Area Action Partnerships”.

Now, despite being a councillor I’m still self-aware enough to recognise that only anoraks like me take much interest in the details of local authority life - like the “big idea” of the unitary council, aka Area Action Partnerships. These, we are told, are to create innovative ways of delivering power to the people (their words, not mine), having just got rid of your district councils.

However, if anoraks are in the minority, there are plenty of people out there who want to know that some common sense is being applied to how their council tax is spent.

There are to be fourteen AAPs around the county, ranging from a mega East Coast AAP at Easington which I guess will be around 100,000 people, to a “mini” in Weardale which I guess will struggle to get much past 5,000.

I don’t have a problem with that - horses for courses - but I do wonder who’s been smoking what when I read that they are still talking about a budget of £250,000 for each AAP of which £100,000 will cover staffing costs in each area. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out that whilst this represents one kind of equality, it flies totally in the face of another. If the crude figures above were right it would mean spending £2.50 per head on the folk in Easington, and £50 per head in Weardale.

As absurdly, Area Boards comprising not more than 21 members will be made up of one third elected members, one third members of the public, and one third representatives of “partner” organisations.

I can imagine how you choose one third of the members at Easington (though I hope not to be around when the blood hits the wall) but in Weardale, Teesdale and Lanchester, with just two to four councillors across their whole areas, you can’t help wondering whether they are to have tiny boards, or have to ship in some friendly councillors from elsewhere. And who would make that decision?

All this makes for Durham in Wonderland - but actually these examples are only two of the more minor madnesses of the scheme. The really big nonsense is deciding how you will make up the AAPs, and how much they’ll have to spend, before you’ve decided what they’ll do!

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

I am delighted that our MP, Hilary Armstrong, has responded to my piece on “twin speed county” dated November 25th.

I welcome her comments, and her commitment to working with me or anyone else in Consett or Wear Valley in developing North West Durham. It’s undoubtedly true that party politics should not get in the way of anyone promoting our area.

You can read Hilary’s response by clicking “comments” just under the title of the piece. And if our MP is willing to enter into the debate - why not you? I’ve been missing comments since Dominic went to university and the spam filters improved to prevent my daily dose of dodgy pharmaceutical messages!

I have been assured by both Derwentside and Durham County Councils that measures have been put in place to ensure that those council charges which are subject to VAT will go down in line with the reduction in VAT from Monday December 1st.

 The good new is, therefore, that whether you’re paying for your trade waste collection, or seeking registration and certification of performing animals, it’ll cost you a tad less.

 What a pity there’s no VAT to reduce on council tax!

 After a long campaign in both Houses of Parliament by Lib Dem, Conservative and backbench Labour MPs and Peers, along with a coalition of green groups, the Government has at last introduced a tariff to offer incentives for households, businesses and communities to generate energy from renewable sources (such as solar, wind or biomass) and feed it back into the National Grid. This would move the UK towards our target of generating 15% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. We are currently hovering around 2%, lagging behind all of Europe except Malta and Luxembourg, so we need all the incentives we can employ. 

Germany introduced a feed-in tariff in 1990 and has seen its renewable energy market soar. Domestic turnover in 2007 was 25 billion Euros, with 250,000 people employed in the renewables sector. This is exactly the kind of boost that we need, particularly if recession continues to bite. 

However, the Government’s concession is too vague to offer certainty that feed-in tariffs will be (a) set up within the next two years, or (b) introduced in a workable form. Lib Dem energy spokesman Steve Webb MP put his name to amendments, which would have ensured that these conditions were met, but they were not accepted by the Government. The power has instead been made deliberately broad to give officials space to work out the details later.

Our concern is that the Government still does not realise the urgency of the situation. Energy Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath vocalised this during the debate in the House of Lords, saying: “Our hope is that a feed-in tariff scheme will be operational in 2010… I have to say that this is a hope, and I cannot give that as an absolute commitment…”. 

In August a campaign was launched to highlight the serious risk of a climate change ‘tipping point’ in 100 months. Every day that we dither and delay is another day closer to that tipping point where we can no longer stop irreversible climate change. 

Lib Dems believe we need to start doing government in a new way. There is no time for yet another consultation, another green paper, or another review. Far better to get a tariff up and running, and then refine it as we go along. If we wait until the mechanism is perfect, it will never happen. And we can draw on the wisdom of schemes that have already been set up in other countries.  

Now is the time to pull out the stops and ensure that feed-in tariffs are up and running within 12 months.

As part of the reorganisation of local government, Co Durham is going to get a “common lettings policy”.

Essentially this means that across the whole county, housing applicants will be able to “bid” for any individual participating social housing property which is vacant, with their applications then being dealt with according to their priority ranking, ranging from A-E according to the assessment of their needs.

The system is being trialled in Easington District, under the marketing style of Durham Key Options, and if you’re interested in exploring how it is intended to work it’s worth looking at their website, http://www.durhamkeyoptions.co.uk/Data/ASPPages/1/30.aspx Currently only “East Durham Homes” are participating in this trial.

The argument goes - and it makes sense - that people who have positively bid for a specific house are much more likely to be happy long-term tenants than people who are pushed into a tenancy.

There are some controversial elements too, like the fact that category A (the people at the top of the pecking order) will include anyone willing to move out of an “easy-to-let home”. So someone with a four bedroom family house to let in a sought after area, for instance, could get equal ranking with someone with an urgent medical need for a bungalow, or someone being forced out of their home for regeneration. The intention is to encourage people out of some of the most sought after properties. It might entice, for example, a couple whose family has grown up to vacate a four bedroom family house and so free up resources. Others might say, it could simply perpetuate privilege for people who are lucky enough to live in the most desirable homes.

Other questions were asked about the fact that people judged to be homeless would get a three month period to bid for houses of their choice with priority assured. One councillor thought that would allow people adjudged homeless to “cherry pick”, whereas they ought to be grateful to be offered any suitable home.

From my point of view the system looks a good idea, so long as the process of “bidding” for a home is easy for all (i.e. not heavily biased towards people with the internet, people living near a local housing office, or people who are confident on the phone) and is constantly monitored to check that the rules are being applied fairly and transparently. We are all too aware of past claims of failure in terms of fairness and transparency.

As usual, I’d be pleased to hear any views. I’m pleased to say that some people do email me their thoughts, even when they don’t want to comment on the website where everyone could read their thoughts.

I’m worried.

All areas in the new unitary authority have concerns that they will lose out in the new “super-county” that is Durham County. Some already have more cause for concern than others.

Last week’s DCC cabinet meeting approved the “Local Development Scheme”. Big Deal you may say.

The biggest deal in the document is the “New Growth Point Bid” for South and East Durham in response to the 2007 Housing Green paper. Sounds dry, but for Seaham, Peterlee and the triangle of towns  comprising Newton Aycliffe, Bishop Auckland and Spennymoor the paper says it will “deliver accelerated housing and employment growth …… and the implementation of town centre regeneration schemes alongside a number of planned improvements in both transport and community infrastructure.”  

Contrast that with the list of towns in the North of the county, Chester le Street, Stanley, Consett whose pomise is  ….. “documents that will be produced when time and resources are available, and others which may (my italics) be produced if it becomes clear that they are required.” So we may get a document! 

Just how carefully this has been thought out for Consett is to be seen in the description of the Town Centre Area Action Plan which (and I quote) “will provide the framework to enable the Town Centre to fulfil its potential as an area of opportunity by addressing issues such as the quality of the built environment and connectivity”. Which means precisely nothing. It’s the Emperor’s new clothes. It’s the jargon civil servants and local government officers fall back on when instructed to cover up policy nakedness.

I’m told council officers felt they were pushed into this policy by government diktat. I don’t much care why we’ve got it. I’m just desperate that local people are alert to what’s happening and move heaven and earth to operate whatever levers the Area Action Partnerships give us.

We’ve got two choices. Give up and watch this twin-speed county develop. Or get stuck in and exercise every ounce of spirit, wit and ingenuity we can muster to make things happen in North West Durham.

I’m looking forward to hearing our NW Durham MP comment on this - or hasn’t she noticed what is threatened for her constituents?

This story is a few days old, but I had to sort the computer before I could download the rather poor picture from my phone!

Mary Westgarth (who you can just make out top right) and I were delighted to gatecrash the first ever recording made at the new Red Town Recording Studio in the YMCA. You may remember that councillors were able to invest in a project within their ward as a bit of a “farewell to Derwentside”. It was called the Capital Initiative Fund and made available up to £60,000 to be spent on a project within the ward.

Mary Westgarth, Alex Watson and I, the three district councillors for the ward, were really pleased to find a project that we could all get behind wholeheartedly, and one that we felt would leave a lasting legacy of encouragement to music makers of all ages in the town. It’s satisfying to feel that although all three of us represent different parties, that’s not an issue when seeking the best for Consett.

 It’s also satisfying to know that the provision of the facility has also allowed the YMCA to attract grant funding from other sources to staff the facility and so make the most of the investment.

Now its up to the musical community, of all ages and all styles, to book the studio to put Consett even more indelibly on the musical map of the North East.

The ground-breaking Northern Recording co-operative, which sadly came to an end in 2005, showed what a fantastic and galvanising effect music could have on a community. Let’s hope Red Town Recording Studio will be able to add to that great tradition.

Durham County Council has agreed to extend the use of the Brooms Dene Household Waste Recycling Compound at Stony Heap for a further three years whilst continuing to look for an alternative site in the longer term.

The site, which has been in use since 1981, was originally only granted permission for 10 years but has had that permission extended six times!

The Planning Committee was shown pictures of the site, which is considerably less well developed than some of the modern sites elsewhere, but nevertheless heard that it collected and recyled the third highest amount of any site in the county.

The only concern expressed in relation to this extension came from Greencroft Parish Council. It was not the site itself, but the fact that sometimes the wagons use the narrow back roads rather than coming via the Jolly Drovers roundabout. The operators, Premier Waste, have agreed to instruct drivers to use the main route, so if you see their wagons on the narrower roads please report it to the County Council Highways Department.

I now have the response to the question of what is intended to happen with the Werdohl twinning arrangement. I quote verbatim from an email from Brian Stobie, the county’s International Officer:

“The Chairman, Leader and I have been meeting regularly with District Council colleagues and with the Friendship Group.

What is proposed is that the Friendship group becomes the sole contact with the Werdohl council and that the group applies to the new county authority for both a grant towards admin costs and also to offset some costs of exchanges. The grants are subject to consideration as part of the Local Government Review budget process.

I hope that this is useful. The Leader has clearly stated to all parties that he wants to see the twinning links continue post April 2009. The Chairman has also written to both Derwentside and Werdohl Councils to outline the proposition and to invite comment.”

I’ll update this if and when I get any further news.