Yesterday I joined the Seafront Business Association in Bartholomew Square outside Brighton Town Hall to express our concern at the huge rent increases the Council is trying to impose on seafront businesses.
People love Brighton's unique seafront with its wide variety of unique, independent shops, pubs and clubs. The level of interest was very encouraging with BBC South Today, Meridian, The Argus, GSCene, Brighton Visitor all coming to cover us. I'm told we were also reported on several local radio stations.
I then presented the petition at the Council's Cabinet meeting, asking Council Leader Cllr Mary Mears for a response. Cllr Mears response was couched in lots of sympathy and concern for local businesses but basically argued that the Council have to get market rates for our popular seafront. She did say that she'd instructed officers to be sensitive and sympathetic to the difficulties businesses were experiencing at this time, a tacit acknowledgement that the approach thus far has been heavy-handed and legalistic.
The problem remains however that the Council's consultants seem to be valuing the rents based on the businesses being hugely profitable, running 12 months a year and that they didn't have significant upfront investment costs. Most of the current traders took on virtually derelict arches and spent large sums to get them into shape for business. Furthermore most cannot and do not trade all year round because of the weather. All it takes is one bad summer to put them on the edge.
I didn't hear any action to re-calibrate how council valuations are being done so the fight goes on…
I am rather late in reporting this good news, this week has been super-busy both at work and in political life.
The Planning Inspector found against Taylor Wimpey's appeal meaning that the original Planning Committee's decisions to refuse permission to demolish and build stand. This is absolutely the right decision and fabulous news. All credit to the local residents associations, particularly the Montpelier & Clifton Hill Association and the Brighton Society who put together the most remarkably professional and well argued case in favour of saving the old buildings. Without them the Council would have undoubtedly lost the case.
I was extremely apprehensive about this appeal due to the resources Taylor Wimpey were willing to throw at it. When I spoke to the Inquiry myself Taylor Wimpey's barrister was rather persistent in trying to catch me out with his questions, desperate to show improper behaviour by the planning committee. I think I dodged all the verbal traps!
So for now the buildings are safe, but we must all keep a watchful eye on them to prevent them falling into disrepair. We must now wait to see what Taylor Wimpey's next move will be – a challenge to the inquiry, a new application to the council or perhaps cutting their losses and selling?
My Green colleague Cllr Amy Kennedy is newly a-blogging, and doing so with impressive gusto as well as an eye for design. So do have a read of her post on the Alex. Amy is one of the Greens on the planning committee and our built environment spokesperson.
It has now been a year since the new constitution was waved in by a Tory and Labour vote. This created an all Tory cabinet who have, through grated teeth and with much complaining, tried to maintain a semblance of ‘openness and transparency’ which they said was at the core of their administration. In real terms these core values weren’t worth much.
At the last Cabinet meeting they started ruling some of my supplementary questions out of order for not being relevant…. completely specious and a blatant attempt to stifle debate.
Today’s Cabinet meeting was the final straw as Cllr G Theobald led the retreat. Yes, a complete surrender on their attempts to maintain any notion of being open or transparent. Instead of answering my four written questions Cllr G Theobald instead penned a missive (copied in full below) stating that because I had asked him too many questions he wasn’t going to answer any more. He also complained that my questions take too much officer time yet he found it appropriate to get an officer to compile a list of all the questions I have asked at Council and Cabinet meetings — bizarre!
Cllr G Theobald tells me my number of questions is unprecedented in Brighton & Hove, I’m making history, how wonderful. Perhaps it is more because he is so poor at consulting and the arrangements he governs over have been so shambolic that these questions are needed — as shown by my ongoing bulging (electronic) mailbag on the communal bins issue.
The fact is the Tories don’t really like being held to account and some of the Cabinet members particularly don’t like questions which highlight the fact that they haven’t got to grips with their portfolio. Like Ministers, I believe Cabinet members have a clear duty to provide factual answers when requested in writing by any elected member using the proper procedure, as I always do.
If you look at the questions I ask and then the claims by Cllr G Theobald that answering them takes too much officer time, one is led to one of two possible conclusions:
They really don’t want to answer questions; OR
the department isn’t in control of its affairs and doesn’t have basic management data to hand.
Either way it reflects very poorly on the Conservatives’ ability to run this Council effectively. Frankly I’m appalled that the Leader of the Council, Cllr Mary Mears, allowed Cllr Theobald to make such a dismissive response to my genuine and rather simple questions.
Cllr Theobald makes much of inviting me to speak to officers – however I do this all the time, but for the policy issues I think it’s only fair to deal with them at the political level. Similarly, if there are failings, it is the portfolio holder’s responsibility to take, I should not be directing it at officers. These are the protocols of Member/Officer relations and it is inappropriate for Cllr Theobald to keep passing the buck to his officers.
The irony of all this of course is that any resident can ask these same types of questions through the Freedom of Information Act and the Council would be required to respond. Power to the people rather than their representatives!
UPDATED 23/5/09 to include video of the Cabinet meeting.
The full questions and then Cllr Theobald’s non-answer answer (which for some reason is not yet online either):
(a) Councillor Kitcat
“Can Cllr G Theobald provide detail on the cost of the metal stoppers being added to the non-foot pedal communal bins? In particular:
The cost per bin of adding the stoppers;
The total cost to the council of adding the stoppers;
How this cost will be met and from which budget.”
(b) Councillor Kitcat
“Can Cllr G Theobald explain why a small number of non-foot pedal communal bins have rubber seals on the flaps which reduce the noise of closure whilst most do not?”
(c) Councillor Kitcat
“Does CityClean have any plans to expand the use of communal bins in the city?”
(d) Councillor Kitcat
“Could Cllr G Theobald update the meeting as to current versus previous recycling and waste tonnages in the city centre where communal bins are used?”
Response from Councillor Theobald, Cabinet Member for Environment, to all four questions.
“Thank you for your questions Councillor Kitcat.
As you are aware, beginning with the Council meeting on 4 December, you have asked some 30 questions at Council and Cabinet meetings. Notwithstanding my reservations and the pressure it was putting on officers, I have, up to now, endeavoured to answer all your questions in the hope that they are the last ones. I have a list of all your questions with the answers supplied if anyone wishes to see them. However, as is obvious to any fair minded, objective and impartial observer, this number of questions coming from a single Member about a single issue is excessive by any standards and certainly unprecedented in the history of this authority.
Give the number, frequency and nature of the questions, a disproportionate amount of officer time and resources has been spent in doing the research and preparing the answers. I firmly believe that the interests of the hard working Council Tax payers of Brighton & Hove is better served with officer time and resources being spent in delivering the service rather than having to research and answer an endless list of questions that add no value to the service.
I have always treated questions from Members and the public with respect and answered them. However, given what I have just said, and having taken advice, I do not feel it would be appropriate to continue to reply to a constant and endless list of questions on this subject from one Member.
As you are no doubt aware, at the Environment CMM on 7 May, I extended an invitation to all Members to meet Officers to share any concerns they have about waste and recycling issues. I repeat that invitation again. I do not therefore intend to answer your questions on communal bins as I believe that for anyone genuinely interested in helping to improve the service, taking the invitation that I have again extended to all Members is a more appropriate way of making a difference than constantly tabling questions after questions at Council and Cabinet.
What if Harry Markopolos had had a blog
Fascinating discussion on Harry Markopolos, an investor who in May 1999 submitted the results of his personal investigations into Bernard Madoff to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Markopolos identified that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme and pointed out many of the 'red flags' only now emerging in the media — we was spot on a decade ago. Naughton explores whether Madoff would have been outed earlier if Markopolos had blogged his findings, and concludes that he probably would have been shut down by expensive lawyers before any damage to the Madoff empire could be done. Maybe, but Markopolos could have caused a fuss as they took him down which might have leaked out.
Steve Ballmer's speech to Democrats
Like John Naughton I'm not a big Microsoft fan either but the text of MS CEO Steve Ballmer's speech is definitely worth a read. Some very interesting threads there especially on Microsoft's dedicated avoidance of debt. Amen to that.
In the rush of all the council meetings of the past few weeks I haven’t had the chance to blog about the activity I’ve been doing regarding the terrible conflict in the Middle East.
On Sunday 18th January I spoke at a very well attended Arab/Israeli peace walk through the middle of Brighton. Thankfully I spoke first as some of the speakers, particularly Paul from Jews for Justice, were very good! I hoped to have a video of some of the speeches but my camera let me down, still I found a bit of video of the walk on YouTube here.
Then after the BBC and Sky News outrageously decided against showing the DEC Gaza humanitarian appeal I took part in and spoke at a small vigil outside the BBC’s Brighton offices. Part of my speech was captured by a bystander and has shown up on YouTube, see below. The picture above was one of the banners created by the very hardworking activists who got the whole vigil setup including finding 300 candles to represent all the children who lost their lives in the conflict.
The bone-headed nature of the BBC’s justification for refusing to show the appeal just infuriates me beyond belief. They have done their reputation far more damage by their refusal than showing it ever could have possibly done. When innocent people are starving this is about getting them food and medicine — because we can — regardless of who started it and who did what when. We have a moral duty to help one other in times of need.
You could do a lot worse than read the IHT's excellent article from last week “As the pound falls, so does the mood in Britain”. Its authors Julia Werdigier and Nelson D. Schwartz put together many of the factors I believe are critical to understanding the current quagmire. Key facts:
Household debt as a percentage of disposable income in Britain hit 177 percent in 2007, compared to 141 percent in the United States.
As in Iceland, banks, real estate and other financial services boomed in London in recent years, even as other swaths of the economy withered. In recent years, this sector has been responsible for about half of total job growth in Britain even though it accounts for only about 30 percent of the economy, according to Peter Dixon, U.K. economist for Commerzbank in London.
Traditional industries [in Britain] like manufacturing have faded in recent decades, unlike on the Continent where they remain a relative counterweight to the outsized problems in the financial sector.
People spending way beyond their means was always going to come home to roost at some point. And relying on an economic model's dependence on continual 'growth' in a simplistic “more is more” sense is also a recipe for a crash at some point. Growing spending when much of it is debt must halt when finally the banks realise they need to get paid back!
But the UK's banks, so often cheered as a strength, are also a huge vulnerability. They have created disproportionate job growth and make up fully a third of our economy – that's astonishing. Banking is necessary, of course, to support commerce and personal finances. But banks should be the lubricant for the wheels of commerce – they shouldn't be the main event themselves. And herein lies the problem, the banks were creating economic growth based on models which many of their own didn't understand. The actual value produced was, in my view, very low. This was false productivity and economic success.
Banks need to step away from the centre stage, bankers need to be more humble and remember they are there to support innovators, inventors and investors who want to build sustainable long-term businesses that employ people and give back to society through steady returns, decent salaries and by paying their taxes — not dodging them.
Not until we have a diversified, sustainable economy with our eyes firmly set on the long-term can we hope to emerge from these dreadful downturns.
Quarter of polyclinics privately run
So far a quarter of new, government mandated, clinic will be privately run. This is part of the broader 'marketisation' of the NHS which troubles me very deeply. Also good to see the Independent ensure we aren't distracted by the government's terminological switch to 'GP-led health centres'.
postnote: E-Democracy [PDF]
I was asked for my thoughts and feedback on this note by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology which references the e-voting campaigning work I led at the Open Rights Group. It's a decent summary but that it took about 10 months to complete and publish raises questions as to how relevant POST advice can be for parliamentarians.
The order will prevent MPs' expenses being fully released to the public as ordered by the High Court last year. This is an outrage, MPs work for us not for themselves and should be leading the way in how open government can be. It's just so disappointing that when politicians at all levels are being held in such incredibly low regard they go and do this.
So many people think politicians are riding the gravy train, they are cynical and jaded about politicians and the political process. I think there are many politicians of all parties (in fact I would venture that it's probably the majority) who work incredibly hard for less pay than they would have had in the private sector.
How dare ministers let those hard working politicians down, who sacrifice family time to stand up for their constituents and the values they believe in! I'm furious… every self-interested, short sighted action like this only furthers the negative image of politicians.
Jason Kitcat 