Sunday, August 23, 2009

Another Award for Scully's Blogspot

I was really chuffed to hear that I had made it as the 4th top councillor blog in the survey carried out by Iain Dale for Total Politics. Thanks to everyone who voted for me. I've been slack about posting over the last few weeks after a hard-fought by-election and my summer holiday but hopefully this will inspire me to work harder.

This blog was the 2nd highest place Conservative blog in the list. I was knocked off my overall 3rd place acheived in 2008, by a good friend, Richard Willis, who you may remember was our Parliamentary candidate in Sutton & Cheam at the last General Election. It's great to see him going from strength to strength as a councillor in Reading. He doesn't do things by halves so it's not surprising to see him hitting the top so quickly.

Update: 21st top Conservative blog and 44th top right of centre blog. Thanks again.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Dead Lady's First Floor Flat Put On Flood Risk

Sutton Council recently sent a letter to a property in Cedar Road, Sutton with a booklet explaining how to clear up after a flood, how to claim on insurance, how to protect your property and about temporary housing. The Environment Agency includes such nuggets such as "wear your gloves when clearing up after a flood as water may contain sewage, chemicals and animal waste."

As you may have gleaned from the title of this article, the council-government partnership have a little to learn about target marketing. The addressee died over two years ago. The first floor flat, far from being first for the sandbags, would make a perfect mooring point should Noah need to drop in.

The only flood plain identified by the local authority is around the banks of the River Wandle in Beddington. Quite why flats in the middle of Sutton Town Centre are being targeted is beyond me. How much has this futile exercise cost?

Saturday, August 08, 2009

A Cool £16,000 for Council Leader's Air-Con

Sutton’s Liberal Democrat town hall leadership has been accused of insensitive “Emperor Nero-style largesse” after opting to spend over £16,000 on a specially tailored air conditioning system for the Council Leader’s Office. This rubs salt into the wounds of tenants of Sutton Council after they discovered that the plug has been pulled on desperately needed funding to bring tenanted properties up to the nationwide ‘Decent Homes Standard’.

Council housing in Sutton – managed by the Sutton Housing Partnership – has been labelled as amongst the worst in Britain by the Government watchdog, the Audit Commission. Housing Ministers added insult to injury last week by telling the Council that the option of £112.5million capital funding was being deferred.

After 23 years of Lib Dem administration council tenants have very little to show for it and that systematic neglect over that period has condemned tenants to more years of substandard accommodation. Conservative opposition councillors unearthed the controversial plans to spend £13,000 on the Leader’s air conditioning system, plus £3071 on ‘fees’, after they were buried in a ‘Delegated Decision Notice’.

I’m shocked and angry that the Lib Dem Council Leader is planning on billing the taxpayer for over £16,000 to pay for his luxury air conditioning after the devastating news for council tenants – frankly, it’s Emperor Nero-style largesse, while Rome burns.

This rubs salt into the wounds of tenants who have been sentenced to yet more years of living in substandard homes, missing out on Government funding because of long-term underinvestment in our council housing.

After all these years with Lib Dem council bosses in charge of housing it’s clear that tenants have very little to show for it. Argos is selling electric fans for £12.99 each; I’ll happily chip in for one to save Sutton taxpayers £16,000.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

If Only The Voters Could See



We don't have a video feed in our council meetings. This example from LibDem run Derby clearly shows why.