A Shy & Retiring Councillor

Cllr Geiringer sat down at today's Civic Service on his reserved seat. It took a few seconds to take in that the piece of paper saying "Reserved" wasn't an instruction as the words "reserved" and "Geiringer" don't often feature in the same sentence. Long may this be.

The Civic Service was held at the Salvation Army Church Hall in Sutton. The service was led by some extremely talented singers and dancers and enthusiastic leaders. Nice to see a good turn out from both parties.

Sporting Chic

Last weekend, Crystal Palace hosted the London Youth games. Our very own Eric (on the right), in his role as Group spokesman for Sport took Cllrs. Tim Crowley and Moira Butt along to support the Sutton contingent and a good time was had by all. Eric spent the entire two days chatting to the kids, helping with the organisation and watching some great performances.

Whilst other councillors from a Party which might better suit the orange T-shirts arrived for lunch and left shortly afterwards it was good to see some real participation by our guys which seemed to be really appreciated by the children and parents. Eric's age belies the number of hours of tennis that he plays to an incredible standard each week. His enthusiasm for all sports was apparent for all to see. Too many councillors see some of their civic duties as a chore. Looking at Eric's beaming face the next day and hearing of his pride for the competitors, I am not sure who got most out of the weekend, the children or Eric. Well done to all three.

How to keep everyone happy

Sorry, don't read any further if you actually think the answer will be contained within. You will be surely disappointed. I had my first Council surgery yesterday with one taker which was a bonus since it hadn't been advertised. The issue raised was the long awaited 20mph zone in West Street, Carshalton. This has been on the agenda for a number of years but has failed to materialise. I noticed that on the list of items that Sutton Council produce each year to bid for funding, the 20mph zone had disappeared. It was confirmed that this was because the funding was there so no more excuses.

The existing plan, however contains speed bumps to help slow the traffic. These are all situated outside houses that are very close to the road so you can imagine those residents are not happy. There has been one fatal accident and one near-fatal accident in the last few years so something needs to be done. There is agreement in this but not in the method.

West Street is very narrow but is nonetheless an arterial road out of Carshalton. The £150k disaster of the speed bumps in Woodmansterne Road should teach us something. There are alternatives. Flashing signs, speed cameras, signals, something but let's not just get the navvies in to dump their excess tarmac without giving it just a little thought and, surprise us, just a little consultation. I shall certainly be asking everyone what they want. (Feel free to leave a comment here, though it would help to state if you were a resident or not.) Anyway, I have started you off with alternatives in my suggested sign above.

LibDems redistributing to the rich?

At last night's Area Committee I ventured outside the comfort zone of Carshalton Central to vent my spleen on the Council's cack-handed approach to Section 106 money (sometimes called planning gain, other times called a legal bribe.) Bellway Homes built a development on Rosehill Triangle (next to the St Helier roundabout) and paid £180,000 as a sweetener for the privilege. This was meant for employment opportunities and other items within the Rosehill district. Instead some £27k was used to help fund a Borough-wide employment study. The sole benefit to Rosehill from this study was to say that St Helier hospital was a large and important employer. Now, people would be queuing up at the opportunity to state the obvious on behalf of the Council for a fraction of this cost.

The previous Area Committee demanded the money back for Rosehill. However, the report prepared for the LibDem Strategy Committee airbrushed this demand out. I'm pleased that the Carshalton LibDems agreed with me, though I don't hold out much hope for the panjandrums at Strategy to agree. Though Sutton is one of the most prosperous Boroughs in London, it is often forgotten that St Helier is one of the most deprived wards in the capital. As a result of its location, it often misses out on grants and funding that are available to wider areas of need.

As a free-marketeer supporter of a smaller government I am not keen on much redistribution of wealth at the best of times but redistributing money from St Helier to the richer areas is crazy. I hope that they pay the money back.

Knife Amnesty – Stunt or Solution?

Article written for "The House" Magazine,

This summer’s knife amnesty, the first in over ten years has polarised opinion about its efficacy. Will it have any lasting effect on violent crime? Or is it just a knee-jerk reaction to a few tragic examples highlighted by the media? Home Office figures show that the use of knives in assaults and robberies have reduced by 26% since the last amnesty. Still, knives are the weapon of choice for assailants and robbers and were used in around a third of unlawful killings in 2004-5.

The murders of Thomas ap Rhys Pryce on his doorstep, Thomas Grant and Kiyan Prince killed attempting to stop fights and fifteen year old Alex Mulumba Kamondo have shocked a nation, but who will be the people turning up to dump their weapons in an amnesty? The last exercise in 1995 yielded 40,000 weapons. In the year after the 1993 month-long Scottish amnesty, murders were down by 26%, attempted murders down 19% and weapon possession down by 23%. So we can conclude from this exercise that it had an effect, with increased publicity brought awareness and higher priority from the police brought the realisation that the criminals were taking a risk in carrying weapons.

An amnesty, however, is not enough on its own. Local and national initiatives are required to hammer home the point that if you carry a knife you are likely to be arrested and charged or even have it turned on yourself. In Croydon, a group of actors visited 14 schools including pupil referral units performing a hard-hitting drama entitled “It’s no joke.” Pupils then talked through the consequences of carrying a knife with teachers and police officers. One local Police Inspector organised a crime prevention poster competition in conjunction with Crystal Palace Football Club. The winning design will be displayed throughout Croydon during the summer.

Education and awareness needs to be backed up. Apart from the risk of becoming the victim there must be a strong deterrent and punishment for possession. Conservatives proposed changes to the Violent Crime Reduction Bill designed to raise the sentence for possession of a knife from 2 years to 5. This was opposed by Ministers.

The News of the World printed photos of Alex Mulumba Kamondo posing with gun-carrying gang members. Life on the streets is a balance of risk. Alex and his friends felt as most 15 year old boys feel: invincible. The macho act of carrying a weapon and feeling cool outweighed the risk that they felt from getting hurt or caught.

Government must give the police the tools and support that they need to do the job that is asked of them - enabling them to arrest offenders with a commonsense minimum of bureaucracy and backing it up with a sentence that resonates with offenders.

Yes, promote the amnesty. Some of those 40,000 knives could have ended up at a crime scene. But send the message loud and clear through decisive action - carrying a knife is not a way of making you feel safer and the consequences of arrest are severe.

Company Law Reform

Article written for Chartered Management Institute "Professional Manager" magazine.
The Company Law Reform Bill that was introduced in the House of Lords has since morphed into the Companies Bill as it progressed through the House of Commons committee stage. This reflected the interest and debate on the level of regulation imposed on business within the UK. What started as a reforming Bill ended up as the longest Bill ever to pass through Parliament with more than 1400 amendments. Ironic, really, for a measure designed to slash bureaucracy.

There has been a continuous battle between those who want everything corporate to be tightly regulated leash by Whitehall and laissez-faire free marketeers. But, as usual, the majority seek to find equilibrium in the middle. Business regulations have undoubtedly increased in the last nine years and business taxes are on the march as the Chancellor steers clear of overturning Middle England’s applecart.

I agree with the general thrust of the Bill in reducing red tape but have some concerns with three areas in particular. One clause lays down in some detail the duties expected of a company director. A definitive list of duties runs the real risk of being too proscriptive and inappropriate. How does the role of a director differ from a corner shop owner to that of a multinational executive? Though I do not in any way begrudge accountants and lawyers their living, I would prefer them to be able to earn this in wealth creation for their clients rather than protection from the creeping clutches of the State.

I support Shareholders’ Rights Alliance’s campaign to ensure that shareholders within a nominee account have the same rights as those with a physical share certificate. As well as righting a blatant inequality, this will help deal with my third concern: corporate social responsibility.

More and more individuals are investing in, and doing business with, companies that have a stated social and environmental policy. Ethical trusts, green fuel and Fairtrade products are becoming mainstream choices, not just expensive options attractive only to wealthier “early adopters”. This move benefits both our surroundings and neighbours, encouraging other organisations to look beyond traditional business models and appreciating that a social conscience is not mutually exclusive to profit.

Gordon Brown removed the requirement of companies to produce an operating and financial review on the grounds of cost savings. It is vital that provision is made in the bill for customers and shareholders to have access to substantive, accurate information on a company’s activities. David Cameron has set up an expert working group on corporate social responsibility to examine the ways in which this balance can be achieved. One area of interest is the introduction of lighter regulation for companies with formal responsible business practices. Over-regulation will force larger companies to relocate, leaving smaller businesses, less-able to cope with regulatory burdens. The problem will just move on, with the issue still remaining to be dealt with. Relocation of such companies can also decimate communities leaving a void behind, which can take years to fill. The near-destruction of the British motor industry has given rise to a series of smaller hi-tech companies to absorb much of the workforce but this did not happen overnight and it did not happen everywhere. Foreign companies will be unaffected by this legislation, so it will never transform the area of corporate social responsibility. Government must not be a regulator but a catalyst. It is the responsibility of legislators to protect the environment and our communities but, equally it is our responsibility to know when to stop tinkering.

Five Ways to contact Eric & Paul

We are always keen to hear from our neighbours. In order to make it as easy as possible, there are five ways to contact us.

1. Write to us at Members’ Room, London Borough of Sutton, Civic Offices, St. Nicholas Way, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 1EA

2. Call Paul on 020 8770 5416

3. Email p.scully at cwcanet.com

4. Log onto www.paulscully.blogspot.com to see what we’re up to and let them know what you think they ought to be up to.

5.Visit us at our surgery held at the Ecology Centre, Festival Walk, Carshalton (north west of the ponds, next to Honeywood Lodge (see picture)) on the 2nd Saturday of the month between 10am and 12pm.

Action on lorries in the Grove

Paul Scully and the Conservatives voted to approve the planning application to convert Paul’s Cash & Carry into residential use at Wednesday’s Development Control meeting bringing an end to the perennial problem of large lorries parking in Carshalton Grove.

Eric Howell said “In the lead up to the election, several residents in Carshalton Grove complained about the lorries and wondered why a previous application had been refused. I am pleased that the road can return to a peaceful state.”

Paul said “I first became aware of the problem whilst speaking to residents back in 2002. Having heard the submissions and examined the plan it was apparent that this helped both the owner of the business and the residents. I asked for assurances that there would be no site fires during construction and checked that a condition would be imposed restricting the hours that the builders could work as it would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire with food lorries being replaced by night time building trucks."

Let us know what you think.

Tight Squeeze in Bromley

I was up at 4am yesterday to help my friend Bob Neill in Bromley. In the couple of days that I spent there late in the campaign, I could see that it would not be a walkover. Any campaigner will tell you that a message only resonates with the public once you have got bored of repeating it. The two comments that I heard most frequently were "I have never seen so much paperwork and interest in an election here" and "I'm not happy to have an MP that does not live locally."

Bob has pledged to move into the constituency but has represented Bromley for six years now as a London Assembly Member. Local connections are important but these will count for nothing if an MP is not effective. I was appalled by the negative campaigning of the LibDems, who always take a holier-than-thou attitude whilst laying the boot in. The defeated candidate doesn't live in the constituency either, published a photo of him cleaning graffiti only for someone else to notice that the same graffiti was there the day after and claimed to have worked in an orphanage that he, in fact visited for a couple of hours.

None of this would matter if it was part of a wider campaign showing positive messages as to how the lives of Bromley residents would improve by putting their cross next to that candidate's name. Whereas Bob campaigned on crime and back garden development, there wasn't a sniff of a policy in the LibDem literature. It just means that in Carshalton & Wallington we will have to take note and redouble our efforts to explain what differences we can make for all of us.

Finally looking at the wider picture, much of the LibDem gain from a much-reduced turnout was from a squeezed Labour vote which plummeted by over 15% to put Labour in fourth place behind UKIP.

(Photo: Guido Fawkes)

Anne Frank & Me

Last night, my 8 year old daughter and I attended the opening of the "Anne Frank & You" exhibition in Sutton Library. The exhibition was a major coup for the Borough and a testament to the retiring Head of Library Services Trevor Knight OBE, as it is in great demand and so only makes it to a few UK cities each year.

It is aimed at teenagers, though Josie punched the air when her older brother was too ill to accompany me as she had studied Anne Frank at school. Anne's story is familiar to many of us and has been an inspiration to generations following the Holocaust. The exhibition breathes new life into the memories of a teenager balancing a normal teenage life with friends and boyfriends with the horrors of the age, hiding for two years in an annexe in the house in Amsterdam. Photos taken by her father and stepsister provide a remarkable archive, something taken for granted today but a rare view of those years.

Eva Schloss, Anne's stepsister opened the exhibition adding a further insight into the desperation and anguish suffered by so many Jews, though the exhibition itself moves further in drawing parallels with modern-day conflicts such as Ireland and Darfur.

The exhibition is free and in Sutton for a month. If you have the opportunity, take it, enjoy it. You cannot fail to be moved.

Imagine having to go to Blackpool for Council Meetings

Indulge me for a few minutes; you certainly have been indulging the French for sometime now. Strasbourg has hosted a few EU meetings for decades now, but in 1992 member states decided to introduce a system whereby all MEPs decamp to Strasbourg from Brussels for one week a month, 12 times a year. This farcical trip entails hundreds of boxes of MEPs' papers being loaded up and taken the 260 miles from Brussels to Strasbourg. All 732 MEPs have offices in both buildings. Coincidentally (!) this was agreed at the same time that the French were objecting to John Major's attempts to negotiate an opt-out of the social chapter.

Whatever the politics then, this costs us £120m each and every year. The MEPs hate it, the staff hate it. Nobody seems to remember who actually likes it. Several MEPs from all political persuasions have got together in an attempt to compile a 1,000,000 petition across Europe pushing for one single seat of Parliament. They are over halfway to this goal. Help them acheive it by registering your support here.

Messing about on the River

Well in it, actually. As I sit in my relatively comfortable office, it is difficult not to have a pang of guilt when thinking of my fellow ward councillor, Eric Howell (centre, standing) getting his hands dirty whilst cleaning up the River Wandle that runs through our ward. This was one of the events in Sutton's "Take Part, Take Pride" series. We've spent the last few months telling everyone how we wanted to look after the place and so it is good to spend a couple of hours (oh yes, not just a photocall,) keeping it clean.

LibDems in Sutton, as they do across the country, speak as though they have cornered the market in green issues. Although some wrote of David Cameron's "Vote Blue, Go Green" message as touchy-feely spin, the facts do bear out this message. Sutton is feted as a good Council for recycling. They are 36th in the country. Out of the 35 that recycle more than Sutton, 23 are Conservative controlled.

To my mind, one of the most fundamental differences between the Conservatives and the other two parties is that where Labour and LibDem legislate for a world that they would like to see, Conservatives deal with the world as it is, bringing real-world solutions to real-world problems rather than hoping that everyone will fall into their way of thinking and making assumptions in the meantime that rely on everyone falling into line. Tax is an obvious example but we are talking here about the environment so I shall keep off that other thorny subject.

Most of us have an understanding of the need to protect our environment, recycle more and pollute less. Sutton Council have adopted every prototype and pet project that has passed their desk. They ordered several gas-powered refuse trucks at £400k eack. They sat idle as they didn't work. They started a Car share pool called "Urbigo". This ended up as Urbi-won't go as only 14 people or so signed up to the scheme within the first few years. The list is endless. The Council Tax payer is entitled to worry about where his or her money is going when they hear about such waste. Our waste management contract costs around £2m per year more than it should. This equates to the total Council Tax bill for the 1500 houses in the polling district centred on Carshalton Village. Each and every year.

Our spokesman, John Kennedy and his team are always looking at ways that we would use basic commonsense management to reduce this cost substantially. Renegotiating the contract would be a start. Any money saved could be used to cut Council Tax and/or improve our services such as rolling out doorstep glass collection.

Anyway, the Wandle's looking nice. (photo: Sutton Guardian)

Burma. The forgotten country.

My father was born in Burma and came to England when he was 18. My grandparents, uncles and aunts came some years later. Though I have never been, I am immensely proud of my heritage and family history and would dearly love to travel to Rangoon to see the docks where my grandfather worked for the Port Commissioners, the Strand Hotel where my gran collared various government dignitaries whilst working on the reception to persuade them to let my father take a little money with him on his journey to England and the surrounding streets that I have heard so much about. Unfortunately this just cannot happen whilst it is in the grip of one of the most closed, oppressive dictatorships in the world.

For the past few decades Burma has been controlled by military dictatorship. It has sunk from one of the most educated nations in South East Asia to one of the least with its wealth of natural resources being plundered. The last democratically elected leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the last 3 years under house arrest. Minority Ethnic groups are being killed and displaced from their homes.

What is being done? Well, Burma is not as strategic to western nations as it was when Alec Guinness was busy saving the day. The Middle East occupies the minds and the column inches of the West. China have no great desire to involve themselves and ASEAN, the South East Asian group of countries stand by watching. There is an ineffectual Common European Policy which will never have any teeth as long as TOTAL Oil are pumping their £400m investment into the country to pump their oil out. (The French, you might remember, were fuelling the spin that the Iraq invasion was all about American oil interests. Easy to say whilst you are benefitting from child labour, and a dictatorship that pays many of its manual workers in heroin.) The British having left in haste take the view that it is not worth raising the issue as they will not get agreement at the UN Security Council. This is an interesting take on the situation. If that argument was extended to this country, the Conservatives and LibDems would not raise any issue for fear of losing and the Burmese would not be the only ones with a dictatorship. Whilst being demonised elsewhere, it is the US that are the heroes of this piece. They brought the issue of Burma to the Security Council for the first time in years primarily on the basis of a report written by Jared Genser.

Working in the House of Commons, I get the opportunity to go to some very interesting meetings (and many dull ones), none more so than the All Party Parliamentary Group for Burma, chaired by John Bercow MP. At one such meeting last year, we heard from Jared who showed us his report written as part of probono work carried out by Jared and his law firm on behalf of Vaclav Havel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He examined all past Security Council resolutions and found that there were five precedents for action. They are the overthrow of a democratically-elected goverment, conflict between central government and ethnic factions, widespread internal humanitarian/human rights violations, outflow of refugees and other factors including the spread of HIV/AIDS and drug trafficking. It was shown that out of all of the world's hotspots including Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Rwanda, only Burma satisfied all of these conditions.

This is only the first step in a very long journey. Only yesterday I met a refugee from the Karen who live in the jungle in the East of Burma. She fled the country 10 years ago. At the same time, the British were attending a trade fair in Rangoon. 16,000 of the Karen have been slaughtered or displaced with rape used systematically as a weapon by the military. I can go on, I should go on, but I am late for work and there are others who are more knowledgeable that can tell you more. Please if you do nothing else, get out a map and find out where Burma is. Tell others and collar any decision maker that you come across. Let us shame France and others if need be but we must act and we must act now.

Residents v CAFC - Everyone’s a winner.

Not sure why the photo has purple writing. It didn't when it left my PC. Maybe it's the away logo. Anyway, Eric and I had a meeting last night with the board of directors of Carshalton Athletic and we were both impressed by the positive message that we were given. Relations between the club and its neighbours have been strained to say the least over the last few years. This boiled over when the last chairman submitted plans for a £12m redevelopment of the ground driving a road through a park next to a girls' school, opening out onto a dangerous road and covering allotments with astroturf for floodlit pitches. Suffice to say, the Conservatives sided with the residents. The development never happened and the chairman at the time threatened to liquidate the club's assets. Shortly after this, a new board was formed made up primarily of genuine local Robins fans. I went to the meeting when it was announced that the last chairman was off and I was optimistic about what I heard from the supporters and their intentions to bring the club back to being a local team rather than a rich man's plaything. Their actions since have borne out this optimism. Regular meetings with residents have kept them in the loop and dealt with any complaints and misgivings quickly. There will always be a divergence of opinions between what is good for residents living on the club's doorstep and the club itself but it is a matter of give and take. As the club has been on this ground since 1926, there can't be too many residents that didn't know that it was there. On the other hand, the residents should be able to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the Poet's Estate and expect the club and supporters to respect this. It seems that this difficult balance has now been reached and long may it remain. Eric will be in regular contact with the club as Conservative Spokesman for Sport as well as ward councillor and we are often in touch with the residents in Brookfield Avenue, Mead Crescent and Shirley Avenue. Do let us know if any problems arise or if you have any questions. The chairman, Harry Driver, has offered to meet residents at anytime to tackle issues as they arise.

Is Carshalton really Central?

I used the slightly cheesy slogan "Making Carshalton Central" in my election campaign. I never said I was a Saatchi. It was actually a hand-me-down from Andrew Pelling MP, my boss. He is the MP for Croydon Central - slogan "Putting Croydon First". He had rejected the idea of Making Croydon Central so in this enlightened age of recycling, I pinched it.

Having ridiculed my own slogan, it does sum up nicely what I want to acheive. Carshalton has been my home for 17 years. It is the only place that my children have called home and I still enjoy living there.

The village seems to be unique in South London still retaining a village atmosphere despite the volume of traffic rolling between Croydon and Sutton. I'm sure that I'll come back to this in a future post as it is a perennial problem exacerbated by the narrow parts of the road by the church and the Greyhound pub both overlooking the ponds.

The ward takes in the conservation area of the village, where the idea of the Derby was conceived over a bet at the Greyhound between the Earl of Derby and Lord Bunbury. I'm not sure that the Epsom Bunbury race would have had such a lasting legacy. Carshalton Park hosts a popular summer carnival and one of the largest firework displays in London each year. Stretching over to the west, it takes in a large residential area including the Poets' Estate, a peaceful, pleasant corner of Sutton that has fought off many attempts by developers to change its nature. Long may that last.

Does cyberspace need yet another blog?

Well, no actually. I'm not here to clutter up the web with an ego trip and any old ranting but who knows what'll happen when I stare at the screen for too long and start believing that millions of people worldwide have a rapacious appetite for Carshalton and Scully news.

A blog seems as good a place as any to let people know what I'm up to as Councillor for Carshalton Central. I've been in my role as councillor for a mere 3 weeks. So the more I do for the ward, the more prolific this blog will become. On the other hand, I'll be chuntering on about other things too, so I'll see how it goes. Whether you live in Carshalton, Timbuktu or even Sidcup, let me know what you think.