Election 2016

Published on Monday, 9th May 2016

This year’s elections have now been and gone and the makeup of the council is largely unchanged. The Conservatives remain on 19 seats and as a result the current minority administration is likely to continue for the next two years.

In Eastney and Craneswater ward, the LibDems’ Matthew Winnington retained his seat by a fairly comfortable margin. I congratulate him on his victory and I also acknowledge the amount of work that went into the LibDem campaign.

LD (Matthew Winnington)        1599

C (Sue Lloyd)                         1278

Lab (Julian Wright)                   500

Grn (Menno Groen)                  313

While the number of seats held by each party may not have moved significantly, the results were disappointing from my perspective. I attribute this largely to the on-going effects of austerity combined perhaps with the fading of the Mike Hancock effect, which has undoubtedly boosted the Conservative vote in recent cycles.

To expound a little further on austerity, this council is being very careful to avoid draining reserves because we are all well aware of what the consequences would be of not having a sufficient cash shock absorber to cope with rising demand or with savings not being achieved. The situation in some other authorities is now reaching a critical point.

An extreme example is Shropshire, which has announced that from April 2017 its combined budget for museums, libraries, leisure centres and parks maintenance will be zero: either parish councils take on responsibility or the services will go – even cutting the grass. We’re not in that sort of mess here, but with £26m in savings still to be identified, things are going to get very difficult.

Tags: Elections

Mobile blood donor vans to be withdrawn

Published on Friday, 8th April 2016

The NHS has decided that it will no longer run a mobile blood donor service aimed at larger employers in this area. The bloodmobile vehicle, which collects blood from workplaces will be withdrawn. Collections made in community buildings, such as churches and leisure centres will continue. You can read more here

Tags: NHS

Police to share public sector buildings

Published on Wednesday, 6^th April 2016

The Police and Crime Commissioner intends to close most of Hampshire’s police stations. His vision is to have three giant Police Investigation Centres (PICs) carrying out detective work and case handling, while community police would be scattered around other public sector buildings throughout the county. The PICs would also house people who have been arrested.

Two PICs have been created so far: one in Southampton and another in Basingstoke. The third will be in thePortsmoutharea. Simon Hayes had been considering a site in the Broadmarsh area of Havant, but is now reported to be working towards a site in Portsmouth itself. The problem of course is that few large parcels of land are available.

As far as the community police is concerned, things are now a lot clearer. A large team will be based in Southsea fire station and another will join the council and Solent NHS in Medina House in Cosham. Both buildings are currently being refurbished, with work on the fire station only having started on Monday.

The police also intend to move into space to the rear of the Civic Offices. This area has its own entrance and takes in an area that has been used for document storage. If more space is needed later, there is room and there is nothing to prevent twenty-four hour opening if that is how the police wish to operate.

Clearly it is in the city’s interest that one of the PICs is located within its boundaries and the council is encouraging that. As for the community policing, there is a logic in making better use of existing buildings and from the council’s perspective, welcoming in the police is the right thing to do.

Tags: Police, Buildings

Portsmouth may get a local lottery

Published on Thursday, 31st March 2016

Aylesbury Vale District Council in Buckinghamshire has for four months being running a local lottery, the proceeds of which are distributed to local charities.

There are few unique problems in local government and councils can learn a lot from each other. When someone else comes up with a good idea that would work here, we should copy it here, which is why I put forward a motion to consider replicating the lottery scheme here.

In summary, the Aylesbury scheme is as follows:

-          Tickets are £1 and are only sold on-line.

-          42% of the ticket price covers prizes and running costs, with the remaining 58% going to charities or other good causes

-          Charities can nominate themselves to be recipients. The only restrictions are that they operate in the borough and that they steer clear of religion and politics.

-          Ticket purchasers choose which charity they would like their money to benefit

-          The top prize is £20,000 and is fixed odds so that it is only won occasionally

-          The council takes nothing from the scheme and has not sought to claw back the set up costs

No-one knows for sure what these scheme will raise, but Aylesbury’s estimate is £35000 in year one for charities, which is a useful amount of money. That is likely to be split between some dozens of recipients.

It is an idea worth looking at and if it all checks out, we’ll hopefully have something up and running towards the end of the year.

Tags: Charities

New investment into Isle of Wight ferry service

Published on Thursday, 31st March 2016

The car ferry between Old Portsmouth and Fisbourne is to be upgraded. Operators, Wightlink, are to buy two vessels for the route. On Wednesday, they also received planning consent for a two tier parking and loading area that will allow them to embark vehicles more efficiently and will also allow travellers who arrive early to park and wait for their sailing.

The ferry terminal is on council-owned land in Gunwharf Road, but as Wightlink have a long lease the council’s role was restricted to determining the planning application. In my view the right decision was made.

Passenger numbers have been flat or in slight decline over recent years and with Red Funnel upgrading their Southampton-based service, there was a danger that an unimproved service would gradually lose market share. This matters as the service supports over 500 jobs, split between here and the island. An improved terminal, with new passenger facilities and more efficient loading will be better able to grow over coming years.

Many people have said that the service should move to the International Ferry Port. That though is impractical – longer sailing times would mean Wightlink would need another ship to maintain the same timetable and it would suffer from service interruptions when Naval vessels are moving in and out of port. Moreover Wightlink have a long lease and so whether they stay or move is solely their decision. From the council’s perspective, we want them to be successful and this planning decision gives them the chance to successfully compete against rival firms.

Tags: Fery, Economy, Planning

The NHS and giving people more power over their care and health needs

Published on Tuesday, 15th March 2016

Portsmouth is a pilot site for Integrated Personal Commissioning, an NHS England programme to give people personal budgets for health as well as social care.

Since 2003 Local Authorities have been obliged to offer people who qualify for social services a cash budget that they can spend themselves in lieu of providing a care package if requested by a service user (or their representative or guardian). This works well for some clients, particularly younger people with learning disabilities, but it has proven less popular amongst older people.

The government is moving to expand the right to a personal budget to people with long term medical conditions whose treatment is paid for by the NHS. This means patients may be able to buy hydrology services or pieces of IT equipment to manage their conditions instead of receiving NHS care.

Setting a budget raises some thorny questions, as the patient is still able to access emergency and other care and therefore it is not clear where the personal budget comes from. It is that sort of issue that the pilots need to address.

NHS England has decided to roll out personal commissioning across the country and Portsmouth is one of nine test sites to try and get this right before deploying it on a large scale. Small numbers of patients will be taking part in trials over the coming year to see whether it can both improve patient outcomes and save money.

The general principle of what is being proposed is good and some of the work I have seen has been well thought through. Ultimately the key to keeping NHS costs under control is to spend more on community nursing and services and less on hospitals.

The council is not running this programme, but it is involved and the level of co-operation with the NHS is high

Tags : Adult Social Care, Health

The England coastal path

Published on Sunday, 13^th March 2016

Last week Natural England held an open evening on how the proposed all-England coastal path will be routed through Portsmouth. They've only just started work on this stretch of the coastline, so there are no plans yet - this meeting was just about the process.

Rather than follow local authority borders, they are working on harbours: so details of the Langstone Harbour route - covering both eastern Portsmouth and Hayling - will emerge in about a year's time, while plans for Portsmouth Harbour, from Old Portsmouth round to Gosport will come forward at a later date.

Where a coastal path already exists, this will become the new route and as most of Portsmouth already has a coastal path, the amount of new footpath construction will be limited. For obvious reasons it will also have to divert inland by the Naval Base and the commercial port, so that leaves two stretches where something may happen: from the Eastney swimming paths round to St James' hospital and from Tipner to the marina in Port Solent.

At this point, it is not clear what standard any new paths will be built to. It is also an option to sign either or both of the gaps in the existing network along roads, so it could be that the route around Eastney is along Henderson Road and over Bransbury Park.

My diary shows another drop-in session is being held on this coming Friday (the 18th) at the Bransbury Community Centre starting at 5pm. I can't find the original invite e-mail, so apologies if that is in anyway incorrect.

Tags: Environment, Coastal Path, Transport

Cleaning for the Queen

Published on Wednesday, 9th March 2016

Saturday was Clean for the Queen weekend. I would like to thank all the twenty people that came out with me to remove litter from the beach in Eastney.

Tags: BeachClean

Who knew? Cardboard boxes with other recyclables in them contaminate recycling collections

Published on Wednesday, 9th March 2016

Interesting factoid from a meeting I had yesterday: Veolia, the council’s waste disposal contractor, treat cardboard boxes with tins, etc placed inside them as contaminates when processing recyclables. Sorting rubbish is still a labour intensive activity and the seconds it takes to empty out containers, such as cardboard boxes, makes recycling uneconomic.

Living in a flat with a large green recycling bin outside, I have often stuffed cardboard food packaging with tins and papers just because it is easier to carry them out like that. I hasten to add that I often emptied them out, but not always. It just goes to show that recycling is more fiddly than perhaps it should be. 

Tags: Environment