Council News
Jul 2010
Roger Reports... In less than eight months Cumbria has been stricken by a series of disasters. Whereas, the last major emergency Gold Alert response had been the Carlisle Floods in January 2005, since last November there have been Gold Alerts for the worst ever recorded floods, the most severe winter for 47 years and the Keswick school bus crash in which two of our pupils and an adult were killed with many more injured. But not since the great pit disasters and the carnage of World Wars had Cumbria had a more ghastly day than 2 June 2010. The impact of the shootings and 13 deaths in the west of our county has induced enormous horror and sympathy throughout the land and beyond. The bravery of the police, who included many female officers, to the outside shootings has been widely commended as was the instant Gold Alert response of the Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) which in the hour after the first emergency call at 10.30 am attended incidents at Whitehaven, Seascale and Egremont and then went on to assist the police in searching for victims and for the murderer. ’ Lastly the CFRS assisted in the clean up of many of the crime scenes.’ Inevitably, however, there will be enquiries into the effectiveness of the response made by the county’ s authorities and the Cumbria Police - but that will be later, in the immediate aftermath we were concerned in caring for the injured and the bereaved. The speedy opening of the inquests enabled the first funerals to take place within a week of the tragedy. Officially the county council organised a ’ multi-agency response by setting up Health, Welfare and Communities sub-group under the Chair of NHS Cumbria Dr. Elaine Church’ . A Business Recovery Team - which had been dealing with the effect of the November floods will continue its work to lessen the impact, especially on tourism, of what the media has called ’ the curse of Cumbria.’ Additionally the Human Resources Department has organised ’ trauma supporters’ for staff and for members of the public directly and indirectly affected. Within two days a ’ Coping with Crisis’ leaflet was circulated, a Psychological Drop-In Unit opened at West Cumberland Infirmary, a Helpline set up and a ’ Hub HQ’ to coordinate the magnificent efforts of Churches Together and voluntary agencies like the Red Cross was opened in Whitehaven. Also, in the next weeks Educational Psychologists will be supporting schools. Although the chances of similar tragedies are statistically rare, hopefully some lessons will be learned. Personally I hope that more guidance might be given to the media, some of whose reporters were considered to be too intrusive when, for example, they were seen moving round the congregations at the open air services to photograph grief stricken mourners. But in the words of a song from my younger days, ’ When will we ever learn?’ Regarding last winter’ s emergency, Cumbria Highways overspent by £ 300,000 on the extra gritting required on the priority routes and also in replenishing our south areas of salt bins at a cost of £ 14,518. I am encouraging highways to make a direct survey of all bins and salt heaps and not just rely on information sent in by parish councils, as there seems to be confusion about how many bins/heaps there are, as one report stated that there were 610 bins and/or 2400 salt heap locations. Unfortunately I have been unable to persuade highways to upgrade the Vicarage Lane road to Dalton or Tarn Lane for gritting - but Vicarage Lane will remain at Priority 3 which will mean that it should be treated within 72 hours of snowfall. From parish council questionnaires, 27 PCs said that the county’ s gritting performance was ’ about right’ , 8 ’ too little’ and 2 ’ too much’ . 27 councils also said that the PCs receiving salt was a good idea. Suggested improvements include involving more farmers and parish-based temporary contractors in gritting, and publicity to counteract the urban and rural legend that ’ if you clear the pavement outside your premises and someone falls you are liable.’ On other road issues I’ ve received complaints about damage caused by heavy lorries on Dalton Lane. I have asked the county to check on repairs and on whether existing traffic regulations are being observed. On South Lakeland District Council we considered the latest statistics about our county, which included such information as 82% of residents say they are Christian compared to a national average of 72%, 80% are hetero-sexual, 17% didn’ t say and 3% are homo-sexual, 9.7% receive Disability or Attendance Allowance compared to a national average of 7.8%. Life expectancy is similar to the national average - a newborn baby boy could expect to live to 77.8 years and a new born baby girl to 81.4 years but for South Lakeland the figures are 79 years for males and 84 for females. The county has the sixth lowest crime rate in the UK with e.g. South Lakeland having about eight crimes of violence against the person per thousand people compared to over 20 in Barrow. Educationally we are above average with over half our pupils attaining five GSCEs at Grade C or above. Locally three secondary schools Queen Katherine’ s in Kendal, Dallam and Queen Elizabeth are ’ outstanding.’ The latter status will enable QES to opt for an independent ’ Academy Status.’ This would be the fifth change in the school’ s status in my 30 years as a QES Governor. It was explained at the June Governors’ meeting that the new ’ academy’ status was not the same as in existing academies, some of which like the Richard Rose Academy at Carlisle, have received bad publicity; finance from private sponsors would not be involved. Instead the new arrangements would be more like the Grant Maintained Status which QES had in the 1980s which gave us control over all our finances. As a result there would be a 10% increase in funding to cover external support like the psychological service which would have to be bought in. There would also be more independence regarding the curriculum and, incidentally, opening times. There will be no changes in the school’ s ethos or catchment areas. On a more immediate note we were told that because of a small deficit, the cost of the excellent school meals at ’ Cafe Q’ (formerly aka the canteen) will be £ 1.60 from the Autumn term. Finally on SLDC we debated yet again the proposed changes on New Road in Kendal where, after over 100 years, the free car park is to be replaced by a grassy park. The main issue concerned the need for a wall to protect what I called would otherwise be ’ a sterile petrol fumed patch of sterile municipal turf from the passing traffic but which would impede the views across the Kent to the castle. In the end the Cabinet decided that a low wall with gaps would be suitable. We were also told that the vast majority of Kendal residents approved of the scheme. But, as was pointed out by some non-Kendal councillors like me, some of our village people would prefer free parking (and certainly not less parking) when we visit our main local town. Moreover, we didn’ t see why our council tax payers should have to share all the costs which, it was contended, already include £ 60,000 in legal fees. As always please let me know what you think. All the best |
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