Thursday 30 December 2010

Sportsman Dinner

We, Wigan Independent Conservatives are holding a fund raising dinner with Guest Speaker Rugby League Legend, Alex Murphy.

The dinner will be at Ashfield House, Standish on Friday 4th February 2010 at 7.30 for a 8pm start.

The dinner consists of a three course meal, starter is Vegetable Soup, Main Meal Roast Dinner and a choice of desserts.

Price is £22.50 per ticket. Why not get your friends and have a great night out.

Tuesday 28 December 2010

Back leaflet dropping.

Now the snow is slowly disappearing been out doing some more leaflets drops. Great response as more residents have now contacted me to sign the petition.

Friday 24 December 2010

Merry Chrstmas

Can I wish all the readers out there of this blog a Merry Xmas and hope you have a good New Year.

Wednesday 22 December 2010

New Parish Council says that the decision for no by election is not down to cosy?

In the Wigan Evening post early this week Shevington Parish Council Chairman John Ball said that the decision was not down to just cost is crazy. I was at the meeting and the only reason mention was the cost and no other reason was given.

But we all know the real reason Labour lost the last by election in a big way and they were not going to let Wigan Independents get any more seats. It was a clear act of how to be anti Democratic.

Friday 17 December 2010

Last Night Full Council meeting

At last night there was a number of issues.

First the room was packed out. Never have I seen so many people go there and other cllrs said that too never saw anything like it. Good to see that interest is growing in the PC and all it's do

The first thing to comment on is that the two cllrs that quit last month, we had to decide what to do with their seats. I said that we should go for a by election but all the other councillors said no and they decided to leave the seat open till the May elections. What is worth reporting at this point is that yet another Councillor resigned. So the Shevington PC is down to 6 cllrs rather than the standard 9.

More to follow.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Is Shevington Library ear marked for closure?

As we all know Wigan Council has to save £55 million this year and one of the millions that needs to be cut is from the library budget. The budget is currently £4 million and it needs to go to nearer £3 million. Muted around is the real prospect of closing library's and it has been suggested that either Standish or Shevington could close and then residents from the other area travel to the next area to access that library.

What council officials will probably not understand fully is the easy access to both and also the fact that a lot of elderly residents go there and to travel to the other area might not be easy if they do not drive.

District Cllr Debbie Fairhurst has suggested ways of cutting Councillors perks and that would save 3/4 of the money needed to be saved and that would help save library's around the borough.

Labour has said no decisions have yet been made but with the budget only weeks away now they must be close to knowing the full impact and what cuts they are going to make.

Friday 3 December 2010

Last night General Meeting

At last night Shevington Parish Council meeting of the general purpose meeting (what a name) tensions rose high and the disgraceful way in which the meetings continued and got worse.

I asked for standing orders to me moved so that I could ask for an urgent item, the vice chairman refused to simply hear what it was I wanted to add.

Then I raised that I could not formally complain about the clerk with her disgraceful manner, tone and behaviour towards myself and how I can not complain with out a chairman. The Council have now agreed that the position of Chairman be looked at first at the next meeting and hopefully once this is done I can move this complaint and ask for an investigation to be carried out. One of the things that the clerk said was what I was saying was "fiction." No way should an officer of the council ever say this to an elected member and this is just yet again another example of her behaviour towards myself. Another point was that the contents of our emails between us to prove the way that she acts but she said if I published the emails then she would sue me. I hope she has a lot of money because to sue someone, even with a cast iron case you need a huge pot of money.

Then I raised a number of items on the finance report all again ignored and I asked for them to be put on the minutes. One worrying thing is that they have been buying chemicals from someone. I simply asked if the person that they were buying from had the appropriate licence to sell the chemicals. The response was, "we presume so." Here we have a council that just simply does not know the first thing how to do the basics and if they do not know how to do the basics like this then how are they expected to run more complicated issues.

One thing that I did raise and ask for was the draft financial report that was going to be voted on in January be disclosed on the website and ask the public to send in their comments and opinion before we vote. This would open up the way the PC works and this was agreed.

Thursday 2 December 2010

New Leaflet out soon

The parish Council has now issued their new leaflet, well I say new. Same as the first leaflet but with a couple of new items.

I have now signed off the proof for my own leaflet which is out any day soon. If the Parish Council liked the first leaflet that I did they will love this leaflet.

Also tonight there is a general purpose meeting of the Parish Council and I have no idea what one of those is as surely that is a full parish council meeting. They seem to make meetings names up for the sake of it.

I have also had meetings with other residents in the area about the elections next year. We need 9 people to stand for the parish council elections and the good news is we have more than nine names now so we are holding meetings with all concerned to move forward but what is encouraging is everyone concerned said if they are not the candidate they will do the leaflet delivers .

If you want to get involved or have any issues please contact myself and I will be more than happy to help.