The goings on at the Council

Being a Cllr you see lots going on behind the scene and if you read the Wigan Evening Post/ Observer you will know that there have been times when the Chief Executive has reported opposition Cllrs to the Police. I for one was reported to the police and the Chief Executive nor the Council informed me of this they informed the press. this demonstrates to me their motive. Political medal-ling. At the time I sent the case to a top law firm in Manchester to review. The conclusion was that I had a great case to sue because under the rules Council Officers could only report Cllrs to the police for crimes identified. I ask the Council what Crime I had committed. No answer! Then I asked the Police and they told me that they initially said  there was no case to answer and they didn't want to get involved but the Council insisted that they get  a second opinion so the Police said they would ask the CPS for their opinion if the Council didn't like the Police's opinion. The CPS came back and said no case and the Police should not get involved.

Then The Chief Executive reported Independent Hindley Cllr Bob Brierley for bullying. This time the Cllr went to the Police station voluntarily and answered questions. Now the Police have said they are not going any further with the issue and dropping the investigation. At the time the Council rushed out a press release trying to show the Cllr up. Now that the Cllr has no case to answer to he has a very good serious legal case against the Chief Executive and the Council for Libel.

Also the Council reported a Lib Dem Cllr, this was because he had rather stupidly doctored an email to show an officer showing political bias towards the ruling group. why he did it god only knows but although it was stupid it certainly was criminal. The Police arrested this Council and after investigation they have decided that there is no case to answer to and they have dropped the cases.

Here is the story about these two Councillors in the press.

The issue I have is how much time and money do the Chief Executive and the council want to waste. These three cases have cost just over £50,000, so I hear. if this is the case then it is a huge waste of tax payers money and action should be taken against those that waste this kind of taxpayers money.

Next there is a rare case that the Council have stopped a Labour's Cllr's money. this is due her losing 5 mobile phones and running up big phone bills by calling international numbers and taxi's. First of all I am disgusted, but not surprised, at this. Yes if she has done it it is wrong and she should pay the money back. But the other issue I have is why did the Council keep just giving her more phones when she lost them or got them stolen? Why are ALL Council phones not blocked from international calls? Why, when the first big bill came in did the Council not stop the account? These questions are simply restrictions that many companies put in place at the outset but it shows the lack of controls the Council has and questions must be asked about whether the right people are running the Council.

This story is here.

On all of these cases it is clear there is a witch hunt going on in the Council and in the past it used to be Labour that did this but why Council Officers are getting involved is beyond me.

Standish Housing Applications update

With my post on the 31 Jan '14 this was the housing application table. This had all the housing planning applications on it. It showed the applications numbers and other relevant information.

Below is an updated table. On all the green highlighted please write an objection letter into the Council. For who to write to and what you can object too see the blog post on the 1 Feb '14, (here is a link to that post).

Thanks for all the support.

The week that ended......23 Feb '14

So another week has ended and time is flying by now. With only one more week to go before then end of Feb I can't believe how fast time is going. With my on going illness I have returned to work this week and just hope that this time I can stay on the mend and not slip back.

So I have again stepped up more time doing Cllrs work too. I went to the Cllr Services Committee this WEdnesday and there was some good stuff being mentioned there like the Council looking to replace the Cllrs laptops with Ipads. This will help cut down on paper as Cllrs can use the iPads to see docuemts. It cost about £1200/ £1300 per  Council Meeting so if we can cut that out we will recoup the outlay cost and make the Council meetings more efficient.

However the Council want to bring in rules that you have to do as THEY say on them otherwise you don't get the new equipment including phone. This is in relation to social media. Another words if you call the Council they wouldn't let you have them. Ridiculous! Democracy, Wigan Council don't know what it is.

Surgery was quiet this week, I guess people were either on half term hols or watching Wigan Rugby. However, I have delivered a few thousands leaflet over the week. This is our newsletter and I have spoken to many residents on issues which it was nice to catch up with people.

I am off to a resident meeting, which I attend each Sunday night in a minute and this is to discuss the link road that is being considered. Later tonight I will post an update on the planning applications as there are a couple more to let you know about. So either check back later or tomorrow. Thanks.

Candidates beware

After so many years in local government it shouldn't surprise me what this Labour controlled Council will do. I always thought that communism was a thing of the past, but it is alive and well in Wigan. I say this because last night I attended Councillor Services Committee.

One good thing was the fact that the Council are, so they say, looking at iPads for Cllrs. I know some may be jumping out of their seats as you read this but this is not about gadgets for Cllrs, but saving money and working smarter. It is reported that it costs over £1200 per Full Council meeting for the paper reports. Also currently Cllrs get a laptop any way. So I have been pushing for years that the Council to issue iPads. This is so we can go paperless and we can cut down on the paper. One Cllr said tonight that he has worked it out and it will take less than 8 months to recoup the outlay. I do agree we shouldn't give Cllrs laptop no more but iPads so that we can do business electronically. But do this in a phased way where some of the older Cllrs who not like the idea can still use paper and laptops and over time they be phased out.

So with the OK news now the O my word news. The Council are saying that new Cllrs will have to have training on social media before they can have an iPad or Laptop, if they are still in issue. What dictators they are! What people do with their own free time is up to them and no doubt it will be the Labour lot saying you can't call the Council - well tough. I actually think this is illegal, if the people of whichever ward elect a person then it is their right to be a Cllr and transact official business.

So the question is where in legislation does it say Councils have the power to shove their propaganda and communism retric?  

113 Bus Service

I was made aware by a resident that the 113 bus route was under threat of being removed or changed in May of this year. When I looked into it the initial data was correct and Lancashire County Council was looking to change or cancel tendered services, this included the 113 route. This service travels from Preston to Wigan and it comes down Old Pepper Lane to Preston Road and then at the Cherry Gardens it turns down Mesnes Rd. towards Wigan. For these two sections it is the only bus service servicing the roads.

However, I have now spoken with Stagecoach and they have said they have had another look at it and they will be continuing the 113 Bus Service until the tender comes to and end, which is either at the end of the year or beginning of next year. They will review the performance of the service then.

The week that ended.....9 Feb '14

This week has been a relative quite week. Beginning of the week though we met with Bloor Homes about their proposal and talked through it. First and foremost we had to agree that we do not want the houses in Standish nor the link road. I think they are open to not having a link road and just having the road into their site, but they claim that it is the Council proposal to have a link road. Also more worrying they seem to think that the site that we all know as the line can have more than 500 houses on it. The Council have said 500 and we will be pushing the Council to stick to their word.

A new group has been formed to object to the link road solely and we will be supporting this as we disagree with the link road and more importantly the houses, so the two campaigns go hand in hand.

Later in the week I had a briefing of the proposed budget that the Council are looking to set and there is the usual stuff that I strongly object to, like the Borough Life Magazine, which is no more than Labour's propaganda booklet and also it cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. I have asked for some information to look into to look at other areas where the Council can be more efficient.

Surgery was busy yesterday with a number of resident coming in and I will be helping them with their issues.

Fire Engines over 50% more time to get to Standish.

I have been looking into Fire Engine times to getting to Standish. This started last year when a man tragically lost his life in his home on Pepper Lane, Standish. A number of residents said that it took forever for the fire engines to get there. That story is here.

The average time for Greater Manchester Fire Service to get to an incident is on average 6 Mins however it takes nearly 10 mins on average to get to a home in Standish. That's over 50% extra in time. This will get worse when the congestion is worse because of the houses.

However even now and it comes to peak times it can take nearly 12 mins to get to Standish, as it did when that man was trapped on Pepper Lane and what is worse is the fact that on the 27th December 2013 there was only 1 fire engine to cover the whole of Wigan, which is worrying on a Friday night, especially the one after Christmas Day.

Greater Manchester Fire Service have said that I have been painted a wrong picture and they are keen to put this right, which I will contact them to discuss but the information in terms of times has come from their website. If anyone is interested in finding the average time for the Fire Service to get to their address click here, I found it interesting. Also on the link is a video where the Fire Service try and explain about the number of Fire Engines.

The week that ended...2 Feb 2014

The week has been taken up with the housing developments again. There seems to be no let up from it.

Thursday saw the public meeting with a good turnout from residents. From the meeting people were getting confused with where housing applications where up to and even how many there are. So I have put a blog post showing all the applications and all their details including how many houses are in each. Here is the link to that post.

Also people asked what they can and cannot objection to. Also where do people send their objection to, either my email or letter. I have posted another blog about all of this here.

I have had a good result with a residents issue that they have been having for nearly four years and we have finally got the Council to find the problem and fix it. The residents are currently away but hopefully they will have some good news when they get back.

On a personal note many of you know about my illness and thank you for all the kind messages of support I have gotten this week.

Objection Letters

The last post I posted was the list of all the housing developments that are in the pipeline with their all their relevant details, i.e status and application no's where applicable.

In this post I want to let you know what you can use in objection letters and also who and how to write your objection letters.

The first thing is that petitions only count as one objection, no matter how many signatures you have on the petition. It is also the same if someone writes one letters and then photocopies them and get different people to sign them.

The objections that do count are from individual people and not households, so if there is a husband and wife in the house then they should write individual letters rather than just one and signing them as Mr & Mrs X.

You can object to the houses on the reasons below:-

• Lack of school places in our schools,
• Lost of open spaces available
• Reduction of health Services
• Health issues like you are concern the high level of traffic omissions would be harmful to children's health, especially asthma suffers this would be applicable for the link road idea.
• Unacceptable high density in the area
• Noise levels - this would be applicable for the link road idea.
• loss of trees
• overbearing nature of proposal
• loss of ecological habitats
• design and appearance 
• layout and density of buildings
• access or highway safety
• traffic generation
• public visual amenity, but not loss of private individual's view
• flood risk

What you can't object to are:

• Loss of value to your house
• You can't say I object because I can or because I don't want it.
• loss of view
• private covenants
• the applicants personal conduct or history
• the applicants motives
• potential profit for the applicant
• private right to light
• private right of ways
• disruption during construction
• loss of trade
• capacity of private drains

You can email your objections to
PlanningRepresentations@wiganmbc.gov.uk

or write letters to

Wigan Council, Wigan Life Centre, The Wiend, Wigan, WN1 1NH

Please only object to the applications in green as these are the ones we can object too at the moment. Please keep checking back on this blog and I will update my blog when other applications go green so you can object to those when they come up. Why not follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/cllrgwfairhurst) or like my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/cllrgarethfairhurst) . This way you will get alerted to when I change my blog.