Cllr getting paid for not turning up - Wigan West - Cllr Ramsdale. Holding Labour Council to account

 

Labour Cllrs tell you they don't get a salary for being a Cllr. They are playing with technicalities. they get what is called an allowance. To you and me it is what is the difference? Well I know this because when I was voted in back in 2004 I did not take my Cllr allowance. I did not claim expenses either. They are different. 

But the difference between a Salary and an allowance is with a salary you get sick pay and holiday pay. As a Cllr you get paid regardless. And what do you have to do as a Cllr to get your £15,000 a year?  You are going to be surprised here. You just have to turn up to just 1 meeting every 6 months. Wow. I hear you say.

But what happens if you do not turn up to a single meeting in a 6 month period i hear you ask? Well the Council can either do what is called a vacant seat and a By Election is called if 2 people in that ward sign a petition and serve it to the Town hall or the Council can vote to ignore the 6 month rule and continue to pay you.

Above is a picture of Labour Cllr for Wigan West - Beech Hill in the main. She has just turned up to 1 meeting in 8 months and in fact I suspect when I look at the records of Council meetings they voted to allow her keep her on and paying her.

Now there could be a case where someone is ill and they may be hoping to get better and come back and so I do agree for the 6 month rule to be used in those cases but I think the Council should stop paying Cllrs if they have not turned up to a single meeting. Why should tax payers keep paying them?

I will be campaigning for Wigan Council to amend it's rules and whereby they suspend the 6 month rule and allow anyone to stay on as a Cllr then they do not pay them after the 6 month period. After all there are not many tax payers that get more than 6 Month full pay so why should Cllrs be any different? 

 

  

Time to clear out the rot called Labour

 

Up until 2016 I had been a Cllr for Wigan Council. Since then I have been involved with a number of issues with Wigan Council including when this Labour controlled council tried to remove your right to vote. The single pillar in which our society is built on. Without that we have nothing. One example was when the Chief Executive at that time a Ms Donna Hall called an unlawful by election only for us to stop it in the High Court with just hours before the polls opened and after hundreds of postal voters had voted. That cost Wigan Council tax payers - yes you and me - approx £250,000. Labour playing their stupid political games and using our money to do it. 

After that time the then Chief Executive was sacked, she will say she was allowed to resign. I'm calling it what it is - SACKED! The labour group got a coup going and ousted the then Leader Peter Smith for his role in the whole mess.

Just prior to being sacked the then Chief Executive got her special friend in GMP to try and bully and intimidate me. That story is here, if you want to read about it. Also just before she left she raised the money that the Council pays into her pension. Why does this matter if she was going? Because she was what was called a final salary pension scheme.

So when the Council got a new leader and chief executive you would hope all the bully, intimidating vote rigging would stop. But of course why would it. They think we will just play a better game. Try not get caught. 

Then we have a new Labour government who lie worse than the Tories. Stealing WASPI pensions after campaigning to give them the money they are so rightly owed. They took £300 of winter fuel allowance from vulnerable pensioners. Even Labour's own report says that action will result in people dying. Yet they give millions to their Union Paymasters by way of pay rises and other foreign countries in foreign aid. Deny an inquiry into the gang rapes scandal. What are they hiding? The truth!

But we must rid the Country of this Labour rot. We must expose them at ever turn, fight them at every corner. 

So keep tune and join the fight that will be to rid us of the Labour ROT. It is time for a clear out!

Do we have a democracy in the UK

We are told so often that we live in a democracy. I to thought this up until recently the last General Election. I say this because previously at the last USA election when it was Trump v Boden I thought, " My god out of all the Americans those two are the best you have to offer the American people?" 

Then at this General Election we had Rishi v Starmer. Really are these the two best the two main parties have to offer us? So when we are told that we live in a democracy what they are saying is you live in a society where we tell you who you can vote for - and that is what we are lead to believe is a democracy.

Meaning of Democracy

So the first thing we would need to understand is what is democracy? Isn't it a place where eligible members can vote for who they want to lead that Country, or that area? 

But we don't have that we have a system were we have to vote for who people tell us. But what about a new thought. What about if there was a system were the people had the choice to vote for who they wanted and if they didn't like anyone one the ballot they can say no to all. So if the majority say no to all then there has to be a re-run but the previous candidates couldn't stand on the re0run. The parties would have to get new candidates. Just a thought! After all if democracy is about the people getting the person they want, not a person they have to choose? 

Just a thought. 

Why Standish should be worried

After the result of Labour winning the General Election the new Labour Government have been announcing a number of new policies that they are looking to bring it quickly. 

One thing that Labour's Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner, has said is they Labour are looking to change planning laws and 

1. Allow more building of houses
2. These new houses can be built on Green Belt
3. These houses can be ugly

Allow more house building

On the first point Labour has said they will bring in minimum targets for house buildings. This means that if the local council's do not get their sums right or allow enough houses to be built then Labour's planning inspector can do a number of things, including suspend the local authority to being able to pass their planning permission in their area. 

Obviously no council of either colour would not want to hit their target and get hit with some kind of sanctions and possibly lose power to control things in their areas, so they will now be under pressure to pass house building anywhere and everywhere. 

Why does this matter to Standish? Well when Labour had this policy in back in 2008 Wigan Council had their plan - called Core Strategy - suspended and they had to come back with a better plan, which in turn lead to 2,000 houses being built in Standish. It is obvious that developers would want to build in Standish and get a premium price for their houses. So we know where the developers will want to come and if the developers do not build in the other areas of Wigan in the numbers the Labour Government want then the Council and or the Labour Government will pass more houses in Standish.

We all know that the infrastructure cannot cope and we will need to be ready to fight a very up hill battle.

These Houses can be built on Green Belt

  

Another area of concern is that the Labour Government has said the houses can be built on Green Belt. This is very worrying but Labour are trying to spin - remember the Tony Blair Spin Docs? - this is because Labour are allowing the reclassification of Green Belt to something called Grey belt. Why? This is so Labour can say at elections we have not allowed building to be done on Green belt but Grey Belt is green belt that has been reclassified. Don't be fooled!!! 

The Houses can be Ugly

The final are of concern is that the Labour Government has said sod the houses even looking nice they can be ugly, they don't even want nice community's. 

All these areas are of concern for residents of Standish and as I say when the planning applications come in we know who are to blame - Labour!!! 

Bereavement Group meeting on Standish

Many will know that my late father - George Fairhurst - set up a bereavement group after the loss of his wife and our mum. We get asked many times about it and this is a reminder that they meet the first Tuesday in the month in the Lychgate Pub at 1:30 and it is an informal meeting where anyone can attend and get out and meet new friends and stop any isolation they may feel. 

Many go along with the son's or daughter's for the first meeting, if they feel any anxiety and this is perfectly fine. 

So don't forget about it and if you are feeling low do to bereavement why not pop along today at 1:30 in the Lychgate.

Bradley Lane Railway Bridge - Labour create a new danger and waste more money

Many residents of Standish will have been through, or know the Bradley Lane railway bridge. This is the road that goes under the West Coast main line and towards the crown when coming from Standish. 

It is a single car width and when cars get to the bridge they had to slow down to a snail's pace to see if there was any cars or pedestrians coming through from the other end. By slowing down it reduced the chances of any accidents as every one had to approach and go through with care. 

Now the Labour Cllrs have decided that they wanted to waste your money and putting traffic lights on there. This will stop traffic from one side by holding them back on a red traffic signal and allowing the other side through on a green light. But that is the first reason why in my opinion this now heightens the risk to an accident. I hope and pray I am proven wrong. 

Looking from the Crown Side and
where the Council may put
double yellow lines

The reason why I say the above is if the light is on a green light a car approaching will not slow down and will go through thinking that it is clear and they can proceed at the normal speed. But if there is someone walking through this will put them at a higher risk. Plus as we all have seen when a red light comes on cars very often try to put their foot down to get through. Again this heightens the risk if there is any one under or the other cars move off when their signal goes green on the other side. Don't forget about it before the traffic lights cars would slow down to a snail's pace or stop to look and this was, in my opinion, why we have never had any serious accidents that I know off. 

As a born Standisher, of 50 years, I have lived here more than the two Labour Cllrs together and you ask why do they want this scheme? In my opinion it is clear that they do not served the community and come up with these schemes that put lives at risk without knowing the history and why things work and why things don't. A risk I believe the council share with me as they have installed new crash barriers now as well. What does that say? The Council should come clean with their risk report in the area.

The Cost

But then we come to the cost- how much has cost you, the taxpayers? £250,000 is what Wigan Council's budget shows on their website, although the council now say it is £220,000. This is before the delays. Quick thought, where is the extra £30,000 going? But then we ask where has this money come from? The Council have confirmed to me that it is out of the pot called the Section 106 money (s.106). This pot of money is developers pay to put new facilities and amenities in the area. Things we could do with are new classrooms, new doctors, dentist and I could go on. I guess you could too but the Council are wasting a quarter of a million of pounds just so the Labour Cllrs can try and say look we do something for our £40,000 a year they get as your local Cllr's, (They get £15,000 each and Cllr Parkinson gets about £6,000 extra for the deputy Mayor. Source Wigan Council). 

Another sting in the tail - wait for it!

Surely there can be nothing else that makes this crazy idea any worse? O yes the council and Cllrs are not being truthful to the residents on the terraced properties that live on the Crown Side. They have to park their cars in front of their properties, which they have done for decades. But in busy periods when the traffic is bad the side coming from the Crown and held on a red signal will back up and when the cars that come through from Standish side they will not be able to pass due to the parked cars and cars held on a red traffic signal. What do you get? Mayhem! How will the council fix this? I bet they put double yellow lines outside the residents properties, so it keeps the flow of traffic moving, but they have nowhere else to park. 

Here are the reasons I say this is a crazy, ill thought out political scheme that not only wastes money but also put residents lives at risk, for the reasons I say. And why?Just so Labour Cllrs can say look what we have done! As I say I pray I am wrong but I fear they could have made a accident black spot and I pray no one gets hurt or worse. 

Labour waste £41m on cycle lanes - and over £20m in Standish

We all know that cycling is good for you. Not only that but is a great hobby too. I have always been a keen cyclist since a teenager, with my friends cycling all over the place inc to the leisure Lakes in Southport and doing the Manchester to Blackpool ride a number of times. So I am not anti cyclist. 

But for some reason this labour controlled council are obsessed with cycle lanes and now we can see it is going to stupid lengths. 

In Standish many know about the council spending £1m on a small section of cycle lane that serves no purpose on Preston Rd and has cut the width of the footpath as they have put, and are, putting cycle lanes now on the footpaths. This in turn means less footpaths for those with prams and walking. 

But we can see from the pic taken from Wigan Council's website that Labour has spent £41m on cycle lanes last year, inc £20m for one from Standish to Ashton. This is wholly disproportionate! Who will cycle from Standish to Ashton, or vice versa? It is not anywhere near close enough to be good value for money.  If the council wanted to help out cyclist  then fix the many huge pot holes on the roads that can cause serious damage. That would help motorists too. Why have the Cllrs not fought to stop this wholly disproportionate amount of money being wasted? Where are they calling it out? Why do Labour hate the motorists so much? 

It is about time this labour controlled council are held to account and Standish gets a Cllt that will look after Standish and it;s resident!