Dear villagers,
Here is my latest newsletter, hopefully back on schedule. The next one will be posted during the week beginning 14th December, just before Christmas.
I have little choice but to make some comments on the activities at the District Council during the middle of October. However my good friends in the press read this newsletter occasionally, so I need to be circumspect in what I say!
The way these things work, (a bit like the Westminster scene), is that the Group Leader of the largest party becomes the Council Leader and so, in reverse, if the Council Leader ceases to be the Group Leader then that person, in effect, ceases to be the Council Leader. Strictly constitutionally, only the EHDC Full Council can appoint or remove a Leader, but one has to be realistic and I decided to take the more dignified route and resign before it went to the wire.
I was always a controversial Leader, which was driven by the philosophies of Leadership and the Leadership practices that I learned at Mars, Inc. Few senior industrialists are successful in politics except a small number of family businesses owners. Certainly those of us trained in the cut throat world of top level Multinational Corporate politics do tend to struggle a bit with the incompatibility of the cultures and I always think of Archie Norman in that context.
As far as I can tell at this stage, none of these events have any effect on my role as your District Councillor. I propose to remain in that post until you decide to remove me or I get a visit from a man in grey suit!! I want to assure you all that these events have not dimmed my love for Grayshott nor my total resolve and determination to represent you to the very best of my ability. Unless a better candidate comes along, I intend to seek re-election as your District Councillor in 2011.
As is always the case in life, every cloud has a silver lining. The first and obvious good is that I will have more time to devote to village matters. The requests are already arriving! In a way, that’s just as well because we have some major projects in the pipeline that won’t be easy to steer through and in this recessionary environment, finding funding will be a challenge.
The second good thing is you. I have been utterly astonished, overwhelmed and amazed at the flood of letters, emails and ‘phone calls from so many of you telling me how dreadful you think this business is and how you support me fully. My initial disappointment has quickly been overtaken by an even stronger emotion that my fellow villagers took so much trouble, in such large numbers, to tell me how much they supported me.
Obviously I thank you all so much, so very much. But what you have done which is more important, is to completely swamp the negative experience with an uplifting and fulfilling positive experience. As we know, the positive always overwhelms the negative and I feel immensely happy and proud to have so many friends and such support in the village.
I would also like to say a public thank you to Grayshott Parish Council for the lovely letter they sent me. Isn’t it great living in this village? The loyalty and teamwork here is so strong that, as has happened many times in the past, whenever necessary, we “circle the wagons” and pull together.
Lastly, on this topic, I have also received very many letters and other messages of support from residents and organisations up and down the District as well as many Council Officers. The one that touched me the most from outside Grayshott was a blog entry by Jake Topp, the Chairman of the East Hampshire Youth Council and it speaks for itself. Here is a picture in the EHDC Leader’s office of me with Jake on the left and two other members of the Youth Council, followed by Jake’s blog entry.
Logged Username : jake.topp@btinternet.com
Member name : Jake Topp
Blog title : Thanks Ferris
Blog Description :
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Ferris Cowper has resigned as Leader of the Council. Sad times but at the moment everything is changing. Without a doubt he is one of the most pro youth councillors we as a youth council have met and I want to thank him for what he has done for the youth council. Don't forget it was him that really pushed through Butserfest! He was passionate, kind and wasn't afraid to be different to usual councillors. Without Ferris, the youth council would not have had any where near as much support during its early stages. Again I send him my many thanks and am glad that he is not giving up councilling altogether. His work for the youth in the area won't be forgotten and Butserfest will live on!
We now press to the future.
Jake”
This is utterly inspirational, don’t you agree?
Police matters
Remember this?
Well, it was so successful we’re going to do it again!!! PC Kirsty Langridge, (pictured here with me and Geoffrey Lee) and PCSO Jim Leggat will be with me in front of The Square on Saturday morning 5th December, between 10.00 amand about mid day.
This was very popular last time so if you missed it, or you want to have another chat, make a point of being o the village that day at that time. You don’t need to have a problem to discuss because these two fabulous local Police officers just love to meet local villagers to reassure, to be certain we all know each other by sight and to have a useful chat about community policing matters. I know you will feel so much safer when you know that we have these two of Hampshire’s finest looking after us.
Planning matters
There has been some concern about tree preservation in several parts of the village. Just to clarify the planning process here, the main source of protection offered by the District Council is a Tree Preservation Order, generally known as a TPO. A TPO can be applied quickly, sometimes within hours of the Council being notified. The person to get in touch with is the Council’s Arboriculture Officer, Mr. Stewart Garside, at Penns Place, Contacting me, in an emergency situation simply slows the whole thing down, it’s better to contact Stewart, (or anyone in the Heritage department), direct. Obviously, once a tree has been cut down, there is nothing anyone can do.
Quite a few people dislike TPOs on the basis that if the tree is in their garden it’s their business whether they cut it down or not. Up to a point, that is accepted in law. Trees that are the subject of a TPO must have a public amenity value as a general rule and so be visible from public areas, such as the highway, or parkland and must add value to the general scene, (unless they are a rare species when they can be protected wherever they are).
The recent flurry of activity here concerned trees at the rear of Aberdeen House. I understand that the Council have written a letter of explanation to everyone who expressed an interest in that situation, which I think is a good idea. I think local authorities should always be happy to explain their actions. In the end, the reason the Area TPO, (applies to a group of trees, not just one), was lifted was because the trees in question, in the opinion of the Arboriculture Officer, failed the tests I mentioned above and also may have posed some danger, in his view, if allowed to grow further.
The District Council takes tree preservation seriously and Mr. Garside is a first class officer and an expert in his field. I have faith that the correct decision was made here.
Phillips House
You will have seen that the building project has started at long last. I hope that the enlarged building may be ready for occupation by very early in 2011 and when that happens, the Grayshott waiting list for housing will fall appreciably. The alarm bells were set off on this subject when the waiting list hit 40 a few years ago, which is over 3% of the adult population of the village. The projects that I have helped to get going, including this one, should bring the number into the mid 20s when the enlarged Phillips House is occupied. That will open up the chance to dream of getting the number down to single figures one day.
In case you wonder why I make such an issue of this, aside from my objection in principle to the notion that anyone should be homeless in such an affluent society in the twenty first century, villages like ours have unique problems with the topic. In large settlements, towns and cities, affordable housing, (probably better described as social rented housing or subsidised rent accommodation), is located and funded by virtue of a mandatory percentage allocation applied to every new housing development over 5 dwellings. At the lower end of the range, (closer to 5), the allocation is often taken in cash for future funding of affordable housing development, but at the higher end with large developments, the developer is required to build the allocation on that site.
In a small village like ours, with very little new building development going on, we do not receive much in the way of a flow of funds and more importantly, it’s very hard indeed to find the land on which to build. When plots become available in Grayshott, they are almost always snapped up by commercial property developers because they can afford to pay far more than a Housing Association. This is because Housing Associations charge rents at substantially below market rates and so can only achieve income break even by purchasing lower priced land, even with the benefit of government grants.
So that explains the structural problem we face. We share this in common with all rural and small village settlements. Grayshott is an ageing village because our young people find it impossible to afford house prices here. If we want to keep the village thriving and energetic, we need to ensure that the built environment of Grayshott offers young people a chance to live here and take a full role in our wonderful community.
District Council Matters
The current financial situation in Britainis affecting all service providers very badly indeed. This year is tight for EHDC, but the surplus of income over expenditure last year was held in a reserve as insurance against unexpected difficulties this year. Although there has been some minor pruning of costs, the council has been able to deliver improved services this year as well as implementing the third and final year of the Council Tax freeze.
I know of no other District or Borough Council that is in such excellent financial shape. Of course, the unexpected continuation of the recession, reported in the press towards the end of this month, (October), does not bode well for 2010-2011. At the moment I resigned the Leadership, we were still hoping to extend the tax freeze into a fourth year but it was very much in the balance. (One of the interesting consequences of losing the Leadership is that I think I am the only Council Leader in Britainwho has never raised Council Tax!).
Basically the Council needs more income from higher interest rates, (possibly next February/March?), and more land related income such as planning fees from an upturn in the housing market. However, even if this happens, many of us are worried that whoever forms the next Government at the 2010 General Election, the budget for the nation will be so difficult that grants to local councils may be slashed. EHDC receives as much money from the Government as a grant as it does from Council Tax, so this would cause a major problem.
Similarly affected are the Police. I met with the Chief Constable, Alex Marshall, a few weeks ago. He comes across as a decisive and intelligent man and an excellent communicator. He has maintained front line services despite huge financial problems, by reducing “back office” costs and staffing. However, as with EHDC, the year by year grinding effects of the recession are reducing his options. He assured me that front line officers would only be cut when there was no other option.
The Local Government Pension Scheme, (LGPS)
In my view the disparity between the way the commercial sector is handling pensions and the way the local government sector is dealing with it is a major risk for service delivery to us all. Local government staff still receive a final salary, indexed linked pension. Of course it is argued that this compensates for lower salaries in that sector. Although I think this is true for more junior staff, senior management are paid quite competitively with the commercial sector in my opinion, after taking everything into account such as security of tenure.
There is no way that the LGPS can continue to be funded to provide benefits at this level indefinitely into the future and this is what the commercial sector has found. Of course the LGPS receives funds from your Council Tax payments. I do object to changing people’s working conditions retrospectively, so I’m not a supporter of cutting everyone’s pension entitlement. However, I can see no objection to offering a lower level of benefit to new entrants into local government in an honest and up front manner. Then they can decide if the overall package of cash and benefits is attractive enough to join, or not. In this way, over time, the costs of the LGPS would become manageable without any cut in benefits to existing members.
Sometimes, (although not at EHDC of course!), local government can be a bit slow to react. My fear is that if this intermediate solution is not adopted, when action becomes unavoidable it will, indeed, result in the cut back of benefits that I am opposed to.
…..and finally
Well my big news is that I’ll be bringing one of the bands I play for, “Drive”, down to the Social Club for a full night Christmas gig of the great rock and roll numbers and Christmas songs that you love. We are on stage on the evening of Friday 18th December for the whole evening and we hope to have some food available as well. Entry is free, (but not the food and drink!). Other local band members in our six piece band apart from me on drums are Paul Barnett on keyboards who lives on the Waggoner’s Estate, Kevan Pegley, vocalist, who lives a few minutes away just into Haslemere and my daughter Laura will be guesting with a few bars of saxophone.
I’m also playing percussion in the children’s Musical “Ratcatcher” which premieres at Liphook over the weekend of 28th and 29th November, prior to a hoped for performance at the Edinburgh Fringe. You can find out more at this website http://www.rat-catcher.com/
Lastly, during August, I achieved a long held ambition to race at Thruxton. I took part in a class called Sport 2000 and raced a Global GTS, a modern lightweight racing car with a Ford Duratec 2000 engine. Despite never having raced the car or at the circuit I finished quite well, in the middle of the pack and just nicked a place on the line, (after quite a tussle with car 48, see below), by 0.009 of a second!
Still racing with my birth year number of 49!
As usual, if you have any comments, please write to me at fcowper@aol.com or call me on 01428-609858.
Best wishes,
Ferris Cowper
EHDC Councillor for the ward of Grayshott
