Dear villagers,
Life with the builders is about as good as it could be!
They are a great bunch of guys and doing a good job, to time, with genuine
consideration. However the distractions of the project, combined with some
rather significant events at the District Council, have caused me to overlook
my promise to issue my latest newsletter on June 8th. After several issues on the dot, I do
apologise for being so late. To ensure I maintain frequent communication I will
issue another newsletter at a shorter interval than usual, during the week
commencing 11th August.
Police matters
There will an important event in
the village on the morning of Saturday 8th August. My previous
newsletters have announced that the village now has a Police Constable, (known
in the modern Police jargon as a Beat Manager; sounds like she might have a
role in one of my rock bands!), PC Kirsty Langridge. This is in addition to our highly regarded
PCSO, Jim Leggat.
Although Kirsty has been with us
for several months and, in fact, took part in the tour of Kingswood Firs and
So, as we did before, a Police
van will park in
The village has an excellent
ongoing relationship with Hampshire Constabulary and I hope that as many
villagers as possible will find time to pop in on Saturday morning, 8th
August, meet Kirsty and make her feel welcome.
As an aside to all this, in
addition to my regular and very useful meetings with the senior officer for East
Hampshire, Chief Inspector Kedge, I am pleased to say I now have a meeting
scheduled with the Chief Constable of Hampshire, Alex Marshall, in September.
Planning matters
The saga of the mobile ‘phone
mast to the rear of Grove House has ended unsatisfactorily I’m afraid. You may
recall that this was hotly opposed by many villagers and in my previous
newsletter I explained how hard it is for the Council to turn these down owing
to the existence of primary legislation.
I secured a deferral because the
applicant, the ‘phone company, failed to demonstrate they had considered all
possible alternatives. The only one they hadn’t considered was a location on
the A3 itself which I reckoned would not upset many villagers. However the
Highways Agency refused to allow the pole to be erected adjacent to the highway
because of the ongoing tunnel construction project. If we still feel strongly
about it, it is an issue we could revisit informally with the ‘phone company
when the tunnel project is completed in 2012.
The only other thing I can
suggest is that those of you who are upset by this should try to get the
primary legislation changed by lobbying your MP and also, if your
MP is standing down at the next election, the PPCs who are aspiring to be
elected next year. If you want to know how to contact MPs or the PPCs of the
two major parties locally, I can give you the relevant email addresses.
.EHDC News Items
As always, East Hampshire
District Council is working closely with the village on major projects. Right
now the District Council is investing a lot of officer time on several village
projects that you know about. Greening is one that is very current and that has
been discussed in most of our forums lately. The plans for the refurbishment of
The Square are one of the key projects, where EHDC is looking to assist with
funding and also to assist with some of the broader project management
requirements of such an important project. You may recall being surveyed
recently by the Parish Council on the subject of leisure and recreation in the
village and again, EHDC is assisting GPC to develop a proposal for your
comments.
These projects reflect tremendous
energy from the Parish Council and I am determined that their commitment will
be rewarded with the fullest possible support from EHDC.
The Future of Local Government
Moving away from the village
specifically, you may have seen in the press that, together with the Cabinet I
chair, I have taken the view that EHDC does not need to replace its Chief
Executive, who recently left to join Bristol City Council. According to the
Local Government Association the idea, that was developed in our Cabinet
discussions, is very novel for local government.
The plan is to share the role of
Chief Executive with a neighbouring local authority in Hampshire. Excluding
temporary arrangements, there are, so far, only four such sharing arrangements
in
How can it be achieved? I think
we have to accept that our District Council with about 300 staff and the
equivalent of a £44m turnover does not need a Chief Executive and the salary
package that goes with this kind of job. We have a layer called “Corporate
Director” below that position and then another layer called “Head of Service”
below that. Then you get middle managers and finally the front line officers
that you interact with if you have a query. We can use this structure to absorb
much higher levels of delegation than are applied at present.
Secondly, as I said at the Annual
Parish Assembly in April, the existence of District and Borough Councils is
under serious threat. The Government’s solution is to replace them with Unitary
Councils, in effect giving all local services to the County Council. Wiltshire
and
However the problem with Unitaries is that you will lose out on contact with your
councillor. The span of control of Unitary councillors
will be equal to or worse than, the current County Council set up. Most of you
know me by sight, call me or email me and we get on with problem solving
together. I work closely with the Parish Council and we have regular meetings
in the Fox and Pelican to ensure we are working as one for the benefit of the
village, not to mention those valuable serendipitous encounters in the village!
I don’t think I need to tell you what would happen to all of that, if your District
Councillor had the area of the current County Division, or greater.
So, the ideal would be to achieve
the economies of scale of a Unitary without the democratic deficit. This is
what I have set out to achieve, working closely with the Leader of Hampshire
County Council, Cllr. Ken Thornber.
Ken has launched the Hampshire
Senate. The Senate is an informal organisation of Council Leaders like me from
all over Hampshire. Our goal is to work together and maximise cross council
economies of scale, without forming the clumsy monolith I described earlier.
The Senate doesn’t take decisions, only the democratically elected councillors
can do that. But it tries to bring about common sense co-operation.
Within that structure, my
strategy of sharing the Chief Executive role goes way beyond halving the cost
of that position to EHDC! The two authorities that will fall under that Chief
Executive umbrella will be, subject the decisions of local councillors like me,
naturally well placed to discover economies of scale from sharing overhead
costs and thus bringing down the costs of services for the taxpayers in both
authorities. There is no intent or expectation that service scope or quality
would be compromised. It’s not an attempt to force in these awful “one size
fits all” strategies that you read about. It’s about cutting overheads. There
are plenty to be cut! I’ve even gone so far as to say that as we develop this
idea, we will reinvest some savings in service improvement, not just tax
minimisation.
If you have any queries on this
approach, just get in touch. If you attended the Annual Parish Assembly, you
should see this strategy as a natural extension of my short speech that
evening.
Homelessness
…is alive
and kicking in Grayshott. Despite opposition, I am determined to get the
Grayshott housing waiting list down and progress is being made as you know.
Just lately I had to deal with the worst kind of homelessness; a Grayshott
resident sleeping rough because they had nowhere to go. Unbelievable, but it
happened.
Obviously
I will not reveal any details that might identify this person, but “the system”
wasn’t working for them at all. It was a superb example of the various agencies
in Grayshott working together when the vicar at St. Luke’s, Moray Thomas, drew
my attention to this person’s dreadful plight. Several weeks of investigation
ensued and, together with some wonderful support from the Housing Team at EHDC,
we managed to persuade “the system” to work for his person and as of next
Monday, they will be in a warm, cosy flat they can call their own. Not in
Grayshott, because the village social housing capacity is full, but then, we’re
working on that…..
…..and finally
Thanks to everyone who turned up and danced so wildly at my
first ever two hour gig, held at Grayshott Social Club in May. We all had a
great night and it’s a terrific venue.
As usual, if you have any comments, please write to me at fcowper@aol.com
or call me on 01428-609858.
Best wishes,
Cllr. Ferris Cowper
EHDC Councillor for the ward of Grayshott and Leader of the Council