Cameron’s whoppers
January 28th, 2012
David Cameron is caught out at Prime Minister’s question time. Should there be more truth in public life?
READ MOREWorth Park – how should limited Council resources be allocated?
January 26th, 2012
Crawley Labour councillors make no apologies for having challenged the Conservative’s decision to spend over £1 million on Worth Park. This was the wrong time to go ahead with this, particularly when they are pressing ahead with privatising Tilgate Park “to save money” (less money, incidentally, than they’re spending on Worth Park).
Tilgate Park is the jewel in Crawley’s crown. Worth Park, given its remoteness, will never approach Tilgate Park’s importance or popularity. Yet to improve a minor park, the Tories are ready to begin an unpopular and unnecessary privatisation of Tilgate Park. This is unfair and wrong.
If you were to ask most residents of Crawley what they’d rather, Worth Park being done up or to stop the privatisation of Tilgate Park, the vast majority would choose Tilgate Park without hesitation.
You only have to look at how many oppose what the council are doing to Tilgate Park – one and a half thousand people have signed up to the “I Oppose the Privatisation of Tilgate Park” Facebook Group. The Tories arrogantly pretend these people don’t exist, even when the public gallery is packed full of people telling them they’re wrong. They’re massively out of touch.
We’ve spoken to scores of residents right across Crawley. They told us, almost 100%, that the Worth Park project is a poor use of money. I say put that council money into Tilgate Park instead.
The Conservatives have pursued a divisive and polarising policy on leisure and parks for the past two years. They could not have been less inclusive if they’d tried. Labour councillors not only opposed the money set aside for the Worth Park lottery bid at the time, but the costs to the council then were meant to be much less. Now they’ve leapt to over a million.
The money the Lottery is giving is almost irrelevant if Crawley taxpayers have to fork out huge amounts to receive it. Most local councils have bigger priorities in tough economic times than heritage projects, as do we.
At a time the Conservative-led government has slashed the money the Borough Council receives, the Worth Park project is excessive and carried out in the face of widespread public anger to its effect on Tilgate Park.
Thanks to our actions, the decision has been suspended until the council meets at the end of February. We have no doubts it was the right thing to do.
Michael Jones
Labour councillor for Bewbush
Downtown Abbey view of history
January 25th, 2012
There are financial and other matters which weren’t reported to the Council’s Cabinet which may be of interest to Crawley residents.
1. This project has never been scrutinised by the Overview & Scrutiny committee, for value for money.
2. The terms of the Lottery grant are that the Council will have to achieve Green Flag status for Worth Park for the first six years, or some of the grant could be clawed back.
3. The Council will have to commit to a 10 year maintenance programme.
4, The Council acknowledges that there is a medium risk of an overspend on this project. If this happens, the cost will have to be met in full by the Council. The Lottery will not make any extra contribution.
6. In addition to £1000,000 capital contribution, the Council has also committed to an additional £100,000 extra maintenance expenditure for the first five years.This at a time when the Council is looking to spend less on the Leisure budget as a whole, including Tilgate Park.
7. The Council will take staff who maintain Crawley’s other parks to support this project, so those parks could suffer from less maintenance.
8. The financial scrutiny of the project will be overseen by a committee comprised of local groups, not the Council itself. Therefore, this project will be considered in isolation from other Council priorities.
9. Despite the claim that this is a town wide project, there has been no attempt at cross party working, as there usually is with major Council projects. This project has been the exclusive property of the Tory group.
Most of this is taken from the application to the Heritage Lottery Fund, the HLF terms of grant & the Worth Park Activity Plan, all available on request from the Council.
In addition the Activity Plan states that ‘Worth Park’s unique Victorian features tell a story of the roots of Crawley. The ambition of the project is to build a sense of pride, involvement & celebration this shared heritage across Crawley, which runs deeper than the more visible postwar heritage which is prevalent in the town’
Is the Victorian heritage which the Council plans to celebrate the Downton Abbeysque view of the 19th century, or will it also be the exploitation of children and the slave trade which enabled vast country estates to be built, together with the wealth stolen from other countries by British colonialism, and the way that so many unfortunates, including some who had worked at Worth Park/Milton Mount ended their days in misery at the Worth workhouse, a mile away on the Turners Hill Road.
If Victorian society has to be ‘celebrated’, that celebration should be tempered with the warts of the era, which led eventually to the creation of the welfare state, of which the New Towns movement was a part.
Finally, thank you if you have read this far, the last point is that much of the ‘history’ which has been used to support this project is completely unsourced & therefore highly dubious.
Councillor Ian Irvine
Broadfield North, Labour
READ MOREJennifer Millar Smith claims £1100 for attending 1 meeting
January 25th, 2012
Hard working?! Just check out how low her attendance rate is for meetings she doesn’t get paid over £1,000 to attend. The allowances system at CBC is rotten.
http://www.thisissussex.co.uk/pound-1-100-attending-1-meeting/story-15029435-detail/story.html
READ MORE