Yesterday, Alice & I attended a fund raising dinner at the Brett Vale Golf Club in aid of Home-Start Babergh.
I was vaguely aware of them previously through the modest support provided by Babergh District Council. So I was interested to learn that Home-Start Babergh is an independent charity operating as part of Home-Start UK. The important bit is that they recruit, train and provide volunteers to work with families in times of need.
Their support is available to families that have at least one child under five; it is given through home visits by the volunteers and through support group meetings, where children can play together, supervised by a play leader, whilst parents meet with each other and with Home-Start staff. In many cases, the support is complementary to that of the professional agencies. The volunteer will be there for the family as a friend and confidant during a time of stress or difficulty.
Home-Start Babergh is one of several regional “Home-Starts”. It has a team of over 50 volunteers who, in the main, visit families in their homes. All have undergone training appropriate to their individual roles, and all conform with child protection guidelines and legislation.
During the 12 months ending 31st March 2011 Home-Start Babergh supported 98 families, including a total 0f 253 children. 57 families were supported by home visits only and 41 families were supported in Home-Start Babergh Family Groups.
More info on http://www.home-startbabergh.co.uk/au_what.htm
Political – Local
Bye-Bye Increased Short Term Parking Charges
At this morning’s (26th Jan 2012) Council meeting, Babergh decided to:
Retain free parking for up to three hours in Sudbury and Hadleigh but there being an increase in the long-stay charge from £1.50 to £2 per day.
Increase Council Tax by 9 pence per week per Band D property being the equivalent of 3.5% on the District Council’s levy.
Keep Community Grants (about £290,000) as they are pending a full strategic review in 2012/13.
Review charges and arrangements for brown bin collection, public toilets etc.
All of which is a bland way of reflecting the pulling together of a group of like minded councillors and ensuring that their views prevailed.
However a triumph is a triumph – hard sought, hard fought and well won.
Bye-Bye Increased Short Term Parking Charges
Today’s (13th Jan 2012) EADT reports that Babergh District Council’s strategy committee yesterday decided to take increased short-stay parking charges off the agenda – the move had been put forward as a way of helping the council to balance their books.
While the plans for increased short-stay car parking charges were scrapped, members agreed to increase council tax by 3.5% and charge an additional 50p per day in the long-stay car parks – taking the cost to £2. The increased Council Tax equates to 9p per week per household. This should produce an extra £80,000 in the Council’s tax base and let us protect services and front line staff.
All of which is a bland way of reflecting the pulling together of a group of like minded councillors and ensuring that their views prevailed. A number of people are quite happy with the result. I suspect that others are less than appreciative of Councillors sticking up for the tax payers and for their towns. The full article can be found on http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/politics/babergh_community_leaders_are_thrilled_at_short_stay_car_parking_charges_turnaround_1_1176255
One People, One Nation, One Leader
Bury St. Edmunds and Forest District Councils are seeking a joint executive at a price range between £105,000 and £115,000. The advertisement in the MJ (formerly the Municipal Journal) concludes with “We need someone whose time has come to help create a shared vision for West Suffolk – and then deliver it”. The bells started ringing and then suddenly the penny dropped. It sounds like an up to date version of: “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” — “One People, One Nation, One Leader”. With attributes like these at such a low cost you can see why Woolworth’s went bust. Meanwhile with two district councils and one Chief executive I see at least three contenders for the post of Generalissimo or Duce.
Fuller details are available on http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/live/ChiefExecutive.cfm
Car Parking & Other Matters
The MJ (management journal for local authority business) contained the following item, on its back page:
Somehow it all makes sense.
Car Parking & Other Matters
On Tuesday 13th (December) I took part in Babergh’s Joint Overview & Scrutiny (Community Services) and (Stewardship) meeting. I appointed myself as initial chairman of the meeting so that we could elect a chairman (not me!). The chief purpose of this meeting was to recommend to the Strategic Financial Planning Task Group the key options for the draft budget. The Council faces a substantial reduction in Government funding. After some considerable debate the Committee overwhelmingly opted for the following recommendations:
- · Council Tax to rise by 3.5%. This will increase our tax base, give us additional revenue of £45,000 and will ameliorate future shortfalls. After the increase we will still have the second lowest Band D in Suffolk. The additional cost will be less than £5 per year per Band D property.
- · To leave the present car parking regime unchanged.(The Portas review was published this morning). (see http://www.bis.gov.uk/highstreet).
- · To use up to £3000,000 (s.t.c.) of the £924,000 received from the Government as a New Homes Bonus (based upon past performance) to balance budgets – or to put it another way to invest and support the social investments represented by our car parks.
The recommendations were all against the Executive’s recommendations (which would have been cleared beforehand with members of more senior committees) and have yet to make their way through the various decision channels before coming to the full council in February.
So it remains to be seen how far democratic principles will prevail and the New Year promises to be interesting.
The Stowupland Cockerels
One 
problem of many communities is that of incomers who wish to change a world which has gone on for centuries. A good example is people who complain about Church bells being too loud and intrusive.
Normally, people (including Councils) just shrug their shoulders and tell the complainants to get on with their lives. Sometimes the spirit of live and let live prevails and everything goes on as normal. At other times the local council feels obliged to serve noise abatement orders on the offending parties.
One such case reached the newspapers last month when Nick Stutchbury was fined £50 plus £300 costs for noise from his cockerels. And then the Small/Big society came into its own. The East Anglian Daily Times reports that Mr. Stutchbury’s supporters at his local pub have raised the money needed to pay the fine and the court costs. Mr. Stutchbury is described as “a gentle fellow who makes bit of a living from selling eggs.”
It’s what living in the countryside is all about and if you do not like it – then look to live somewhere else.
The original report was on the 3rd November. See http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/stowmarket_man_is_fined_over_his_noisy_cockerels_1_1115836 for more details – especially the comments
Time to Make Noise (2)
I copied my correspondence on noise 
with the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport to Tim Yeo, my M.P.
I received the following e-mail response:
Dear Cllr Riley,
Tim is currently in Suffolk so has asked me to thank you for sending him a copy of your letter to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport regarding your concerns about its proposal to deregulate Section One of the Licensing Act 2003.
Tim has written to the relevant Minister about this.
Yours sincerely
Sarah Williams
Parliamentary Assistant to Tim Yeo MP
It’s nice to receive support from a high level.
Ideas before their time
It is no secret that every year Babergh District Council faces a difficult time balancing its budget and during the course of the year the problem is resolved by cutting costs, using reserves, deferring expenditure etc. This year is no different, despite the savings being achieved by amalgamating departments with Mid Suffolk District Council. One interesting idea this year was to defer some of the pay-down of the pensions deficit. The deficit which was mainly caused by previously contribution holidays soaks up just under a million pounds a year. Deficit fluctuations in the past have been as high as a positive £19 million which completely dwarfed anything we might do on an annual basis using current funds. All was going well and there was a good head of steam developing behind the idea of seeking a review of the contribution schedule. Alas between the 31st March valuation and 30th September’s (made available to us at the end of November ) the deficit had grown from 19.8% to 30.5% of the fund’s liabilities. Any review of the contribution schedule would have to take into account the deficit increase and on a cash flow basis we could end up being worse off. So we need to wait and hope that the markets recover by 2013 when the actuary once again consults the auguries and issues his pronouncements. (Unless of course we can find another reason to change current arrangements).
Where are we going?
Where are we going?
“I don’t know. I thought you knew”
“No, I don’t know,
Maybe he knows”
“No, he definitely doesn’t know”
PAUSE
“Maybe no-one knows”
PAUSE
“Oh well, I hope it’s nice when we get there”– Edward Monkton
Which sums up a lot of my life, especially when I have to suffer other people’s leadership.
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