Published 19th February, 1995.
Cases
55 in 1995.
Unemployment
631
15.9% (December 1994).
Beechwood
I met a constituent who thought the number of beds at the Children's home is to increase.
In fact, the number should be reduced to 8 from 17. Yet despite misunderstanding the situation, the resident is no longer going to vote Tory.
Hazelwood Estate
The roads are scheduled to be finished in the Autumn (best guess October), over 3 years after Standens went bust.
Contracts to do the work will be offered in July, after Severn Trent have tested the sewers in July and taken full responsibility for them.
Traffic Calming
Magdala Road etc.
Anticipated start date is March 1995. Awaiting authorisation from the Dept. of Transport for the use of cushions.
Kingsthorpe
The Tories sought to embarrass Labour about the development of the estate at a recent Housing meeting.
A new tenants' group is now being established, with weekly meetings.
Salop to set rate above cap
Salop County Council is set to break the Government's "capping limit" by raising £6m extra via the council tax.
Salop is currently Labour controlled with Lib.Dem. support; it only fell from Tory control six years ago, so the reserves that Notts. had been able to build up in the early '80's were not there for Salop.
So for the last few years, reserves have been used up to protect services.
Education cuts
A legal budget would mean a £10m cut for the £153m education budget.
Some small rural primary schools would be down to 1 teacher; secondary schools are losing as many as 13 teachers.
250 teacher posts are being lost in total; youth services and discretionary grants are being decimated.
These problems were foreseen weeks ago and Councillors have been building public pressure, most notably convening a meeting of 4,000 school governors which backed the cap breaking strategy.
They have the support of local MPs of both main parties.
Impact in Notts.
Although I'm hearing some complaints, the 3% cut in Education in Notts. has not had the same profile.
Neither does Notts. have any cap breaking plans, not least because the plan is to use its reserves up by May 1997 - so the pressures to adopt such a political campaign have not been there.
Nevertheless, I'm rooting for Salop and I hope their campaign succeeds.
Jack Barker
Our Vice-Chair of Education died on Thursday, 9th.
Jack had previously led Ashfield Council. At his funeral, his colleagues explained that Jack was the son of a miner who was blacklisted after the 1926 strike; and they described the close community in Butler's Hill that developed as a result of victimisation and poverty.
Stapleford North & West
This by-election is scheduled for March 16th and our candidate is John Bell. John's a member of RMT.
Incinerator Pollution
The Observer has highlighted high levels of pollution from incinerators such as Eastcroft. In fact, the County is to invest £700,000 to bring the emissions up to the new European standards.
QMC
Meanwhile, residents of Dunkirk are campaigning against the QMC's plans to build a new incinerator with the 6 times the current capacity, even though it will be cleaner. Burning other hospital's waste at the QMC is the direct result of the NHS's internal market, but the County may struggle to find planning reasons to object to the proposal.
Tories on women
Whilst explaining why women didn't want top jobs or positions in local government -
Cllr. Ted Hickey (Deputy Leader, Nottingham City Tories) said women were happy looking after the home.
"If they are doing a job, they are not happy taking a briefcase of work home, because most women want to finish work at 4.30 or 5 and forget it.” Evening Post - 8 Feb. '95.
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