Here’s a quick summary of news, events and casework for April 2005
29th – Tony Blair speaks in Long Eaton;
29th – Journey planner launch - a sophisticated new journey planning service, believed to be among the best in the UK, has been launched in Nottingham; the new Triptimes web service (http://www.triptimes.co.uk/) provides all the details needed to make a journey, including walking information, which bus or tram to catch and interchange information to enable people to create their own door-to-door travel plan;
26th – BBC Radio Nottingham holds a Groundswell debate on the General Election;
25th – “Building Schools for the Future” meeting at Elliott Durham school;
25th – Patricia Hewitt visits the NET as part of launch of new economic development policy for cities;
25th – controversy after a ‘Vote Conservative’ slogan is painted on a fence in huge white letters – in the Mapperley Park Conservation Area;
22nd – East Midlands Regional Assembly;
22nd – Tory opportunists snatch at the proposals for safer food supplements (vitamins and minerals) which have been passed by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and later the House of Commons, after a spirited debate. It is NOT true that Labour MEPs “voted for a ban on 300 perfectly safe food supplements.” Establishing that they are safe, rather than announcing that they are, is what it is all about, and it has been welcomed by the Consumers’ Association, the National Consumer Council and the Food Standards Agency, to the dismay of the self-styled “Consumers for Health Choice” in which manufacturers like Holland and Barrett play a leading role;
22nd – We now have a ‘Selling to the Council’ Procurement Portal, which is on the Council’s web site under ‘Business’. To assist Local Suppliers we intend to advertise forthcoming tenders on the site. The site will be used to gather ‘Expressions of Interest’ from suppliers;
22nd – Crime in Nottingham has fallen by just under nine per cent in the past 12 months. New figures from Nottinghamshire Police show there were 6,251 fewer recorded offences in the city in 2004/05 compared to the previous year. Robbery fell by 19.8%, vehicle crime was down 19.7% and house burglary dropped by 14.4%. Violent crime rose fractionally, up 0.5% compared to a reported nine per cent increase nationally. In Nottinghamshire as a whole, crime fell by 10.6%;
19th – Executive Board;
19th – NCT Passenger Charter performance for April 2005 shows continued service delivery stability and reliability improvement across the network and in the Call Centre. The results for April 2005 are: 1: Service performance – 99.7% of all journeys operated; 2: Service reliability – 98.5% of all buses departing the City on time; 3: Service reliability – 92.4% of buses departing intermediate stops on time; 4: Call centre – 94.4% of all calls answered by the Travel Centre; 5: Fleet – 77% of the fleet now operating with low floor access; 6: Fleet – average fleet age only 5 years;
14th – discuss suggested changes to constitution and advice and scrutiny and suggest questions for full Council should be tabled by the public;
xxth – the Parliamentary Transport Select Committee investigating UK tramway development finds that Nottingham has a compelling case for extending its new tram system;
9th – the family and friends of Danielle Beccan, the schoolgirl shot dead in Nottingham six months ago, have launched a CD of songs performed by her friends; the CD – called ‘Danielle’ – is available from music shops in the city, with all proceeds going to the Danielle Beccan Memorial Trust to benefit young people in St Ann’s, the area of Nottingham where Danielle lived; the CD has seven tracks, including rap, poetry and singing;
8th – Paul Boateng visits Nottingham;
8th – Nottinghamshire Local Authorities Association Meeting;
5th – General Election called for May 5th;
5th – (HMIC) Inspector’s report into Notts Police announced with strong recommendations to improve the effectiveness of Notts Police;
4th – The Respect for Nottingham’s “Spring Clean” starts with a day of not clearing litter! All to show the scale of the problem;
1st – brown bin scheme rolled out to more parts of Mapperley ward; the City Council introduced the alternate weekly collection in 2003 to an area of 6,000 households; following its successful implementation the scheme was expanded to a further 18,000 households in April 2004, making the total at 24,000; initial results indicate that if taken in isolation the 24,000 households have produced a combined recycling/composting rate of 37%; in the Mapperley area alone we collected 423 tonnes of garden waste and 213 tonnes of paper and cardboard from 1,800 households which gave a recycling/composting rate of 41%; the overall recycling/composting rate for the city has increased from 5% in 2002/03 to 14% in 2004/05;
1st – Nottingham City Homes, a new arms-length management company formally starts to run Nottingham City Council’s 31,000 Council houses;
also –
Nottinghamshire County Labour Group publish their manifesto;
Electoral Commission launch a new web-site …
As do Channel 4 news - wonder if they'll scrutinise their own output too?
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