Is that it?

Stop HDC introducing parking charges at Riverside Park, St Neots seems to have come to an end. In a message to all members this message reads that this is it. I hope this is the last act of this political PANTOMIME.

According to Steve the Protest was about giving "everyone a voice" and "send a message to HDC...". I thought it was to Stop Car Parking Charges!


The Protest is thinking about setting up another website for "everyone to debate issues in the Town and Voice concerns. There is already a site and that is the St Neots Community Forums. Or is this just another way of controlling the "debate".

Please remember: the Liberal Democrats have guaranteed to reverse this decision when they gain a majority on HDC. I take it they will all resign if they don't?

So how did it go at Mandeville Hall?

There was an event where this Facebook protest group were going to turn up at the St Neots Neighbourhood Meeting on 26th July 2010.

Now, I would have thought there would have been lots of talk about all this. But nothing. If everybody who said they would attend did, then St Neots should have dominated the meeting. The silence is telling. I suppose I'll have to wait for minutes to be produced to find out what went on.

St Neots treated as second class by the Liberal Democrats

I was looking through the Liberal Democrat website and I found a piece on a report to the Grafham Annual Parish Assembly by their District and County Councillors. Grafham has a population of 500. St Neots has a population of 30,000. So the small village of Grafham gets better service at their equivalent of the Annual Town Meeting than St Neots which is full of Councillors!

Where does the protest go now?

They had the march and now the protesters are thinking what can we do next? The Facebook site has been very silent on this issue. The natural progression would be to make the protest into a political movement and stand for council. But this protest was mainly organised by the Liberal Democrats and therefore a new political movement for St Neots would disadvantage the Liberal Democrat elite.

There are some who want to take this further and compare the small numbers to the poll tax demonstrations in 1991. There were far larger demonstrations in 1990.

If there is no way forward then it is likely to be a damp squib.

What could they do to carry on the protest? Here are some ideas:

Call a Town Meeting and hold a Parish Poll on the subject. This would cost money, but SNTC has lots in reserves. The downside is the Facebook protest was an utter failure at a leaflet campaign.

Demonstrate outside Pathfinder House. Go and protest at the next Council or Cabinet Meeting. Of course this would take time and effort to organise.

Don't pay the parking charges or the fines. Set up a protest where people simply park and don't pay. Needs a good support network.

Stand candidates against Conservative Councillors. The Liberal Democrats won't be happy about this one.

The problem with this campaign is where does it go now? I hope it will turn out to be a damp squib and the demo will turn out to be the last act in a political PANTOMIME.

500th Blog entry

This is the 500th blog entry and to celebrate this achievement I thought I would look back at some of the themes of this blog.

I set out a few themes in the my first blog entry. These were:

• The deficit at HDC.
• The St Neots Town Council audit reports.
• Djanogly and his expenses problems.

Of these only one theme has been resolved and that is the Djanogly and his expenses problems. Knowing full well these problems the electors of the Huntingdon constituency returned Djanogly.

HDC has actually started a consultation over the cuts because of the unresolved deficit that HDC has been carrying for years.

St Neots Town Council is getting better but there are still issues over information and their website. Also no Town Councillor resigned over the mess Liberal Democrats made of SNTC.

During the 499 other blog entries there are several themes.

• Party election literature and websites. 
• The weird decisions of SNTC Planning Committee.
• The closure of the Church Car Park and the morphing into a "Community Car Park" for the church.

There are a few issues that have come to the fore.

• The Swimming Pool Trust has problem reporting accounts. 
• The Liberal Democrats are running a campaign to protest against charges at two free car parks.

Over the next year there are a few upcoming themes.

• The 2011 Town Council elections. Who is worthy to lead this Town? 
• Cuts, Cuts and more cuts.
• District Council elections.

What is happening at the Town Council?

On the front page I found this:

There are three vacancies. One of them, the ECC building custodian, seems to be a new post. The Duty Officer at the Priory Centre is probably a temporary replacement. The interesting one is the Administrative Assistant. This follows on from the loss of the Responsible Finance Officer. This is a high turnover of officer staff! What is going on?

Your views on the budget consultation

St Neots News and Crier - 29/07/2010

In these letters section there is a general missing of the point. The reductions that could happen are massive and will cut front line services. This isn't something new. But it is something both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been very quiet about. Hence the title of this blog.

My comments on the cuts letters are:

I Turner - St Neots - I agree with making sure we all do the consultation.

M J Sweetman - Huntingdon - A 30% cut in "top" salaries certainly won't make much difference and certainly won't raise £5 million. At best this would save £300,000. Something along this line is already being proposed in the cuts.

R Wilson - Huntingdon - Goes on about a reduction in the number of Councillors. Good idea but won't save much. It will also mean a redrawing of ward boundaries which will cost more than the savings!

M Knight - Huntingdon - There seems to be a big miss here on the enormity of the cuts being proposed. It is roughly a 25% cut. Efficiencies on there own will not cut the budget deficit.

Melvyn Sibson - ? - He asks to we need the HDC magazine every month. Well we don't get this every month!

Colin Gillan - ? - Colin cannot believe that swimming pools could close. I cannot find a district of a similar size with 5 public swimming pools and these cost.

Patricia Lines - ? - Instead of looking at cuts, Patricia wants to spend more money on more Leisure.

M Reeves - Huntingdon - Yes the consultation could be baffling. But this is a complicated set of issues which needs a complicated consultation.