Attracting Young People to the Council

Tonight was the Tactic and Youth Working Party meeting and I thought a very good meeting.

I support that Tactic centre as most of you know but with Youth Services accounting for 14.6% of our Council's budget for the year ended 31st March 2006 we need to ensure that we are offering value for money and value for the time our young people spend using youth services.

Myself and Councillor Winston Forde have long asked for better reporting and analysis of the service used and the issues the centre's users have. Tonight we got to see a new reporting system implemented from our suggestions and the work of the Tactic management team.

9 months through the year, the total number of visits are already about to surpass the full year figures for 2005 representing a possible increase in visits by a third. The figures also show family and relationship issues are the most common concerns for users of the Tactic centre.

I had an item on the agenda to discuss the possibilities of taking a Councillor surgery to the Tactic centre once per term or per academic year to make us more open and available to the younger residents in the town. I feel that the 10am start on a Saturday in the library is neither the best time nor the best location for younger people to attend and this has been backed up by the fact that we rarely see anyone under the age of 25 at the surgeries.

The Youth Forum supported the idea in principle but did not feel it would be used and the Working Party decided against allowing councillors to run a surgery in the centre for fear of encroaching on the territory of young people that would be unlikely to want to speak to Councillors.

Personally I feel this perpetuates the notion that younger people are not interested in politics or the town around them and then leaves them with little contact with the decision makers responsible for schooling, entertainment, health and so on at the different tiers.

However, Cllr Owen offered to discuss with officers the possibility of having a meeting in The White House which will help to tie in with the town plan. I have offered to support this where possible subject to the details being agreed.

As a backup plan, in order to be accessible to younger residents, I am discussing the possibility of extending the library surgeries (first Saturday of the month) to 1pm with the final hour being dedicated to the needs and concerns of younger residents.

Waste of a stamp

BANG - BANG - BANG

It would appear that "D Janes" of Leighton Buzzard actually wrote a letter, put a stamp on it and dropped it in the post box to complain that every time he/she opens the Leighton Buzzard on Sunday, my face is in it and I am "banging on" about misspelled road signs.

Even I thought last week I was in the papers quite a bit (2 pictures in the LBoS plus a mention in the LBO just 5 days before!) but I am sure most of you realise that I have no control over what the paper publishes. Once your picture and the story is in the public domain anyone can report on it.

The first I knew about the articles being featured again was when I opened the paper after playing tennis and saw myself in it. No new work from me Mr or Mrs Janes I'm afraid, just the newspaper updating its readers. I really must give them some decent pictures of me.

Of course, it would be nice for any concerned resident to look at my blog to see some of the work I have been doing as an unpaid councillor and not ask if I should have "other more important things to deal with"

In fact, a quick read of this blog would answer what I do with a lot of my "council time" and that’s without me writing about the blocked drains, broken street lights and anti-social behaviour I deal with throughout the week and weekend nor the numerous meetings I attend.

Occasionally I go to work too...

As for Mr or Mrs Janes, in between changing road signs I will be happy to spare a few minutes if you have something council related that needs dealing with.

Thank you for the phone calls and emails I received from many of you (well okay 4 of you) telling me to read the paper yesterday.

NALC Conference

This weekend I have been at the NALC conference in Liverpool. NALC is the National Association of Local Councils and as the name suggests members are Town and Parish councils around the country. The conference and our accommodation was at the Britannia Adelphi, the "star" of a TV documentary a few years ago and I can only assume we all stayed there in an economy drive!

The overused phrase "Best Practice" comes up a lot with conferences like this but there are a lot of benefits in hearing from other councils how they deal with issues revolving around young people, old people, housing, sports facilities etc.

In addition to the best practice talks, a number of exhibitors were present too with some great products including outdoor playground equipment (please don't ask about the scaled up adult sized versions we are asked to try out) and also a number of mapping products that would be of great help in planning the Southern Leighton Buzzard development as it would allow us to ensure for instance that post boxes were not too far away and calculate areas and perimeter measurements using satellite photos.

The Leighton-Linslade Youth Forum were amongst the speakers presenting the TACTIC centre and their other projects to a room of councillors and clerks very interested in the work that had been done.

But, you travel 200 miles to Liverpool and the first people you see are.. an SBDC councillor, a Dunstable Town Councillor and 4 Milton Keynes' Parish Councillors. Thankfully though as the conference went on I spoke to some Councillors from further afield and many of their councils had an income (precept) of only 1/10th of ours and even less than 1/10th of our population.

Overall this was a great opportunity to learn from others involved in Local Government all over the country and I hope to be able to use what I have learned in the coming months.

Now the journey home, the M6 was not god coming up so fingers crossed...

Recycling - Good but we need more

South Bedfordshire is aiming to be among England’s top performing waste recycling districts, with the introduction during next year of a new alternate week household refuse/recycling collection service, which will encourage residents to recycle more of their waste.

Currently 29.25 percent of household waste collected by South Bedfordshire District Council is recycled, significantly up from seven percent five years ago.

According to Councillor Brian Spurr, Executive Portfolio Holder for the environment, the new alternate week refuse/recycling collection service, which will be introduced during 2007, should lead to a 10 percent increase in household recycling in the first year.

So we are getting there but we should set a target that makes us the best in the country. We have an orange bag collection service that makes it so easy to recycle.

All we need now is a weekly collection! I don't buy stuff that is over packaged but I do generate a lot of waste so I have no idea where I am going to put it for 14 days.

I worry that a fortnightly collection will mean that when I have filled a few orange sacks and I have a non recyclable collection in say 2 days time I will chuck even the recyclable stuff in the bin just to get rid of it!

Cycle Friendly Town

Anyone in to cycling?

I have been looking at cycle lanes and routes in the town and have also spoken with County Councillors and The Cycling Forum (although too often these meetings clash with others).

We have been a "No Cold Calling Zone" for some time and this has been good for keeping distraction burglaries down (although cold calling is not illegal and therefore not actually banned) but should we also push to be a Cycle Friendly Town?

We have some great features that visiting cyclists and local residents might want to enjoy such as the canal, parks and town centre market and shops etc which could all be used more if we encourage cyclists in to the town.

On top of that, local residents could also benefit more from the town, see more of it and actually getting around more.

I have always been reserved when it comes to painting green lanes everywhere over a town and many of the roads are simple not wide enough for a dedicated cycle route but if we spent a bit more time (and a small amount of money) marking out the existing cycle friendly routes (I have suggested this at a previous Cycle Forum) either by signs or road markings we could have a great success and show what can be done. I know there are a number of people put off from cycling due to the perceived and often real dangers on the road and no one wants cyclists on the pavement so maybe this is the right step forward.

I can't remember who took the photo above but it is a good example of the confusion (not in this town) of some road signs. A no cycling sign at the start of a cycle route and a bollard at the front too!

(Photo added October 27th)

Carnival 6 days away

I couldn't log in to "Blogger" for a while (the service I use for this blog) but I can now!!

I have been out and about lately with the rest of the Carnival Committee delivering programmes as the Carnival is less than one week away.

I would like to thank Cycle Connection (on Friday Street) for their donations to the Carnival Tombola as well as Woolworths and Camden Direct (Grovebury Road).

Grove Road will be closed on the day so I have arranged for additional parking for the residents. Letters will be delivered by the Committee Vice Chair (and our very own Cllr) Mark Freeman.

If you are free on the 9th, please come along from 10:30am.