Billington Park is now adopted!

We are the proud new carers of 20 roads in Billington Park. That's right, all those faults on the highway are now our problem! Insall Close appears to be the only road not adopted.

Now this is not really news, the roads were adopted on July 14th 2009 yet it took Central Bedfordshire Council over 2 months to bother to tell me despite pushing for this to happen constantly!

Parking will be one of the major issues we need to address and I am due to meet with Highways to discuss this soon.

So if you have overgrown trees and potholes, give Highways Helpdesk a call on 0300 300 8049.

Anyone want a 1st birthday party for the roads on the 14th July 2010?

Town Council in the 21st Century

At a meeting on the 21st, Leighton Linslade Town Council's Policy and Finance committee met and discussed amongst other items a so-called "Facebook Policy". I am pleased to say that as seen HERE in the public minutes available on the Town Council's website, it was decided with cross party support that a formal policy on trying to control which websites could and could not use photos taken at public events was not only not required, it simply could not work.

What is interesting here is that although it is not minuted, after months, if not years of campaigning by me, the Council may actually consider in time having a Twitter, Facebook or even Mysapce page.

I have often put the case forward for a carefully managed online presence as a cost effective and immediate way to communicate with our residents. This would not replace personal blogs such as mine but allow the Council to put out important messages such as advertising the ever popular community events or even announcing emergency closures of the office etc (if there was a power cut, the "status" could be uploaded from a mobile phone).

Allowing residents of the Town to make posts would need to be monitored of course and may be something to consider later. It would be a big step forward for our mission of encouraging more residents of the town to have a say.

Watch this space and spread the word!

Fees and Charges

I am pleased to say we have almost completed our Fees and Charges work for Central Bedfordshire. This is the working group I chaired looking at around 700 charges that the authority makes for discretionary services.

The report is being written now and in early November it will go to Scrutiny and then Executive for approval. Once this is done I can link to the information on the Council's website.

Billington Park residents needed now...

Do you live on Billington Park? Are you fed up waiting for the community facilities you were promised when you bought your home?

I have good news. In my election literature I promised the town that firstly a new college was on its way and secondly I was working with Town Council officers to bring the much needed sports pavilion to Billington Park.

We have a pot of money to build a pavilion but it is not enough. As a result we are trying to build a pavilion with community space and education facilities with the education service provided by Dunstable College.

Today I have met with Dunstable College's Project Manager at the far end of Astral Park where the new football pitches are going in and the project is looking more and more a reality for this area.

We want to ensure this facility is delivered with the needs of Billington Park residents in mind first and of course the town's other residents too.

We would like a few residents to work with us and the college to draw up some plans which we can then present to all residents to hopefully get the support to bring this facility to the Ward.

Please contact me if you live here and want to be involved. If we don't get the support from residents it will happen anyway! The good news is however we are working towards a green good looking building that will be an asset to the area but we would rather have a small team of residents on board from day one.