Building a greener, cleaner, safer community
Thursday 29 April saw the Council resume some measure of ‘business as normal’. The Conservative administration brought forward their proposals to slash £600,000 of services in the name of ‘transforming’ Children’s Centre, Youth services and Family Resilience teams into the controversial Family Hub model. The meeting was a virtual one with a live YouTube feed. […]
No-one should deny or attempt to minimise the uncertain and challenging time we are living through, least of all those elected to represent us. We have discussed, as a group, what RBWM’s response should be to Coronavirus/COVID-19. Our first duty is of course to our all of our residents, and we will, until proven wrong, […]
* Councillors often vary their speeches as a result of the debate, and Cllr Bond wishes to point out that this blog may not represent exactly what he said. It does, however, represent his views. We have neighbourhoods of Victorian & Edwardian housing built before the motor car with minimal off‑street parking, only a short hop from a town centre. Without residents’ parking permits, they become overspill town centre parking and residents feel they have very little choice about paying. If the definition of a charge is paying […]
We are told that many of the proposals before us are not cuts at all, but ‘transformation’, some supposedly motivated by environmental concern, and that they would have been planned even if the finances were not in disarray. If that is true, what kind of council would willingly vote to close Children’s Centres, like the […]
Less than one year ago, we had local elections, and although the administration between May and now might be the same, with one notable exception, the policies today could not be more different than what was promised. Madam Mayor, today is Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day, so I will try my hardest not […]
When we declare that we’re going to “Transform early years and youth services to be targeted at the most vulnerable,” the statement is disingenuous in a number of ways. The euphemistic use of the word ‘transformation’ suggests we’re about to see a massive improvement to our services but what we’re actually talking about is a […]