The CP today reports on page 5 the debate at the Newport Parish Council meeting last Monday:
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/News/29000_office_for_parish_2.aspx
As the Chair I feel I need to explain a little more. Newport is one of the four new parishes created last April, after the IW Council said in 2005 they would tax them as if they were parished and some of us said 'no taxation without representation'. So we successfully petitioned for a parish council for the Newport area.
This year's budget, handed down for year one by the IW Council, allowed for accommodation costs of £5000. To date we have not used that as our Clerks work from home and we hold our meetings in venues all around the Newport parish. However, a proposal was made by a parish working party set up to look at potential accommodation needs to take out a lease on a property in Quay Street for 3 years that will cost a minimum £29,000 gross per year; though they expect to get £12,000 pa from sub-letting. So with the actual budget provision taken into account that means an extra cost next year of £12,000 pa.
On Monday the debate around whether to take up those option split between those who want to establish an early presence in the town centre with community access, and those who feel that demonstrating the value of having a parish council should come first. The debate was our most contentious so far and when I called the vote there were 7 in favour (Cllrs Whittaker, Jones-Evans, Ball, Downer, Humber, Page and Reid), 5 against (Cllrs Coburn, Craven, Hawkins, Lumley and Smart) and one abstention (Cllr Flambard). Councillors Foster, Swan and Wilmott had sent their apologies.
6 comments:
Many thanks Geoff. Many ways to skin a cat eh!! The 7 needed to be named one way or another. Truth always outs in the end.
What a dumb idea. Spending all that money on a trendy office. There is cheaper accomodation to be found Geoff and the one pictured clearly has disability access issues?
Spend it like it was yours is my advice to politicians at any level.
amazing isn't it! before you can even help the residents of Newport you need to spend £30K on an office plus probably another £17K on a clerk, £47,000! don't be so sure about recovering any rent now we are in recession. So a big chunk of your precept has gone, any benefits for Newport residents?
ps not a dig at you Geoff, I'm a big fan!
Just read the County Press. It's a done deal but you could've had a room in the Riverside Centre for £3,000 a year. What tosh. Proves to me that town and parish councils are a pointless waste of time and money. Just
Ego food for old farts and wannabes
What next? My guess is spending a quarter of a million to make this building comply with the disability discrimination act? Pass the sick bag.
It used to be a local council building, and I'm glad to see it being used rather than allowed to decay, like other historic buildings in Quay Street. But - rather than feed the insatiable appetite for local government bureaucracy, why not use it to make homes for people? Because it costs too much, and we'd rather cram them in to poky shoeboxes around Pan? I hope we all realize that what's happening now is that we're going back to the pattern of local government that existed before the Redcliffe-Maude reforms of 1974. Newport had its own Urban District Council; now it will have a parish council (with less power). Wonderful thing, progress, isn't it? Maybe we'll get council housing back soon....
My guess is we'll get thousands of 'council' houses built nationwide but mostly to prevent ruin in the building industry. Whatever is spent will barely scratch the surface. The UK construction industry will all but die in the next few years. JCB report orders down by 80%.
How on earth this vast further borrowing will be funded heaven only knows. George Osbourne may be a ******* but he is right that Britain as an economic power could easily collapse. The world will not stand by and watch us borrow ourselves into ruin. And let's face it someone has to lend to Britain if we are borrowing. The pound has collapsed by 25% in the past few months despite the weakness of the $. This crisis isn't anywhere near over.
And let's not forget our state worker pension system will kill us regardless of who's in power. My advice; Keep gold and cash under the bed (and make it a mixture of $ and euro's)
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