GOODBYE TO ALL THAT - FOR NOW!

As the IW Council elections will be officially called on Tuesday I am going to all but cease posting here until after the election results are declared on June 5^th.

Instead I will be spending much of the next 6 weeks talking even more with the 2100 adults of Pan who I have been representing over the last 4 years, and meeting the 300 people in Shide who are now all part of the new Newport East ward. So if you want to support me, or oppose me, or just ask a question or make a point, please email me directly at geofflumley@gmail.com

I understand I am being challenged by a sitting Conservative IW councillor who has decided not to defend the Newport ward that he currently substantially represents. There will no doubt be at least one other candidate. So it’s going to be an interesting contest, as ever for an IW Labour candidate. And no doubt Deborah and I would be scalps that the Tories would love to take. We intend to try to ensure that does not happen.

However, I also intend my own campaign to be focussed on the many things I have delivered for Pan over the last 4 years and what I now hope to deliver for all parts of Newport East in the coming 4 years. I will avoid mud-slinging and tit-for-tat as I know that just turns people off at election time ….. even when used light-heartedly somewhere like this blog.

Over the next four years I will offer the residents of Newport East a councillor who will:

• Continue to oppose school closures and ensure the continuing use of Downside Middle School site for educational and community use, as promised to me in writing by the IW Council;

• Ensure the local and wider Newport community gets the maximum benefits from the planned Pan development, including much-needed highways improvements;

• Fight to ensure that the IW Council continues to treat the local community fairly and that there is no return to ‘undeserving’ attitudes;

• Continue working to ensure that the interests and needs of Shide and Buckbury are as acknowledged as the rest of the Newport East ward.

My hopes for the next Council are for a balance of councillors where Labour councillors will have more influence. I truly hope that the discredited Tory majority at County Hall will be removed and that an administration is formed after June 4^th of councillors who remember their own election promises for the next 4 years (no matter how much I may disagree with them) and who do not slavishly follow the party line or pursue personal advantage. I believe this is a realistic hope for an election outcome.

One thing is certain no matter what happens – many schools will remain open on polling day for the first time in many years - thanks to the protests I made to Full Council last November that children’s education should not be disrupted just to provide easily set up polling stations.

SIMMERING RESENTMENT

The Pan ward, which I have had the honour to represent since 2005, was known for many years for being the most deprived part of the Island as successive IW (County) Councils and 18 years of Tory government up to 1997 neglected this community.

Consequently when the current Labour government was looking to undertake community renewal pathfinders back in 2002/03, Pan was fortunate enough to be awarded a £2 million government grant over seven years from 2005. This money established PNP, helped establish two new community groups - first PanCan and now the successful Pan Together - and helped to improve Pan over the last four years in so many ways. So much so that 88% of residents said they were happy living in Pan in the most recent official survey, and 41% thought the area had improved over the previous 3 years.

As the local IW and parish councillor it has been an absolute pleasure to represent the area over the last 4 years as there is so much good being undertaken by PNP and the community, and Pan is regularly remarked upon by other Islanders as a much improved neighbourhood.

Therefore, I was quite sad at a recent Newport Parish Council meeting when the response of one parish councillor (who is also a Tory IW Councillor elswhere in Newport) to a request for a parish donation to a local community event was to remark that "Pan's had enough money over recent years" and then voted against it. The proposal was for just £200 and the vast majority supported it.

This highlighted the danger for Pan in the future if we still have this Tory Council at County Hall. This simmering resentment at the good fortune Pan has had over the last 4 years will come to a boil and when the government grant runs out in March 2012 we could be back to being neglected again. Hopefully it won't come to that and the new Newport East ward, of which Pan will be a part from June, will continue to have an IW councillor who believes there is still some way to go after the years of neglect prior to 1997.

CLEANING OUT THE RUBBISH ?

After a week's break off IW readying myself for the impending election turmoil, it was back for the last Full meeting of this Council last night. The last one because the Tories have decided that they don't want to be accountable to the May Full Council despite there being a Cabinet meeting next week with an agenda so thick it needs a forklift to pick it up. Elected dictatorship indeed. And so many Tory councillors/sheep yet to speak........

Anyway we then had a report from the Standards Committee Chair, where he tried to defend the indefensible - judging people without telling them; an appointed committee membership as unrepresentative of the Island population as it possibly could be (peacock keepers, anyone ?) - safe in the knowledge that the Tory majority would endorse him.

A number of those reports that subsequently gather dust on shelves were then endorsed. I asked how the Children & Young Persons Plan could achieve an improvement in Key Stage 2 results given the growing demoralisation in Island middle schools over school reorganisation, but got the usual twaddle in response. The intention of the latest Adult Learning Plan was praised by Deborah and I, though we sought its withdrawal as much of its language was non-plain English and full of unexplained acronyms. The Tories though were happy with this incomprehensible use of English.

The reports by Cabinet members were interesting in that the Council Leader hadn't bothered to produce a written report as he had been 'very busy'. Its like Gordon Brown saying he won't do Prime Minister's Questions because he has been cleaning out his garage. No respect !

Finally Deborah pursued the outcomes of a critical unpublished Ofsted review of how the IW Council handled a child protection concern from 2007. She has been seeking a Scrutiny review of child protection on the IW since the end of last year, but had been fobbed off and (frankly) deceived ever since. The matter will be considered by the Scrutiny Committee tonight, though in camera to protect identities.

Oh and just to finish off - a Cabinet member was nice to Deborah near the end, probably the first time this has happened on this Council ! If the election doesn't do the job for us I suspect that this Cabinet member will face the chop post June 4th..................

TRAFALGAR TURN AROUND IMPENDING ?

Word has it that the Tory IW Council is about to make a U-turn over the one-way direction of Trafalgar Road in Newport. The direction of traffic in this road was reversed to a westerly direction some two and a half years ago leading to much local and business concern, knock on congestion in other parts of the town like Whitepit Lane, a public meeting packed to the rafters in January last year, and repeated attempts to get the Council to change their mind by most Newport-based councillors. These were always met with a stony refusal from those who think they know better.......

And now, with 2 months to local election day, Tory candidates are telling local residents in election newsletters that a decision on the future direction of the road are impending. Good news if the right decision is made. But disgraceful that it takes an election for them to do what local people want