13th February 2021

Looking for solutions for the West End I found myself reading a document from 2015 called West End Million Community Profile.  It is a long and detailed look at the area.  A lot of work went into it and I won’t attempt to summarize it, but here are the fifteen main issues it identified.

The document says that fixing any one of the fifteen could consume the entire million pounds so we need creative solutions that help to fix more than one of the problems when they are applied.

1. General deprivation of the population

2. Large scale physical regeneration required

3. Poor housing, multi-occupancy, transient population and empty properties

4. Empty commercial properties, shops & offices

5 .Low house prices holding back investment

6. Poor health & well-being of a large section of the population

7. Under achieving pupils & high truancy rates but ‘Good’ schools

8. Digital Exclusion

9. Lower than average incomes and employment levels

10. High population density

11.Few public and green spaces

12. Drug & alcohol abuse and rehabilitation

13. High level of anti-social behaviour and drugs related crime

14. Poor appearance of many shops and shopping streets

15. Under-utilised community venues & facilities need upgrading

I believe that our campaign to deep cleanse back streets helps towards a solution for the five categories below.

1. General deprivation of the population.

When there is general deprivation it is of vital importance to improve the immediate environment where people live.  This is the place where they will spend most of their daily lives and the place that they come home to.  If the place can be made pleasant to be in, and a pleasure to come home to, that is of huge benefit in a deprived life.

      5. Low house prices holding back investment.

It is hard to put a precise figure on this but a case can be made to show that two identical houses, one of them with a bad back street and one with a good back street, will differ in price by around ten thousand pounds.   Whatever the actual real difference, the amount of money in total asset prices in the West End area could be raised by millions of pounds simply by keeping the back streets clean.  This an outstanding and well spread out return that could be had for a relatively small expenditure.  It would also entice even more inward investment, levering the small cleaning budget into huge gains for the area. The situation at the moment is that the very people who are neglected are also made to suffer a big reduction in the price of their house. This is bad governance with a cruel and unjust outcome.

      6. Poor health and well-being of a large section of the population.

Children having a safe place to play out close to home greatly affects their health and well-being.  Playing out is a good way for them to get away from their screens for a while. It also gets them out of the house so that the house occupants get a short break from one another.  This is important for the adults as well.

      7. Under-achieving pupils & high truancy rates but ‘Good’ schools.

If the schools are ‘Good’ but the pupils are under-achieving and the truancy rates are high then it is the home life of the children that should come under enquiry.  Without doubt any measure that improves the home life and environment for children is vitally necessary.  Clean, outside, recreational space must be a priority and for children this is often their back street.

      11.  Few public and green spaces.

It hardly needs explanation that if there are few public and green spaces the immediate environment around houses is of vital importance in deciding the quality of life of the residents.

Conclusion. It follows from all this that we should not be asking how we can afford to keep the streets clean, we should be asking how could we afford not to? When all the knock-on effects are included in the accounting, it is an act of financial and civic self-harm not to have a clean town. Saving money by cutting the cleaning budget is the height of financial stupidity and we have a County Council that does exactly this.

8th February 2021.

The latest from the back streets.

We are allowed to exercise alone, we are allowed to volunteer, and we are allowed to do essential work. What is essential work? We think clearing filth, dog fouling and squalor near where families and children live is serious, public health, essential work.

Labour are badly rattled. They are worried that we are showing them up as incompetent, which they are! How do we know this? A few days ago I received a call from a very irate Margaret Pattison, your Labour County Councillor for Morecambe Central, telling me that she was calling the Police to get us stopped from cleaning back streets! I gave some her some advice. Presumably the Police confirmed we were all legal because a day or so later came an announcement from Councillor Pattison on Facebook that her group were going to clean back streets. That’s some turnaround, but fine by us.

We cleaned our 27th back street yesterday. We chose the back streets that we did, not because they were easy, but because they were hard. We have become very good at it and in the neighbourhoods that we have transformed the change is all the more impressive for being huge.

After years of being forced to live with degradation and filth, the residents of 50+ streets in Morecambe (most of the 27 back streets have houses each side) have suddenly got a back street where their children can play out. That is a wonderful thing in lockdown with schools closed. For these people, who have been abandoned by Labour and Tory for so long, the transformation is astonishing. One lady, possibly stressed by lockdown and long hours in the front line, wept when she came home from work, still in her carers uniform, and saw what we had done.

Labour are furious at the progress because it makes them look as they are; ineffective, so they have complained to, and leaned on, the excellent Lancaster City Council cleansing department to stop collecting the waste, in Council supplied bags, that we extract out of the back streets. How do we know this? It was announced by Labour that they were writing to the Chief Executive of Lancaster City Council to complain that the Liberal Democrats were running the cleaning campaign under their own badge and therefore the council should not be seen to be helping any particular political party. The following day, last Sunday, a Council officer emailed and told us truly, and I absolutely understand and believe him, that the council could not be perceived to have any political bias and that they are now too busy to do the pick-ups. Both statements are true. We are working under our own banner and we are generating a huge amount of work for them as we work to sort out years of Lancashire County Council neglect.

We said OK we will supply our own bags, just let us take it to the waste transit centre ourselves. They said that this was not possible.

People are living with filth and squalor around their homes and the previously co-operative and supportive Lancaster City Council, after a complaint from Labour, has turned on a sixpence to prevent us from doing this essential work.

Has Labour used their political power to stop the cleaning. Yes. Have they actually succeeded in stopping us? Watch this space.

So if we have promised you that we were coming to clean your back street we are sorry, but the Labour County Councillor who represents you, who has had years to sort this problem, and Labour members of Lancaster City Council are actively preventing it at the moment. There may be some delay.

We suggest that you might remember all this on the 6th May when Labour are begging for one last chance to get it right this time.

30th January 2021

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I’ve always been fascinated by that little poem. We don’t know who wrote it, but whoever they were they understood that failing to take care of the little things can bring massive negative consequences.

That’s a lesson that the Tory leadership of Lancashire County Council has yet to learn.

Visit any town in our county and you’ll see what is happening because our council is neglecting the small things as a deliberate act of policy.

Potholes, Weeds and Blocked Drains, which lead to Dog dirt and Fly-tipping…… In a word, neglect.

 Some areas of our towns get looked after of course, but in the less wealthy areas fewer council resources are invested in ensuring residents can enjoy healthy surroundings and a higher quality of life.

Why would Lancashire County Council do this?  Well the fact is that as a rule people who live in less-wealthy districts don’t vote Tory – so why would they spend money on them?

And who are the people who live in these areas that have been systematically neglected by the council?

Lancashire County Council has withdrawn weeding, drain cleaning and highway repairs from the back streets of terraced houses everywhere.

In those houses you’ll find keyworkers – the people who, now more than ever, we rely on every day to make life nice for the rest of us. 

They are the workers who are doing one, two or even three jobs, often at, or close to, the minimum wage, and they work very long, unsocial hours to make the best life they can for their families. 

If you take the trouble to talk to them you will find that many will tell you that they feel tired all the time.

I passionately believe that the workers we have taken for granted for so many years and have done so much for us all during this pandemic deserve something in return.

They deserve clean streets, a healthy living environment and safe places for their children to play.

They deserve for the value of their homes to grow, not decline as their neighbourhoods sink into disrepair.

They deserve a council committed to the wellbeing of everyone, no matter their political affiliation.

Neglecting our neighbourhoods might save a little money in the short term, but all the council is doing is kicking the can down the road for future administrations, the NHS and the charity sector to deal with.

Cutting corners on our neighbourhoods is causing poverty in a literal sense, as well as causing poverty of opportunity, poverty of aspiration and poverty of hope.

I’m standing for election this May because I think there’s a better way of doing things.

I want to be part of a county council that’s committed to creating an environment in which everyone can flourish. And ultimately I want to see Morecambe become part of a Bay Unitary Authority that understands and wants the best for our beautiful region.

As we emerge from the Covid pandemic we’ll face a number of battles to recover economically, socially and emotionally.

If the Tories stay in charge in our county, I fear we’ll lose all those battles for want of a horseshoe nail.

14th January 2021.

The Tories refuse to say what they are planning to do regarding council tax in the budget next month.

It has to be pointed out that before the 2013 County election they reduced council tax by 2% as an election stunt which has cost the council hundreds of millions of pounds since and led to serious concerns that the Council might go bankrupt. Watch this space for another pre-election stunt.

The Tories were also gloating about the council finances compared to 2017.

In their glee at saving 2% the Tories neglected to say that these cuts in revenue had led to devastating cuts in services and degradation of living standards, especially for lower paid workers who have turned out to be the key workers who are getting us through Covid and taking all the risks to keep society going, and in many cases dying for us.

In Morecambe we are reduced to volunteers to keep the streets clear of weeds, the drains are blocked, the pavements are all cracked and worn out, and the roads are full of potholes that take ages to get fixed. The 2% saved on Council Tax translates into houses being worth £10,000 less in large parts of Morecambe.

So we have a County Council that has cut services to the point where many working people live surrounded by squalor, affecting their physical and mental health, causing their houses to fall in price, whilst these same people work to provide the essential services that keep society going through the pandemic.

Then the Council crows about how well they have done. Typical Tory governance.

As the great Count Arthur Strong memorably put it, “You couldn’t make it up!”