Chris Black writes:
After last week’s Council Meeting, the next one isn’t until November. That could possibly cause problems.
Here’s an example:
Last week the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, Cllr Colin Seagers, approved council spending on 11 items, These were mostly for repairs or routine work to council buildings – you can download the report here. (The list of items is also shown below)
Now, the way the system currently works is that Cllr Seagers has been picked by Tory leader Terry Cutmore to be the Cabinet Member for finance, so he has the authority to approve these decisions. However if three members are unhappy with the decision, it can be referred to next Full council (or if the Chair of the Review Committee, June Lumley , is unhappy she can call it in to her committee).
A particular item raised one or two Lib Dem eyebrows. It was for spending ?10,000 on lighting upgrades for the Old House in Rochford (a 14th century building used as offices) The Old House has always been rather dark, so possibly extra lighting was needed , and is a grade two listed buiilding- so extra lighting would not be cheap. But these are tough financial times and the issue certainly seemed worth discussing as to whether this was the year to do it.
In this case though, it was just too late to refer it to last week’s Full Council. Instead, we would have had to wait until the next meeting – in November! or called a special meeting of the whole council just to discuss this. If we had referred it to the November meeting it would have delayed those other 10 items as well.
In the end there were a few emails exchanged, and a sit-down chat with Colin Seagers, and in the end I was happy with the spending going ahead. But it shows a flaw in the system – sometimes there’s too big a gap between council meetings , and sooner or later something is going to be held up for three months because of that.
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This was the list, if you want to study it yourself:
Rayleigh Council Buildings
Ongoing replacement of carpets and blinds ?500 Routine replacement as needed
Signage from road directing traffic to Civic Suite ?1,000 Currently vehicles visiting Civic Suite have no signage indicating where the Civic Suite is from the road.
Rochford Council Buildings
Ongoing replacement of carpets and blinds ?5,000 Routine replacement as needed, areas where the storage heaters have been removed require new carpets.
Old House lighting upgrades ?10,000 The lighting in the Old House is below an acceptable standard for office accommodation
Office Moves ?10,000 To cover the moves from Acacia House into 3-15 South Street
Remedial works to various areas of plaster ?2,000 Some areas of plaster in 3-15 need to be hacked back and replastered
Old House repairs and limewashing external walls ?5,000 Routine job needed every other year to maintain the structure of the Old House
Other Properties Closed churchyard maintenance ?5,000
Routine cover for works that may arise in the closed churchyards at Rayleigh, Rochford and Foulness – main job rebuild a wall at Rayleigh
Windmill external brickwork repointing ?10,000 A maintenance task that needs to be carried out to maintain the structure of the Windmill, this budget to go into a sinking fund, to be accumulated over three years.
Clements Hall repairs to kerbing and block paving ?17,500 A job deferred from last year until additional funds available to repair and improve the kerbs and a paved area in Clements Hall car park with some lighting improvements
Play space safety resurfacing ?10,000 A rolling project to bring the surfaces of the play areas up to standard and then maintain them.