CLENT INDEPENDENT
The main man:LEADER DR GEORGE LORD
IT'S GONE WRONG DUE TO PARTY POLITICAL INTERFERENCE!
The party you voted in has lost it's way in remembering that it's the people it should be working for and not The CONSERVATIVE PARTY. If your present elected councillor pushes an issue on behalf of us the electorate with their leader, this councillor can end up with a 6 months suspension, he will be warned first of all through party whips, ignore and a suspension follows-No councillor wants that so they learn to stay quiet--WHAT USE IS THAT TO US THEN?-WE HAVE PAID OUR TAX AND CANNOT WAIT FOR OUR ELECTED COUNCILLOR TO COMPLETE HIS 6 MONTHS SUSPENSION???-CRAZY SITUATION?
We read that the Worcs County Council leader Dr George Lord will only now travel in taxi's, says it should be that way as he has a position in life..The taxi's cost us £50.00 each journey and that includes him to and from work?-Yes! many of us use our own cars or other tranport, Dr Lord(pictured) wants a taxi?..This taxi business is costing us in the region of £65,000 per year and the COUNCILLORS REQUESTS on expense payments are in the region of £800K per year!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think he does get paid to go to work?
9:30am Wednesday 15th October 2008 WORCESTER NEWSPAPER
SIR – A few days ago in these pages Dr George Lord, the leader of the county council, said that councillors don’t get paid to go to work.
A reasonable interpretation of this statement is that he is suggesting he works for nothing.
Dr Lord can rightly argue that as a councillor he is not salaried and that he gets no employment protection or pension rights. He can even argue, if he wants to, that he is underpaid for the services he provides to the council and his constituents. But to argue that he doesn’t get paid to go to work is poppycock.
Councillors get out-ofpocket expenses plus an allowance. As leader Dr Lord has extra responsibility and his allowance is something over £30,000 per annum (plus expenses). I think this means he gets paid £30k a year to go to work.
MARK CRIVELLI, Worcester.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the WORCESTER NEWSPAPER 18th September 2008:
Readers hit out at £50 cabs for Tory 11:10pm Thursday 18th September 2008
COUNTY council leader George Lord has come under fire following revelations about his taxpayer-funded £50 cab journeys home.
There was universal condemnation on the Worcester News website for the Conservative council leader’s decision to shun buses, trains and his own car and instead take return taxis to a series of meetings in Birmingham last year.
The £50-a-go taxi trips were revealed in your Worcester News earlier this week following a Freedom of Inform-ation request. In response, the council claimed cabs were “the most appropriate form of public transport” for Dr Lord to use. But many readers highlighted what they called the “hypocritical” actions of a leader whose regime is constantly urging people to use buses and trains.
“Fantastic way to get the public on board with public transport – NOT!” said chrisnewmanuk. “Practise what you preach, councillors.”
Equally sardonic was skychip, who suggested: “Dr Lord needs to take a short walk round the office at County Hall to visit his Sustainable Transport Travel Team for advice – no need to put in an expenses claim for this meeting.”
The county’s claim that taxis allow Dr Lord to “commit the journey time to council business” was widely derided, with Logik stating: “Well stone me! I didn’t know it was impossible to read and write on a bus or a train.
“What is really meant, of course, is that it was far more convenient to travel by car – and this is to be reserved for the selected few, while they try to push the rest of us on to public transport.”
Others were amazed that the elected councillors took home more than £800,000 in allowances and expenses last year between them.
“No one seems to have said about what could have been done with this money,” wrote local resident. “They could have kept the pensioners’ sub-sidised meals, for one thing.”
Other expressed disillusionment with local politics as a whole. Forthright said: “I am glad we have the Worcester News to at long last say what we have been thinking for years about the way local politics has been a cosy little club and earner for people who have among their number characters who couldn’t run a whelk stall.”
Dr Lord declined to comment. ..BUT THEN DECIDED TO A WEEK LATER? SEE BELOW!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
‘Taxi trip’ council leader hits back
11:39am Wednesday 24th September 2008
By Pete Lammas »
THE leader of Worcestershire County Council has hit back at critics of his travel expenses saying it is part of his job.
County taxpayers spent £245 on five taxi journeys for Conservative county council leader Dr George Lord to return to his Marlbrook home from meetings in Birmingham.
Alternative methods of transport Dr Lord could have used include a 23 minute journey by train from Bromsgrove to Birmingham New Street, costing around £5 for a peak-time return ticket or, as a pensioner, he could have travelled on a bus for nothing.
But Dr Lord dismissed the criticism. Speaking exclusively to the Advertiser/Messenger he said: “It is simply about time, and my time is precious. This is the quickest and easiest way of getting from A-to-B. I need to read papers before meetings and can read them in a taxi.
“All of the leaders up and down the country do this.”
He also posed the question whether the public would be concerned by this “small amount of money” in the context of a county council budget of three-quarters of a billion, and the work he is doing for Bromsgrove’s new railway station.
A county council spokesman also defended the £50 taxis saying they were the most “appropriate” way for the leader to travel, allowing Dr Lord to “commit the journey time to council business."
Labour county councillor for Beacon, Peter McDonald said: “If we were in power in Worcestershire County Council we would have found a cheaper form of transport than the one Dr Lord used.”
On the issue of being the second highest claimant of county councillors, collecting £3,251.89, Dr Lord said it was “inevitable” as travelling was part of being the leader of county hall and was surprised not to be first.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act also reveal the county council’s 57 elected members claimed more than £800,000 between them in a year, in allowances and expenses. Councillors with extra responsibilities were paid additional allowances on top, ranging from £5,678.71 for cabinet members’ assistants, to £30,316.54 for council leader Dr Lord. As a district councillor, Dr Lord also collects a basic salary of £3,536......
The County Councillor:
This man is your County Councillor for Clent Division, he's also chairman of the Highways committee.
County Councillor Ed Moore:
Here in Romsley we had to petition him to attend any meeting in the village after two years of his absence....we asked his leader George Lord 'is this right and proper for a county councillor not to attend for two years', his answer was, 'I have listened to COUNCILLOR Moore's EXPLANATION AND I am satisfied with it!'
LETTER IN WORCESTER NEWSPAPER:
Is timing of roads resurfacing significant? 10:50am Tuesday 29th July 2008
Thirty six weeks to go and we will see yet again another election, this election will be your County election Question is, will your vote be for your normal party or individual or look first at what’s been delivered to you over the last four years?
In 2005 here in Clent divison we saw Ed Moore elected. Here in Romsley village it took him two years to attend any meeting.
In fact people were so miffed about it they had to resort to asking a local newspaper to get him to attend.
He was assigned to the Highways department committee to which we saw no holes filled in for many a month and when they were, the tarmac lasted but weeks and the hole reappeared.
The village asked for Mr Moore to attend on no less than 40 issues collected by the recently disbanded PACT meetings whereby at least 40 people attended but recently in a local newspaper they said the meetings were cancelled due to poor attendance.
I wonder if they would be willing to sign a witness statement on that, I certainly would for I was one of the 40 that did attend!
Five weeks ago we received a leaflet from the Tory Party to attend a welcoming meeting at a pub in Clent.
From feedback a handful attended and those that did were either parish councillors or friends that lived in Clent.
Yes, it’s election time and Ed Moore can now spend your held back council tax money for such occasions to get your vote.
Yes they hold back money for such stunts and you can do nothing about it.
Here in Romsley we have had three roads resurfaced with tarmac, we’ve been asking for this for the last four years, odd they carry it out now.
Stan Francis, Romsley village
COUNCILLOR LEADER GEORGE LORD COMES TO ASSISTANCE OF HIS TORY COUNCILLORS SAYING 'THEY ARE NOT IDLE!!'
WORCESTER NEWS:
County councillors are not overpaid and idle
8:30am Wednesday 24th September 2008
SIR – The article by Jack Blanchard (September 22) about members’ participation in council matters was misleading, selective and tendentious.
Misleading because the raison d’etre for the scrutiny discussion was concerned about how to expand the scrutiny function.
Selective because it fails to tell the whole story, since members also serve on the police and fire authorities and engage in community projects in their own division encouraged by government to do exactly that.
Tendentious, since again Jack Blanchard’s article, as his previous one about expenses, is written to create the idea that elected councillors are overpaid and idle. The opposite is the case.
My experience of councillors at the county is that they are dedicated, committed and wellmotivated.
Incidentally, expenses and allowances are determined by an independent panel.
Members are not paid to go to work since they can be removed at elections, are not salaried, have no claims for unfair dismissal and get no pension.
DR GEORGE LORD,
Leader, Worcestershire County Council.
CONSERVATIVE JULIE KIRKBRIDE MP
WHO SUPPORTS HER TORY CONTROLLED COUNCIL'S AND NOT THE PEOPLE WILL BE HER DOWNFALL..READ ON...
Parkside school row takes new turn as MP steps in
9:49am Wednesday 4th February 2009
By Pete Lammas »
BROMSGROVE’S MP Julie Kirkbride’s is at the centre of a storm after she was accused of taking sides in the shimmering row over the future of Parkside school Miss Kirkbride has been sharply criticised by members of the Bromsgrove Society after writing to the government pointing out that the whole of the town redevelopment depends on the school site being used for a new police and fire station and asking for clarification on the listing of the redundant building in Stourbridge Road.
Last year society members were celebrating after successfully getting the school listed in a bid to save the building.
“I am writing to the MP to say the society’s members have expressed their disappointment that she has seen fit to takes sides in this controversial and sensitive issue. I will also warn her that her popularity may suffer as a result of her action.”
Society deputy chairman Ron Skidmore Society deputy chairman Ron Skidmore said: “I am writing to the MP to say the society’s members have expressed their disappointment that she has seen fit to takes sides in this controversial and sensitive issue. I will also warn her that her popularity may suffer as a result of her action.”
Speaking from the House of Commons, an angry Miss Kirkbride said that since becoming MP town regeneration has been paramount.
Now, with her support, the district and county councils have come up with an affordable, realistic plan which they hope will breathe new life back into the town.
“The downside was it meant knocking down the school, a lovely building, but a price worth paying for the better goal of a new Bromsgrove,” said the MP.
She went on to say that the hopes of many constituents have been dashed because of the listing.
“I have written to the Department of the Environment asking whether the town centre regeneration should be a factor in these matters and to establish exactly what has been listed so we can keep the state-of-the-art doctors’ surgery, which is jeopardised by the listing,” she added.
This week it emerged that the Parkside building could be boarded up, fenced off and mothballed for 17 years until covenants imposed by the church commissioners, who previously owned the land, expire. To dispose of it sooner, other than for educational uses, would mean the county council having to hand the commission half the sale price. County council leader Dr George Lord, from Marlbrook, said the listing of the school building was likely to delay the plans for Bromsgrove, possibly for ‘some years.’
OUTCOME:
“I am writing to the MP to say the society’s members have expressed their disappointment that she has seen fit to takes sides in this controversial and sensitive issue. I will also warn her that her popularity may suffer as a result of her action.”
Society deputy chairman Ron Skidmore
Never any support for the people, BUT PLENTY FOR HER COUNCIL'S??
Bin system, no one wanted, went wrong..but Julie says nothing because the council is Tory run.
BIN SYSTEM now separated, green bin now taxed on it's own..but Julie says nothing because the council is Tory run.
PARKSIDE SCHOOL: The people want it kept, the council don't...but Julie supports the council because it's Tory run.
PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP AT LAST!!
It goes on and on and we are worse off with too many of the 'Same party' in control of our finances and public services!!
HER CONTINUED INTERESTS IN HER PARTY ONLY SHOWN HERE>>
Julie Kirkbride, a leading Midlands Conservative MP, admits to previously undisclosed links with a controversial organisation which has donated millions of pounds to the Conservative party.
read full story here>press<
