UPDATE 5: Test Lane - I'm Still Against the Plans

As I've laid out before on this blog, (e.g. here) I've done a lot of work opposing the plans for the field at the junction of Test Lane and Gover Road.

I visited the site again yesterday.

I have objected to the proposals, and have asked to speak at the Planning Panel this Tuesday night to outline my objections.

A large number of local residents are still opposed to the plans, as reported by the Daily Echo.

Labour Council Isn't Protecting Southampton

Here's my letter published in the Daily Echo today, following the shameful revelation that the Labour Council is paying a fortune to consultants after 3 years of cutting jobs and services:

Reading your front page piece yesterday, I hope you can see at least some of the reasons why I did not want the role of Cabinet Member for Transformation at Southampton City Council.

The Labour-controlled Council is facing huge cuts to Government funding, and as I said in my recent In My View piece, in 3 years it hasn't innovated or provided strategic direction to protect the vulnerable and services. Instead it always blames the Government.

Why is the Council paying out a small fortune to consultants when it is proposing "being realistic" about cutting jobs, and at the same time pays huge salaries to the Chief Executive and senior officers?

Where are the ideas and innovation from them, or from Cabinet members, in order to protect the vulnerable and services?

Or is it really the case as Cllr Hammond said:

"we don’t have the experience of large-scale challenges like this"

Then why are the Cabinet members, officers and the Leader in place, if they don't have the experience? It's their job to innovate - wasn't the Labour Council elected to do this?

The Southampton people deserve better.

Councillor Andrew Pope
Independent Councillor for Redbridge

Another Pub Protected - The Second in a Year!

VICTORY! Andrew Pope Protects the Fleur de Lys Pub at Pilley - and Celebrates With Locals!

Our campaign with local residents to get the Fleur de Lys pub officially recognised as a community pub, at the heart of the area, has been successful. 

This means that the local community will have a right to bid to own and run the pub, if it is put up for sale. It also gives the pub protection in planning law. Andrew Pope said:

"We already knew that this pub has been a key part of the Pilley and Boldre community for many years, with customers coming from near and far."

"New Forest District Council has now officially recognised this, following the petition that we asked local people and people across Hampshire to sign."

Fellow campaigner Denise Wyatt said:

"This pub can now stay at the heart of the local community for many years to come, and we will be organising a celebration at the pub soon."

"We would like to thank everyone who supported our campaign, including pub campaigner Toby Perkins MP (pictured above) and most importantly all local residents in Pilley and Boldre. It is their pub, after all."

I'm STILL opposing TTIP - are your MEPs?

I have pushed back on TTIP in several ways, campaigning locally, nationally and in Europe.

Today I was emailed by Going to Work from the TUC.

They've produced an email campaining tool for TTIP, making it easy for people to hold their MEPs to account.

Here is the email I sent to the 10 MEPs in the South East. Feel free to re-use it - I believe it's an enhancement on their suggested email text. The first two paragraphs are my additions.

I remain very concerned about TTIP, and the weasel words and obfuscation used by MEPs to try to hide their actions and inactions. I've been in touch with several, and their officers, this week. The complexity of the EU enables them to hide - but if European citizens hold them to account, they cannot hide.

To their credit, some MEPs are trying to engage with citizens over TTIP - long may that continue. But they need to make the EU clearer to voters, otherwise with the complexity of the EU, this enables the enemies of the EU to misrepresent what is happening - and the voters to make up their minds based on inaccurate or incomplete information.

And that might lead to Britain leaving the EU (Brexit)...

Best wishes,
Andrew

----

Suggested email text:

TTIP is a microcosm of all that is

wrong with the EU - secret,

unaccountable, remote and over-

complicated. These things mean that

UK voters don't trust the EU, and

don't understand it, even more than

they do already.

Please - MAKE A CLEAR STAND AGAINST

ISDS and privatisation. Don't hide

behind bureaucracy and complexity

of the EU, like some MEPs have

tried to this week - and then blame

others for misrepresenting their

actions and inaction.

When you vote in June on the

European Parliament resolution on

the Transatlantic Trade and

Investment Partnership (TTIP),

please make sure it protects the

people you represent.

This is a crucial opportunity for

the European Parliament to hold the

European Commission to account and

make clear that they must negotiate

trade deals in the public interest,

not for private profit. TTIP poses

significant threats to democratic

decision-making, public services,

and the rights of working people,

consumers and the environment.

Please support a resolution on TTIP

that requires the Commission to:

defend workers’ rights; protect

public services; remove ISDS and

special courts for foreign

investors; and maintain all

regulatory protections for workers,

consumers and the environment.

I look forward to your confirmation

that you will support these

objectives in the forthcoming vote.

UPDATE 4: STILL Opposing Test Lane Development

This morning, having looked at the new version of the plans for the Test Lane/Gover Road development, I have submitted another objection.

This adds to the comprehensive objection that I submitted in January to the first version. This contributed to the developers thinking again.

Whilst the developers appear to have listened to some of the concerns I raised on behalf of local residents before, I still do not think they have engaged properly with residents or me as their Councillor.

Amongst the many concerns that remain are on the ecology of the area affected, (it's next to a wildlife reserve), as well as the sustainability of energy, noise and air quality.

It is a shame that the developers haven't sought to involve me more, even though I have offered.

Councillor Andrew Pope Independent Councillor for Redbridge Ward - Liberated from Chains of Failing Labour Group

In My View in Today's Daily Echo 20th May 2015

 

Thanks to the Daily Echo for allowing me to state why I’ve resigned from the Labour Group of councillors at Southampton City Council. It’s a decision that I agonised over.

Having broken free, I now feel liberated from the chains of a Labour Group of councillors that is failing Southampton. The Labour Party is failing people across the South. Don’t just take my word for it. That’s what the voters brutally told Labour two weeks ago.

On the World this Weekend on Sunday, the MP heading up the review of Labour’s defeat, Jon Cruddas, stated that “arguably, it’s one of the great crises of the Labour Party’s history.” I agreed on the same programme – the South resembles a sea of blue with a few specks of red – like Labour’s seal pup ripped up by the Tory killer whale - horrific but nonetheless instructive.

This Labour Council has had three years. But there has been a lack of vision, a lack of strong leadership, and a lack of sufficient generation of revenue and municipal enterprise that could help save services and jobs. It’s been done by other councils, Labour, Tory, Lib Dem – but not in Southampton. Why?

A Labour Council should NEVER cut services like libraries in areas that badly need them, like the Redbridge ward that I represent.

A Labour Council should be able to protect Sure Start services as well as keeping centres open.

A Labour Council should be able to get funding to regenerate Southampton’s Council estates.

A Labour Council should be able to protect disabled bus passes.

But it has failed, because it hasn’t innovated or been led correctly. The job of a Leader, Cabinet and Executive is to provide strategic leadership, for Council officers to advise and carry out as instructed. That hasn’t happened. And it’s about to get a great deal worse under this Tory majority Government.

I will continue to represent the people of Redbridge ward as vigorously as I have done over the last four years, whether the Labour Party remains “in control” of Southampton City Council or not.

Andrew Pope, Independent Councillor for Redbridge ward

Councillor Andrew Pope - Resignation from Southampton Labour Group

Councillor Andrew Pope

As reported in the Daily Echo, on BBC Radio Solent, and on Radio 4's World This Weekend, I can confirm that I am now an Independent councillor for Redbridge, having given notice on Thursday afternoon to Southampton City Council's Monitoring Officer, as soon as he had confirmed the procedure. 

A week is a long time in politics, and a great deal has changed during the last week, not least the huge vote against Labour in the South. 

Sadly what hasn't changed is the approach of the Labour council in Southampton, as I confirmed from my very worrying conversation with Leader Cllr Letts on Wednesday, when he offered me a Cabinet position. 

Indeed his and successive (revolving door) Cabinet members' sustained and continuing lack of revenue generation and municipal enterprise for the City, and desire to work for the people of Millbrook, Maybush and Redbridge, were major factors in my leaving the Labour Group before it does more damage to Southampton and its people. 

I can have no part in it, if I am true to my conscience, and my job to represent and protect others.

Like many others have, I could have taken the Cabinet role I was offered, and the allowance, and just kept my head down, selling out the people of Southampton to party politics that leads to destruction instead of objectivity.

I couldn't be part of it in a failing Cabinet and failing Labour Council.

It is failing in many ways, not least because the Aims and Values in the Party rules for Labour Groups are not being followed. As I said in my interview on BBC Radio Solent, these are:

"To work constructively in their local authority for real and sustainable improvements in the economic, social and environmental well-being of the communities and local people they represent."

The Labour Council has now had three years to do this. They have failed to promote the Labour Aims and Values, and they have failed to protect services for the people in the area I represent.

Instead, they have continued to bungle, and make chaos in our great City.

Just look at the roads! Chaos caused by the inadequacy of the Labour Council.

Look at the bungled removal of adult social care that has lost Labour votes.

Look at the changes to Sure Start that are turning Labour supporters away.

Look at the bungled way that the Test Lane proposals have been handled.

Look at the Millbrook and Maybush Regeneration project that has lost Labour votes, through no fault of my own, because of how it has been mishandled - despite my best efforts to advise privately for the Leader Cllr Letts to get it sorted. 

Look at the libraries! Unashamedly, they have threatened to remove libraries from areas of deprivation, which a Labour Council should never do. I have pushed back privately, time and time again. But Cllr Letts and other members of the Cabinet dismissed my views, and the views of people in Redbridge.

I have been very patient, and extremely loyal in the face of extreme provocation and Labour negligence. As I say, I can have no part in it.

I tried and tried again over the last three years to ensure that the Labour Council is actually a Labour Council. It isn't. It is just more and more cuts, and a lack of innovation that is needed to protect services and the vulnerable. Other councils, of all parties, have done it. Why hasn't Southampton? Because of a lack of leadership and a lack of vision.

I have been a member of the Labour Party for 10 years. I believed it was the natural party for working people, as a workplace trade union representative before I joined. 

I do not believe that Labour is that party any more. And neither do millions of voters who didn't back Labour.

The Labour Group in Southampton, and the Labour Party in England, faces the electoral abyss unless it properly changes to represent the majority of working people and to promote aspiration. I am highly sceptical that will happen, for many reasons.

I have resigned from the Labour Group out of conscience. I have not done this lightly. 

I remain a member of the Labour Party for the time being, and am alarmed at the lack of due process and lack of democracy being followed by Labour Party officials. They have not even followed enough due process to warrant my accusing them of a kangaroo court! Sadly, in my experience over the last decade, a lack of professionalism from paid officials is commonplace in the Labour Party. It is indicative of the wider malaise that voters have detected - that the officials and bureaucracy are helping the already powerful and the careerists, rather than what a Labour Party was founded for.

I will continue to fight for Redbridge, and work very hard for my residents, listening to them and acting for them, as I have done over the last four years. 

My successes have largely been despite, not because, of the Labour Council and despite Labour's failings nationally - which were proved by the votes going elsewhere in the General Election.

Perhaps a new Party will emerge, or an existing one will reform, to represent the many, not the few.