Cllr Ray Worley - Hedge End's Ever Present Councillor

Wednesday sees the AGM of Hedge End Town Council and the start of a new year of meetings. Congratulations are due to Cllr Ray Worley who has achieved 100% attendance at full council meetings for the second year. Joining him this year at all twelve meetings was Cllr Jane Welsh.

There are many reasons why an individual councillor might miss a small number of meetings - illness, family or work commitments, or commitments on other councils. Nearly half of the Lib Dems on Hedge End Town Council serve on neighbouring parish councils, the borough council or county council. But Cllr Welsh is a borough councillor as well and still managed to attend all town council meetings this year.

Town councillors are not paid an allowance, but if they were, Cllrs Worley and Welsh would be giving excellent value for money.  Overall, attendance at full council was 72% in the past year, a percentage brought down by three members who could only manage to attend fewer than 50% of the meetings.

Attendance Record at Full Council May 2012 to April 2013
 

Welsh, Jane	100%	12
Worley, Ray	100%	12
Bloom, Louise	92%	11
Carnell, Paul	92%	11
Sthankiya, Shankerlal	92%	11
Corben, Helen	83%	10
Day, Keith	83%	10
Effany, Richard	83%	10
Garton, Cynthia	83%	10
Hughes, Peter	83%	10
Houghton, Val	75%	9
Allingham, Margaret	67%	8
Baynes, Sheila	67%	8
Clarke, Daniel	58%	7
Kyrle, Rupert	58%	7
Pretty, Derek	58%	7
Tennent, Bruce	58%	7
Watson, June	58%	7
House, Keith	42%	5
Bloom, Caitlin	33%	4
Hughes, JennyAnn	33%	4

Picture credit: Hedge End Town Council

The State of the Parties in Hedge End

Here's a bar chart you probably won't see in the next Lib Dem leaflet to drop through your door. It shows the change in support for the parties in Hedge End and Botley since the County Council Elections in 2009.

The Lib Dem candidate, Rupert Kyrle, had the advantage of a year's free publicity as Mayor of Eastleigh, voted against the party whip to oppose the development of Boorley Green, is a conscientious and hard working councillor, but his vote was still down 12%.

Since 2009 the Lib Dems have lost over 1300 councillors and lost control of 15 councils nationwide. With the loss of three county councillors in Eastleigh divisions, it looks as if local Lib Dems are no longer immune to the poisoning of their party brand that has been affecting their support nationally.

Hedge End Councillors Hold On Against UKIP

In Eastleigh it takes a Hedge End Town Councillor to beat UKIP. At last week's County Council elections, UKIP surprised their opponents by snatching three Eastleigh divisions from the Lib Dems. Only where the Lib Dem candidate was also a Hedge End Councillor did the Lib Dems hold on with much reduced majorities.

In Hamble Cllr Keith House saw his 1,300 majority in 2009 reduced to just 540.

In Grange Park and West End Cllr Bruce Tennant's margin fell from nearly 1,000 to less than 300.

Hedge End and Botley returned Cllr Rupert Kyrle by a mere 150 (down from 600 in 2009).

In all three of the divisions held by Lib Dems, UKIP are now the closest challengers. Apart from in Chandlers Ford the Conservatives were third in Eastleigh, in some cases a distant third.

The Tories tried to ridicule the UKIP candidates, the Lib Dems tried to ignore them. Neither tactic worked in Eastleigh.

Outside Eastleigh the Conservatives did enough to retain control of the council, but the Lib Dem group was reduced by a third from 25 to 17. UKIP have ten councillors, Labour four and there are two independents. The Greens' share of the vote would have been enough to give them one or two councillors under a purely proportional system.

So it's no real change in Hedge End: same party in control and same two opposition councillors representing us. But the Lib Dems in Eastleigh are clearly vulnerable now. They are no longer safe in what was one of their safest councils.

You can see the full results for Hampshire here, and the Eastleigh News report here.

As an interesting footnote, there are now 20 independent or other non-party councillors on the Isle of Wight, and the outgoing leader of the council was ousted by his independent challenger.

Good News for Newts

Smooth Newts (I think)

Four months ago their pond was overgrown and all but dried up. In previous years I had seen frog spawn and newts in one of Hedge End's less well known ponds, so I reported its condition to the Town Council. Our grounds staff cleared it of excess vegetation and dug out a choked feeder channel from the nearby stream. Late winter rains replenished the pond, and last weekend Mrs HedgeEndBlogger was able to take some photos of these perky little fellows. Proof there is still (wild) life in Hedge End.

Have Lib Dems Wasted Charity Money?

Cycleway threatened by new development 

Amid all the fuss about the Boorley Green development at Monday's local area committee, committee chair, mayor, and Hedge End Town Councillor Rupert Kyrle announced the completion of the cycle way works along Lower Northam Road.  These have largely been funded with a £0.25 million grant from cycling charity Sustrans with smaller contributions from Hampshire and Eastleigh.

The completed stretch will form part of a cycle way linking Hedge End and Botley centres, which would have been a very good thing when it is finally completed. 

However, due to geographical constraints the cycle way goes west to east and east to west.  The Boorley Green development will generate thousands of car movements a day to the M27.  These will go north to south and south to north and will cross the new cycle way at the Maypole Roundabout.

In fact engineers have said that all the roads at the Maypole Roundabout will need to be widened to let the cars from Boorley Green rush through on their way to the motorway.  This will mean that the recent works at the roundabout will have to be dug up, wasting the charity money that has been used to fund them.

But what is worse, it will make it much more difficult for cyclists and pedestrians to cross safely from west to east (and east to west) as they will be trying to get across two lanes of traffic each time. 

Are we surprised that Lib Dem Eastleigh is bottom of the league table for encouraging cycling amongst nearby councils?
 
See also Will Dani King Save Lib Dems' Cycle Strategy?

Lib Dems Avoid Town Council

Six of the nine Lib Dem borough councillors who also sit on Hedge End Town Council chose to stay away from this week's meeting of full council.  That was a bit of shame, as a borough council report is on the agenda, and it's not as if they had nothing to talk about after Monday's marathon local area committee.

So let's acknowledge that Cllrs Bloom, Welsh and Tennant dragged themselves away from canvassing in support of "Mike4Eastleigh" to answer questions about their approval of 1400 houses at Boorley Green.

It was a pity that Cllr Kyrle was not there as we could have acknowledged his sticking up for the natural environment (what I think he called the "feathery and furry things") and voting against the party line.  Sadly his was a lone voice in front of the Lib Dem bulldozer on Monday.

Cllr Tennant used his "County Council Report" to regale us with tales of his recent four week trip to China, but some of us struggled to understand what it had to do with Hedge End, or indeed Hampshire County Council.  I asked if he could use his contacts in China to get some spare tarmac to repair the roads in Hedge End.  He quipped back that they don't use tarmac on a lot of the roads in China anyway.

I also asked the borough councillors why they had approved two planning applications, one with 0% affordable housing, and the other with 30% affordable when the approved quota is 35%.  They had lost the chance of 85 or so more affordable houses, which everyone agrees is what we need.  The answer I got is "that was the best we could negotiate".  So it looks like we have to accept the loss of green fields and don't even get the right number of affordable houses.

Another question I raised was about Hedge End Town Council's own concerns about the Boorley Green development which had been sent to the Borough and were recorded in the officer's report which was debated on Monday.  These concerns were about

• the impact on the road infrastructure
• the high density of housing with only two access roads
• the impact on roads between the Maypole Roundabout and Sunday's Hill
• the impact on the envrionment, and
• the impact on existing doctor's surgeries with no provision for a new surgery at Boorley Green.

Sadly the only answer I got was that all these matters had been debated on Monday, and they weren't going to go through them again.

Oh, and although there is an urgent need for the personnel sub-committee to meet, the chair of that sub-committee is busy until after 28th February.

Lib Dem Broken Promises

More Lib Dem Broken Promises

Mike Thornton - No Friend of Botley

Eastleigh Lib Dems were third in the race to put a face to their campaign to replace the disgraced Chris Huhne as Hedge End's MP.  They have selected Bishopstoke councillor Mike Thornton to do battle with Tory Maria Hutchings (West End) and NHS Action Party candidate Dr Graham Winyard (Bursledon).  Labour and UKIP have promised to tell us soon who will be fronting their campaigns.

When Cllr Thornton comes canvassing round here it might be interesting to ask him what he thinks of his party's plans for massive and unsustainable housing developments in Hedge End and Botley.  He was one of the Lib Dem loyalists who voted and spoke in the council chamber in favour of massive housing developments on our green fields.  

Like his leader, who goes before the electorate in Hamble in two months time with a plan for no green field development at all in Hamble, Cllr Thornton was willing to sacrifice huge swathes of countryside around Hedge End to protect his own patch.  Bishopstoke will get just 430 new houses in the next 16 years, compared to over 3,500 in Hedge End and Botley.  Looks like Cllr Thornton might be a NIMBY.