Diary 26th February

Some successes this week!
The collapsed sewer in Blakenall Lane is now fully repaired and the horrendous situation of raw sewerage flowing down the road not stopped...I  Only became aware of this some 10 days ago from residents that this had been the case since Christmas! Managed with others to focus the minds of Severn Trent , Environmental Health and the Environmental agency to get moving on it.
Thursday was budget day debate at full council. The tories and the liberals ( who in Walsall are really closet right wing tories) voted against our amendment which put into context the situation we face in Walsall where the most vulnerable and the less well off , face the real pain of all these cuts... £22Million off social services in the last 3 years and around £84 Million overall. The bribe from Mr Pickles to freeze council tax and accept the £2.5 million to do so has a serious bite in the tail that when this yearly bribe finishes , Walsall will resume the Council Tax ladder at a lower level and so suffer permanent loss of this money unless those who run the Council them have to make a very large catchup rise in Council Tax levels.. I had the real pleasure over Christmas of attending a school pantomime with my grandchildren who live in Brentwood Essex and no Mr Pickles was not on stage but was in the audience.. so when the 'he is behind you' was the dialogue when the ogre came on.. my cry was ' he is sitting on the front row!'
Back to the budget... I did quite a bit of research with officers and felt that spending to save option of using money to bring in free community alarms for the over 80's would be a sound investment. This alarm system is the envy of many of our neighbouring authorities and I think we could cover our costs by offering this service to a wider client base.  It is not only an emergency 24/7 cover with the 'round the neck alarm' but also has the ability to talk to clients as a human contact, at Christmas they wished them all Merry Christmas on the day, cases have com up where they could alert the emergency services such as fire brigade earlier than otherwise and by reducing the risk of emergency hospital admissions will ave lives and of course save resources and so money.
The liberal put down an amendment to spend more money on a range of areas in benefit support and youth provision but without some proper researched facts and figures and expected impact, we could not vote for what are excellent themes but no case for why more money is needed in these areas in addition to the large amounts already being spent.
Delighted that the scrap metal dealers report was enthusiastically supported. I went to almost every meeting of the working group producing this as I know how seriously the effects of their activity in the streets of Blakenall and wider afield ruins the lives of the neighbours of these 'tat' dealers... plus of course the enormous costs to us all of the activity of those who also deal in stolen metal.
A further notice of motion from the labour group highlighted the need for a policy to more promptly tackle the issue of empty closed public houses.. shame they are closing when some are important to keep up a place for social activity in our communities.
Took a number of residents to meet planning officers about the plans to rebuild Goscote and Poets on Friday. It is important that everyone has the opportunity to say their piece up to the planning meeting to be held on Wednesday 14th march at 5.30pm. Book your seat now!
Had a good meeting at the Mill Street mosque where hopefully good progress was made to establish a community based charity to run the management of the mosque in partnership with the brothers