komadori's green corner

Creditors grab the Brunel Centre

2012-01-06T23:56:00.001Z

In a rather complex chain of financial transactions, it appears that the Brunel Centre has been forced into the hands of ‘fixed charge receivers’ by the fall in property values in recent years. The centre — which is owned by a Jersey-registered company — had breached some of the terms of a loan — traded on the Irish stock exchange — of over £110 M in the first half of last year. The creditor’s agent — appointed after the default — had also had the centre revalued, reducing its worth by almost a third, down to £87 M, less than the value of the loan. The closure of the Liquid & Envy nightclub was estimated to have lost the centre income of £90,000, but this was less than 4% of their total income.

With the loan due for repayment on 25 April this year, and with over £100 M of the loan still outstanding, the creditors were clearly getting worried about the chances of getting their money back, and have taken possession whilst considering options, including the possibility of selling the centre. The appointment of receivers was announced on 22 December.

Car park design Musings

2011-11-20T07:16:00.000Z

It seems that unadorned multi-storey car parks have gone out of fashion. Not that they were ever something that could be described as ‘fashionable’. But at least the simple construction of a series of floors, plainly open to the elements, was unpretentious and offer scope for some styling. Looking down Islington Street three such car parks from the 1960s and 1970s are visible. They’re not pretty, but they are functional, with Islington Street Car Park and the Menzies Hotel quite well matched in their brickwork.

Now for the first stage of Muse’s Union Square development something far less simple has been proposed to replace — on a different site — Carfax Street Car Park: a car park encased in aluminium and terracotta ‘fins’. According to the architects, this freak of architecture has

a language for the building where the whole was greater than the sum of the individual parts…. The façade design balances the practical requirement of allowing natural ventilation through the building and creating a striking visual appeal to the building.

Only in the mind of an architect could an overgrown fence be thought of as having ‘a striking visual appeal’.

In comparison with that, the block of 45 flats to be built nearby are almost stylish. And in the artist’s impression of the flats they felt obliged to hide the car park behind some trees!

Swindon housing supply

2011-11-15T11:40:00.000Z

Today the planning enquiry starts into the planning application from Persimmon and Redrow Homes to build near Coate Water at Commonhead. This is what’s left of the former ‘Swindon Gateway’ project.

With other areas identified for house building — for example Wichelstowe and Tadpole Farm — already having space for many thousands of houses, it is perhaps timely that just two weeks ago the Department of Communities and Local Government published figures for housing supply during the last financial year. For Swindon, the figure for ‘net supply of new dwellings’ is down by 11% compared with the year before. (By comparison, across the whole of south-west England there was no significant change, and for England as a whole there was a decrease of 6%.)

Net housing supply for Swindon
Year 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11
Dwellings 1710 1550 2260 1940 970 880 780

Net housing supply for Swindon
Year	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Dwellings	1710	1550	2260	1940	970	880	780

At the rate of building seen in recent years, land already identified for new building is sufficient to keep the builders going in Swindon for many years. Even if they forecast a recovery in the housing market, for the developers to argue — as they no doubt will — that there is a desperate need for extra land to be released for housing in Swindon is fanciful in the extreme.

East Wichel — in search of ghosts

2011-11-08T12:15:00.000Z

Last night in their Inside Out programme the BBC presented a report on Wichelstowe. The report was introduced by Alastair McKee as “The Homeowners who say they’re living in what amounts to a ghost town’, yet the reality is very different.

The BBC have interviewed many people in East Wichel over recent weeks — komadori was one of them. The views expressed by many in those interviews were that it’s a very nice place to live. The community spirit is great and there’s quite a bit going on. It would be nice if there were some more facilities open in the development — such as some shops and a children”s play area — but given how slow the housing market is, it’s no surprise things are taking longer than originally planned. Some of the first that were housed in the area by Sovereign Living feel let down as things haven’t turned out as planned, but most that have moved in since knew it was going to be quite some time before facilities would be available. In short, it’s nice, it could be better, but for most there haven’t been any surprises.

Watch Mr McKee’s report and the impression you’ll get is distinctly grimmer. No mention of community spirit, only of ‘out reach’, despite filming community events. Little mention of what people expected before they moved here, only of what more they would want. Only five interviews were used of the many that were done, and many whose interviews were left out have said their comments were more positive than those used in the report. Even the interviewee in the most critical interview shown in the report has said her interview was edited to leave out the good things she had to say about the community. And where are “The Homeowners who say they’re living in what amounts to a ghost town’? Despite Alastair McKee’s introduction, none of the interviews in the report express that opinion. Fast forward through the programme to leave out Mr McKee’s distortions and listen only to the interviews, and the impression you’ll get is of a far more contented community than the report portrays. Yes, what may one day be West and Middle Wichel look rather forlorn, with roads in place years before they will carry traffic, but the East Wichel community is coming along quite contentedly thank you, albeit rather slower than most living here would have liked.

No doubt to many that watched the programme, Mr Greenhalgh’s defence of Swindon Borough Council will seem rather aggressive. To me as someone aware of the background of the report, he was giving a biased reporter everything he deserved.

Garry Perkins’ reverse commitments

2011-10-09T00:13:00.001+01:00

The universe occupied by Mr Perkins is clearly a very topsy-turvy place. In all other places, if one wants to show commitment financially, one gives money rather than taking it. In the Perkinverse, it’s the other way round, Thus with several public sector bodies — including Swindon Borough Council — stumping up £3.5 M to remodel Whalebridge roundabout, as a prerequisite to Muse even starting their Union Square development, Mr Perkins is claiming that this shows commitment by Muse.

The fact that there’s £4 M invested shows Swindon is serious, it shows Muse is serious.

And even the first phase of the Union Square development will mainly be paid for ultimately by the public sector. It consists of a car park — that Swindon Borough Council will buy — sheltered housing, and a health centre — to replace the NHS Carfax Health Centre which will be demolished to make way for the main part of Union Square.

The only commitment in evidence here is that of Swindon taxpayers’ money, being spent up-front, well before the commercial developers have even submitted detailed plans.

Wi-fi’s dead — long live wifi!

2011-09-14T23:53:00.000+01:00

The report to next week’s special cabinet meeting of Swindon Borough Council makes it clear that their venture with our money to bring wifi to the whole of Swindon is dead.

So far as the Council’s interests in Digital City is concerned, further legal and financial advice will be required in this matter following which it is suggested that the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance, be authorised to take such action as he considers necessary to protect and, if appropriate conclude, the Council’s interests in Digital City and ensure that the network assets deployed in Highworth are transferred in the first instance to the Council’s ownership.

Conclude the Council’s interests, i.e. dead, finished, failed. And do we get any apology for that failure? No. Far from it. In fact, reading the report you could be forgiven for thinking the project had been a success.

Despite Digital City having failed to make interest repayments since late 2010, the granting of the loan has still proved to be financially advantageous for the Council. Sums received in interest and arrangement fees total £10.5k, while investment of the sums advanced to the company would have generated £6.9k to date at the Council’s average investment rate of return.

Let’ forget, shall we, that the original proposal said that Digital City would have repaid its £450k loan from us, the tax payers of Swindon, in full within two years. Instead, lets just be grateful. for £10.5k.

In place of an apology, we get a new proposed scheme, between Swindon Borough Council, an unnamed investor “under the ultimate ownership of a Global Telecommunications Company with annual revenues in excess of $3b US.” and that company well known for successful IT projects, Capita. Capita already provides numerous services to Swindon Borough Council. The report gives no indication as to whether Swindon Borough Council would have to stump up more of our money for this deal to go ahead. It also tries to suggest that the return on this new investment will constitute a return on the investment in Digital City (UK) Ltd.

The financial return to the Council is, therefore, enhanced by its investment in Digital City and the resulting Highworth pilot and the Council will now get a return on its investment. This will equate to the loan advance of £400k plus interest by year five or earlier depending on revenue share and this financial benefit will continue to accrue in future years…. Through these arrangements with Capita, SBC has the potential to receive significant return based on sales targets being achieved over 5 years, part of which will be credited against the loan of £400k to Digital City, and accumulated interest. Current indications are that this amount is likely to be repaid over approximately 5 years.

5 years? That’s in addition to the 2 years over which the loan to Digital City (UK) Ltd was meant to be repaid. And unless this new investor is going to take over the assets and liabilities of Digital City (UK) Ltd, then to suggest that this is a repayment of the loan to that company is the most creative of creative accounting. As the report makes clear, no such takeover is envisioned.

The Council’s intention will be to secure an orderly extraction of our interests from Digital City, with its assets being transferred to SBC to ensure that the Highworth infrastructure is kept intact. To ensure this happens, it is suggested that the Chief Executive be authorised, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance, to take such action as he considers necessary to protect and, if appropriate, conclude the Council’s interests in Digital City and ensure that the network assets deployed in Highworth are transferred in the first instance to the Council’s ownership.

So effectively, Swindon Borough Council will exercise its rights under the loan agreement with Digital City (UK) Ltd and take over the company’s network assets. It will then enter a new venture with Capita and an unnamed company. On that basis, the new venture will owe nothing from the first, despite what the report may try to suggest.

The report to Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet is written my Mr Hitesh Patel. Mr Patel is an ex-director of Digital City (UK) Ltd. Mr Patel was also an author of the original recommendation to councillors to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd. Perhaps, then, it’s unsurprising that he writes about that investment in such glowing terms. But given how poor his advice was the first time around, and that he didn’t know he was already a director of the company he was recommending an investment in, would anyone with any sense really trust his advice again? But then, would anyone with sense have made the first investment? Answers to that on a no-questions-asked cheque for £450k please.

Yet another pub for East Wichel?

2011-09-12T23:41:00.001+01:00

It’s less than a month since Swindon Borough Council granted planning permission for Marston’s Inns to build a pub-restaurant near the Croft Road entrance to East Wichel — on Langdean Road between Blackhorse Way and Frogden Road. Councillors criticised that application saying “it wouldn’t win any architectural awards”.

Now Mitchells & Butlers have submitted a planning application for a site almost opposite — on the stub of Croft Road that leads to a veterinary clinic — to build a Toby Carvery. The application refers to the new draft National Planning Policy Framework, saying that as the local plan is, in their view, out-of-date the application should be allowed — despite appearing to contravene almost every planning policy the council has. And although the application acknowledges that

The site is considered to constitute a free standing gateway site to the Witchelstowe (sic) development

the application almost entirely ignores the Wichelstowe design code:

[B]eing situated beyond the boundary of Witchelstowe (sic) it is beyond the remit of the Design Code….Materials and features have been specified to reflect some of the guidance within the Design Code, whilst retaining an appropriate degree of separation.

It’ obvious from the drawings that actually very little effort has been put into the design at all. Imagine an unadorned prefabricated concrete box, and you’ll have a fairly accurate idea of what this building will look like. In comparison with this, Marston’s planning application was positively imaginative.

Anyone wishing to comment on or object to the application must do so by 29 September. Comments and objections can be submitted online.

Hedges on sticks

2011-09-08T13:03:00.000+01:00

Welcome though the changes to Swindon Railway Station forecourt may be, the artist’s impressions in the Station Update leaflet — that’s been distributed near the station — show a rather odd fashion in topiary. So the ghostly passengers and ghostly taxis are surrounded not by ordinary trees — that privilege is reserved for customers of the coffee shop — but by what look like carefully fashioned hedges… on tall sticks. Maybe it’s intended to make it easier for pedestrians, so they can walk underneath what would otherwise be low trees.

Hopefully in real life it will look far less bizarre than the artist has made it appear. Hopefully too, they won’t prove costly to maintain in this form either.

Wi-fi — whose approach was it?

2011-09-05T18:01:00.000+01:00

Throughout the entirety of Swindon’s wifi fiasco, Mr Bluh has been adamant that no tendering exercise was necessary nor appropriate, because it was not the council’s proposition, it was a proposal put to them by Mr Hunt. In the council chamber Mr Bluh has repeatedly been very clear, Mr Hunt approached the council, not the other way round. As long ago as December 2009 Mr Bluh said

[I]t is only recently we have been approached by Digital City UK who had a technical partnership with aQovia. They came to us because they wanted to set up services to sell in Swindon and we invested in them, so we have not disadvantaged any other businesses in Swindon.

Now Mr Hunt has given a version of events that differs somewhat. If Mr Hunt is to be believed, it was the council leadership that approached him.

What people do not appreciate is that I was talking for a long time about the concept, and the executive of the council approached me. We all looked at the risks and rewards and decided it was worth doing.

Given their track records — and that Mr Hunt believes his wifi proposal “was a good idea and it still is” — it’s impossible to guess whether Mr Hunt has had a lapse of memory, or Mr Bluh was lying. Of course, if the decision to fund this project had been done in a more open way, we wouldn’t be left to guess. But despite all the questions asked, Mr Bluh and colleagues continue to maintain excessive secrecy about the project, and honesty is in short supply.

Market failure

2011-09-05T00:45:00.000+01:00

Started a year ago with some fanfare, Wood Street Farmers’ Market has slowly withered away. For the first few months it served as a Christmas Market, with craft stalls to accompany the food stalls. It brought so much trade that many of the shops in Wood Street opened on the Sundays it was there. But after Christmas 2010, with most of the craft stalls gone, interest dropped. In late spring the food stalls started to abandon it too and the shops went back to being closed on Sundays. Now all that are left are a bread stall; two meat stalls — one selling burgers as a take-away as well as raw meat, the other just selling hot pork rolls — a photographer, and a burger stall selling candy floss.

In many ways Wood Street is the ideal place for a market, but with competition from the Sunday Farmers’ Market at the Designer Outlet — which many of the stallholders in Wood Street also attended — and little reason to visit Old Town on a Sunday apart from the market, it was always likely to struggle.

Bluh’s wifi hindsight was others’ foresight

2011-09-02T22:47:00.001+01:00

It seems that the current leadership of Swindon Borough Council are going through a rather ‘retro’ phase at the moment, claiming for themselves as original thoughts ideas put forward by others years ago. First there was Mr Perkins who claimed that creating a park on derelict town centre sites await redevelopment was his idea, whereas local residents suggested it in April 2008. Now it seems that Mr Bluh wants to get in on the act too.

Now, whilst it’s always refreshing — and all too rare — when a politician admits they got things wrong, Mr Bluh has a particularly unrefreshing way of admitting his errors. In fact he does so in a way that suggests he doesn’t accept he’s failed in any way at all. As long ago as December 2009 local residents — some that were members of his own political party — were pointing out how risky his decision to invest almost £½M of our money in a wi-fi start-up company was. A company lead by someone with no track record in the industry; a company where directors seemed not to know they were directors, and a company where the directors that did realise they were directors didn’t understand what their responsibilities are. So for Mr Bluh to now say,

We did all the due diligence but perhaps in hindsight we should have looked at the risk factors a bit harder.

is little better than an admission of total economic blindness. For Mr Bluh to only recognise with hindsight what others with just a little foresight have been telling him for almost two years is, though welcome, inadequate. And at the risk of stating the obvious, if they didn’t look at the risk factors hard enough, then they clearly didn’t do all the due diligence, only some of it.

We were prepared to take the risk and we felt it was a managed risk at the time and, with hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t the best risk.

Even if it were managed at the time — which is disputable — the council then chose to relax that management, disregarding concerns that were raised. Again, there’s no hindsight required here, all the evidence was available at the time, and pointed out repeatedly to Mr Bluh, but he wilfully chose to ignore it. Until he shows some signs of admitting that this isn’t just a matter of hindsight, but something he should have and easily could have avoided, there’s no reason to believe Mr Bluh won’t be squandering our money yet again.

Garry Perkins burns his Priory Vale visa

2011-08-27T15:44:00.006+01:00

Mr Perkins is not renowned for engaging many brain cells before opening his mouth, but in his latest outburst he might just, unwittingly, have stumbled through a nuance of planning law.

Swindon Borough Council has been busily splashing the cash from a renegotiation of Priory Vale’s ‘Haydon 3’ planing obligation — commonly known as a S106 agreement — around the borough, with little if any regard for its impact on the new housing development. According to Mr Perkins, there’s nothing wrong with that.

We’ve got to look at the town as a whole rather than individual areas. It’s for the use for the good of the people of Swindon, of which Haydon 3 area residents are part. You don’t need passports to go to Old Town because you’re from north Swindon. It’s the same town.

At first, it would seem that Mr Perkins — although he’s the council cabinet member with responsibility for regeneration — is unfamiliar with the relevant planning laws. Section 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 states:

This regulation applies where a relevant determination is made which results in planning permission being granted for development.
A planning obligation may only constitute a reason for granting planning permission for the development if the obligation is—
necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms;
directly related to the development; and
fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development.

In other words, it’s illegal to use S106 money for something that isn’t directly related to the housing development the money came from. If a council were to use the money in that way, the developer that was forced to stump up the money could reasonably demand their money back, leaving the council taxpayers to foot the bill for whatever the money had been squandered on.

The critical point here is that the money now being spent is not from a Section 106 agreement, it is from a renegotiation of that agreement. So although it would be illegal for the council to insist before planning permission was granted that the Haydon 3 developers pay for something irrelevant to Priory Vale — such as facilities in Dorcan — it’s within the law to do so now after planning permission was granted.

The occupants of Abbey Meads may quite reasonably feel aggrieved that the money to be spent in support of where they live has diminished from £18.6M to just £700,000 but unfortunately for them — and anyone else living in a new housing development — the council appear to have found a way around the legislation that’s intended to protect them.

Digital City (UK) Ltd, R.I.P.

2011-08-25T21:24:00.003+01:00

Hard on the news that John Richard ‘Rikki’ Hunt has filed for bankruptcy, comes the news that Digital City (UK) Ltd is now in the process of being struck off the register of companies. So that’s £½M of Swindon taxpayers’ money gone, despite the assurances of the Messrs Bluh and Perkins that the equipment installed by the company and the use that could be made of that was worth more than the loan to them from Swindon Borough Council, that it was a no-lose proposition. How a patchy wireless internet service for Highworth, and nowhere other than Highworth, could be worth £½M is hard to see, but that is all we got for the money our councillors squandered on our behalf on this project.

Lest we forget, here are a few things said about this failed adventure with our money by Mr Bluh in December 2009.

This is a commercial decision, in the new world in which we all live more and more commercial decisions will be made. An opportunity was put to us, and we were asked if we wanted to invest…. This is a commercial venture that will bring commercial return. The only affects on capital budgets will be if this loan does not get repaid in full…. To get a reasonable level of council tax and to go forward we have been required to find savings and efficiencies. We are doing everything that is humanly possible to keep this ship afloat.

The ship was holed below the waterline before Mr Bluh squandered our money on it, and is now sinking rapidly to the bottom of the ocean. There were many that brought this to the attention of our arrogant council leadership at the time. They wilfully chose not to listen. Now it will be us, the council taxpayers, rather than those councillors personally, that will be paying for their financial stupidity.

The fall and fall of Rikki Hunt

2011-08-23T23:02:00.003+01:00

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the likes of Mr Bluh and Mr Perkins were fond of telling the people of Swindon what a great person they thought Mr John Richard ‘Rikki’ Hunt was. How they thought he was a great person to be leading a company to which they had loaned almost £½M of Swindon taxpayers’ money because, in their view, he was a very experienced business man from which Swindon would benefit.

Of course not all experience is equal. Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards had much experience of ski-jumping… and of coming last. Mr Hunt has now managed the same feat as a business man, going bankrupt to the tune of over £1M, including over £400,000 to the tax-man. As he filed for bankruptcy on 8 March this year, it also puts some perspective on his apparent generosity in ‘gifting’ to Swindon Borough Council his stake in the failed wi-fi company for which he had convinced the aforementioned gullible councillors to part with our money. It would have been no financial loss to him, only to his creditors.

Mr Hunt’s involvement with wifi company Digital City (UK) Ltd was via a consultancy company he set up for that purpose, Avidity Consulting Ltd. That company is now in the process of being struck off the register of companies. How much Avidity received from Digital City — and so indirectly from Swindon taxpayers — for its consultancy services has never been revealed. Also of note, before anyone is overcome with sympathy for Mr Hunt’s predicament, is that his wife, Laura Hunt, is not bankrupt, remaining a company director. For the Hunts, Rikki’s bankruptcy may be little more than a minor business inconvenience, rather than a case of serious financial hardship.

Pulling a fast-one on takeaways

2011-08-12T13:43:00.003+01:00

It seems that Mr Heenan has taken the political silly season to heart. It difficult to see any other explanation for his apparent sudden disliking for takeaways.

Mr Heenan has been involved in development control , having been on Swindon Borough Council’s Planning Committee — more recently as committee chairman — since he was in his political nappies. He would be aware, one would hope, of the contents of his council’s Core Strategy, which requires local retail centres in all new developments to be in close proximity to other community facilities. In particular, if you look at any of the maps for new developments around Swindon in Part 4 of the strategy, you will see that each one has the ‘local centre’ and primary school located together. Any retail development outside of the the local centre is strongly discouraged by the strategy.

Yet now, Mr Heenan has proposed that fast-food takeaways be banned within ¼ mile of any school, as a ‘contribution’ to reducing child obesity. So you wouldn’t be able to open a takeaway anywhere outside of a local centre, nor within ¼ mile of a school, yet all new local centres would be within ¼ mile of a school.

Now komadori is only a very occasional eater of takeaways — about once per month — but they are an essential part of of any local community centre, along with a small general store, a pub and, quite often, a hairdressers. If there was evidence to support Mr Heenan’s ideas, perhaps it would be reasonable, but there is no hint of evidence in the agenda for the meeting at which Mr Heenan proposed this idea. And if takeaways should be banned, then what about general stores that sell sweets to children? And what about all those parents that drive their children to school — why not ban petrol station shops from selling junk food as well, in case the parents stop-off on the way and buy their kids something unhealthy? If Mr Heenan’s really concerned about children’s health, why not ban parking and waiting near schools, so that all children have to walk to school? All of these suggestions would be regarded by some as ridiculous, yet all could have just as big an effect on children’s health.

Mr Heenan’s proposal is bereft of logic. To me this looks no more than a quick-fried policy, cooked-up in a hurry and quickly served to grab some summer headlines.

The road still travelled… false alarm on the buses

2011-06-07T23:26:00.005+01:00

Back in March, Stagecoach in Swindon and Thamesdown Transport started making noises about planned cuts in subsidy from Swindon Borough Council, bemoaning the dire effect it would have on evening and Sunday services. At the time I listed all the council subsidised bus services that might be effected, 11 in total. In April, both companies were still complaining. The council reinstated funding to just one service — the number 24 that runs through the resolutely blue-voting Lawns area.

The end result? Has there been a decimation of evening and Sunday services? No. In fact, not much change at all. The axe has been taken to evening bus services on the No. 11 and No. 19 and… that’s it. With Thamesdown Transport seemingly continuing to run all its other formerly subsidised services on a commercial basis, and Stagecoach now announcing it will do the same, there’s not much change at all. That’ll be no comfort to residents of East Wichel, Pinehurst and Greenmeadow who are now deprived of evening services on the No. 11, nor to those of Eastleaze, Shaw, Nine Elms, Peatmoor and Sparcells who have lost the evening services of the No. 19. But compared with how bad the bus companies were claiming it would be, the damage is very limited.

One could almost be forgiven for wondering whether the bus companies have been taking tax-payer subsidies for years for services that were actually profitable.

A pub for East Wichel

2011-06-05T14:48:00.005+01:00

Today the Adver has reported that Marston’s Inns has submitted a planning application for a pub at East Wichel. Despite what the Adver says, I can’t yet find the planning application on Swindon Borough Council’s website. The only information on it I can find is in the minutes of the March meeting of the Wichelstowe developers’ community forum.

What this pub won’t be is one that’s at the centre of the community. It’s on a plot — designated as a ‘commercial plot’ in the East Wichel masterplan — right at the edge of the development. Indeed, once Blackhorse Bridge across the motorway is opened, it’ll be not much closer for most East Wichel residents than the Check Inn in North Wroughton — the two pubs will stand almost opposite each other separated by the M4. With the new pub including a 180 seat restaurant — dwarfing the Check Inn’s 30 seat dining area — it’s clearly aiming to serve rather more than just the local community.

The Check Inn has had a fairly chequered history of late, with landlord’s struggling to make a success of it — Fuller’s are advertising it to let at the moment. A vast new pub nearby, just across the motorway, may be good for the residents of East Wichel, but for those of North Wroughton it’s likely to bring further disappointment.

Swindon Borough Councillor attendance rates 2010

2011-05-02T05:34:00.001+01:00

After a couple of years of improvement, attendance rates of councillors at Swindon Borough Council meetings stagnated in 2010. On average, across all councillors the attendance rate was 84%, which is not a significant change from 2009 when the rate was 85%.

In terms of attendance rates, the top 5 councillors of 2010 were:

Mr Heenan: 35 meetings out of 35 – 100%
Mr Montaut: 28 meetings out of 28 – 100%
Mr Tomlinson: 11 meetings out of 11 – 100%
Mr Parry: 45 meetings out of 46 – 98%
Mr Wright: 32 meetings out of 33 – 97%

Another 16 councillors attended over 90% of the meetings they were recorded against, a decrease from 22 who were in that position in 2009. Three councillors attended over 50 meetings during the year, including two of those with attendance rates above 90%.

The councillors with the worst attendance rates (60% or less) in 2010 were:

Mr Wiltshire: 16 meetings out of 27 – 59%
Ms Heenan: 14 meetings out of 24 – 58%
Mr Smith: 10 meetings out of 20 – 50%
Mr Cherry: 3 meetings out of 7 – 43%
Mr Dobie: 5 meetings out of 12 – 42%
Mr Fanning: 5 meetings out of 14 – 36%
Mr Sammels: 1 meeting out of 5 – 20%

Of those, three ceased to be councillors last May, whilst Mr Dobie, Mr Smith and Mr Wiltshire are saving themselves from having to explain their poor attendance by not seeking re-election at the elections later this week — consistent poor attendance since they were last elected in the cases of Mr Dobie and Mr Wiltshire. That leaves Ms Heenan, elected only in May 2010, who clearly has a lot to learn about attendance at council meetings from her son Mr Heenan. Compared with 2009, although the number of councillors not attending many of their meetings is little changed, for those councillors in this group their individual attendance rates have got far worse.

The figures are derived by taking an entry in a meeting attendance page of ‘Present’ or ‘In attendance’ as meaning the councillor was there, and any other entry as meaning that they should have been there but weren’t. Full details of all Swindon Borough Councillors’ 2010 meeting attendance rates are available in the archive.

The road less travelled… from June

2011-03-29T23:35:00.002+01:00

In a generally downbeat service update from Stagecoach in Swindon, where service 7 gets an increase in frequency, but many others are either reduced or axed altogether (R.I.P. the No 54 bus, killed off less than a year after it was re-routed to avoid West Swindon), comes advanced warning of further cuts to come.

Sunday services in the Swindon urban area
We regret that as a result of the total withdrawal of Swindon Borough Council funding for evening and Sunday bus services in Swindon that further changes will have to be introduced from Sunday 5th June 2011 and full details will be given nearer the time.

That’s quite a lot of services that are going to get a rather short back and sides unless Thamesdown and Stagecoach decide they can run them without subsidy. Currently in the evenings services 6, 7, 11, 16, 19, 20, 24, 29 and 72 and on Sundays services 6, 7, 8, 11A, 16, 17 (partly), 19 and 29 are subsidised by Swindon Borough Council.

Now I appreciate that providing a bus as a publicly subsided late night taxi is not a good use of taxpayers’ money — and many of these subsidised bus services do run with none or just one passenger on board — but a few are quite busy. Keeping a bus service running just for the sake of the one service in the middle of the evening that loads well with people heading into town for a night out may not be a viable proposition. But the blanket cut of evening and Sunday services looks like a cut made in haste, rather than a cut done with consideration for where the money could most effectively be saved.

Rikki Hunt cuts and runs

2011-03-11T00:15:00.002Z

In a move that will come as no surprise to those that have studied Mr John Richard ‘Rikki’ Hunt’s business history, he’s now done a runner from Digital City (UK) Ltd — the wifi network company he set-up — leaving behind almost £½M of overdue debt to Swindon Borough Council. It’s not the first time he’s abandoned a company having lead it to financial disaster, as local football fans know only too well.

As ever on matters related to this shoddy deal, Mr Perkins is on hand, trying to make things sound better than they really are. As usual, most of what Mr Perkins has to say is deceptive. If you’re looking for an honest analysis of the situation, Mr Perkins is not the person to turn to.

He had a lot of problems to overcome which he didn’t appreciate you’d have when involved with the public sector.

Don’t forget — as Mr Perkins seems to have done — that Mr Hunt is very familiar with working with Swindon Borough Council, having been a director of both The New Swindon Company and Swindon Commercial Services.

It’s very difficult for a partnership to go forward when you’re dealing with public money and scrutiny, which quite rightly, there should be.

It seems Mr Perkins has forgotten all the abuse and spite he has vented in the council chamber at anyone daring to question this deal over the last eighteen months.

We’ve learned a lot from this, and I’m sure Rikki Hunt has as well.

I’m sure Mr Hunt has learned a lot… such as how easy it is to get gullible councillors like Mr Perkins to part with taxpayers money, then walk away after eighteen months leaving others to clear up the debts.

With Swindon Borough Council now bunging £610,000 in the direction of its Recreation Centre to right off debts, Highworth will have been the lucky recipient of over £1M of Swindon taxpayers’ money. You could be forgiven for thinking that the local blue nest put keeping their rural voters happy above dealing with the council’s dire financial position. To quote Mr Bluh in the latest edition of Swindon News:

Boiled down, if we are to have a hope of balancing our books, we have two challenges ahead of us. The first is to become as efficient as possible in the way we operate. The second, perhaps more controversially, is to reduce what we currently do.

At the moment, they appear to be doing neither.

Union Square aMusements

2011-03-07T22:30:00.005Z

I almost felt sorry for Mr Hitchings of Forward Swindon on Saturday, as he tried — with little success — to convince those attending a consultation display at the Central Library, that Muse’s Union Square development was an all-round good thing. There’s really no effective argument one can make against those — and there were several — that are adamant that any development is pointless because “People just don’t want to come to Swindon, they go to Bath.” Nor is there any easy compromise between those that believe there’s no point starting the development now whilst the economy is in a slump — “Just look at those shops they’ve just built. Over half of them are empty. What’s the point of building more?” — and those that can’t see the point of a development that won’t be finished for fifteen years. Trying to convince those that couldn’t and wouldn’t envisage a Swindon any different from how it is now was a pointless task, and I think Mr Hitchings knew that.

For once I found myself relatively impressed by what is planned, and I was not alone in that, though amongst those visiting the exhibition I appeared to be in a small minority. But to my mind there were two things that let down a good outline plan for the development. The first, as already noted by Mr Wakefield, is the hype. Not for the first time, what is nothing more than a development that could be found in many other towns is being touted as mould breaking.

An exceptional town centre regeneration scheme contributing to the renaissance of Swindon

Renaissance? These are plans for offices, not a cultural centre.

Union Square has regeneration at its heart and will provide a vibrant and genuine extension to the town centre.

I have diminishing hopes that one day I might read a developer’s brochure that doesn’t describe their bog-standard plans as ‘vibrant’. And if anyone can tell me what a fake extension to the town centre would be like, I’d be delighted to know.

The other point of concern are the plans for Phase 1 which will occupy the space where the police station once stood.

This first phase of the masterplan will deliver 84 supported housing units, a new high quality multi-storey car park (850 spaces) and space for either a relocated Primary Care Trust or a new office or hotel development.

Oh wow! Yet more flats and another hotel. Just how ‘vibrant’ is that? It must have taken a lot of imagination to come up with that plan. I can imagine it already. The Swindon Renaissance Hotel, serving genuine meals at Vibrant, its stylish carvery and grill….