by Paul Scully | May 11, 2009 | News |
As part of this year’s ‘Take Part, Take Pride’ festival in Sutton, the Council are looking for bids from residents to improve their local area. The Sutton Speaks fund offers residents the chance to choose how Sutton council should use £2,000 to do work or create something special for your particular area.
You can tell the Council how you’d like them to spend this money. The festival organisers will shortlist a few ideas and invite those who have suggested them to join the Sutton Speaks event in Sutton Town Centre on Sunday 12th July when the public will vote for which will win the bid.
If you have an idea about where this money should go, you should be able to share it by emailing takeparttakpride@sutton.gov.uk, visiting the website (although I couldn’t see how to do this without just emailing in the first place, they might fix this), or sending in your idea to:-
Take Part, Take Pride 2009
Chief Executive’s Office,
Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way,
Sutton, SM1 1EA
by Paul Scully | May 7, 2009 | News |
I have just put the finishing touches on the Conservative list of appointments to Council Committees for the next municipal year. It has taken me a while and I feel like sitting in a darkened room with a cold towel to recover. Each year, it is a matter of getting the right people into the right jobs whilst not being able to please everyone in the process.
Our 21 councillors cover 62 different committees, ranging from the Licensing Committee to the Carshalton Coronation Commemoration Trust. Some of these meet rarely, some of them I am not even sure what they are for. What I have seen is that if we should win the election next year, we have to cover a massive 103 different committees. Time for a shake-up I think.
by Paul Scully | May 7, 2009 | News |
ITV London came to Sutton on Wednesday to cover the story of the Sutton Life Centre. Moving swiftly on from my jauntily-angled hard hat, the parents at Brookfield School said it all, when they pointed out that if the Council are going to lavish money on safety, they would rather have a lollipop lady.
Conservative Home have published an article that I wrote, which you can read here. The Evening Standard and the Metro have also covered the pet project which is costing the equivalent of 10% of all of the Council Tax raised in a year in Sutton.
![24 Hours Is A Long Time In Sutton Politics]()
by Paul Scully | May 6, 2009 | News |
In the US television series “24”, Jack Bauer gets everything wrapped up, saving the world in just 24 hours. Back in the real world, it takes the same amount of time for LibDem councillors to realise that they shouldn’t be examining their masters’ decisions without having the full facts in front of them.
The Liberal Democrats took the odd decision to scrutinise how the controversial £8.5million Sutton Life Centre was going only one day after the decision was taken to build the thing. As I’d had 24 hours to read the financial information that was supplied just ahead of the council meeting, the previous evening, I asked several questions based on these papers, including why fees and surveys represented such a high proportion of the total project cost, and why Sutton Council was taking £279k in consultancy fees from its own project.
Lib Dem Cllr Myfanwy Wallace asked why I was the only councillor with this paperwork as she found it difficult to scrutinise the project without it. When I could lift my head from my hands, I exclaimed that it was a shame that she did not pipe up at the Council meeting the day before. It is extraordinary to think that councillors think it is OK to put their hands up to spend £8.5million without the full facts but not when they are asking a few questions after the event, when the builders have gone in. Although I asked about the fanciful expected visitor numbers, the rest of the session rarely lifted above whether jacket potatoes would be served in the cafe. I despair!
The part of the meeting about paperwork can be heard via the box below. The voices that you can here are Cllr Myfanwy Wallace, Cllr Roger Roberts (Chair) and Cllr Graham Tope (Lead Cllr for Community Safety, Leisure & Libraries), all LibDem:-
by Paul Scully | May 5, 2009 | News |
It’s not the most attractive photo that I have featured on my blog in the last 3 years, but it is a whole lot prettier than the top of the drainpipe with the pigeon droppings caked on.
I don’t normally have this sort of morbid fascination with office rainwater drainage, but this happens to be right next to the front door to the Civic Offices. It is the first thing that visitors see, in what might be their only exposure to the Local Authority.
Sutton Council’s motto is “Take Part, Take Pride.” A week of community activities are being planned on this theme, where residents go on a litter pick, or show off their attractive neighbourhood. It is just a shame that the Council cannot keep to its own script.
This has been like this for months. The damp has spread. Further along the gutter leaks, dripping down the side of the building. At the back of the offices overlooking the car park, the box guttering is held together with string.
Meanwhile £2million has been diverted from the budget to maintain and repair council-owned buildings to help pay for the controversial £8.5million Sutton Life Centre.
