A planning application has been submitted to Walsall Council seeking to demolish the Locksmith’s House on New Road Willenhall, reports cllr Ian Shires.  “This devastating news has come like a bolt out of the blue” said Ian.

It was only back in April that Willenhall’s Local Neighbourhood Partnership (LNP) received a presentation relating to the future of the Locksmith’s House following the withdrawal of funding by Walsall’s Tory Cabinet.

The presentation was given by the operators of the Locksmith’s House who are the Black Country Living Museum based in Dudley. It was reported that they had engaged consultants to carry out an options appraisal and report on their findings.

It was hoped that one of the options would be to keep the Locksmith’s House open and viable on its present site in Willenhall the home of the UK lock industry.

When asked about suggestions from leading tories on Walsall’s council that the Locksmith’s House should be shifted to Dudley’s Living Museam, the LNP was told that the cost of demolition and rebuilding at the Living Museum’s base in Dudley would be prohibitive.  “Yet here we are, just two months down the road and we are faced with the loss of a part of Willenhall’s history” said Ian. “What happened to them reporting on their findings?  What ever happened to consultation?” he said.

Urgent talks have been demanded with the Black Country Living Museum to see if, even at this late stage, it is possible to save the Locksmith’s House. A report will be going to the LNP’s 16th July meeting.  “We will keep you in touch with developments” concluded Ian.   

Thanks to timely Lib Dem action at least some of the activities for young people will go ahead this summer reports cllr Ian Shires.

 You will recall that the Ready Steady Summer programme was put at risk because Walsall Borough Stretegic Partnership failed to provide funding this year.

Walsall’s Tory controlled council lurched into action once they realised this, providing £30,000 alledged to have come from an underspend in the youth budget. The monies were to be distributed through the boroughs 9 Local Neighbourhood Partnerships.

Problem was that to get at this money would be providers had to complete a detailed application form and return it by 14th July. Willenhall LNP for one was not due to meet till 16th July, 2 clear days after the deadline!

Following the revelations by Lib Dem cllr Ian Shires into this fiasco, officers have now set up a much simplified proceedure which will allow LNPs to put forward ideas in good time for the activities to go ahead.

“It’s a pity the Tories left it to the 11th hour to reveal the shortfall in cash for this worthwhile programme. If they had acted sooner it might have  been possible to attract funding from other sources to enable a full programme of activities to be provided.”

Ian is demanding an enquiry into the whole fiasco.   

Residents living in the 3-storey flats on Tennyson Road and Southey Close came away from a recent “consultation” event organised by Willenhall Housing Group bitterly disappointed when it emerged that the project only included those properties in Coleridge Close and Tennyson Road to number 132.

“The Focus Team has fought for these improvements for the past five years or more,”  said cllr Ian Shires.  “It had always been a project which included all of the flats backing on to the M6″ he added.

Ian has demanded urgent talks with Willenhall Housing Group senior management to clarify the situation. We will keep you updated with progress.

Following on from Friday’s breaking news about the funding fiasco surrounding summer events for young people, further revelations have uncovered the source of the £30,000 in “contingences” identified by Walsall Council. It transpires that the money comes out of an underspend from the Youth Service Budget!

“This just goes from bad to worse” said cllr Ian Shires. “Recently we have seen the spectacle of the Tory Cabinet Member on Walsall Council with responsibility for Childrens Services boasting about an improved Ofsted report on youth provision. How can that be justified when there is practically no youth provision across the whole of Willenhall and now we find that what provision there is has been short changed to the tune of a £30,000!”

Ian has asked for urgent talks with Walsall Council’s Chief Executive. We will keep you updated.   

Work to enable motorists to use the hard shoulder on a busy stretch of the M6 through our area is to begin in April 2009 according to an announcement by the Highways Agency yesterday (Friday). 

It will run from Junction 8 to 10a of the M6 which was designed to be used by 72,000 vehicles a day but is now used by 150,000 every day!

Welcoming the news cllr Ian Shires said ” Evidence from similar work on the M42 has shown a reduction in congestion which in turn leads to reduced pollution so this will be good news for the residents of New Invention and Short Heath.” 

“However I am concerned at the lack of consultation.  Refuges are to be created every 800m.  I have asked the Highways Agency for details of where these are to be put as they may affect some residents living alongside the motorway” he concluded. 

Walsall’s Tory Cabinet has dumped the responsibility for delivering a much watered down programme of events for young people during the long summer holiday onto Local Neighbourhood Partnerships (LNPs) reports cllr. Ian Shires

The fiasco of the “Ready Steady Summer” issue dropped through the letter box of LNP members in the form of a letter from the Head of Libraries & Culture today (Friday).

LNP members have been told that because of the lack of funding from partners on the Walsall Borough Strategic Partnership (the LNP’s Parent body)  there would be no money to run this year’s “Ready Steady Summer” events.

At the 11th hour the letter announced that Walsall MBC had found some monies in “contingencies” which would enable each of the 9 LNPs to fund projects in their areas up to a total of £3,000. Bids for the cash have to be in by 14th July 2008.

“This is a clear case of the Tories trying to shift the blame for a fiasco of their making onto members of the 9 LNPs” said Ian.

“How can LNPs, who have seen their budgets slashed again this year by the Tory majority on the council, be expected to put together a meaningful programme of events for young people in just three weeks when some, like Willenhall LNP, don’t have a scheduled meeting till 16th July2008. Two clear days after bids close!!” he added.

A further issue is that as the money has been set at £3,000 per LNP, Willenhall and Bloxwich LNPs will be short changed, as both are made up of 3 council wards whilst all the others have 2 wards.

Ian has demanded that an urgent meeting of LNP Chairs be called for next week to thrash out the issues with the Tory cabinet member. We will keep you posted.   

Recent events might force a change of approach by Local Neighbourhood Partnerships (LNP’s) reports Lib Dem Group Leader cllr. Ian Shires.

Walsall’s Tories never did like LNP’s. One senior Tory has said more than once that he’d gladly see the back them! They only agreed to them as the price they had to pay for Lib Dem cooperation on delivering a 10 point plan to recover Walsall from the mess Labour had got the Council in during the 90’s.

Tories don’t like LNP’s because they put elected representitives (councillors) on the spot. There is no hiding place.

It sould be of no surprise therefore that as soon as the Tories achieved an overall majority on the Council they set about deminishing the role of LNP’s. They have reduced the amount of officer support and the amount of money provided by the Council to LNP’s for local projects.

At the conception of LNP’s each of the 9 got around £10,000 per Ward. Not a massive amount of cash when you look at the Council’s gross budget of in excess of £0.6Bn, but it helped the more enlightened LNP’s to begin to tackle some long standing local problems.

Last year, Walsall Council’s controlling Tories “shifted” responsibility for LNP’s away from itself to Walsall’s Local Stretegic Partnership (LSP). At the same time they reduced financial support for projects from £10,000 per Ward to £5,000 per Ward. Inspite of this one LNP (Lib Dem controlled Willenhall LNP) used its allocation to lever in around £1.5M to fund much needed local improvements.

In this years Budget the Tories allocated no monies for LNP’s and with Neibourhood Renewal Funding coming to an end there was the very real danger of LNP’s disappearing all together.

At a recent meeting of Walsall’s LSP Board it was agreed to provide £250,000 in order to keep the LNP’s running, but there would be no monies for projects, it was all for officer support.

Only a small minority on the Board (Lib Dem cllr. Ian Shires being one of them) voiced their disappointment.

“It seems that those deciding Walsall’s future want as little as possible to do with the democratic process” said Ian, “There seems little appetite amongst the “great and the good” who now run the show, for the true neighbourhood development that is needed to regenerate Walsall” he added.

“If LNP’s can’t spend on local projects themselves then perhaps we need to develop a different role in order to question the way in which the Council and others deliver services locally!” he concluded.

The Lib Dem Focus Team has received notification of a planning application which is looking to increase the amount of parking around the Woodlands Shopping Centre in Bloxwich Road North, Short Heath.

To achieve this the applicants want to put in a new service road infront of the shops along with a number of new parking spaces.

The Focus Team has already recived a number of enquiries from local residents expressing their concern about the conflict that this might create between cars and the access to shops, in particular the rampted access to the Co-op reports Lib Dem Cllr Ian Shires.

The Focus Team has  ”called in” the application in order that a full report goes to the Development Control Committee to ensure that all views get a public hearing.

The Focus Team wants to hear the views of local residents on this application. If you would like more details or have already seen a copy of the proposals and wish to make a comment, contact Ian on shiresi@walsall.gov.uk

Grass is getting cut once again around WHG properties in the Willenhall area reports Lib Dem Cllr Ian Shires.

The evidenence on the ground is that those areas worst affected have received a cut this week following a sustained campaign by the Lib Dem Focus Teams in Willenhall North & Short Heath wards.

Welcoming the improvement Lib Dem Cllr Ian Shires said “Pinnicle, WHG’s grounds maintenance contractor, is beginning to get on top of the problem. A number of areas, particularly those around older peoples bungalows and around low rise flats, received their first cut this week.”

“It’s hoped that by the end of the month things should get back to normal.” said Ian.

At a WHG Board meeting last night (Tuesday 3rd June), members were told that the initial push would be to get the grass to a managable level. Whilst this is going on, strimming would not be carried out.

Once the back-log has been resolved then the next cut would include strimming and by the end of the month WHG hope to be in a position to tell tenants the day of the week their grass would be cut on a 2 week cycle.

“The Focus Teams across Willenhall will be monitoring progress.” concluded Ian. 

Whilst out delivering Focus across Willenhall North and Short Heath wards this week-end I spoke with a number of Walsall Housing Group (WHG) residents who are clearly fed up to the back teeth with the grounds maintenance service they are receiving.

All of them appreciated the work being put in by the Focus Team. many of those affected were elderly residents living in bungalows. They confirmed that the grass around their properties had yet to be cut this year.

Inspite of assurances given to us last week that a dedicated team would be set up in the Willenhall area by the contractor with more staff and machines and that sub-contractors would be brought in to reduce the backlog there was little or no evidence of any improvement.  In fact a tour of the 2 wards showed little evidence of any grass having been cut, and that which had resembled a punk haircut!!

Following the tour I have called for a report to go to Tuesday’s WHG Main Board meeting with a view to bringing the contractor and WHG to account. We have demanded to know when residents can expect to a return to normality.