Read more on this

Read more on this

Act now on winter ravaged roads or pay the price say Lib Dems

by Ian Shires on 3 March, 2015

159215 Carol 1Roads across New Invention and Short Heath are beginning to show the ravages of winter and Walsall Council needs to act now or pay the price “Cannock Road on the approach to the “Amery” island is a point in case” said Willenhall North Lib Dem Campaigner Carol Fletcher.

“But it doesn’t stop there” added Willenhall North’s Liberal Democrat Councillor Ian Shires. “A recent survey that Carol and I carried out on main routes through our area has shown not only the serious effects of winter but also long term diversions in Essington and Bloxwich which has forced many more HGVs  onto our already congested road network”.

Signs of this can be seen all along the A462 from the top end of the Essington Road into Cannock Road through to High Road Lane Head and Sandbeds Road. Similar issues occur along the link into Willenhall town centre along Coppice Lane and Lucknow Road.

Carol and Ian have sent the findings of their survey to Walsall Council demanding that action be taken sooner rather than later to avoid a heavy drain on public funds at a time when every penny counts.

   6 Comments

6 Responses

  1. Henry Percy says:

    The gall of you people is stunning. It was you that propped up the local administration and it was your party that has propped up the coalition – both of which have reduced spending on roads. They are c**p all over the place and those responsible don’t seem to want to accept that responsibility.

    You should have thought about the long term consequences when making short term decisions. The pursuit of power got in the way of sensible thinking. Two months and four days to the date when voters have the choice. I trust that they will evict opportunists at all levels so that we can have some sensible long term strategies in both our nation and our borough.

    • Ian Shires says:

      It may have escaped you but I’m a local Councillor not an MP. As such I am not in a position to vote on the National Budget.

      As a Councillor on Walsall Council I do have a responsibility to those who elected me no matter who they voted for and you nor anyone else will stop me fighting for their best interests.

      It appears that you are incapable of differentiating between National and Local Politics

  2. Henry Percy says:

    It must have been a different Cllr Ian Shires who was part of the cabinet structure on Walsall Council until August of last year. I am sorry to have confused you with him and have contacted the council to ensure that both councillors are listed on their web-site. It is very remiss of them only to list one and that is why I got confused.

    I also assume that you will not be campaigning for the general election and national policies of the Liberal Democratic Party. That is good news as it will show Mr Clegg that he cannot prop up a government which was not elected and call himself a democrat. It is an oxymoron.

  3. Henry Percy says:

    I would not have supported a position that I found was untenable. A pact, without a cabinet seat, would have enabled you to bring down the tories whenever you wanted. A vote of no confidence at a full council meeting was all that was needed. Instead, it is not possible to see what you achieved by being in the cabinet apart from propping up a divisive administration. Jeremy Thorpe rejected such a cabinet approach and David Steel formed the pact – which worked for as long as it needed to. Thorpe may not have been ‘pure’ in other areas of his life but, in politics, he represented all that we best about Liberalism.

    • Ian Shires says:

      I didn’t ask you what you wouldn’t have done I asked you what would you have done.

      You also do not understand the Cabinet/Scrutiny process. We have tried a pact without a Cabinet place in the past and it does not work as Cabinet makes most of it’s decisions behind closed doors and is not accountable to Council a point we made as part of the Budget debate last week.

      Whilst in the coalition we achieved a great deal. Some of the more notable being getting the Council to adopt the Marmot Objectives as part of the process to address the inequalities which exist across our town. We also reinstated the Area Partnerships as full committees of the |Council enabling budget spend to begin to be devolved away from the centre. Community Hubs were piloted under our watch as were Local Area Coordinators. Walsall’s first Green Spaces Health Trail is being delivered just to mention a few.

      If we had let the Tories have their own way they would have not protected the Council Tax Support Grant to the 20,000 most deprived in the Borough (since Labour took control of the Council they have reduced support for this by 25%!). This is just a sample of what we have achieved. On the flip side we forced the Tories on numerous occasions to tone down or abandon many of their worst instincts. Unlike the Westminster Coalition no red lines were crossed on the local Coalition Agreement if they had been the Tories knew we would go for a vote of no confidence and desolve the Coalition. it got close on a few occasions when they wanted to close Libraries and cut support for the Council Tax Support Grant to name a couple.

      I can understand your confusion, as I said earlier the Cabinet/Scrutiny process does not lend itself to transparency and openness which is why we are in favour of moving to Committees something non of the other Parties are in favour of.

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>