Andrew Lansley St Paul's

What a load of rubbish!

What’s this post about?

Following last weeks residents meeting in St Paul’s the same three issues reared their ugly head: rubbish, cars and noise.

There is good news on the noise front - residents reported a drop in disturbances at night, although this was not a unanimous feeling amongst attendees. The best news was the drop in crime, which will form the bulk of my next post.

More on that soon…

What I agreed to with residents is to lead on a petition and information gathering exercise over the coming months to ascertain a number of things:

1. The potential adoption by the council of two alleyways (Albert Lane and Dunalley Parade) to ensure they are maintained and cleared of rubbish without direct cost to the adjoining residents

2. To represent the feeling of residents that the level of litter and rubbish collection is unsatisfactory and to request an investigation into the impact of current policy on the area.

3. To expand the facility provided by the “St Paul’s Mirror” site to provide updates on environment problems in St Paul’s such as litter and flytipping. (see previous post)

4. To help educate the transient population as to their responsibilities to waste management and recycling whilst living in the area.

5. To help ensure this is enforced by the relevant officers of the council

6. To start a petition to cover points 1 > 7

What have you done so far?

There’s no better place to start that your own doorstep. I started by visiting the relevant department on Friday afternoon last week at the Municipal Offices for an informal chat and to explain my intentions, as outlined above.

With that in mind, I have began work on all fronts: the community as a whole, specific areas and residents who suffer similar issues and individual problems.

Here is the case of my fight on behalf of my family and the residents directly around me on St Paul’s Road, Albert Lane, Albert Street, Victoria Street and Larput Place.

My house joins onto Albert Lane and the side of my house is a designated ‘waste collection’ point. I wouldn’t mind my house being nominated as this point except that the waste is rarely collected and is simply left to rot in the alleyway (photographic evidence provided at the bottom of the post.)

The reason I’ve started here is threefold:

1. The particular spot suffers from sporadic collections, fly tipping and poor access further down for the rubbish crews; the main issues causing these problems and reflects the experience of the entire community.

2. Complaints have been made for a number of years with regards to this with no solutions ever being found and in some cases complaints being ignored and flytipping collection delayed.

3. If I can’t keep my own doorstep clean, what hope do I have in helping the rest of St Paul’s?

So I sent the information below to the council via their online complaint form, available here: http://www.cheltenham.gov.uk/site/scripts/xforms_form.php?formID=157

SENT FROM ANDREW LANSLEY TO CHELTENHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL 22.05.12

Question 4:
Please provide any other information which you feel might be relevant.

- It has now been over two weeks since bins were deposited along the alleyway and have not been collected

- This part of the alleyway was designated a ‘refuse collection’ spot in a letter from from the council. Refuse is rarely collected from it and the bins down the alley are similarly ignored

- Neighbours between Albert Lane and Victoria Street have complained of rats in their back gardens

- This issue has been raised a number of times in a number of ways with a number of people yet it remains unresolved

- Myself and neighbours have even taken to removing the rubbish ourselves and depositing at the Swindon Road facility just to clear the mountains of binbags that remain uncollected.

- Directive 2006/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (5 April 2006) states: “The essential objective of all provisions relating to waste management should be the protection of human health and the environment against harmful effects caused by the collection, transport, treatment, storage and tipping of waste.” - in this case, the ‘essential objective’ set by this directive is not being met.

Here is a photo of the rubbish this morning AFTER collection (22.05.12)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64118194@N06/7251726962/in/photostream

Here is a photo of the rubbish follow non-collection last week:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64118194@N06/7220788004/in/photostream/lightbox

I would appreciate direct contact confirming a date for collection before

Victory!

I write with a sleepy head and happy heart this morning to say that I am proud to have been elected as the new Councillor for St Paul’s. I’m over the moon and can’t wait to continue my work in our community with a new title : )

I will be updating this blog more frequently from now on and will do a more comprehensive post once I’ve settled in, so here’s some stats from last night’s election where I was elected with more votes than all of my opposition combined:

Andrew Lansley: 355

Conservative: 124

Labour: 139

Green Party: 75

For me the party colours can now be lowered, I will contact my opponents individually and find out how I can help the people they’ve collected votes for over the last few weeks.

I am absolutely shattered from a long campaign, writing, lecturing, marking and playing shows and am already back at work following last nights victory. With a massive ‘welcome pack’ handed to me immediately after the election announcement, I certainly have my work cut out for me.

Thanks to everyone who voted - Lib Dem or not - the only really say we get in life is our votes and I’m grateful for those who chose to use theirs to elect me. I won’t let you down.

Thanks,

Andrew

Why I’m the only candidate worth voting for in St Paul’s

This will be my only party political post with regards to the upcoming local elections on May 3rd.

I’ve been trying to have a look at the people who are also standing for St Paul’s, trying to find information about their campaign and how they would represent my area if they were to succeed in next week’s local elections.

I’ve not been able to find out much other than I’m the only person standing who actually lives in St Paul’s. Outside this I’ve only been able to find a few paragraphs about their views on everything BUT St Paul’s - which in the spirit of competition I felt was worth including in this blog. My response is in italics after each piece:

Phillip Vincent (Labour)

“I am deeply concerned that government cutbacks are making life tough for less privileged communities. As Labour councillor for St Paul’s I will work hard to hold the council to account, making sure that public services and investment in the local economy is sustained. It is simply not fair that ordinary people are expected to shoulder the burden of problems created by reckless gamblers in the city.

I will use my experience of working in the voluntary and community sector to work with the residents of St Paul’s, helping them to argue for solutions that create jobs, deliver affordable housing and offer better opportunities for younger people.”

Source: http://home.btconnect.com/cheltlabourparty/Candidates2012.html

Unfortunately this only really delivers aimless rhetoric at nobody in particular. This exemplifies the attitude to politics that I wish to avoid - I’ve made clear my wishes for the area based on the conversations I’ve had on people’s doorsteps over the last year.

Jack Guest (Green Party)

“The central belief of the Greens is that by ‘thinking globally and acting locally’ we can make a real, positive difference to people’s lives, and help the world to overcome the massive problems of global climate change, poverty and destruction of the natural world, through ‘win-win’ solutions.”

Source: http://cheltenhamgreenparty.wordpress.com/

Not really much to say about St Paul’s in this excerpt and I’ve not been able to find anything else. I actually am very sympathetic to the Green Party and their aims - but tired expressions such as “thinking globally and acting locally” are irrelevant in most people’s day to day lives. Educating, planning and implementing a system for environmental care, recycling, energy use and waste management in St Paul’s using the existing infrastructure is the best way to try and effect change. The environment and recycling are VERY important issues to me as this blog, my campaign and our wider manifesto for St Paul’s demonstrates.

Steve Thomas (Conservatives)

*No information available*

Many people consider the ward of St Paul’s to be a contest between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. With the Greens and Labour failing to field successive candidates in our area in previous elections I’m not surprised. These votes rarely take away from the Tories, but could affect the Lib Dem majority we currently hold in St Paul’s - more reason to vote Lib Dem than ever!

The reason there is no quotation from the Conservative candidate is because there is nothing to quote. Nothing in the Echo, nothing on the TiG site, nothing on the Cheltenham Conservative website - which is probably because they don’t have one at the moment.

Source: http://www.gloucestershireconservatives.org/

More than this - our residents have only seen two leaflets from Cheltenham conservatives actually concerning St Paul’s:

1. A leaflet about how Steve Thomas wants to clear up dog mess, neatly phrased alongside national Tory policies.

2. A street letter opposing the St Paul’s residents wishes to support a reduction on the speed limits around the area (?!)

Worse than this (and better for me) is that his campaign literature has purely focussed on the negative aspects of the party political nonsense that people just getting bored of. No wonder people have lost faith in politics if this is the kind of squabbling they’ve got used to. And opposing local opinion? All I can say is “thanks” for underlining the gulf of understanding between your party and my neighbours as well as doing part of my campaigning for me.

So why am I the only candidate worth voting for?

My opponents are probably nice chaps who want to be councillor for whatever reason motivated them. I’m not going to play the dirty game of trashing them on here, especially if they’ve not made any solid claims to how they intend to help our area. I’m not going to try and second guess them, put words in their mouths or begin a war of useless point scoring - it helps no one and makes politicians look like arses.

My motivation for becoming councillor is St Paul’s has been published in the public domain for the last year and is readily available at a click of a button, a phone-call or a knock on my door. I have always been an active member of our community and will always support local initiatives if it reflects the desires of the people who live here.

I have helped numerous groups and people throughout St Paul’s in this time and have passed on serious matters to our current Lib Dem Councillor Jon Walklett, someone I am proud to say I know and someone who genuinely cares about the people of St Paul’s.

I admit that I might not win every battle - and that you certainly can’t please all of the people all of the time. What I can promise is that I will fight for everyone’s behalves as fairly as I can with honour and integrity.

More than this, if successful, I promise to contact all other candidates to discuss their opinions on St Paul’s to help the people they represent without political bias and with complete transparency. Once the election is over and party colours are faded, I have only one aim: to help everyone in St Paul’s.