Figures just out show that youth unemployment has risen above 1million for the first time in history.

Whilst growing up in the early nineties, it was the belief that we had so many people were out of work and a government who couldn’t care less that was a major spur to me becoming involved with the Labour Party.

Unfortunately history repeats itself.

Not being at the Chalkwell meeting where Councillor Roberston’s controversial comments were made, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t mean his remarks  to come out as they did. Nevertheless, the thrust of the comments as reported need a response.

My understanding is that Mr Barber was talking about his work with Turning Tides. I have to say that Turning Tides is one of the best initiatives I have had the priviledge of working with. They have helped innumerable people with all sorts of problems, regardless of people’s background, they have helped those who needed help. The neighbourhood management scheme made people living in some tough areas feel safer, more secure and more part of their community. They have tackled anti-social behaviour, cleared up streets, help put criminals behind bars, run a fantastic junior wardens program for kids, checked on the welfare of the elderly and hundreds of other things besides. It is perhaps a shame that their funding for neighbourhood management has come to an end, but they continue to do good work in the town with the ‘Triple Ts’ activities for children and the Active Citizens pilots.

Just one part of that work has been with the Zimbabwean Network in town. There are many reasons why we should welcome the creation of the network. Firstly, I know that a significant number of Zimbabweans arrived in Southend fleeing the brutality and persecution of Robert Mugabe. Basic human compassion should move us to offer them assistance. Some have been here a very long time and are British citizens, all have shared history with Britain through the Commonwealth. More importantly and more relevantly now, anyone who meets members of the Zimbabwean Network will know that these are people who really want to make a positive contribution to the town. The group has had a small amount of help to get them off the ground. Anyone who believes that they are somehow a drain on resources or are stopping help getting to other groups in society is very much mistaken.

When we talk about Britishness and patriotism, what do we mean? A patriotism based on confidence, belonging, a sense of community, that we’re comfortable in the world as it is? Or a narrow and bitter nationalism forever based on division, as sense of grievance and fear of the other? The community groups mentioned have done much that will engender that better form of patriotism and deserve to be praised, not condemned.

My colleagues and I have been concerned for a number of years about the lack of primary schools in the central area of the borough. For quite some time we’ve been saying that the extra development taking place in the centre of town means that the council should seriously consider building a new primary school. Last year we had a real fight over Porters Grange School. The council’s administration were telling the school that they were going to have to take another class of pupils, but teachers, parents and governors of the school were resisting saying that the site could not cope with more pupils on such a cramped site.

Following pressure from myself and other opposition councillors, we went on a site visit. I think councillors of all parties were shocked at the ideas being but forward by council officers as to how the school was supposed to accommodate more pupils, including using ‘loft space’ as a classroom. It was an absolute joke. Fortunately we persuaded officers to think again.

However, it looks like we could be faced with similar problems again this year, because the underlying issue of insufficient school places has not been tackled. Now we’re seeing proposals to expand Milton Hall, St Mary’s, Porters, Temple Sutton and Hamstel. Some of these schools do have room to expand of course, but I worry that we will be left with the situation of children being taught in hastily erected, unsatisfactory, classrooms.

Very good news from last night’s Traffic & Parking Working Party, where we agreed to press ahead with the residents’ parking scheme for Guildford Road, Maldon Road, St Ann’s Road, Milton Street, Coleman Street and so on.

Commuter parking has been making life very difficult for people in this area for a very long time. It was first raised formally by my predecessor Councillor Jane Norman way back in 2001. When I stood for election, I did my own survey that demonstrated the support for a residents’ parking scheme. I promised local residents that I would do my very best to get one for them.

Since then, several residents have collected petitions calling for a residents’ parking zone, one of which I presented to council. I’ve raised the issue in Council and in Traffic & Parking Working Party numerous times. and done all I could to keep the issue on the agenda. It’s wonderful to be able to go back to residents and say that, even though it took a long time I kept my promise, and despite being in opposition, succeeded. Of course I am only one of a number of people who are making this a success. A number of local residents have worked very hard on it, collecting signatures and reminding people to fill in their survey forms. Council officers have also done a good job.

Now I intend to continue the work, already started, to get the council to deal with parking problems in other parts of the ward.

The Echo reports how the Southend Police will be losing a specialist post to deal with missing persons cases:

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_news/9324569.Missing_person_cop_latest_to_go_in_cuts/?ref=nt

The Police claim this work will be done by other officers. Maybe so, but that means these other officers will have less time to carry out other important work. I wonder if the Conservatives are still claiming that there will be more police in Essex next year, or that there will be ‘no front-line cuts.’

Last night I attended the Victoria Ward Community Meeting (previously called Neighbourhood Action Panel). It is one of the most useful meetings that I attend as a councillor, bringing the Police, councillors and various other agencies together with residents across the ward to discuss local problems and come up with solutions.

There was universal agreement that drug dealing in the ward should remain the highest priority for the local Police team. They have had a number of successes recently, but it’s clear that the fight will need to continue. As well as relaying concerns over drug-dealing, I was also able to raise a number of smaller issues such as speeding, dangerous riding of motorbikes, and pigeons. (It may sound trivial but irresponsible feeding of pigeons is causing a huge mess in certain parts of the ward)

Details of ongoing police work must be kept confidential, but it is reassuring to hear that certain operations are going on. It sometimes happens that residents think that their complaints are being ignored when in reality the police are gathering intelligence and evidence that will give them the chance to secure a conviction, and they obviously have to avoid any chance of letting the criminals know that they are on to them.

Last week’s Full Council saw a long discussion about school funding, and how it is affected by the government’s plans for academies and free schools. The discussion was held in a confidential session, but the problems with funding are well-documented and in the public domain.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are allowing schools with good ratings to completely opt-out of local authority control. In practice the local authority does not exercise much day to day control over schools in any case. Head Teachers and governors run schools, in line with masses of national rules and guidance. However, there are a number of services that local authorities are supposed to provide for schools.

Schools will sometimes need access to advice and support of experts from outside. This is particularly true if the school is in difficulty or it suffers an unexpected shock, such as a Head Teacher leaving suddenly. It is not reasonable, or indeed economic, to expect the schools to retain all the types of expertise that they might need in-house. Therefore the local authority retains a small proportion of school funding to provide these services centrally.

When a school becomes an academy, that school is supposed to look after all it’s own needs, commissioning services from outside if required, and is given extra resources to do so. However, this means that the local authority will lose resources. It’s clear that in Southend and in other places around the country, the drop in resources is far greater than the reduction in our obligations.

Under the government’s regulations, the best schools are becoming academies, yet the schools in difficulty which need the most support that are remaining under local authority control. Our finances will be shrunk to the point where we simply won’t be able to provide the intensive support that these schools need to turn around. In Southend there is a divide in education between the grammar, faith schools and non-selectives, which means that the non-selective schools are always in a more challenging position than other schools. The government’s reckless education policies are a serious risk to the quality of education in Southend.

On the front page of the Echo today is a story of a Grandmother who was the subject of a violent attack in Southend. The Police didn’t have any resources to send even though they were phoned twice whilst the attack was in progress.

Hundreds of police are currently helping Basildon Council with an overblown planning dispute.

When the police have to carry out a major operation it requires planning, it disrupts shift-patterns and it takes officers away from their normal work for considerably longer than just the physical duration of the event.

I have great sympathy for Essex Police who are under mounting pressure from government cuts. They are being let down by Conservative politicians in Southend who are still trying to give the impression that police numbers will rise when the reverse is clearly the case. The Conservatives were once the party of law and order. Not any more.

The Council’s consultation on introducing a residents’ parking zone in Maldon Road, Guildford Road, St Ann’s Road, Coleman Street, Short Street, Milton Street and Prittlewell Street concluded yesterday. I was able to email through some last responses that had come to me, following a letter I wrote to all residents.

My initial feeling is that the response rate was very good and that residents are generally in favour of the proposals. I know that local people find it so very difficult to park close to their homes because of people parking to use Victoria Station or go into town. Some residents have been actively working towards a scheme of this kind  for many years and I’m pleased that I’ve been able assist them and keep it on the council’s agenda. I’m really looking forward to seeing the full analysis of responses to see if they bear out what people have been saying to me.

Unfortunately parking law is complex and there remains a number of legal hurdles to jump before we can get a scheme implemented, should that be what residents want. Neverthless I’m feeling fairly confident that we will see progress soon.

As people will no doubt remind me, there are other areas of the ward with parking problems that need to be addressed and I haven’t forgotten that. However to do a proper consultation (and these are proper consultations where residents’ concerns are listened to and addressed) and to carry out the legal and practical steps to implement a scheme is very intensive in terms of our officers’ time. It has to be done one place at a time.

I usually try to avoid responding to the rubbish circulated by Southend Conservatives, but something that my opponent has posted on his blog has made me extremely angry.

His latest blog post says ‘Police Numbers to Rise’: http://togetherinvictoria.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/police-numbers-to-rise-in-2012/

This is at best very misleading, and some much less polite terms spring to mind. It is typical of the head-in-the-sand attitude that local Conservatives have towards the damage that their government is doing.

The Chief Constable of Essex has said that police numbers in Essex will drop from 3,636 to 3,248 over the next four years. That’s a loss of one in ten full-time, fully-trained police officers. I’m going to take the word of the Essex Police Chief over that of a Tory candidate desperate for votes, and hope that Victoria residents do as well. It’s not just the cuts to police numbers that will damage the fight against crime though. As my colleague Judy McMahon raised at a committee meeting last week, the cuts to the forensic service will significantly hit the Police’s ability to catch criminals. The list goes on.

James Duddridge’s press release that he’s based this blog post is literally true of course, more officers will be designated ‘neighbourhood police’. I welcome the focus on neighbourhood policing and congratulate the Chief Constable in doing that. However, it cannot disguise the fact that we’re losing one in ten police officers over all. Even Iain Roberston, the Tory representative on Essex Police Authority has admitted that will have an effect.

If Mr Thomas had been attended Victoria Ward Neighbourhood Action panels before his new-found interest in the Victoria community, he would know that on many, many occasions, our Neighbhood Police have had to be assigned onto other duties to fill important gaps or respond to major incidents. Anyone who thinks that won’t happen to a much greater extent when we’ve lost one in ten police officers is living in cloud cuckoo land.

It just goes to show that the Conservatives are utterly complacent about the effects of the cuts that they are imposing and out of touch with what’s really happening in our community.