Swindon Elections - The Long Bluh Shadow

Despite it being over six years since Rod Bluh was Swindon Conservative leader, his comments have rankled the current members into a long and rambling statement.

From Brexit to not living in the ward, to the track record of the Tory candidate and finally a swipe at Corbyn, it seems like the person writing the statement has just cobbled together any old guff and sent it out.

The bluster of the Tory statement shows just how much sway they believe Rod Bluh's comments hold with voters.

But of course, they won't admit it.

Maybe tomorrow night's results will reveal the Tory vote slowly sinking into the marshy ground of Wichelstowe, clucking away about anything it doesn't like.

Swindon Election - Within a Hair's Breadth

Labour came within touching distance of taking control of Swindon Borough Council last night, but it was no cigar for the reds.

They did claim a significant piece of turf, taking another seat in the Eastcott ward, out of an area the Lib Dems often claim to be their Swindon home (that home now very small, a bedsit room in an Eastcott HMO probably).

But the yellow's did win in Wroughton & Wichelstowe from the Conservatives, showing that the retired, wealthy blue voters over the M4 can't always be relied upon.

So there is now a one seat Tory majority Swindon Borough Council. Full results here.

Labour will now be pinning their hopes on a by-election that they can gain a seat and the council by.

Any families or gardens out there that need to have more time spent with them?

Anyone?

Swindon Election - Lib Dems Chase Ambulance in Swindon!

If the Lib Dems learn anything from their Swindon campaign this election, it's get someone professional to do your leaflets.

And don't just photograph each candidate in front of the same ambulance at the Orbital in separate photos. At least Liz Webster's North Swindon leaflet doesn't feature bits of ambulance sticking out of her torso as her South Swindon colleague's does.

Swindon Election - Stan 'Local' Lassoed Man's Your Photoshop Fail Candidate

It seems Swindon's Liberal Democratgs Liberal Democrats aren't spending their money on their leaflets, as the Adver's Chris Humphrey's has found.

Plus, as seen here, the same leaflet for Stan (you remember him from being your 'Local', but not quite  Eastcott councillor) Pjaka Pajak shows he's only been photographed once, with the same photo of him in front of an ambulance, that's then been badly photoshopped to show him with bits of emergency vehicles sticking out his torso.

Someone needs to ring for help, plus his bad hair cut needs some trained professional assistance.

Swindon Elections : Welcome to your Rotten Parish

The hopes of the new Swindon parishes being a haven from traditional party politics were dashed, as the usual battles were fought last night.

The only things to note :

- The uncontesting of many wards by the Tories, are they afraid of Labour in their traditional strongholds?

- The number of independents that ran and won.

- The level of 'gotta get a double seat' by candidates who now have the bizarre, but self-inflicted situation of representing the same ward as a local Borough councillor and now as a Parish councillor, surely a conflict of interest and pointless ultimately. Are they going to disagree with themselves?

- The return of the previously politically dead former local Borough councillors that were persuaded by HQ to return as a parish councillor as they can do it while they sleep the sleep of the undead.

- The very unwelcome return of the disgraced former Mayor.

- The family affair of many candidates, often in the same seats, husbands and wives, mothers and sons, partners, you can imagine it must be a riot in those households of an evening.

So parishing has done exactly what people feared, created an entirely unwanted and unnecessary new layer of administration, with, mostly, the same people in charge of the biggest parts of the town (bar the independents) and a lack of imagination, especially from the Tories, with the wheeling out of undead former councillors to fill the gaps.

Onto the general.

Swindon Elections - Labour, Lydiard and Losing Mattock Man

Labour gained two seats from the Swindon Conservatives in last night's local elections, and it all couldn't have been more local if you'd tried.

Lydiard & Freshbrook went to Labour from the Conservatives because they campaigned hard on Lydiard Park and House, getting the message and the groundwork right.

Up on the hill, Jane Milner-Barry won for them on pushing the parishing issue (which no-one, even many in the Swindon Conservatives fully understand), but also the Lydiard sell-off/lease-off issue was big too for voters in Old Town.

Worse for the Tories was that Milner Barry took the seat from the Deputy Leader of Swindon Borough Council  Former Deputy Leader, Councillor Former Councillor Brian Mattock (or as we like to call him, Mattock Man after 'his' astonishing list of achievements in his leaflet). But this picture of him is priceless (scroll down to 12.15am)

Once again Stan Pajak retained Eastcott, despite a very strong push by Labour (the Lib Dems won it by 228), and despite being the man who campaigned on being the local candidate, but actually doesn't live in the ward.

Now, you servants of Swindon's people, don't disappoint us.

The Lib Dem League of 'Local' Gentleman

A rash of election leaflets demand a little more than a cursory glance if Councillor Stan Pajak's is anything to go by.

Councillor Pajak's leaflet uses the word 'local' a total of 8 times and even goes to the trouble of pointing out where he lives in relation to Eastcott ward. He rails against the 'faceless' Labour candidate who lives in Abbey Meads and writes 'you deserve a 'local councillor who cares because they live here too!'

Two minutes-worth of checking finds that Councillor Pajak doesn't actually live in Eastcott ward, but in Walcot and Park North ward.

Whoops!

Lawns, Locarno and Lib Dems

The tiny party of Lib Dems in Swindon appear to be fighting back from extinction with a good meaty topic - possible building of car parking spaces on the Lawns for the Locarno development.

However, far from filling with information, the Lid Dems have missed most of the meat from the bones of the story.

The proposed Locarno redevelopment includes, as most developments in Swindon have, a problem with car parking. One of the numerous possible options being explored is building some spaces on the Lawns. The Lib Dems give no further details of this plan, or of the others, but urge residents to make their opinions felt in the form of an online survey. This survey gives no further options, information, or facts about that plan or the alternatives.

This is the same Lib Dems who seem to miss the boat on planning matters as a point of course. Witness the campaigning on the crossing at Regent Circus (once it was finished), and the printing in leaflets of the wish to see the old Swindon College building turned into an art gallery (despite it being approved for other uses and the council favouring a site near the Wyvern). The Lib Dems were also surprised at a demolition at the rear of the building (the surprise was also expressed by the Civic Voice) which was part of the approved planning application.

Expect more heat being generated by the Swindon Lib Dems in the run-up to May, but as for light, there's only a few of them, so don't expect them to have enough bodies to turn both handles at once.

The dismantling of Swindon 2 : Now they've come for our libraries

First it was leisure centres, then it was Lydiard, now it's the libraries.

The dismantling of Swindon's civic infrastructure has taken a frightening twist.

Swindon Borough Council wants to cut the budget for Swindon Libraries by 65% by 2020, and wants to save £300,000 in the next year. Eventually, it wants 14 of the 15 libraries to be run by volunteers, with the Central Library being the only SBC-funded library in the entire borough by 2020 (no doubt with less services in it than currently).

That's it. No other option, it would seem, is being entertained by SBC. 

Last year, Swindon Libraries loaned 1,013,108 books. That's 5 for every person in the borough.

Last year, Swindon Libraries had 1,049,172 people visit.

Out of 16 comparator authorities, Swindon Libraries came third for engaging with the public, placing Swindon 3rd for the number of active borrowers per 1,000 population.

Despite being a smaller library service, in the South West, Swindon Libraries is ranked 2nd for number of visits and 1st for the number of books issued.

Swindon Borough Councillors will talk endlessly about making the town better, about vague visions, aspirations and a town we can be proud of with a new museum and art gallery, a university, waves of private sector investment and a town centre that's nice to look at and be in.

Well here's a bit of our town that functions well, actually, better than well, excellently well when compared with library services in many other places and costs us each 3 pence a day. Yes, changes are needed, but cutting out a town's access to a high quality service that serves children, young families, students, the jobless, the socially isolated, the economically isolated, the geographically isolated, the uneducated, the education-hungry, the elderly, ethnic minorities, the poor, those with learning difficulties, those with dementia, the homeless, the new arrivals, visitors, those with low confidence but high hopes, the weak, the ill, the ambitious, the studious, the driven, the curious - the people of Swindon, is a cruel and cowardly act.

Who amongst our councillors will stand and fight against this and for all these people above? 

Do they have the guts? 

Because they certainly have the votes, because we elected them.

Our town's motto is 'Salubritas et Industria' translated as 'health and industry', a healthy town is an educated one, the Victorians knew that, but it appears Swindon Borough Council either doesn't understand it, or doesn't care. 

Maybe they need to visit a library for some help.

Swindon Political Sense Takes a Walk In The (Lydiard) Park

Swindon Labour claim Swindon Borough Council may be about to sell off Lydiard Park

Swindon Conservatives claim that's entirely false.

This Swindon Borough Council document proves that the ownership status of Lydiard Park (along with Steam, Stanton Park, Coate Water and the Platform) is up in the air in an effort to make them pay their way.

Swindon Centric Says : Is the ownership of Swindon's Crown Jewels a line that simply cannot be crossed for some politicians, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem? Looks like we're about to find out.

Will Swindon's May election be won or lost on who will not sell Lydiard?

The Councillor Scorecard

The engagement of residents in local politics is something that only often reaches a critical mass on single-issues.

What will it take to engage people day-to-day?

This question sits uncomfortably alongside that of the effectiveness and efficiency of local councillors. As Swindon Centric has talked about, too often local councillors consist of a wide-range of abilities, motivations and interpersonal skills. A way to get councillors who only seem to surface from their sleep at election time is to make them take ownership of their ward.

Why not create a scorecard for each ward, using some simple housekeeping targets? What percentage of streetlights don't work? The level of cleanliness, with scores for graffiti, litter, dumped rubbish, the quality of street furniture and more. Councillors would not be set targets, but monthly totals could be kept and be easily accessible via the Swindon Borough Council website. This would make councillors be responsible (truly take ownership) for 'their patch', would get them out on the streets of the voters who they represent and would give them first hand 'shop-front' experience of reporting defective services and see that report through to the problem being resolved.

This would not be a replacement for residents reporting problems themselves, but many people do not seem to even know they can report a raft of issues for quick fixes, especially the Council's Streetsmart service simply and quickly by phone and email.

Swindon Centric Says ; This would truly give residents the ability to see how committed councillors are to their wards.

UPDATED : I'd like to see a set of figures each month covering those 'basic standards' (percentage of working street lights, graffiti tags logged and cleaned, rubbish dumping logged and cleared, etc). The onus would be put on councillors that they should take an active role in reporting these and reducing them in their wards, walking a 'beat' and noting down what needs doing and reporting it to Streetsmart for rectifying.

The community clean-up days we see most wards have occurring once a year gets councillors a nice shot of publicity, but this type of 'roll up your sleeves' should be a daily, second-nature attitude. Keeping a tally on the 'housekeeping' in each ward would give an indication as to how active your councillor is.

Swindon's Very Own Shock Doctrine

The stateside version of this, with some variances, covered on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show

If your streetlights have been broken for an age and the graffiti on your walls has now got moss growing on it, it could because of Swindon Councillors subscribing to the 'Shock Doctrine'.

The theory by-which governments push through major neo-conservative policies (privatisation, liberalisation of constraints on industry, simplifying government processes, etc) when a citizenry is in 'shock' from a disaster has and is happening in Swindon.

The disaster? The financial crisis, the credit crunch, the following recession, stalled recovery and now double-dip recession.

We're constantly being told, and have been, by the ruling councillors at Swindon Borough Council that there is not any money for basic services in the way they have been provided before.

How has this policy been followed? There's so many to mention -

- The privatisation of Swindon Commercial Services (the works department of the Council, now run to make a profit and wholly owned by Swindon Borough Council as an investment interest).

- The spinning-off of adult social care in Swindon to another organisation.

- The cutting back of hundreds of front-line staff in Swindon Borough Council, from libraries to park rangers.

- The administration of benefits to Swindon residents now provided by Capita, not Swindon Borough Council.

- The attempted privatisation of Swindon's entire assets of it's Council Housing stock. This was prevented after a vote by council house tenants.

- To a derived point, the Wi-Failed scheme. One of the numerous reasons given for the scheme was that the council now had to look at ways of producing revenue (making money).

- The latest, the transfer of green spaces to house-building companies.

- The transfer of the Oasis leisure centre and a chunk of land at North Star to a private investment company to refurbish the centre and build a snow dome and other leisure facilities, to be operated by them and not Swindon Borough Council.

Swindon Centric Says ; The constant banging of this drum of 'if we don't reduce our deficit it'll come and attack you in a lonely alleyway' is spin, as Swindon Borough Council seem happy-enough to run up record debts building infrastructure at Wichelstowe.

Why are Swindon Borough Councillors happy to spend money on easy things like roads and paths to tempt house builders, but won't work hard to come up with a detailed, costed, long-term, council-funded plan to rebuild assets?

Have our councillors become lazy and unknowledgeable? For Swindon, it should be renamed The Shock and Lazy Doctrine.

The Mayor of Simpleton

 How strange it would be if the Queen was to vote in a Commons or Lords situation, shaking the foundations of the system.

On a local level, that's about to happen in Swindon.

The Conservative Group have a majority of one in the recent local council elections, which means in the event of a tie, the Mayor (which is largely a ceremonial position, despite the selected mayor being an elected councillor) will, like-never-before, be called upon to cast the deciding vote. The new Mayor, Councillor Mick Bray (Conservative, of the Lydiard and Freshbrook ward) may find it increasingly difficult to justify his position as he votes on issues in the council chamber one moment, then remains non-political whilst grinning for the cameras and having cake at his official mayor duties the next.

 Swindon Centric Says ; We live in interesting times.

Truth Makes It Safely To Other Side Of Crossing

No, they didn't claim credit for this one.

Selective memory 'Swindrome' strikes again in Swindon!

This time, the Lib Dems repeatedly claimed credit for installing the Kingshill Crossing has been found to be wrong.

Swindon Centric Says ; Looks like Swindon's Lib Dems will have to look at their own achievements in the area to use in next year's election leaflets, which include... well... they got the.... erm, well good luck with that.

Swindon Engages - Council Stunned - Bloggers Delighted

The huge response received by Swindon Borough Council on the Core Strategy has stunned the Council.

After the extension of the deadline for consultation, a flurry of late submissions on Coate were expected, but nothing on this scale. The majority areas that will have been received will concern the Tadpole Farm development, the Coate Water area development and the Eastern Development Area. The EDA will be an interesting one to follow as some of the Swindon ruling Conservatives jumped on the scaling-down of the proposed housebuilding numbers for that area as a political win, when it's actually a small reduction in the number of houses to be built. Indeed it was a two-faced spectacle to see some councillors appose house building of a hundred or so houses next to Lydiard Park whilst shrugging shoulders about housebuilding at Coate and in the EDA (all that happened around election time last year, no connection of course).

Now the real work will begin, with a redrawing of the planning of the town up until 2026, when this Core Strategy covers and many of those 'well, isn't a shame we can't save this countryside' councillor shrugs get thrown-out with this public response.

Swindon Centric Says ; Elections of every single Swindon Borough Council seat happens next May, it'll be interesting to see how councillors who've got involved in planning decisions change, disavow or forget what they said as the planning landscape politic has changed beneath their feet.