Lime Grove School was seriously considered as a suitable location for a ‘wet house’ - a hostel in which homeless alcoholics may continue to drink.

The Conservative cabinet member for community safety let slip that Lime Grove was his second choice location during a council meeting last week.

Following outrage in Kingsmead, he has now agreed to re-consider his first choice of James Street West. The Chronicle has the story here.

While Cllr Vic Pritchard was considering using the old school building as a home for alcoholics, no local people were consulted and neither Bathwick or Widcombe councillors were involved. His accidental statement in council was the first public acknowledgement of the plan.

Bathwick councillor Nicholas Coombes has now submitted a written question to the cabinet member asking for clarification of the situation, now that his prefered hostel location is under review. Cllr Coombes has requested that local people be kept fully informed this time if the Lime Grove site is to be reconsidered as a ‘wet house’.

Yesterday I joined the Mayor of Bath to officially open Woodside care home on Bathwick Hill.

This was one of many council elderly people’s homes sold by BathNES a few years ago in order to fund the refurbishment of the rest. The site was bought by a local family business and has been thoroughly rennovated as a private care home. Their first clients are due to move in from Thursday.

There are still some outstanding planning problems with the landscape and garden, however; work has been halted while BathNES council investigates. The Bathwick Hill Residents’ Association and I are following this.

Notwithstanding, the home manager and company director are approachable and seem genuinely concerned to be good neighbours. Let me know if you experience otherwise…

Earlier today, a friend asked me “how about some social mobility discussion on the blog Nick?”

When I noticed that the report of the  Social Mobility Commission, established by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, was  published today (http://www.libdems.org.uk/home/children%E2%80%99s-life-chances-still-tied-to-the-circumstances-of-their-birth-clegg-123335373;show) it was too good to miss. The report was managed independently of the Liberal Democrats and chaired by the Chief Executive of Barnardos.

I admit that my professional experience makes me better qualified to comment on things which can be kicked (roads, town planning, buildings, public realm etc) rather than those which should not be kicked (children, elderly people, social workers etc). Social mobility could be considered out of my remit, but it is actually the thing which I am most passionate about.

It is unacceptable that the principal determinant of life expectancy in Britain is the wealth of ones parents. A child born to wealthy parents will live 10 years longer, on average, than a child of a poorer background. A poorer child will have poorer health, worse education and a less secure job. I believe in a society in which opportunity is related to ability, not parents’ income. This is not that case in Britain today.

I will provide an update on blocked drains later, but now you know why I ‘do’ politics and why I am a Liberal Democrat.

In the same week that I re-joined the Youth Hostel Association, Bathwick Hill’s very own Youth Hostel was granted a mch extended alcohol and entertainment license.

The hostel has previously had a license for the sale of alcohol between 11am and 11pm, but following their refurbishment the new license permits for alcohol and entertainment 24 hours per day. The application, 08/02302/LAPRE is at http://planning.bathnes.gov.uk/PublicAccess/LI/LiApplication/li_application_detailview.aspx?refval=08/02302/LAPRE

 The license was granted because no objections were received. Given the controversy now this would seem odd, except that none of the neighbours (or councillors) knew about the application. Rules preventing the council from ’soliciting objections’ restrict adverts to one lamp-post sign and one notice in the local paper. Following the planning applications related to the refurbishment, there have been application notices fixed to the nearest lamp post for months, so the neighbours did not notice this different notice until it was too late.

If you think that you are being affected by increased noise or disturbance, please make a record of these occurances for 6 weeks. Concerned residents can then apply for the license to be reviewed, possibly revoked, with these records used as evidence.

The UK School Games are being held in Bath and Bristol on 28th-31st August. The games are the junior equivalent of the olympics for (as should be evident) UK school children.

The University of Bath are hosting the athletics, fencing, table-tennis and volleyball on their Claverton campus; swimming is at theMillford school near Glastonbury and the remaining events at UWE and Filton, both North of Bristol.

Volunteers are needed to help run the games who will be fully trained, get free access o the events and a uniform to keep! Information on visiting and volunteering is at www.ukschoolgames.com.

The whole of Bath’s major road network is to be covered by an Air Quality Management Area to tackle unsafe levels of air pollution.

Originally the AQMA covered the London Road up to the Cleveland Bridge, a road with officially the worst air quality in Britain. This being insufficient, the entire major road network is to be included; in Bathwick this inlcudes Bathwick Street and the Warmininster Road until Minster Way. This change will come into effect on 30th July, following a decision made by the cabinet a few months ago.

An Air Quality Management Zone is derrived from the Environment Act and designates an area of special attention for pollution initiatives. When the AQMA was declared for the London Road in 2002, five specific measures were stated. None of these have yet been implemented.

In pouring rain, Liberal Democrat councillors got on their bikes to support national cycle week this morning. Cllrs Nicholas Coombes, Paul Crossley, Roger Symmonds, Ian Gilchrist, Cherry Beath and Mayor Tim Ball came to BathNES council’s cycle breakfast in the Abbey Courtyard. Conservative Vice-Chair of the council, Bryan Chalker, drove his notoriously toxic trabant to the event, effectively cancelling out the carbon savings of the other participants!

Neither Bathwick councillor, Nicholas or Armand, have a car; both walk, cycle or bus around the city. With a little practice, even Bathwick Hill is possible for a keen cyclist! Unfortunately Nicholas’ pledge to cycle to all meetings this week went awry when a last minute puncture forced him to walk to the BRSLI yesterday, but now the bike is ready for an event at Bath Spa University later today.

The second call in against Conservative cabinet decisions in recent weeks has been upheld. Cllr Pritchard (Con, Chew Valley S) had sought to increase care charges for elderly and vulnerable people by 74%.

However, Cllr Pritchard has already said that he will ignore the panel’s recommendations, just as he ignored the concerns raised previously by the Overview and Scrutiny panel and the Full Council. Unfortunately the nature of our governmental system means that the minority Conservative cabinet is able to act exeactly as it wants without listening to the justified concerns of residents and opposition councillors. The upheld call in requires Cllr Pritchard to reconsider and justify his position, though it does not lead to a different decision.

I signed this ‘call in’ petition as I believe that it is unfair to raise so much revenue from the most vulnerable people. While the state pension has risen by 50p per day this year, meals on wheels in BathNES are now set to rise by over £1/day. However, I was disgusted to read Pritchards statement in the Chronicle, that he intended to ignore the call in process. The Conservative cabinet have lately taken to complaining about the cost of the ‘call in’ system.  However, I argue that it is not used frivolously, this is the last chance that councillors have to oppose decisions which they feel will harm the community. Further, councillors are irresponsible if they DO NOT fight bad decisions at every chance. Pritchard states that he has already heard the opposition from two Overview & Scrutiny reports and Full Council, so the call in was unnecessary. The call in would have been unnecessary if he hadn’t simply ignored the previous recommendations. Faced with an arrogant and uncaring executive though, councillors must do all that they can to protect the people they represent.

Since the first Conservative budget last month, there have been a flurry of cabinet decisions implementing the increased charges for Residents’ Parking and Home Care. Opposed to these increases, the Liberal Democrats have lead ‘Call-ins’ against these, asking the cabinet member to reconsider. First was the proposal to raise Residents’ Parkign charges by 60%:

The panel voted, by four votes to three, to dismiss the call-in, with Conservative Councillors from outside of Bath backing the original decision taken by their Conservative Cabinet colleague. The Cabinet member will now be free to go ahead and implement the decision to apply increases of up to 60% to residents’ permit costs across the city, as well as a number of other changes to parking costs and arrangements.

The call-in panel raised a number of issues around poor consultation and excessive increases to permit costs. Although all Councillors agreed that consultation on this decision had been inadequate, Conservative Councillors appeared more concerned with the state of the Council’s finances than the issue of engaging with those who will be affected.

Councillor Ian Gilchrist (Widcombe), who led the call-in signatories commented: “I am disappointed that the Conservative and Independent members of the panel did not recognise the merits of the case made to uphold the call-in.

“I thought that the arguments outlining the damaging effects of extending charged times in the city centre to 8pm were pretty compelling, and if they don’t listen to Nod Knowles (Director of Bath Festivals) who will they listen to?

“I am slightly mollified by the apparent concession that Cllr Gerrish has made in the direction of Sunday evening parking, but this still has to be confirmed. If we have achieved even this small bit of good then that is a good thing. Residents will not be pleased at a 60% increase in their annual charges, but I do draw comfort from the thought that we at least did our best to oppose this.”

Meanwhile I have signed the Call In against the increased charges for personal care and the meals on wheels service, which will hurt the most vulnerable. This has lead to some comment on the Chron website… http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=20354849

I joined the Bath University Islamic Society with the Mayor of Bath to launch the 2008 Islamic awareness days this morning on the University campus.

The theme is “to know each other”, taken from a verse in the Quran. In that verse, God/Allah recounts that he created different tribes and races so that they could learn from and get to know each other. Regardless of ones deity of choice this is surely a laudible aim and I congratulate the Islamic Society for their series of events here: http://people.bath.ac.uk/su5is/index_files/iad.htm

Unfortunately after the speeches I had to leave without taking my full compliment of sweets and delicacies. It was for a good cause however as I gave blood at the UoB sports training village. I have been giving blood since sixth form; it is a vital resource which few people provide despite most of the adult population being able to. Have a look at www.blood.co.uk for more information and to book a session. They are normally at the Cricket ground but visit the university a few times per year. Unfortunately the bood service refuse to take donations from sexually active gay men which I disagree with; nonetheless, any boycott would only disadvantage recipients so I keep on going.