For those of you who tire of exhautively detailed pothole reports, we have an attractive picture of Bathwick in the evening.

Living halfway up Bathwick Hill, I have the perfect combination of a good view but without too far to walk when I head into town. Thus, every morning on my way to work I have the city spread before me. Previously it has been lit with newly risen sunlight, but recently I find myself at work before the sun has cleared Claverton Down.

This morning was particularly picturesque, however, with the mist hanging in the bowl of the city. In the foreground St Mary’s tower was set against the vapour which hid Camden and lower Lansdown, while in the background Lansdown and St Stephens were above the cloud level.

I understand that today was a fine Autumn day, but working 9-6 I never actually saw the sun. Walking home it had recently set, resulting in the pink and purple clouds pictured. Clearly the scene photographed was not that of walking up the hill, but arriving home I brought out my camera to look back and illustrate this evening’s article.

If you visited this website hoping for street furniture surveys, but instead found the dull half of a romantic novel, normal service will be resumed shortly.

As the year ends, I thought I had best mention a few recent highlights. I started this website almost one year ago with a review of 2007. While I do not intend to run through all of 2008 (yet) there are a few bits I forgot to mention during the Christmas rush.

Firstly, thanks to Rev Prothero for inviting me to give a reading at the Bathwick St Mary’s lessons and carols service. The lessons were read by a wide variety of local speakers, including myself. Rather flatteringly, I was noted as a ‘representative of the local community’ in the service programme. If you are a local community member not at the service, I represented you with the second lesson, Genesis 22:15-18.

Secondly, a resident of Clan House has kindly written to thank me for having the road surface fixed for them. This was a rather good early Christmas present as councillors don’t tend to get so many thank you notes. “Bathwick ward is exceptionally well served by you and your fellow councillor Armand.” - we do our best.

This seems to be the time of year for AGMs.

Last week I was pleased to be invited to the Sydney Buildings Householders’ Association (punctuation derrived from www.sydneybuildings.org.uk) meeting at which accounts werre approved and a new committee elected. We also had quite a discussion about the proposed student accomodation and use of the tow path, both of which were very useful for me and hopefully the householders too. At one point I suggested a community clearup session along the canal; I am still working on that one but hope to be organised before it gets too cold.

The Bathwick and Widcombe Liberal Democrat Association had our AGM last week also. The local association is mainly working on social activities and fundraising right now, having recently established themselves. Our annual Summer garden party and post Christmas drinks are quickly establishing themselves a fine reputation, with other events invented regularly! Joining the Liberal Democrats is an excellent way of supporting the work that Armand and I do in Bathwick and that of Don Foster, our MP. As our many new members are finding out, it’s also a satisfying and enjoyable way to meet like-minded people; have a look at http://libdems.org.uk/get_involved.

Finally, it is the constituency party’s AGM on Friday, a slightly more formal affair of accounts and elections. Generally it attracts the more dedicated party members; plus councillors, who are expected to make the effort!

Your Bathwick councillors are holding thier latest public surgery at Bathwick St Mary’s Church Hall, 10-11am on Saturday 7th June.

I am sorry for the short notice, I forgot to post about this earlier. You may have noticed though that it is at the same time on the first Saturday of every second month, so there is some sort of routine. It was also printed in Focus which went out this week, but I acknowledge the typing error advertising the date as March, not June.

Armand and I will be there in case anyone manages to turn up!

Recently I seem to have been chasing unnecessarily difficult problems, graffiti, litter and potholes which have been a lot harder to fix than they ought.

The kind people at Network Rail are just as helpful on the phone as they were when I first called them in February 2007, but the graffiti still hasn’t been cleaned from their railway bridge. You probably noticed the ‘THiCK’ tag on the bridge over Pulteney Road over a year ago and I been trying to get it removed since then. In the last few months I added graffiti on the arches to my request, so I am now on my third different customer reference number. We’ve already passed a few deadlines for the contractors to do the work, so I wait with anticipation.

Unlike Network Rail, the electricity company only work to 9-5 office hours, but the one time I did get through I was assured that their substation would be scrubbed within the week. It hasn’t happened yet, I’ll have to call back Monday to Friday.

I have also experienced nothing but earnest enthusiasm from our own council helpline, but 2 months on I am still waiting for a highways inspector to visit Sydney Buildings to register the potholes for filling. An inspector did visit my street however, the complaint having been misfiled, and was able to locate some potholes which have since been filled in.

I hope that this post hasn’t spoilt the ‘magic’; I have to spend just as long on hold and re-writing emails as anyone else; the difference is that I get paid for it.

Whether it’s in the job decription is another matter.

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27-5-8 In fairness the electricity substation has now been cleaned and the potholes in Sydney Buildings have been inspected.

Don Foster, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, will join his colleagues Bathwick councillors Armand Edwards and Nicholas Coombes for a public surgery in the ward.

Bathwick St Mary’s Church are again kindly providing their church hall for 10am - 12noon on Saturady 29th March. Bathwick residents are welcome to dicuss issues with either or all politicians without an appointment.

Nicholas and Armand have been holding bi-monthly public surgeries in Bathwick since their election last year, usually on the first Saturday of the month. However, this one has been moved forward by one week to accomodate Don Foster’s busy parliamentary schedule. In February they held a similar joint surgery on the university campus aimed at students and staff of the institution.

Liberal Democrat politicians commonly hold surgeries to make themselves better available to the public and closer to their communities. Says Cllr Coombes: “I’m glad to welcome Don Foster back to Bathwick. Our surgeries are generally popular but we’ve never yet turned someone away.”

Today I was joined by Don Foster MP for a surgery on the university campus. Don holds a special student surgery every year to which, like all other Lib Dem public surgeries, people and visit without an appointment to discuss an issue with their elected representatives.

There is already a lot of support for students at Bath university from the Students’ Union for personal issues, so we tend to run the student surgeries slightly differently. This time several students, plus the comment editor of the student newspaper, arrived at the beginning of the surgery for a conversation about the work of an MP and some topical political questions. Those with personal questions were of course seen privately later.

Don gave a surgery with Armand and I in Bathwick about a year ago and we are arranging for another shortly. Full details will be in the next Focus of course!

Today we had another of our public surgeries, in Bathwick St Mary’s Church Hall. We do these on the first Saturday of every second month to give local residents the chance to speak to us in person. Most Liberal Democrat councillors and MPs provide this service so we are happy to have introduced it to Bathwick.

BathNES council does not give any support for these, in their view it is an additional activity which we choose to do. Fortunately though, our kind hosts at St Mary’s and Claverton Community Hall provide us with a room and chairs, which is all we really need.

We have now hosted five surgeries since May 2007 and I am pleased that we have never yet sat by ourselves for the whole hour! This week we had four visitors which is about average. People come with concerns specific to them or their street, or wider political issues which they want to raise. Everything is confidential as necessary.

Our next surgery should be on 5th April in Claverton Hall - although I still have to book it. It’s a 10 am start, although with the cold weather this moring I did wonder why we get up so early at the weekend.

After their exams at the beginning of term, Bath Uni students are back to lectures and the normal routine. This means that all of the clubs and societies are running again too. As chair of the Bath Uni Lib Dem Soc (I’ve been involved with them for four years) I’ve been organising the next term’s events.

The Bath uni student society is the largest political group on campus and has been to Westminster and the European Parliament while I’ve been with them. Hopefully they shall be helping out with the Sham Castle scrub clearance next month too.

Although society membership is only open to students, anyone can join the Liberal Democrat Party. go to www.libdems.org.uk or email me for more details.

Armand and I spent this weekend delivering leaflets up and around Bathwick; together we did about 600 homes on two wet afternoons. Delivering leaflets is a rather vital part of being a Lib Dem councillor - that and holding public surgeries.

During the election campaign last year lots of people said that they appreciated the effort that we were making to keep people informed of what we are doing. Having won that election we’re not going to change the habit, so all year around we’re out delivering leaflets, telling you what we’ve been up to as local representatives, even when it is cold and rainy.

You may be surprised to know that there is no ‘party line’ involved and we write our own news and stories. I do the desk-top publishing part as well, which probably shows whenever something doesn’t line up or I make a mistake with the photo captions. Still, no one likes their politicians to be too professional! We then go and print them on a high power photocopier (with recycled paper of course!) which we pay for ourselves.

 For the delivery part we have a few dedicated Lib Dem members who help out by leafletting their own street, typically less than an hour’s work. Nonetheless, Armand and I do most of the leg work ourselves, which means that we get to see nearly every house fairly regularly. If you think that you can help out though, we’d be very happy to hear from you!

On Monday I shall try and finish the last ones on North Road, always the most difficult. Without meaning to offend any of our valued North Road dwelling voters, your road is steep and long, sparsely populated with generally long walks to the letterbox. The views over the city are wonderful though, but I expect low cloud and drizzle will spoil that for me tomorrow. The best street for leafleting, if you were wondering, I think is Raby Mews which has the exact opposite characteristics of the above.

I’ll admit that this was a post about pretty much nothing, but I thought you might be interested.