GIGANTIC KILLING OFF AND SHUFFLING

 

 Councils

beat mayors

every time 

 Boris Johnson last week pledged to create directly elected mayors for each individual county. How will this will apply to Cumbria and which councils will survive in the coming local government re-organisation.?

 

For an answer, perhaps it is useful to reflect on Prime Minister Edward Heath`s disastrous local government re-organisation of 1974 which started it all by igniting many big- is- best changes that still have echoes today.

These changes included killing off the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland and killing off hundreds of small town and rural councils.

These included two Penrith councils, two Carlisle councils and councils in Alston, North Westmorland, Keswick and South Westmorland.

The local government re-organisation was indeed a gigantic killing off and shuffling around, concentrating more and more power in Westminster aimed primarily to prepare Britain for the coming great European adventure which until recently dominated all our lives.

As I recall, many of the newly-created district councils were initially not given names but instead were given European numbers to link in with similar numbers and councils across Europe. Happily that never happened.

Today, 40 odd years later, Mr Johnson is trying hard to turn the clock back and to return some of that power to local communities through directly elected mayors based in major towns and cities.

Sadly, transparency and closeness to communities achieved by the hundreds of now abolished small town councils is no longer there.

Elected mayors, despite all Boris Johnson`s spin they are now attracting will never achieve the transparency and closeness of that sort.

PICTURED: London Mayor Sadiq Khan

 

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

 

WANTED: 68 CHEFS FOR THE LAKES

Local people vanish and tourists go hungry

Newspaper columnist Ross Brewster, the Sunday Times and MP Tim Farron last weekend painted grim pictures of the Lake District as it is now, after Brexit and Covid have done their worst.

Ross Brewster is nostalgic for Lakeland village fetes, for May Days, and carnivals of fifty years ago which all, sadly, have vanished from the calendar because the local people who organised them have vanished too. 

On a similar theme, the Sunday Times devoted nearly half a page to details of another vanished Lakes group: the workers who staffed the many restaurants and cafes.

“Wanted 68 chefs for the Lakes . The tourists are going hungry” said the Sunday Times headline.

Local MP Tim Farron (Westmorland and North Lonsdale) is concerned about both vanished groups.

He talks darkly about about Lakeland Clearance. Surely not clearances as devastating as the the Highland Clearances of two hundred years ago?

Possibly he has table clearances in mind- the sort of cups-and- saucers` clearances performed by waiters a hundred times a day.

Mr Farron is campaigning for a change in the planning laws to keep the local people in place locally.

And for hungry tourists, he wants a post Brexit relaxation of visa rules to allow EU citizens to return to Britain and fill the employment gaps.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of the these employment gaps.

Clearances of whatever kind have triumphed.

Restaurants are no more.

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

MARKET JOINS FORCES WITH STREET COBBLES` REPAIRS

 The local touch wins praise for tiny Alston

       

The tiny Cumbria  town of Alston with a population of about 1,100, has put has put its big city neighbour Carlisle to shame in organising an outdoor market. Many people agree that David won by a mile in this David versus Golliath contest.

Alston won because it relied on the people of the town. Carlisle, about 100 times the size with a population of 108,000 relied on outsiders and lots  of government cash.

 The market was a first for Alston with more  markets promised in the next few  months  as the town combines its entertaining street markets with town improvement in an unique way through re-instatement of its street cobbles.

The similar first weekend market 28 miles away in Carlisle had lots of food stalls , drinks` stalls, garden stalls and continuous highly organsed mass entertainment. It was called the Hawker Festival.

The city council organised the festival and backed it. And the government backed it with thousands of pounds from its national Welcome Back Fund.

With all that cash backing, how could  the Hawker Festival be anything but a success?

 It attracted hundreds of people and the stallholders seemed to make thousands of pounds .

But sadly, it also attacted a lot of criticism.

Critics said  the  stallholders came from miles away and there  wasn`t a local stallholder  in sight. Publicans said they had been deserted by their customers who had preferred  to drink at the Hawker Festival.

And critical politicians pointed out that all the thousands of pounds spent at the market had not stayed in Carlisle to benefit the city but had been moved away by the stall holders.

 Could any of the Carlisle critcisms be made about Alston`s street market?.The Alston stallholders were local, the Alston pubs boomed and Alston money stayed in  Alston.

The town claims to be the highest market town in England.

The quality of  Alston markets is  high too.

On this showing, that quality is also the highest in England

 PICTURED: ALSTON`S COBBLED MAIN STREET WITH, RIGHT. OLD-STYLE COVERED MARKET

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

COUNCILLOR SPOTLIGHTS "SAD DAY" FOR OUR CITY

 

`Dom ` style blast

at council house`sell-off

 

 

 Councillor Robert Betton (pictured) is becoming something of a local Dominic Cummings in his many wide-ranging  criticisms  of Carlisle City Council. His latest attack was on a decision twenty years ago to hand over the city`s entire stock of 8,000 council houses.

He called the decision a “sad day” in the history of the city.

This  is not the first occasion he has attacked both the handover and  Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association which bought the houses. He has made these attacks many times previously.

His attack was concerned particularly about the lack of one bedroom homes in plans for a new massive housing estate,  an omission he feels is still an unsolved problem for the area.

·       He said: “I’ve said it at every meeting: it was a sad day when all of the city’s housing stock was handed over from the council.

·       “From then on it just appears that providing social housing hasn’t been made a priority.

·       “We have a situation now, where houses are being built but a lot of these homes are out of financial reach for those who would like to get on the property ladder."

·       He added: “My main concern is that there is a lack of one bedroom homes being built as part of the development.

·       “We’re really missing proper social housing in the area still. It’s a shame that we still can’t offer enough single people that option.”

Councilors were discussing a 725-home estate planned for the southern edge of Morton. In total, the estate will consist of 199 two bedroom dwellings, 352 three bedroom dwellings and 174 four bedroom dwellings.

 Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

 

CUTS ARE BECOMING THE NORM

`Homeless 

get no help from planners`

Cuts to affordable home numbers are becoming the norm, says a Cumbria local newspaper correspondent, highlighting the big reduction in the construction of these homes by a leading county building company, Story Homes.

Contributors to the letters column of the Penrith-based Cumberland and Westmorland Herald newspaper are continuing to draw attention to the shortage of these homes and the policy of local builders to make reductions to plans for more  of the homes.

In this week`s issue of the newspaper, Maggie Clowes of Appleby attacks Eden District Council`s planning committee for giving the go ahead for these reductions.

She writes:“The committee seemed more concerned to protect developers` profiles than to ensure sufficient affordable housing for its own taxpayers.

“Perhaps the scrutiny committee should consider how honest it is to pay lip service to policy on affordable housing which in practice is regularly ignored.”

“It would be interesting to know just how many developments have actually been built with the prescibed 30 percent affordable housing”

 

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227

 

`AFFORDABLE HOMES ARE IN DIRE NEED`

 

Housing cuts that

hit the

needy

Just how serious is the housing crisis? And just how serious are the  building companies in efforts to solve it?

The questions are prompted by the plan by the Carlisle based Story Homes  to  build 40   new homes at Greystoke(Cumbria) and the spirited defence of the homeless and less well off people when that company decided to drastically reduce the number of affordable homes  planned in the scheme.

 Many people will applaud Dacre and Greystoke parish councils in telling Eden Council`s planning comittee that the reduction- from ten to four houses-  “made a mockery of the whole scheme and that local affordable housing is in dire need.”

Applause too for Councillors Debra Wicks and Roy Fisher for highlighting the exodus of young people from Cumbria and  the great need in the county for affordable housing.

The Greystoke scheme is not the first in which Story Homes has sought a big reduction in affordable  homes.

In January it was reported that the company sought to reduce  the number of affordable homes from 31 to 22 in the new Carlisle Road estate planned at Brampton.

Is this modus operandi  becoming the  norm with Story Homes?

It certainly is the norm with many other building companies thoughout the country. They make similar applications, pleading that their  schemes  become no longer viable if no affordable housing  reductions are made.

These reductions of course mean better profits for the builders, but  also, scandalously,  a continuous decline in the the number of affordable homes.

At the same time the housing crisis roars ahead, characterised in urban areas by the never-ending scandal of rough sleeping in the streets.

What can be done? No point in looking to our Tory government which has  long been ideologically opposed to any form of social housing and is of course  a friend of the big builders.

And those big builders- any help from them?

Many of them have a second scandalous record:  grossly excessive profits, beefed up by various lucrative government housing schemes.

The only help seems to be the  very welcome and commendable pressure from bodies like Dacre and Greystoke parish councils, from individuals like Councillors Wicks and  Fisher. 

PICTURED :Stafford House, Greystoke.

  Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation publishes this blog. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 52227