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Stirling Centre review underway
THE Stirling Centre in Maidstone Road, Rochester, may be forced to close during weekdays because of “deliberate starvation of funds by the Labour Government during the years when Gordon Brown was Chancellor”, according to a local Councillor.
Councillor John Ward, one of three Conservative Councillors from Rochester South and Horsted Ward, made the comments following widespread criticisms of Medway Council for putting forward the question of reduced opening hours for the centre.
The claims were made on his website following a public consultation meeting on Tuesday, which launched the review with the question “should the Centre’s weekday open hours be reduced to just evenings, or perhaps evenings and one or two daytimes per week?” being put forward. Councillors Sylvia Griffin (RS&H Ward) and Jane Etheridge (Chairman of Medway Council’s Community Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee) were also in attendance.
On his website, Cllr Ward explains why the cuts are being proposed: “It is an unavoidable consequence of the severe underfunding of Medway Council, so all areas of the council’s activities that are not required by law, or are required only in limited respects, are having to be trimmed. This way, by sharing the burden over a number of items/places, the impact on many of them can be reduced.”
Cllr Ward also goes on to state that the Council is not to blame.
“Of course, it shouldn’t have been necessary to review the opening hours at all; but when central government continues to place additional statutory burdens upon councils and then in many cases (most definitely including Medway!) reduces funding by millions of pounds per year, something has to give.
“In the current year, an additional £5 million or so was taken off the amount coming to Medway, partly a so-called floor damping device to effectively steal millions of pounds from Medway residents, and the rest was a rather graphically-named clawback of nearly a million pounds more.
“Despite campaigns on behalf of Medway by the Conservative Administration (including several meetings with Government Ministers, and even a protest taken to 10 Downing Street!) over recent years, there has been no improvement in the situation. Indeed, it has clearly worsened, and despite all the economies that have been introduced, the camel’s back has now finally been broken.
“If anyone doubts the council’s financial prudence and high value for money, all the financial assessments, inspections and audits have consistently demonstrated this in virtually all instances, and we still charge one of the lowest rates of Council Tax in the country—so that is an obvious red herring. No: the fault does not lie with the council: it is entirely and clearly down to deliberate starvation of funds by the Labour Government during the years when Gordon Brown was Chancellor. Well worth remembering, is that!”
Editorial Comment
To me, it is blatantly obvious that Gordon Brown played a spiteful and damaging game of politics with Local Government funding.
Whether intentional or otherwise, the effect given off is Politically impressive: by clawing back money from Conservative Councils each year (i.e. reducing public spending even more) Gordon Brown could sit back and watch as those Councils struggled to find funding – meaning that either Council Tax would need to be raised or spending cut. Whichever result was achieved, Labour Councillors could then take up the lead criticisms of a “failing Council.”
It is a clever move, admittedly, but when you consider that whilst the game was being (and mostly likely will contine to be) played, the only casualties are the public, who will lose out on such valuable services as the Stirling Centre.
It is time to stop playing this game and start serving the people who matter – the people who elected a Labour MP (and thus a Labour Government).
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Well done for picking this up from my website!
The event on Tuesday was heavily Labour-loaded, and one of their main aims was to attempt to divert attention from the underlying cause of this situation and make out that it was the council that was at fault.
That would have been fine if it had been at fault here, because at least there would be some redress and a way to solve the problem. In reality, if people were gullible enough to fall into Labour’s trap, they’d end up with no hope of a solution.
This, interestingly, is similar to the situation regarding the land behind Compass Close in Rochester East. I, as a seasoned (and very successful!) campaigner, offered impartial advice to those who approached me over that issue. If they had followed that advice, instead of becoming pawns in the Rochester East Labour councillors’ political game, they would have a chance (but no guarantee!) of saving that land from development.
As it was — and as I warned them — they ended up losing the land for development. All so very predictable, and as exactly as I had expected and advised — but no, they knew better, and fell into Labour’s trap, which had been rather obviously designed to further their own ends and was nothing whatsoever to do with supporting their ward.
Okay, so that was outside my ward, and I was simply trying to be helpful “above the call of duty”.
The Stirling Centre, though, is in my ward, and I am fearful that ignorance and gullibility will lead to a negative result, whereas a more informed and intelligent reaction by the Centre’s users and supporters could otherwise put sufficient pressure on the government (and, specifically, their very vulnerable local MPs) to at least have a reasonable chance of making a difference.
If they don’t wake up to the realities of the Centre’s situation (and many other non-statutory provisions in Medway) they stand to scupper the lot through their inaction in tackling the root cause of the problem. I cannot do it alone.
Just as with saving Rochester Airport and numerous other campaigns since, I need the weight of numbers behind me if I am to save the Stirling Centre and other such facilities from threats of reduction of services.
If anyone reading this genuinely wants to tackle this issue, there is only the one way to go, and that is to lobby MPs for the return of Medway’s Millions — currently something like 83 million pounds deficit in revenue budgeting over the past six years. I don’t expect all of that to be returned to us: just enough to cover this year’s needs and a commitment to correct funding levels in perpetuity.
Any competent government would be able to do so, and hopefully have the guts to admit their errors over these past several years. If they haven’t what it takes — well, don’t be surprised if they are voted completely out of government at the next general election!
Update on September 7 2007, at 17:02
Rather ironically, one of the names on the Labour Party’s petition (highly ironic in itself) was a member of the Labour Government starving Medway of funding – Harriet Harman MP.
What are these people playing at? They create the unfair scenario then use it to try to score cheap political points ahead of what can only be assumed as an impending election.
When will they learn that the people of this Country want – and deserve – actions not words, that playing Politics is crude and unfair.
If Harman really cared, she would be helping Medway to get its money back and save these services, rather than support the childish games which are helping no-one but themselves.
Thanks for the update, Alan.
Those of us who have been watching the behaviour of various political parties and their members over recent years soon realised that petitions started by political groups have been mostly (though not always) designed and primarily intended to further the ends of the political group concerned. The signatories are mere pawns in that game, and their needs and/or wishes secondary to the main aim.
Petitions /can/ be genuine (I have organised two such myself, over the years) but it is relatively uncommon. One of the biggest clues is: at whom is the petition aimed?
If in this case (I haven’t seen it myself) it is attacking the council, this will of course be a purely party political move to make Medway’s Conservative administration the (incorrect!) target, which fulfills one such political aim of the Labour group. The other is to divert critical attention from the true cause of the problem itself, which is their own (national) party in government.
More-or-less everything they do is geared to the same ends, if you keep a monitoring eye on what is going on, as I (and others) have done. It’s all so very transparent — and often predictable in advance. In fact, it’s a bit of a game to predict what they will do next, when, and exactly how.
All of it is so obvious, really, when you look below the surface gloss and learn afew things about what is really happening “out there”…
As for Ms Harman: notice what the first two-thirds of her name spell: “harm”. I think that is most appropriate!
Latest news:
If you look on the council website or in the local newspapers you will now be able to get an idea of the extent to which Medway is deliberately underfunded.
I have been saying “tens of millions of pounds a year”, and the officially-researched figures being quoted in those places show just how right I was.
Although I don’t think the Nottingham comparison is quite accurate (I wouldn’t expect £60 million more per year, as we are very efficient here, unlike Labour-run Nottingham Council!) it is clear from other comparisons being drawn that Medway should recieve at least half that amount more per year than we do, and probably more like two-thirds of that huge difference.
As always, the facts and figures are available to anyone who wants to research them. Indeed, most of the info comes from the government’s own sources(!)
So, the next time anyone complains about threats of reduction in services or payments to (say) voluntary organisations, remind them who is the real culprit, and get them to aim their sights at our local Labour MPs, at least two of whom have been complicit throughout in this deception and (effectively) theft of Medway people’s national tax money.