The week just gone

This has been a week of balancing my work at Edge Hill with being a Councillor.  At this point in the academic year there are all sorts of deadlines to do with marking and degree classifications so the week started off with me having to meet one of them.  It's always a big relief when that is done as the students won't get their marks or their degrees if we don't get things sorted in time.  Luckily for me I've got some great students and some of the marks are very impressive indeed.

That done however, I had some important Cressington ward and Lib Dem things to do.  I've blogged about the Fairness Commission already which met on Wednesday. As soon as there is more to say about evidence collecting and other opportunities, I'll post it.

This week saw three important meetings for Cressington (meetings with officers not committee meetings). At the first Richard Oglethorpe and I were looking at the maps the Council had drawn up of all the plots of land the Council thought could be used for housing.  Some of these were bizarre and simply either wouldn't work or would involve getting rid of some nice bits of open space that are valued by local people.  Others look doable if there is local support (and we asked for some consultation).

We then discussed, in a separate meeting, the future of Garston Library and Garston Leisure Centre. The Council has been consulting about the future of Libraries and we were worried about what might come out of that for our area.  There won't be any clear recommendations or decisions for a while but I think we managed to highlight the importance of Garston Library and we understand that the useage figures etc prove that it's a valueable resource.

I did a street surgery in the middle of the week, and another on Saturday morning.  These are a good way of talking to people and spotting issues.  Got rained on both times though.

Friday was Shadow Cabinet.  We meet at 8 am (which means I have to be there quite a bit earlier) to do some thinking about the next fortnight's activities on the Council.  It was good to see that Tina Gould's motion on electronic cigarettes had some press coverage and that there's interest in Barbara Mace's work on local history.

Saturday saw good news in the press for one of my colleagues - Richard Kemp - who got a CBE. I had been tipped off about this but had to keep it quiet till it was announced. 

Saturday for me also saw me doing the Councillors' surgery at the Library and then kicking off a petition on a particular local issue (which I'll blog about separately rather than cover in a throw away line)

And today.. well I've been catching up on my work for Edge Hill University, catching up on casework letters and e mails and attempting some research for this week's events and meetings.

Oh, we also had a not very helpful meeting about the plans for Stalbridge Dock.  The deadline for anyone wanting to send in a comment on the Merseyside wide plan is 20th June.  One of my previous posts has the link to the website.