Liverpool Commission update

Later this month its the final meeting (well final before the recommendations report is written) of the Liverpool Commission. The Commission is an independent body set up by Liverpool City Council to discuss and make recommendations around a number of things including recruitment of potential councillors, training for elected members, systems of scrutiny, involvement of marginalised groups etc. There are two councillors on this body - one is me - but the majority of members are independent of the Council. Liverpool is one of nine Councils running something like this although I understand some others are likely to follow.

I have blogged about this before but the reason I raise this now is to remind people that the next meeting is 23rd April in the evening. The meetings are held in public so people are welcome to attend. Also though there is still time for people to send in thoughts.

Information about the Commission (mainly minutes and agendas from previous meetings plus details of time date and venue) is on the City Council website - www.liverpool.gov.uk. You can also e mail me with questions though - either post them here or e mail me at paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk.

I can thoroughly recommend...

... a few days away.

Just spent five days in a cottage in a Yorkshire village (sort of betweel Halifax and Hebden bridge). Loads of fresh air. Loads of walking. And mobile free (as I soon discovered my phone wouldnt work in the cottage).

MWDA letter

In a previous post I offered to send a copy of the letter from the Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority out to anyone interested. This is the letter correcting many false impressions in the leaflet about the proposed Jack Allen Holdings waste plant.

I don't have an electronic copy so please if you do post to say you'd like a copy, please give me your postal address (you can e mail me at paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk with this if you would prefer)

Alternatively a scanned version has, I understand, now been added to
www.southliverpoolresidents.org.uk.

Ban these words?

The Local Government Association earlier this week said that there were certain words and phrases that councils (and by extension others) shouldn't use because they were meaningless or confusing. Fair enough - its important that the language we all use is understandable and correct.

So I'd like to throw my own pet hates into the mix!

Firstly - "going forward" which seems constantly used in the context of plans or organisations. Well unless we are all about to go time travelling - there is not really any other way you could go! Now I know that people who use this phrase mean to refer to more than chronology - but what exactly? It is never clear and you could probably chop those two words off the end of a phrase and have exactly the same meaning

Secondly "refresh" when used about plans or strategies. We are told about the refresh of the Multi Area Agreement or Neighbourhood Plan or whatever. Why on earth is this word used. Surely if we are looking at a plan because a few years have gone by and we want to check and possibly amend we should be saying "update", or "review" or "revisit" or "renew". When the plan was first written, did we describe it as "fresh" ? No. We would have called it "new" - fresh carries a whole different group of meanings.

But finally, my all time bugbear is the word "access" when used as a verb. I don't "access" services. I use them, or apply for them, or get them, or receive them or qualify for them. In fact using access simply weakens the meaning in many cases.

So I am now off to Chair our Neighbourhood Partnership Working Group where no doubt we will be talking about how to refresh the LAA and enable people to access things going forward!

Issue pursued

Thank you to the anonymous person who replied to my blog re cigarettes. I haven't published your comment as that would act as a tip off but I have taken action on the issue. Apologies to other readers as this will mean nothing to them, but I want the person who commented to know that the information has been passed on.

Friends of Garston Park

Anyone interested in meeting to discuss this? Several parks in Liverpool already have Friends groups and they do seem to make a difference. I'd like to get a group of people together to discuss whether we can get a Friends of Garston Park group set up. I've sent some letters out about this, but given that its impossible to write to everyone who might want to be involved, I am posting here too. If there is enough interest I'll get a meeting together so we can discuss it a bit further. If you think you'd like to take part, even if just in a preliminary meeting what I need is your name and contact details (address or e mail address). Please drop me an e mail at paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk.

Garston Hospital plans - update

I have just heard from a local resident and campaigner that the application to "spot list" the Garston Hospital building has been rejected. Had the building been listed the PCT were talking about taking their development plans elsewhere (although I am not sure how viable that would have been given the lack of suitable sites elsewhere). What this means is that the PCT still needs planning approval for its plans at the hospital, but that these won't be affected by any listing of the building (although people may still be commenting on other aspects).

I imagine a lot of people will be upset by this as the outside of this building is a significant Garston landmark. Work has been going on to try to incorporate historial aspects into the design, but there is no getting away from the fact that the plans for this building look very different to the old hospital.It may be that there is more that can be suggested, asked for, lobbied for etc but we now also need to concentrate on ensuring that the health improvements do go ahead (particularly in the current financial situation where PFI deals are becoming more and more difficult to obtain)