Social Liberal Forum Conference

Yesterday was our first Social Liberal Forum Conference.  In a few short months we went from worrying about whether there would actually be enough people to attend, to having standing space only!

(You can find out more about the SLF at http://www.socialliberal.net/)

Some great speakers (Will Hutton in particular was excellent - he struggled to get there and then spoke without any notes).  It was good also to be able to hear from, and question, Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes.

We made a point of not just inviting Lib Dem speakers and I personally was particularly interested to hear from Neal Lawson from Compass and from Halina Ward, an expert on the concept of sustainable development.

David Hall Matthews (chair of SLF) made the point that a few years ago the organisation was a smallish group and today there are around 1,500 members and more on a mailing list.  I loved the point about the fact that we are now big enough to hold an event which runs itself without the Chair doing all the work!

As well as chairing one of the sessions, I made a point of lobbying Vince Cable re a Liverpool issue and spoke to Chris Huhne about another.  (I took part in a bloggers interview with Chris Huhne which I'll write about separately)

Obviously there's going to be loads of follow up needed within the party as well as outside it but really very well done indeed to the team who did the legwork.

I took this picture (below) to demonstrate how significant the event became

Doorknocking again

Hmm.  A rather unflattering photo of part of the team starting a doorknocking session in L25.

20 mph roads

Liverpool City Council is going to consult about which residential streets could become 20mph roads.  This could see quite a few extra places getting the slower speed limit.  The change could make quite a difference to people's safety.  If you are hit by a car at 20mph you are likely to live.  If the speed is 40 you are likely to die.

Councils up and down the country are now able to do this a lot faster and with more ease than they could previously.  While some places (Portsmouth is the example that is quoted most often) have already made this sort of change, there used to be loads of red tape.  Last week though Norman Baker, who is one of the Lib Dems in government, announced some changes which meant that a lot of that red tape, and some of the expense, disappeared.


What he said was, ‘if councils and local communities want to put in place 20 mph schemes on residential roads or use common-sense measures such as variable speed limits outside schools, then they should be able to do so without spending time and money satisfying unnecessary Whitehall diktats.’

The key changes in the process are:

Many of the current restrictions and obstacles to rolling out 20mph zones are being removed so that residential roads can be implemented with cheaper and less signs.

Importantly councils will no longer require approval from Government to introduce 20 mph zones.

Which brings me to the issue at hand.  Liverpool hasn't been explicit yet about how it will consult and how it will make the decisions, but I am keen to get some information in to help people in roads that know they would support the change.
 
So, if you live in a road where you think this would be a good idea, please drop me an e mail to paula.keaveney@liverpool.gov.uk.  Obviously I need to know your name and contact details and the road you are talking about .
 
In Cressington some of you will already have had notes from me about this but there's no reason to wait if you want to get in touch.

New planters

This is one of the planters placed in part of our area this month.  These were paid for out of the neighbourhood fund, a small pot of money that ward councillors decide how to spend.  The money was committed before May and it's great to see the flowers here now.  These were one of the items decided on by myself, Richard Oglethorpe and Peter Millea (who sadly is not a Councillor any more)  I popped into the shop on Garston Old Road the other day and the shopkeeper told me that people were really made up at the difference it made to have flowers there.  (He also promised to water the plants although after this weekend's weather that won't be needed for a while!)

These two have their birthday this week.

They are nine but they seem to think they are still kittens!

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.

Alleydumping

I realise it can look a bit odd going round photographing dumping and litter, but here's a picture of some dumping I noticed in Cressington ward yesterday.  I've reported it for clearance and the Council say it should be gone by the 15th ( suspect it will have grown by then)