Derek Forrest

First of all many thanks to the 350 people who voted Lib Dem  in the Borough and the 1116 who voted the same in the County. Alas we were 21 short of the winning Caleb Tomlinson and 5 of the Tory who came second . You will have noticed that the campaign was against the Tory in the hope of getting more opposition into the Council. In that we succeeded and we have every confidence that Caleb will follow his brothers excellent example. Sadly Matt could not retain his County seat. County wide we managed to retain our Penwortham seat and win 4 more seats bringing us up to 10 with 51 Tories and 16 Labour. The big difference this will make is even more cash towards winning their 6 target seats in the North West. Expect the deluge before next May!!!

On the big issues it will be interesting to see if they continue with Lancashire locals and the supposed policy of handing down power or will they try pull in the power in an attempt to create a Lancashire wide unitary council. You will remember this was their policy when the government were consulting on the reorganisation of local government.

What about your South Ribble Focus team? We still have only one Councillor and do not count as a party but rest assurred we shall attend all meetings where we can make a mark and keep the Tories under pressure. Hopefully we shall be able to get out some more focuses working towards the election in two years. Hopefully too we shall be able to recruit more Focus  deliverers. This election we used UTube for the first time  and had 60 viewings . This is an area where we shall see increased use . Similarly Elections see a vast amount of time and effort put into leaflets which have an active life of about 8 seconds between door and bin. How much better if we can use an email database to communicate with those who are sympathetic to the cause. If as seems likely the Tories win at the next election the hope is that a year on their will be an increasing amount of dissatisfaction  which we can exploit and use to set about reducing the number of tories on the Council.

Not the most popular topic in England but here I wanted to step out of party politics and give you my personal view as someone who is pro Europe and takes an interest in European matters. We have 8 MEPs to elect and a whole variety of parties to chose from including Nick Griffin of the BNP party which probably has its best hope here in the NW. Clearly therefore do NOT vote BNP. Secondly of all the other parties Chris Davies no 1 for LIB dems has shown what a good MEP should do . He is active in all sorts of areas of legislation but has been particularly effective in highlighting the ease with which MEPs do and can fiddle their expenses.Robert Atkins (no 1 on the Tory list) and Den Dover (now independent) have both had difficulties in this area with the latter being sacked from the Tory party and the former having difficulty in explaining how public money paid for him to go to his son’s wedding in the USA.

The last election was of course a disaster for Lib Dems in Leyland and we found ourselves with 45 out of 50 odd councillors Tory and only one Lib Dem from Penwortham.

The task was to try and provide an opposition and keep the Lib Dem flag flying. The solution was the fact that the Council allowed a member of the public 5mins to speak at every council .

Since then we have attended every single Council meeting and spoken for our 5 mins in each and every one ; often being the most heard voice. Despite the fact that it is not always easy facing 45 baying and baaing Tories we have put questions on all varieties of topics such as litter;the waste plant and  parking. Perhaps what we are proudest of is pressuring the Tories to publish details of their attendances and then exposing the poor record of some Leyland members. Indeed that we have a by-election now is in no small part due to our efforts.

Whether we get elected now or not the policy will continue but we do feel that we can do the job better as a councillor and give you more of a service. This is all the more important as the administration is dominated by senior Tories from the Western Parishes  who have tendency to belittle Leylanders and their problems as now in the parking crisis. They also have failed to give their own Leyland Councillors a share of the power to get things done preferring unelected businnessmen to your elected representatives. Leyland desperately needs money spending on it if it is to survive as a Town and the present administration will inevitably face questions from their rich Longton electors as to why so much is being spent upon Leyland a place few of them venture into. They must be kept with their noses to the regeneration grindstone and we can do that better if elected.

Rest assurred win or lose we shall continue as a thorn in the side of the Tory administration asking the questions it would prefer not to answer.

When the Waste plant was proposed the County Council granted itself planning permission. Local protesters got together and formed RAWS to oppose the plant. They took Legal Advice and astonishingly got positive advice for a Judicial review of the decision. Inevitably this was refused and of course the Plant is now well on the way to completion.

Your Focus Team were interested to know how much this all cost the County Council and of course the Council Tax payer. A freedom of information request was therefore made and we recently got a reply. Evidently the Council’s legal costs amounted  to £39725.80 of whch over £34000 was the Barrister’s fees . RAWS paid £6444.oo as they were ordered to pay the costs from 2pm on the day of the hearing (sic).

The delay caused by the Judicial review dwarfs the costs though as this is estimated at £15 million.

Those who wish to exercise their Legal rights should therefore bear in mind the likely cost of their actions as it is the taxpayer who ultimately has to pick up the tab!!

Let us stretch your mind back to the Election in 2007. You may remember that the Tories promised that if they won they would get the Council to pay for the cost of the the RAWS (Residents against the Waste Site) appeal against the  planning permission. In the end it turned out that the Council  was not able to do this but fortunately an anonymous donor came forward paid the £40000 and so the appeal went forward to its inevitable refusal. In the meantime many voters were persuaded to vote Tory and we have a Council made up of 45 Tories ;8 Labour; 1 Lib Dem and 1 Idle Toad.

Margaret Smith the Tory Leader has always denied knowledge of the Benefactor.

There the matter seemed to end but in their October last publication “Conservatives talking sense” the Tories thanked Lorraine Fulbrook for saving the Council and Taxpayers having to pay the £40000. Now Lorraine is the rather wealthy Lady who wants to be South Ribble’s new MP. Your Focus Team asked Margaret Smith in Council if she now accepted that Lorraine was the Benefactor. Despite a ruling by South Ribbles Mayor that the question was not a proper one ( we know not why) Margaret repeated the anonaminity of the Benefactor!! Puzzled your Focus Team wrote privately to Margaret for an explanation. She in turn referred us to Lorraine who we duly asked. To date there has been no reply. So the mystery remains.

One further factor of interest is that our local and rather shy Millionaire  Trevor Hemmings has been revealed as a major Tory donor and indeed has been pictured with David Cameron. Was he the Benefactor? Probably we shall never know but certainly this use of money to buy elections has proved its worth and will be wheeled out again at the next election; unless of course by then the Bankers; Hedge Fund managers and off shore business men, who usually provide generous financial support to the Tories find themselves a bit short of a buck!!

Your Focus team campaigned for South Ribble to have  Councillor’s attendance records available for public inspection see:-http://egenda.southribble.gov.uk/akssribble/users/public/admin/main.pl?op=ListCurrentMembers

You will see that Linda Williams  has an 87%  and Madge Suthers has 61% record of service. Interestingly Madges’ worst meeting seems to be Leyland East  Area Committee where she has only managed one attendance. This is the main meeting  where she would meet you her electors . Whereas Linda is a frequent contributor to meetings your Focus team has yet to hear Madge speak. It has to be said though that Madge’s record is far better than some. Her brother Councillor Ray Woodburn at Leyland Central has only a 21% record and has of course featured in the Leyland Guardian. It is the view of the Focus Team that attendance has improved since the publicity and the publishing of the records.

£60000 is what the Tories propose to be spent on this. The main benefit is that visiting salesmen will be able to access their home networks and do Google searches from their cars parked on Hough Lane. Useful but is it worth spending that money now. Will they come to Leyland because they can use their PDAs? Will they set up business here because of the Wifi. Probably not.

I have pointed out in a question to the Council that a stranger will be able to perform all sorts of technical wizardry but he won’t be able to find anywhere to spend a penny. Even the promised sign to the Market toilets has not materialized.

Is this now off the agenda? its begining to look like it. Cllr Michael Green in Council on Wednesday said he and his committee would look into this “if there was any sign of public demand” How exactly we measure that demand he did not say. In the same meeting labour were bemoaning the loss of Longton festival. The view of focus team is that only with a return to a Leyland Council are we ever likely to return to our long tradition of festival.

This is what was suggested at the Leyland East Area committee in response to long concerns by Moss lane residents who were concerned over the use of Bow Brook/Moss lane as a rat run from Farington to the M6. This was proposed in an informal report prepared by

            Parking too was a problem made worse by events at St Ambroses and the under-use of their car park. This blocked drives and reduced Moss lane lane to one lane.

Last night at Cabinet  Tory porfolio holder Peter Mullineaux in an answer to Focus Rep Derek Forrest said that there was no prospect of a weekly residual collection.  His leader Margaret Smith pointed out quite rightly that the election literature  only said they would look into the feasability of such a scheme. What she did not mention was that Tory central phone banks had been saying “vote Conservative if you want a return to weekly collections”. It just goes to show that electors should read the small print especially if its in blue ink!!!!!