Friday, 29 November 2013
Catch up
I have been quite unwell, a nasty chest cold laid me low for a few days and as a result I have been playing catch up hence my paucity of blogs over the last two weeks. However I am now back up and running albeit not with all cylinders firing! Saxon Square is now well under way and although the new openness of the area comes as a bit of a shock when first seen it is so much lighter and brighter and in my opinion will be a great improvement. At the other end of the town the old post office site is now buzzing with builders as the housing/retail project gets under way. So plenty going on in our town which will make a difference and improve the whole experience for visitors and residents. We now need the support from County to bring our high street traffic/ pedestrian balance into the 21st century and deal with the Fountain area with a view to improving safety and reducing traffic congestion. On Monday I chaired the Dorset Community Safety Partnership at DCC offices and had the satisfaction of notifying further reductions in all levels of crime and disorder, we are however still tackling problems in some of our areas of deprivation where crime levels are still unacceptable. In the last month I have opened two events in Dorset, both full day seminars covered domestic violence issues and the new anti social behaviour laws being debated at present in both houses at Parliament. Much has been achieved by our Dorset Community safety teams over the last few years enabling us to concentrate on specific issues or areas where problems still exist. There is every possibility that our locality working concept will be embedded in a Pan Dorset CSP when the two unitary councils see the opportunity to link up. No brainer for me saving oodles of taxpayers money! Working with the Local Enterprise Partnership I was again at Parliament presenting the draft of the Dorset City deal. A full hour with the minister gave the opportunity to launch our scheme and associated request for kick start funding to release and access 59 hectares of industrial space at the airport over the next fifteen years delivering 16/20,000 potential jobs for Dorset. More on this over the next couple of months. This weekend sees a full group policy meeting where we will finalise the consultation for the new parking rates in Town Centre as well as policy steers to the council for issues like the Hampshire mineral extraction issue, the new direction on litter and get to grips with the final stages of the Local plan directive from the planning inspector, adoption of our plan will see better protection for our green belt areas and determine the housing forecast for the immediate future. Together with trawling through hundreds of emails I have a busy weekend ahead of me.
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8 comments:
Let me get this right. Christchurch Council, having in my lifetime allowed large former industrial sites at Steamer Point,Somerford Airfield and Barrack Road to be turned into housing estates or retail parks, is now looking for more industrial land? As Richard Littlejohn might say, you couldn't make it up!
Ahh I see you read the Daily Mail!How interesting!
Do you know, Somerford1962. These comments are really:
1) Boring;
2) Repetitive;
3) Predictable.
Still no news of what YOU are doing, incidentally, or has my previous post (like all those even more previous!) been ignored with no reply once more? All you need to do to stop all of this is answer.
Note - comment punctuation changed, hence its removal and reposting.
Taking no side here but how about an answer to Somerford 1962 valid point re the industrial sites, rather than a jibe at his daily reading or questions over his validity. Although I would be astonished if he was a subscriber to that worthless tory rag the mail.
Unfortunately Dizzy Rascal,I suspect that they don't have answer. Are there any serving councillors who have lived here long enough to remember SRDE,Shand Kydd and MEXE? That is the problem,they know nothing about Christchurch.
Very very sad that these long term Christchurch employers have left the town etc., my grand father worked at de-Havilland where my father was an apprentice, he also had employment at shand kydd and Mexe,and revvo castors, my mother worked at shand kidd and granny at syntelex, excuse spelling, all gone now, I guess we can not blame current council sitters for this though.
The trouble is, what point is there? Christchurch came into Hampshire in 1974. This is the best part of 40 years ago so we can't go back that far and if we could, what for? And does it actually matter if some of the councillors haven't lived here all their lives? Much of the industry here declined primarily because of the growth of eastern imports, as it did in much of the country. Having just looked it up, there are six premises available to rent in Airfield Road. I think that most 'immigrants' know a great deal about Christchurch. We can't return to the old days, however much we may want to. The problem is not that they 'Know nothing about Christchurch' because that is Christchurch as it was and can't be again, as is true across the country. It does seem a pity that we shouldn't welcome newcomers who, having had experience in other environments, wouldn't be allowed to let Christchurch progress. Yes, I mean progress, because we can't go back in this modern world. Maybe sad, and I can understand your regrets, but still true.
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