Councillors' Allowances

[shakermaker]

Originally Posted by lancsdave

This has become one of those threads which truly reflects real life. Ask why a politician does anything and you get a load of waffle and no answers

Couldn't have put it better.

Still waiting...

[Benipete]

I find it hard to believe when people can justify costs for themselves but not for the " common people "

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by suedarbo

I wonder how many would carry on if they got standard minimum wage and nothing else?

In terms of the hours you put in over the course of a month you actually get less than the minimum wage as a councillor. That's not a complaint but I certainly couldn't live off the money I get from council work and the time I spend on projects is definitely not reflected in my salary.

All councillors get a basic wage of just under £4,500 per year plus mileage for any council business at 60p per mile. If you're fortunate enough to be granted the chairmanship of a committee then you get an extra £1,500 per year but Britcliffe has swallowed most of those up himself.

In years gone by you used to get nothing at all.

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

Page 7 of this week's Accrington Observer reports that Hyndburn's 36 councillors shared a total of £291,953 between them in allowances.

The council leader Councillor Peter Britcliffe was the highest claimer with £30,952. Councillor Malcolm Pritchard claimed £1 of his basic allowance.

I really feel sorry for Councillor Britcliffe, what with having over 30,000 times the tasks of Councillor Pritchard. It's no wonder the former has no time to visit this forum.

Why do we need so many councillors for such a small area, and why do they each need to claim so much money in allowances?

Cllr Britcliffe's main role is trying to get his face in the paper and that takes up around 168 hours per week.

To be serious about how many councillors we need, we're actually spread pretty thin. Generally, there is one councillor for every 1,000 households which is a reduction from what we've had in the past. There used to be 47 councillors but this was cropped several years ago to 35.

Rishton has three ward councillors but it isn't a case of one councillor looking after 1,000 homes, we're all responsible for all 3,300 households therefore if two of us happen to find ourselves saddled with a lame duck it becomes bloody hard work.

I'm fortunate to have Harry Grayson as my right hand man because we work very well in tandem and are beginning to get things done that have needed attention for years.

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob

I will never understand why the people of the borough are not regularly arrested for throwing bricks at councillors. It strikes me that when they eventually get around to doing the job they were elected for, most of them are about as effective and useful as chocolate fireguards. The rest of their time they appear to spend in conducting pointless personal vendettas. A reorganisation of Local Government cannot come soon enough.

And as for the pathetic procedure they have for deciding who is going to be the Mayor... well, words fail me!

I understand you live in Rishton so my offer to you would be to get in touch and tell me what you want doing. My contact details have been posted through your door often enough if you do happen to live in this fine village so feel free to use them.

Councillors can only work with the information they are given so if there is a problem they may not necessarily know about it. Cllr Grayson and myself regularly go on walkabouts through Rishton to log any problems (fly-tipping, derelict houses, potholes, etc) but there are many other things to consider as well.

In May, I set up a petition for a replacement post box that Royal Mail have taken from lower Rishton, I'm campaiging for a 20mph zone down Parker Street that all the residents want, we've signed off extra dogs bins and street lighting that residents have been asking for for years, I've built a rockery to improve a little public garden area.....the list goes on.

I appreciate the view that some members of the public have of councillors but we're not all on the make. Unless your name is Peter Britcliffe, there simply isn't the money to make any sweeping changes for the better.

Some of us still have the integrity that led us into politics in the first place so if you have an idea then voice it, don't just criticise for the sake of it.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Ken Moss

I understand you live in Rishton so my offer to you would be to get in touch and tell me what you want doing. My contact details have been posted through your door often enough if you do happen to live in this fine village so feel free to use them.

Councillors can only work with the information they are given so if there is a problem they may not necessarily know about it. Cllr Grayson and myself regularly go on walkabouts through Rishton to log any problems (fly-tipping, derelict houses, potholes, etc) but there are many other things to consider as well.

In May, I set up a petition for a replacement post box that Royal Mail have taken from lower Rishton, I'm campaiging for a 20mph zone down Parker Street that all the residents want, we've signed off extra dogs bins and street lighting that residents have been asking for for years, I've built a rockery to improve a little public garden area.....the list goes on.

I appreciate the view that some members of the public have of councillors but we're not all on the make. Unless your name is Peter Britcliffe, there simply isn't the money to make any sweeping changes for the better.

Some of us still have the integrity that led us into politics in the first place so if you have an idea then voice it, don't just criticise for the sake of it.

And some fell on Stoney Ground

[shakermaker]

Thank you Ken Moss for the first useful reply to the thread. You've offered your experience to answer my questions, for which I'm grateful. I have no real partisan persuasion (especially not in local politics) or axe-to-grind. The figures just don't make sense to me. I am still at a loss as to how Cllr. M. Pritchard can do his job while claiming just £1 for the full financial year, when Cllr. Britcliffe can't perform his role without an allowance less than £30,952. However I'm beginning to think I won't get an answer on that front.

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

Thank you Ken Moss for the first useful reply to the thread. You've offered your experience to answer my questions, for which I'm grateful. I have no real partisan persuasion (especially not in local politics) or axe-to-grind. The figures just don't make sense to me. I am still at a loss as to how Cllr. M. Pritchard can do his job while claiming just £1 for the full financial year, when Cllr. Britcliffe can't perform his role without an allowance less than £30,952. However I'm beginning to think I won't get an answer on that front.

Malcolm's case is slightly different from the rest of the councillors although I'm not entirely sure of the ins-and-outs of it, you'll have to ask him. I think it has something to do with the fact that he was a council employee for many years and has a pension.

I am by no means certain on this but it's along the lines of him receiving remuneration for something else which precludes him from getting the councillor's allowance.

However, if you can justify the £30k+ that Peter Britcliffe gets then you're a better man than me. This time next year his legacy will be there for all to see, he is bankrupting Hyndburn for his own ends by spending everything we have on projects to make himself look good.

[Acrylic-bob]

I am going to let Graham's comments pass, for now, while I try and decipher what they might mean.

Yes, Cllr. Moss, You are right I do live in Rishton, for my sins, and dear lord they must be many and truly horrific to have deserved Rishton as a penance. The place is, not to put too fine a point on it, a sh*t heap! Even the swans that swim on the canal are filthy. The mother of a friend of mine once described it as "an open mental home". And in the years since she made the remark things have, if anything, deteriorated.

I do appreciate that fact that you and Cllr. Grayson are attempting to clean the place up, I have seen the photographs of you with bin bag in hand, and I am pleased to see that you do not expect others to do what you are not prepared to have a go at yourself. So, a gold star for Cllr. Moss.

Now to the serious stuff.

First the running sores; The Roebuck has for a long time been a source of leisure and a place of business for those of our community who are addicted to the sale and consumption of controlled substances of classes 'A', 'B' and 'C' and yet, although the current tenants are well known to indulge in such products themselves, HBC Licensing and the Police offered no objection to their taking over the running of the place, and also turn a blind eye when the place is open all night and people are seen staggering out of there at four and five o'clock in the morning. Why is that Councillor?

Spring Street, Cut Wood, Need I say any more?

The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, as it runs through Rishton is little better than an open sewer. Perhaps now that the canal is closed to traffic for the next few months, British Waterways might be persuaded to avail themselves of the opportunity for a little housekeeping.

Apparently there is some sort of bylaw in existance which prohibits the conversion to residential use of retail premises in the High Street. As a centre of the retail trade Rishton has long since dropped off the serious shoppers map, if it was ever on there to start with. Is it not time that this situation should be investigated and the prohibition relaxed?

Second, Sticking plasters.

Those "flower towers" in front of the library are ridiculous!('Floral Market Town' my backside!) They aren't even level or straight. What a waste of time and money. Can HBC do nothing right the first time? The flower baskets are a similar disgrace. Why does most of the money available to brighten the place up appear to be spent at the end of Parker Street?
Why does the Town get two Cristmas trees? Why are neither of them ever planted straight? Why are there no Beat Bobbies? Why are the Carpet factory, the Paper Mill and the Mill at the top of Mary Street left vacant and derelict?


Things that are good. The flower beds in front of the War Memorial, Excellent, First Class. Whoever has charge of these deserves an RHS medal. Though I do think that it is about time that the Easter Crucifix was removed.

Is that enough to be going on with Cllr. Moss?

[Ken Moss]

I'm not denying that there are problems in Rishton, it was the whole point of me standing for election in May, but I'm afraid the problems you detail cannot be simply swept away at the stroke of a pen.

We'll start with The Roebuck - whatever may go on behind those doors, they do at least keep their house in order. The police are well aware of the drug problem in Rishton and have shut down dozens of drugs dens in the past two years so if the pub is as big a crackhouse as you seem to be implying then it will only be a matter of time. I run the quiz night there and have not seen anything going on which I would consider to be either illegal or antisocial.

Underage drinking on Cutwood Park has now been drastically reduced thanks to the efforts of the local bobbies (seemingly invisible to you).

The Spring Street derelicts have, thanks to persistence from myself and Cllr Grayson among others, now had a final order on them to be renovated by mid-August. Whilst this looks unlikely to happen there is a fallback plan which HBC will implement to sort the area out within a matter of months. It is a particular bugbear of mine as I have to look at it every day.

The canal is dredged by British Waterways three times a year and has just had a cleanup. They are also very quick to respond whenever we call in an instance of fly-tipping.

Planning applications for conversion from retail into residential accommodation is rarely turned down, in fact two of the old council buildings on Blackburn Road were passed with no problem only this year.

The flower towers are something of a sore point with both myself and Cllr Grayson as I agree that Rishton is not a market town and the project is a vast waste of money when we have local groups such as Prospects doing better work with a fraction of the money. I want to see the project scrapped and the money spent in a more positive way or simply not spent at all. If you don't like that then complain to Peter Britcliffe at HBC, it was his decision to cut our funding by £2,500 this year to fund the floral market town project.

Cllr Grayson and I are also reviewing the Christmas trees situation in terms of economies and there will be several reorganisations of the town's meagre funds pot this year. We were given just £12k to improve Rishton from May 2010 to April 2011.

I'm not disagreeing about any of the empty factories either but that does rather rely on private investment which Harry Grayson has been trying to tempt into the village for years.

Much as I can sympathise with your point of view, you still seem to harbour under the misapprehension that councillors have more powers than they actually do. We frequently disagree with HBC policy as well, particularly since it is Peter Britcliffe who hoards most of the money for his own projects. Vast tracts of money are wasted in an effort to get himself into the papers with a popular story and if I were treasurer of Hyndburn then half of what is spent by that man would be cut at a stroke.

The title 'Councillor' seemingly sticks in your craw but as a resident of Rishton I assure you that I am on your side.