This Wednesday the Swindon Labour Party is holding a public meeting, starting at 7pm at the Haydon Wick Parish Council Offices.

I would like to invite all North Swindon residents to attend this meeting and to share their views on the issues that matter to them.

I have established this meeting along with other Labour Councillors, to talk to the people of North Swindon and to hear their local concerns and see whether we can address any of these local concerns either now or should Labour take control of the Council in the future.

We are particularly interested in the local views on the issue of Section 106 (developers) money, which was generated from the development of the Northern Sector housing.

Some of the questions which arise out of the Section 106 issue include:

• Whether enough money was spent in the local area?

• Is the local infrastructure good enough in North Swindon to be able to redirect money generated in that area to the rest of the town?

• And how we can change the system, if necessary?

Labour wants to hear local residents’ views on these questions as well as any other local issues that have arisen so that we can develop policies which are based on the views of local people.

Councillor Jim Grant

Swindon Labour Group Leader

My desire to serve the people of Haydon Wick has been fueled by the incompetent and arrogant misrule of  the Tory Councillors who are currently in power and out of control.     They risk spoiling this great town.

Read the full story

Ollie Haydon Mulligan, Regional Organiser for the Labour Party helped to relaunch the Haydon Wick Branch in the Haydon Centre on the 22nd September.  The Branch covers not only Haydon Wick but Abbey Meads, Ash Brake,  Redhouse,  Oakhurst,  Priory Vale, St Andrews Ridge,  and Taw Hill.  Ollie talked about the challenges facing Labour in opposition, fighting for jobs and social-justice in the face of masochistic cuts and an unprecedented attack  on local authority funding.  Swindon has to make £45m worth of  ’savings’ – which will fall mainly on the elderly, the vulnerable and the young.  Facts that he passed on included ….

• There are nearly 150,000 job losses already announced or in the pipeline in 153 public bodies according to the GMB’s round up published this morning in advance of the TUC Congress in Manchester
• The Government has announced plans to cut NHS Direct
• The Local Government Association has warned that frontline services face a shortfall of £12.5 bn in 2013/4, rising to £20 bn by 2014/5. The gap will be created by rising demand for services, combined with cuts in government grants
• Contact a Family, the charity for families with disabled children, has raised concerns that the 2011 changes to Housing Benefit will hit disabled children especially hard.
• A survey by Every Disabled Child Matters reveals that local authorities are already cutting services for disabled children and their parents including short breaks, play and leisure, education, transport, health, training and equipment
• The Police Superintendents’ Association has warned the government that there will be “consequences” for public order if the police are not exempted from the cuts
• The Department for Education’s own assessment of the equality impact of the decision to stop the Building Schools for the Future programme confirms that this decision will have a disproportionate impact on the poorest children
• Health Minister Simon Burns has announced that the government will not go ahead with the previous government’s plans to make car parking free in English NHS hospitals.
• The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has highlighted that the pub it is based on is closing down – and that cuts in funding for the Community Owned Pubs scheme are to blame.
• It has been widely reported that councils are turning off streetlights to save cash.
• Seventy per cent of over-65s think that the elderly will be hardest hit by the cuts, with 69% expecting local authorities to cut funding for personal and nursing care. The results of a survey for care and housing charity Anchor carried out last month by ICM are reported in Putting Older People’s Issues Back on the Agenda
• Welfare to work blogs are starting to report that ‘most’ of the 16,000 temporary  Jobcentre Plus staff, who were recruited to deal with increased demand for services at the start of the recession, will now not have their contracts renewed
• A new study from the Young Foundation has warned that departments and agencies  facing cuts of 15 – 25 per cent are planning cuts of 30 – 50 per cent in funding for civil society groups.
• The total “tax gap” reached £42 billion in 2008/9 – 8.6 per cent of the tax individuals and companies have a legal responsibility to pay. Measuring Tax Gaps 2010, published on Thursday by HMRC looks at the ‘gap’ between the tax that should be collected and the amount that is actually collected. £42 billion is the highest ever in cash terms and the per centage tax gap is the highest since 2005-6, when it was 8.8 per cent
• A TUC report “Where the money goes“ shows that the coalition government’s planned spending cuts are likely to impact much more heavily on the poorest UK households than the richest
• ConDems are paying lip-service to the ‘Big Society’ – while cutting the DWP Volunteering Programme (launched in April 2009) which placed over 13,000 people unemployed for over six months into volunteering opportunities.

Officers elected were Tony Mayer (Chair), Mark Dempsey (Vice-Chair), Rochelle Russell & Michelle d’Agostino (Secretaries), and John Keepin (Treasurer).  Anyone interested in future meetings is invited to contact Rochelle or Michelle.

Having lived in Swindon now for 7 years, I have had enough of the Tory Council’s agenda to ignore the vulnerable.

From Dial a Ride, through to their latest budget of cutting essential services, such as Meals on Wheels, it is obvious that it is now time for a Labour Council to invest in the people of this town and provide the services people deserve. I look forward to being able to serve the people of Haydon Wick.  Through my work as the secretary of a Residents Association  I have established good relations with local police and officials and will draw on this to represent Haydon Wick in Council.

I can be emailed here, and will post more comments soon on issues relevant to Haydon Wick.   If you have any questions for the national elections please email victor4nswindon@googlemail.com or swindonlabour@gmail.com