Runnymede and EDF team up to provide cut-price insulation for over 70s

Working in partnership with EDF energy, Runnymede Borough Council has announced further plans to help elderly people keep warm during cold weather whilst saving money on their heating bills. If you are over the age of 70 and either own or privately rent your home, you may qualify for a grant of £301 to insulate your home - leaving a total cost to you of only £199.

If you are interested in taking part in this scheme, please call EDF on 0800 096 9966 and quote ‘Runnymede PR’. Lines are open 8.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday and 8.30am to 2.00pm on Saturday.

For further information about this scheme or other energy-saving measures please contact Verena Boxall, Borough Council’s Energy Project Manager on 01932 425172 or by email at verena.boxall@runnymede.gov.uk.

Events on The Green

At a relatively brief meeting yesterday evening, members of the Englefield Green committee (the six Borough Councillors for the village and residents’ representatives Andrew Panter and Maria Bairstow) voted to give permission for three events on The Green during 2008:

- 12 to 19 May - Beach’s Fair (open 15 to 18 only)
- 14 June - Englefield Green Residents Association Village Fair
- 30 September to 7 October - Carters Steam Fair (open 4 and 5 October only)

I’m sure you’ll all join me wishing the organisers of these events the very best of luck and in praying that we don’t have a repeat of last summer’s foul weather…!

Congratulations Windsor and Maidenhead!

Congratulations to our Conservative colleagues on Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council for passing a historically-low Council Tax increase of only 2.4%.

The Conservatives, led by David Burbage, only seized control of the Borough Council in May 2007 but have been religiously implementing the same tax-cutting, waste-elimating philosophy Runnymede Borough Council has been guided by for many years. David Hilton, the Cabinet Member for Finance said: “This budget is good news for our residents. We have delivered low tax, maintaining frontline services and in many cases improved them”. Amen to that.

Glancing at Windsor and Maidenhead’s budget, I was astonished to see that following years of a previous LibDem administration the Council is saddled with in excess of £57,000,000 of debt (£23,000,000 of which was generated between 2003 and 2007) whilst Runnymede is an entirely debt-free authority.

Congratulations again to Windsor and Maidenhead Conservatives and the very best of luck for the year ahead.

Runnymede’s open spaces

Apologies for the delay in posting this clip - I have a huge amount of work on at the moment - but I thought you may be interested in hearing a clip of Runnymede Mayor Hugh Meares’ interview on BBC Radio 4 on 13th February regarding village greens.  

I think you’ll agree that Hugh brilliantly makes the case for Runnymede’s green spaces!

Please click here to download the clip (which should take about two minutes to download on a normal broadband connection).  It can be played with QuickTime or iTunes.

£2.44 per week - the cost of Runnymede

On Thursday evening, the Borough Council voted to increase Council Tax by 5%.  Runnymede remains the sixth lowest taxing of the 238 local authorities in the United Kingdom. 

As a Conservative, I am instinctively opposed to raising taxes but nonetheless I supported the twelve pence per week increase.  Genuinely speaking, we had no other option.  

As I have argued before on this blog, the policies of this Labour government towards local government do nothing to help authorities classed as “excellent” by the independent Audit Commission.   Runnymede remains a debt-free authority with notable assets yet, like every other Borough Council across the country, faces a challenging financial future, particularly in light of the global economic downturn on the very near horizon. 

In terms of tax cuts, Hammersmith and Fulham Council has rightly been praised for cutting their Council Tax by 3% for the second consecutive year - and I say this at great risk of upsetting several of my friend who sit on that Council - but one must realise that their Councillors are working from a base of nearly thirty years of financial incompetence on the part of the previous administration, thus giving them a broad focus for efficiency savings and modernisation schemes. 

This is simply not the case in Runnymede, a Borough with a long history of high quality councillors and exemplary officers. 

We had a simple choice: increase your Council Tax by £6.03 per year or pull the plug on the ‘discretionary services’ we provide as a Borough such as day care centres and dial-a-ride services for the elderly. 

In voting for the increase, I know that the Borough Council have the vast majority of residents on our side.  

Cllr John Furey, the Leader of Council, summed things up perfectly:

“An average 12 pence per week rise in our portion of Council Tax for the coming year is remarkable value for money. The overall £2.44 a week equivalent in Runnymede is one of the lowest in Surrey. We continue to address the important issues of our residents, and keeping Council Tax levels low is one of them”.

Runnymede denied Yellow Bus funding

Fresh off a flight from Washington DC this evening, I headed straight to a Conservative group meeting where I was very disappointed to hear that Runnymede’s application for £850,000 in funding for our yellow bus scheme - out of an available pot of £15,000,000 -  has been turned down as a result of the Borough Council not being an education authority.  Shortly before Christmas, the former Home and Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett visited Egham Hythe to promote the scheme (pictured), leading many to hope that the Council would receive additional funding to aid with the operation of the popular scheme.

This is a huge disappointment for those in the Borough and across the county who have worked so hard to promote this environmentally-friendly, traffic gridlock-eliminating scheme.  The Leader of the Council John Furey is adamant that authorities across Surrey will continue to push forward to secure further funding for the scheme, despite this setback. 

It will be fascinating to see if the further funding provided for Yellow Buses is directed solely towards authorities in the north of England just as with all other local government related funding streams.  Please do let me know if you hear of any council which been successful in their application for funding.

More information about the Yellow School Bus Commission whose website, despite decling Runnymede’s bid for funding, still carries a quote from the Council’s Chief Executive Tim Williams praising the scheme (”the reason why the American-style yellow bus concept has been adopted is that, frankly, it works… it’s recognisable to everyone, and synonymous with safety, quality and reliability”), can be found at http://www.firstgroup.com/YSB/.

Off to America…

Tomorrow morning I will heading to Washington DC for the week for work meetings in the House of Representatives, Senate and World Bank. 

Being somewhat of a junkie for American politics, I am delighted that I will be in the US for ‘Super Tuesday’, the day when twenty two states vote on their nominees for President of the United States.  Whilst I generally try and refrain from overt partisan politics on this blog, I thought you may be interested in an article I wrote arguing why British Conservatives should support Senator John McCain’s campaign.

I will be contactable by ‘phone and e-mail throughout the week and will update this blog if I have any significant local news.

Delays at level crossings - briefing note

Many Englefield Green residents, particularly those who drive through Egham, Thorpe and Pooley Green during the morning and evening rush hours will find themselves constantly frustrated by delays at level crossings.  Other parts of the Borough, particularly Addlestone, experience similiar gridlock. 

Stephen Fuggles, Runnymede Borough Council’s Head of Engineering has produced an interesting ‘briefing note’ outlining the scale of the current problems and Network Rail’s position with regards to the (limited) possibilities for reducing level crossing waiting times in the Borough.  You can download a copy of the briefing note by clicking here.

Sadly, the conclusion of the report is not particularly encouraging:

“Officers have accepted that the efforts of Members, Officers and the local MP to achieve significant reductions in level crossing barrier down times at the crossings in Runnymede are unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future… …the public should be made aware of this where possible in order to limit the public expectation”

Councillors and officers will, however, continue to push for improvements where possible.