Difficult though it was to say, I had to explain the legal process he informed me of was absolutely the right course of action if the dispute over his application had gone that far and that as cabinet member for housing I couldn't really be his representative or advocate on a second route of appeal to the council on that matter.

On the wider issue of standards and cost of temporary accommodation, I explained that the longstanding councillor who had referred him on to me, should really be raising this issue as a formal question to me through the council processes or putting it forward as a subject for a scrutiny review.

Being cabinet councillor for housing the buck quite rightly stops with me concerning how homelessness gets managed inside the borough. Additionally, the accountability mechanisms for examining effectiveness are now also part of the cabinet/scrutiny framework.

I also genuinely hope the applicant has his case dealt with clearly, speedily and fairly but beyond this, support for him (if he is mounting a legal challenge against the council) really needs to come from people who are part of  a professional advice and advocacy service.

Since its still very early in the New Year, I’m going to try and feel well disposed towards a long standing councillor who chooses to deal with these matters by ‘forwarding applicants’ rather than explaining the processes to them and taking on the responsibility of questioning the service through council procedures and seeking scrutiny support for any initiative to bring about any lasting change that she wants to see happen.

I discovered another blogging Labour Councillor while surfing about before the festive break Looks like Stella comes from Waltham Forest

Stella Creasy

I’m spending this afternoon reading ffice:smarttags" />cabinet reports for the first meeting of 2005 on Wednesday (the first link below) and downloading information on the proposed restructuring of post 16 education in Hastings and Rother, which can be found on the second link (see meeting on 29th June)

http://www.hastings.gov.uk/meetings/default.asp#sched

fficeffice" />

While most education is the concern of East Sussex County Council rather than the local Borough, it is a significant concern for us because of the links to both economic regeneration and economic inclusion. There are also two key objectives in the Community Strategy concerned with improving overall school performance and giving people more opportunities to continue learning throughout their lives.

Last night the council cabinet:-

* Agreed (by 9 votes for, 1 abstention) to instruct officers to

make arrangements for the continued use of the auditorium of St Mary In The Castle by regular hirers for about twenty occasions per year commencing 1st April 2005 and to provide information on the additional financial implications to inform the council's budget-setting process.

* Agreed (by 8 votes for, 1 against, 1 abstention) to note the

report by Brian Harris Arts on St Mary In The Castle; to thank Ian Ross and those involved in developing future models for their contributions; that no further work be undertaken to develop St Mary's as a local arts and community centre; that the Council works closely with its partners and Sea Space towards achieving a cohesive and integrated plan for the Pelham area; to support the use of St Mary In The Castle as an historic and architectural attraction in principle; to continue the existing gallery arrangement with South Coast Arts Group for a further twelve months, and the introduction of a new 'self service' arts information point; to continue the Council's commitment to maintain the building's structure (currently supported by an annual maintenance budget of £34 000); and to consider the provision of performance and masking space for arts and cultural activities as part of the annual review of progress on the Cultural Strategy in early summer 2005.

* Agreed (by 6 votes for, 3 against, 1 abstention) to support the

principle of the Sussex Learning and Skills Council ('LSC') proposal to establish the Hastings and Rother New College and 'family of four' colleges to deliver post-16 learning and skills across the Hastings and Rother area; to highlight to East Sussex County Council and the LSC that HBC would expect to be actively involved and consulted in the development of a transport plan to support the new infrastructure before any new education arrangements are implemented; and to welcome the opportunity these proposals would create for the bringing together of Helenswood School on a single site, with clear advantages for the managing of the school and benefits in reducing traffic generation on the Ridge.

* Agreed (without a vote being taken) to instruct officers to

report back on the issue of providing skateboarding facilities in the Ore/Clive Vale/Old Hastings area.

* Agreed (by 8 votes for, 2 against) to the proposed extension of

the car park at Priory Meadow shopping centre, and to contribute 10% of the total cost (£400 000), in return for continuing to receive 10% of all net revenue from the Centre.

* Agreed (without a vote being taken) the capital spend of £234

000 on the Country Park and Fairlight Place Farm (this includes improving the agricultural areas, the restoration of some farm buildings, substantial fencing work, improving interpretation of the area, and restoring footpaths and improving car park surfaces).

* Noted the comments of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees on

the half year performance update, and thanked staff for the progress to date on working towards achieving the targets in the Local Performance Plan).

* Agreed with minor drafting corrections (without a vote being

taken) the Local Development Scheme, which is the project plan for the next three years for the Local Development Framework - the new type of plan which will replace the current Local Plan for the Borough. This scheme will now be submitted to the Secretary of State.

* Agreed (without a vote being taken) the Sedlescombe Road South

Traffic Order :- this will improve the safety of pedestrians by providing better sight lines. The funding has been agreed by East Sussex County Council.

Do you like the sound of ‘ffice:smarttags" />Hastings twinned with Hastings’ or ‘what do we want, nothing new so just go away and leave us alone’?

If either of these are where your at, how about trying the new site by the local LibDem fan club, you can be against almost everything at:

http://www.hastingsrealrenaissance.org/fficeffice" />

Alternativly, find out more about the 'franchise party of constant change' at:

http://www.libdemwatch.co.uk

Its just occurred to me that I need to make some space on this blog for voluntary and community sector organisations who are playing an important role in helping to shape the regeneration of our town.

For starters, here is the Hastings Voluntary Action site, a useful resource for finding out who does what and how to get better at doing it. You can also download their mag each month to keep up with whats happening in the sector

Hastings Community News

This was our chance to meet with a particularly capable and competent body of citizens who are elected from full cross town elections every year and said by the Audit Commission to be one of the best Youth Councils they had seen. Every year, at the YPC residential weekend, young people set about constructing a serious work plan engaging with issues affecting their interests right across the town. With the help of the YPC workers these young people then develop their own skills, build networks and explore ways of doing things to achieve the results they want. In other words its citizenship education by doing stuff.

Anyway, yesterday we had the opportunity to go along, learn what the YPC were doing, who they all were and have some of those ‘round robin’ type sessions on themes within their work plan.

The presentations were fine but when we broke up into smaller groups some of my fellow councillors just couldn’t help themselves. The group I joined was supposed to be looking at the work plan theme of Social Issues and Rights, but the very first councillor to speak hijacked the agenda and spouted on about how the group should be concerned with responsibilities too. This was promptly followed by another councillor who gave us all a lecture on how he understood about young people and bullying (because he was involved in a legal case where his past employer was a bully). Next we had a councillor who said “I went to school 40 years ago and in those days we had prefects to deal with all this stuff”, which was followed by another councillor who felt we should all simply live more closely by the ten commandments!

Well I can entertain any of those views as a starting point for discussing the complexities of life but we only had 15 minutes to discuss the young peoples work plan. Forced to listen to people preoccupied with their own self-importance and life history I found myself thinking how nice it would be if they could just shut the f*** up instead of babbling about the contents of their own heads.

I’m please to say none of these ‘time bandits’ were  Labour councillors but I still felt really embarrassed that my peers, from other political groups,  were so caught up in themselves that they couldn’t connect with the agenda we were meeting to discuss.