Budget speech

Mar 052013
 
 5 March 2013  Posted by at 9:54 pm Councillor Life No Responses »

My first council budget meeting. My first council speech. My first heckling by Lib Dems and Tories. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more of that to come! Strangely, the Lib Dems interpreted what I had to say as a plea for more meetings and were aghast that a councillor might actually value scrutiny. Well, I didn’t come into local politics for the glamour of it all. Anyway, here’s what I had to say.  And very nervous I was too! “We’ll all agree that every penny counts in this age of enforced austerity which is why I’m surprised that Scrutiny, the

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Why I voted as I did: Marple Asda

Mar 032013
 
 3 March 2013  Posted by at 2:53 pm Councillor Life, Why I voted as I did No Responses »

“DC051300 – Cheadle And Marple Sixth Form College, Hibbert Lane, Marple  PDF 5 MB Redevelopment of Cheadle & Marple Sixth Form College’s Marple Campus including refurbishment of existing building on the Buxton Lane site and construction of new college buildings to provide 6,473 sqm of new educational floorspace, together with car parking and landscaping works, construction of synthetic floodlight pitch; and demolition of existing buildings on the Hibbert Lane site and erection of a class A1 store (3,651 sqm gross external) together with petrol filling station and associated highways, servicing and landscaping works.  The Committee is recommended to refuse planning permission.” Planning & Highways Regulation Committee decision on 1 March 2013: Refuse

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Musings on and learnings from the first Councillor Camp

Jan 132013
 
 13 January 2013  Posted by at 5:52 pm Councillor Life 13 Responses »

SPLAT! A week of horrendous insomnia followed by a 5am alarm on Saturday saw an exhausted version of myself lumber on to a London-bound train for Councillor Camp at Facebook’s perky Covent Garden HQ. With my ipod on shuffle for the first time in a long time, the glorious diversity and discovery feeding the pleasure centre of my brain was fine preparation for the day to come. Councillors from all over England* of every political persuasion covering an age range from twenty somethings to switched on seventies gathered to talk about how to do digital better. A pleasant surprise was the mix

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MANIFESTATION

Feb 162011
 
 16 February 2011  Posted by at 1:54 pm Other Stuff No Responses »

Brought about entirely by the power of serendipity, I took a trip to the Sharp Project recently to see Keith Jobling, one of the project’s key instigators. I first met Keith way back in 1994 when we were both working with Tony Wilson. Factory Records was still in business and In The City was but a year old. I’d just started as a conference manager on the music event and Keith was doing this thing with him called ‘The Boot Room’. I didn’t really get it. Digital was another world and I’d not yet identified myself as someone who might

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