Around the ward

We had another successful community litterpick at Churchill Gardens with plenty of students getting stuck in. We’ll be running these once a month up until the summer holidays.

I was briefed on some plans Herefordshire Council is developing to make cycling up and down Aylestone Hill safer and more pleasant. I know that many people who live in the ward would cycle into town if they could do this without having to mix in with cars. If the Council can deliver this then I will be very supportive. As soon as they have something published I’ll let people know on social media.

I had a meeting with the principal of Hereford Sixth Form College to talk about Churchill Gardens, Aylestone Hill and other issues that affect her students. This was a very positive meeting and I will be keeping in contact with the principals of all three colleges.

I spoke to some residents who live opposite the HCA site on College Road. They are experiencing some real issues with parking. I’ve spoken to the police, the council and the college and I’m going to see what can be done. I’m also trying to speak to everyone who lives along that stretch to get a sense of how significant the issues are.

At the councils

At the start of the month Herefordshire Council set its budget.

Herefordshire Council is run by the Conservatives who are the largest group but they don’t have a majority. So when they take big decisions they need the support of councillors from other political groups to get those passed. The Liberal Democrat group is the second largest group on the council and we negotiated hard with the Tories to make sure our priorities were reflected in the council’s budget.

Thanks to our input, the budget contains money to support charities and community groups across the county, to ensure that car parking charges will be frozen and to protect library opening hours.

It also contains £1,000,000 to support work to deliver affordable housing across the county. I know that many people in College Ward experience first hand the fact that we don’t have enough houses in Herefordshire for the people who live here and we don’t have enough affordable houses. Along with the other LibDems on the council I am pushing the Conservatives hard to do more about this.

Inflation is pushing up council costs and demand for council services is increasing. This means that even though the County Council’s share of the Council Tax is going up by 4.99%, there will still need to be significant savings made next year.

You can read the reports and watch a recording of the Budget Council meeting on the Council’s website.

The LibDems are in control of Hereford City Council and we were able to manage the budgets there so there is no increase in the City Council’s share of the Council Tax.

I also attended a meeting of the Connected Communities Scrutiny Committee looking at Section 106 contributions. These are boring but important. Essentially many large developments as part of getting planning permission make financial payments to the council which are used to improve highways infrastructure or provide extra school classrooms. The council has been very poor at spending this money until recently and has a backlog of many millions of pounds of unspent money. We looked at the work the council has been doing more recently to accelerate these schemes. They are starting to make a real impact. We made some recommendations to the Cabinet of ways they can keep the momentum going.

You can read the reports and watch a recording of the Committee meeting on the council’s website.

Other things

I attended some training on an Introduction to Restorative Practice. This is the approach that Herefordshire Council is rolling out in Children’s Services as part of the programme of improvement. It was very interesting and I can see how it will be a very effective approach.

The spirit of the River Wye visited the council’s offices. This was an unusual ceremony to see in Plough Lane but I thought it was quite thought provoking. I think there is agreement across the political groups on Herefordshire Council that much more must be done to protect our beautiful rivers.