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Councillor Graham Stokes
Cabinet Member for Corporate Services
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NOVEMBER 2004
WAKEFIELD DISTRICT PARTNERSHIP
The Wakefield
District Partnership is one of those areas that people do not hear much
about and it’s workings are a mystery to most people, but the impact it
can have within the area is tremendous, so I thought I might try to
unravel some of the mystique for you. Wakefield
District Partnership has been highly praised by Government Office as
"going from strength to strength." The
partnership receives Neighbourhood Renewal Funds.
Despite being
set up formally only two years ago, the Wakefield District Partnership
successfully demonstrated good progress, with Government Office rating it
among the highest performing in Yorkshire and Humberside. The
Partnership received particular praise for the Fast Forward Community
Strategy, which sets out a vision for the district for the next 25 years
and is being used to direct the work of all partner organisations to
improve the quality of life of people who live and work in the district,
and those who come to visit. It has worked
hard to raise its profile locally with the publication of the Fast Forward
Community Strategy, launch of the partnership website, partnership events
and neighbourhood renewal programme all helping this. The new Fast Forward
community Strategy provides the strategic direction and basis for revised
partnership structures.
The Wakefield
District Partnership has attracted funding in excess of £14 million into
the district to tackle problems facing neighbourhoods, such as high crime,
unemployment, poor health, low educational attainment, poor housing and
poor local environment. A recent
review said that strengths of Partnership’s work included:
- Increasing job and training opportunities in the district and reducing
numbers on Job Seekers’ Allowance
- Improving more than 2,000 homes to Government "decency"
standards
- Helping to recruit neighbourhood patrollers and open mobile
Neighbourhood Action stations
- Supporting 24-hour call centres for Neighbourhood Action and housing
- Supporting plans to reduce teenage pregnancy
- Reducing domestic burglary
MORRISSON'S
I am impressed !!!
CHILDREN'S CENTRES
In October I
attended the Children’s Centre Area Partnership, Which I am Chair of,
the partnership covers Pontefract, Knottingley and Featherstone, and it is
intended that a Children’s Centre will be provided in each of these 3
areas. The Children’s
Centre for Knottingley will be based at Simpson’s Lane School, A
Childcare facility will be opened there offering integrated care and
education for 0 – 5 year olds, this will mean the nursery will need to
be developed to offer full day care from 3 – 5 (8.00 am – 6.00 pm, 50
weeks of the year) which will require additional facilities and staffing,
and the development of a 0 – 3 unit on the school site. Children’s
Centres will be places where parents go to find out about all childcare
services and will increasingly act as a contact point for networks of
childminders and nurseries, so that parents can match themselves up with a
childminder who is nearby and suits them.
As many
childcare facilities as possible will be delivered from the centre for
Knottingley, this will include ante & post natal clinics, and family
support services from Social Care. Hopefully all
this will be in place by March 2006.
In addition
to Children’s Centres, Judy Colquhoun, Senior Childcare Development
Officer updated us on the Childcare Strategy that was currently being
developed, they have worked out the shortfall in provision in each
individual ward across the district, and will be concentrating on priority
areas, Judy has written to private providers and groups who are interested
in providing places for out of school provision and breakfast clubs.
Knottingley
is fairly well placed in terms of some provision already, although we do
need continuous development, we have 771 - 0 to 5 Children in our ward, 27
Childminder places and 62 day nursery places.
UNDER 5's ROADSHOW
An under 5’s
Roadshow has been developed and will touring the district from October
2004 to April 2005, the Knottingley Roadshow is currently planned for next
March at Simpson’s Lane, (exact dates & times will be given later)
but stands are likely to include Homestart, Pre School Learning Alliance
– inclusion project, Teenage pregnancy – Care to learn, Childcare
Information Services – Childcare Choices, Sure start – Recruitment and
training, Stop Smoking, Oral Health, Health Visitors, Public Health – 5
a day, Midwifery, Speech and Language Therapy, Jobcentre Plus, Adult
Education, Whitwood College, Brambly Hedge, Regeneration, Family Centre
and Housing. So as you can
see many topics will be covered and it will be an interesting event for
parents to visit.
25 YEARS SERVICE AWARD
I heard last
month that Barbara and Shirley the cleaners at The Close were to be
awarded a certificate at a ceremony in Wakefield Town Hall for 25 years
service (actually Barbara has done more than 25 years but records were
lost) Cr Pat Doyle
and I turned up to surprise them at the ceremony and congratulate them on
the excellent service they have provided, they have always been there to
open up our surgery on Saturday mornings and cheer us up with news about
what is happening locally, what they are doing and general chit chat, they
usually leave sweets for us on the desk (hint), and we could not wish for
a better service, thank you Barbara and Shirley, from Graham, Pat and
Glenn.
CRIME
Wherever you
live and whatever your age it is important to feel safe. Statistically the
victims of crime are far more likely to be under 25 than over 65, but the
perception of crime is very real for the elderly. Looking at
crime is not the department of one organisation; it requires partnership
working from the police, Carelink, Age Concern, the Council and the
residents themselves. Residents
need to consider how they can make it difficult for criminals.
A locked
gate, a solid fence or hedge and good back door locks will all help deter
a casual thief. A solid front door with good locks, a chain and a door
viewer will give you peace of mind whether you are in your house or out.
It may also be worthwhile considering security lights or a burglar alarm,
installing high quality safety and security products such as mortice
locks, window locks, door chains, door viewers, smoke alarms etc.
FIREWORK LEGISLATION
Well so far
so good, up to writing this it has been relatively quiet compared to last
year, I remember this time last year it was like world war two every night
with explosion after explosion as fireworks were being let off all over
the place. The new
legislation does seem to have made some difference as people misusing
fireworks now face £80 on the spot fines from the new police powers which
came into force on 7 August. Under Home
Office anti-social behaviour measures, the police can use Fixed Penalty
Notices to deal with individuals setting off fireworks at night, Penalty
Notices for Disorder can already be issued for throwing a firework in a
public place. Fireworks may
not be used during the night hours of 11pm and 7am, exceptions have been
made for designated "firework nights", it is also an offence to
supply a display firework which when used produces sound in excess of 120
decibels. Ignoring the
rules means facing a maximum penalty of 6 months imprisonment or a £5,000
fine or both.
Further
regulations come into force in January, when all year round suppliers will
require a licence from the fire service. The exempted
times are
- 5 November between 12pm and 7am the following day
- First day of Chinese New Year between 1am and 7am the following day
- Diwali between 1am and 7am the following day
- 31 December between 1am and 7am the following day
BICENTENARY 1804 – 2004
The United
Reformed Church, The Croft, Knottingley will be celebrating their 200 year
Anniversary on Sunday 7th November at 10 am. I hope as
many of you as possible will be able to attend this very special occasion,
the Knottingley Councillor’s send their congratulations and best wishes
for the next 200 years.
RETRAINING REDUNDANT MINERS
The council
have recently been involved in a scheme to retrain redundant mineworkers
in partnership with the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. Within the
council it was identified that we had a number of skill shortages, these
were in areas like gas fitting, plumbing, heating and ventilation fitting
and electricians. Some of these
areas like electricians coincide with skills that ex mineworkers possess,
and there was also the potential to retrain others in these skills to do a
real job which fills a skills gap for us as a council and provides skilled
work for ex mineworkers themselves, so there were obvious advantages all
round.
Coalfield
Regeneration Trust have been involved in retraining mineworkers since
2002, with the closure of Prince of Wales Colliery, they have been
successful with their Skills Builder project in helping over 200 miners to
gain work in the building and construction industry, but this is the first
time we as a council have been involved. We have now
started an induction programme for 30 new employees, I went along to
Normanton Town Hall last week to meet them all,10 of them are former
mineworkers, the other 20 were appointed through the normal interview
channels.
WAKEFIELD DISTRICT HOUSING
The members
of the new housing board have been chosen, whilst none of the Knottingley
Councillors are on the main board my friend Derek Cooper from Ferrybridge
Tenants Association is. Pat Doyle and
myself though are on the Area Management Board that covers Knottingley,
Pontefract and Featherstone, so we will still be very much involved in
housing issues once the housing staff transfers to the new company at the
end of this year.
5 TOWNS URBAN RENAISSANCE
The most
recent meeting was held at Castleford Civic Centre on Friday 15th October,
where an emerging strategy was presented, I will pick out some of the
relevant bits for Knottingley for you here. The
timetable now is to have a public meeting in each of the 5 Towns and a
meeting of each of the 3 Forums to promote and publicise the document. This would then be followed by a Towns Team Meeting in
mid November which would approve the document followed by a launch of the
document during the week commencing 13th December. It
was stated that some of the projects may seem a little far fetched but
they had been kept in for consideration.
The 5 towns
has a population of around 115, 000, and is the size of a small city,
together the area will need to compete with adjacent areas and provide
better quality development. The towns were
themed with Knottingley described as a waterside town, Castleford as a
river market town, Pontefract as a civic town, Featherstone as a village
and Normanton as a forest town. In all
there has been 14 steering group and town team meetings held and 8
meetings of each of the 3 working groups that looked in detail at
Environment, Transport and Education.
Our Rail
network is not actually on an inter city line, but we want to see improved
connections to Leeds, York, Doncaster and Sheffield. The plan also
considers a loop line that is a circular rail service with 2 trains per
hour between Ferrybridge, Castleford Glasshoughton and Pontefract.
It was
recognised that the road links between Castleford and Knottingley are not
as strong as they could be.
It was
proposed that the increased use of forestry could be used to give a
greener feel to the area, one of the proposals is for a wooded area to
encircle Pontefract.
When the
Power Station is decommissioned some of the cooling towers could be
retained and painted blue.
A Big Bang
Park was proposed for Pontefract increasing the size of Pontefract Park.
There is also
a need to attract wealth generators / creators and improve the existing
and future housing, improve the environment and create quality and
sustainable town centres.
Key
attributes were identified for each of the 5 towns, Knottingley’s were:
- Re-establish a town centre
- Mixed use waterfront development
- New town green park
- Downgrade the A1 and release development land
- New Ferrybridge Railway Station
- Lighting up of the Cooling Towers
- Definition of town boundaries
WEST YORKSHIRE IAG PROGRAMME
Guidance
Services are now provided at Ferrybridge Residents Association Office
every Friday, this is a free service for people over 20 years of age.
Information
and advice is available on
- Learning and work opportunities including further and higher education,
voluntary opportunities, self-employment and work based learning.
- Local vacancy information through Jobcentre Plus and Work Train
- Self access database information e.g. Adult Direction, Occupations
- Information on support or disability or employment issues
- Labour market information
- CV’s and job search information
- Learning and Career planning information
- Signposting to other opportunities from a wide range of providers
LOCAL & FAMILY HISTORY DAY
Would you
like to learn about your family’s past, have you ever wondered about
your ancestors or the place where you live. A family
history day is to be held at The Cathedral high School, Wakefield on
Saturday 13 November from 10.30am to 4.30pm. There will be
bookstalls, exhibitions, advice, conservation displays and refreshments,
organised by West Yorkshire Archive service.
Graham Stokes
Cabinet Member for Corporate Services
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