Councillor Graham Stokes Cabinet Member for Corporate Services

NOVEMBER 2005

Communication...
Lies at the heart of all human affairs; isn’t only effected by words,
does not take place only when it is planned, conscious or successful

PROPOSED ROYAL VISIT
We have been lucky to receive two royal visits recently. HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is scheduled to visit Wakefield Town Hall on Tuesday 1st November 2005, in support of regeneration across the district. The Countess of Wessex visited Wakefield Town Hall in support of Mencap on Tuesday 18th October.

PONTEFRACT TOWN HALL
In October I was invited to the opening of Pontefract Town Hall, which has recently been renovated, redecorated and had a lift installed. The building is now once again impressive and has long term security for the use of the Town Hall by all the community. Having restored the building we are looking at how it can best be used to allow maximum access by the community and ways that it can be utilised to complement events and organisations within Pontefract. Everyone who has been involved with the project up to date should feel proud of what they have achieved.

FERRYBRIDGE TENANTS ASSOCIATION
At the last tenants meeting, Wakefield District Housing outlined their plans to have a ‘meet the staff week’, where staff would be out on the estates delivering the new customer charter. Representatives from Keepmoat were also in attendance providing information as the contractor appointed to do our modernisation work. Prior to any work taking place to housing, residents will be invited to an exhibition to chose the fittings they would like for their kitchens and bathrooms etc. When you will be invited will depend on which year work for your property falls in over the next five years.

Keepmoat are very experienced in this type of modernisation work and gave assurances that every effort will be made to ensure work is carried out with the minimum amount of disruption possible, although inevitably there will be some need to move furniture around etc. They will provide a respite room on site, so if the work gets too much for you, you can use this room, which will be equipped with television, chairs and kettle. They will also ensure no one is left without heating overnight at anytime.

HOLIDAY IN PERU
In October my family had our holiday in Peru which was a once in a lifetime experience. I never dreamed that one day I would be stood in the Amazon Jungle or tracing the history of the Inca’s in the Andes mountains at Macchu Picchu. Peru was so absolutely diverse with dolphins and piranhas in the jungle rivers, humming birds and countless other birds I could not begin to name. We saw flocks of parrots with green bodies and red heads; we ate guinea pig, alpaca, and fish caught from the river, even piranha which was horrible and bony. The Inca ruins at the sacred valley of the Inca’s and Macchu Picchu were amazing and had to be seen to be believed. This was an intelligent society who had the ability to move 35 ton boulders up mountains and cut them to shape for their magnificent buildings. It was an insight into another culture that I will remember for years to come and I am now looking forward to a future of caravan holidays in England for something a bit more relaxing.

CASTLEFORD RLFC
There is nowhere on this planet I would rather have been than at Widnes on October 9th, to watch Castleford beat Whitehaven 36 – 8 and regain their place in Super League. Thirteen of us travelled to Widnes to watch a nail biting game and it meant so much to me for Castleford to win. I could not even think about it or relax until into the second half. Although I have enjoyed visiting different grounds this year and watching entertaining rugby, and winning games, it was not something I would like to continue doing for future years. For Castleford it was the difference between being a small club or Super League and a million pounds per year along with a difference in class of rugby that is growing ever wider apart. I must admit I was not looking forward to the final with so much at stake and everything resting on one game, but they played tremendously. Castleford now have a rugby future to look forward to again and who knows, I might even travel to France to watch them play next year. Congratulations and well done. Wakefield Council will be holding a reception for them to celebrate the success.

FERRYBRIDGE HENGE
The most recent edition of ‘Archaeology & Archives in West Yorkshire’, had an interesting article within it written by Ian Roberts of West Yorkshire Archaeological Service, regarding Ferrybridge Henge. A detailed report on the ten-month long archaeological project carried out between 2001 and 2002, has just been published. The Henge dates from about 3000–2500 BC, but recent excavations show that it was not the earliest monument on the site, as there has been a smaller number of circular monuments dating from the earlier Neolithic period between 3500–3000 BC.

It was thought that the Henge might possibly have been reused as an iron age shrine, a use that continued after the arrival of the Romans in AD70. Human burials were still taking place in the vicinity of the Henge in the post-Roman and Saxon periods (AD 450-1066) despite the existence of a Christian cemetery at Pontefract, which indicates a persistence of pagan beliefs around Ferrybridge well into the later Saxon period.

WAKEFIELD COUNCIL MEETING
Every month as a Cabinet Member, I give a report to the full council meeting on the work of resources services. Last month I reported on procurement (Council Buying), and what we as a council are doing to promote the local economy by ensuring more of the councils money is spent locally on contracts with local companies. I reported on equality issues, the work of Overview and Scrutiny Committees, licensing, freedom of information, requests for information, finance and E-learning courses for members on Freedom of Information and equality and diversity.

I also attended and spoke at an away day held for Procurement Staff. They asked me many interesting questions about council priorities, including what we are doing about fair trade; do we consider environmental impacts and sustainable procurement in our buying policies; what do I see as the council priorities for procurement over the next three years and what will the council look like in five years time. It was a session I really enjoyed. The answers were a bit too long to go into here but if you are interested let me know.

PINDERFIELDS AND PONTEFRACT HOSPITAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
On 12th October, council members received a presentation from Consort Healthcare and the architects responsible for designing the new hospitals at Pinderfields and Pontefract. The architect for Pontefract hospital is Richard Barton, and he came along to show us the plans and explain how the hospitals were to be built on the existing sites. This will obviously involve a lot of decanting works to enable them to commence work. Because we were talking to architects and not the Health Trust we were not able to discuss issues such as how many beds the hospitals will have, which is still a major concern to local residents, but at Pinderfields they did state that half of the beds within the hospital would be in single rooms.

The plans look quite impressive being of a modern style with plenty of glass, an atrium with reception, restaurants and café’s and separate Accident & Emergency entrances. The Wards were called soft hotel areas, and were separated by the atrium from all the other service areas for outpatients, operating theatres, kitchens and goods delivery areas. On the Pontefract site they have tried to introduce better connectivity to the town centre. The Accident and Emergency access will be at the rear off Friarwood Lane, and will comprise an outpatients block for clinics etc. There will be an L-shaped block for A&E, radiology, theatres and wards, with lots of landscaping on the frontage at Bondgate including a public park. Once again the hospital is of a modern design with a reception area including café’s and shops.

There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of questions to be answered, but this was purely a presentation on the design. We were told that the drawings would become publicly available within the next few weeks.

A1 UPDATE
In October we held our update meeting with Alistair Snart from Road Management Services, who informed us that the scheme is approximately two weeks behind programme for completion of the works between Ferrybridge and Hook Moor. The completion is now due on 22nd December 2005. The initial switch of traffic on to the new road is currently planned to take place on 22nd November 2005, to allow for removing the temporary ramp on the southbound carriageway at Brotherton and will use a contra flow on the northbound carriageway. The carriageway repairs are going well and the new section will open under a temporary speed limit and lane restrictions at the Holmefield junction. Widening of the M62 is ahead of schedule and resurfacing continues with night-time lane closures.

The Landscape/gateway feature in the Holmefield interchange, which is a replica of the Henge called ‘The Barrows’ is starting to take shape and is due for completion before opening the mainline. A publication outlining the archaeology undertaken on the scheme has been printed and I will report on this more fully at a later date.

The de-trunking works on the old A1 will involve work on Knottingley Road Bridge, Ferrybridge Sign Gantry, (Wakefield Council), The Dish Hill Flyover, Church Road footbridge and the Brotherton Fox Bridge, (North Yorkshire County Council). The construction of Brotherton Roundabout will be the main highway works in the de-trunking programme and the completion date for this is now 17th April 2006.

WRITE BOOKS
Write Books, a local organisation that helps people to get their books into print, will be holding their annual celebration evening on Friday 11th November at Ferrybridge Progressive Club from 7.30pm to 11.30pm. It is an event that allows authors to talk about the books that they have written. Many thanks to Tommy Devanny and Charlotte Agnew for making this happen.

WAKEFIELD DISTRICT ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION FORUM AWARDS
Congratulations to Pat Towell, who was presented with an award by the Mayor for the work carried out along the riverbank near the Golden Lion, Ferrybridge. The ceremony was held at Wakefield Town Hall on 10th October.

Graham Stokes
Cabinet Member for Corporate Services

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