Poor Consultation root of poor Regeneration

Gillingham Station - funded by government grants lobbied for by former MP, Paul Clark

This blog was particularly interested to read the party-piece column the deputy leader of the Tories in the Friday' Medway Messenger piece whilst on the 7.20am train to the City of London.

Coming off the back of the slavish support for the efforts of Councillor Les Wicks on Thursday night, it seems that lessons really arent being learned by an increasingly out of touch clique, and it is a clique, at the top of the Tory party locally.

The Tory leadership have an increasing habit of re-writing history - as we saw below over national foreign affairs - it is the same locally.

Regeneration in Medway and the funding for major programmes - some £127m- was, and is, absolutely nothing to do with the Conservative leadership. The money came from central government grants under the previous Labour Government, working alongside SEEDA and the regional agencies.

The Council though had a responsibility to consult locally and get public support - and that incidently is usually where it went wrong, as we can see with the lack of political leadership over projects.

One visit to Maidstone and you can see the juxtapose on regeneration. In Maidstone the agencies and the Council have got it about right, irrespective of the other poor decisions by the ruling Conservatives, there are few complaints about the regeneration work. Contrast with Medway and you can see that jobs are half-done, half-baked and usually as a result of poor consultation.

New bus stations in the wrong place, roadworks unplanned and delayed and Strood Riverside no further forward than in 2002.

The Tory leadership locally are in a hole; regeneration ostensibly funded by Labour is running out; but the clique are desperate to pretend to their back-benchers this is all the improvements is a result of the Conservative leadership. It isnt and never was:

Take two examples:

Gillingham Railway Station improvement - the piece claims this is as a result of Council action but it is actually an investment by the national stations improvement programme and Community Infrastructure Fund which was lobbied by former Transport Minister, and Labour MP, Paul Clark. This plan has nothing to do with the Conservatives.

Incidently this blog is reliably informed that Rochester Station improvements are at later stages but have still not received any information on it...

Brook and Chatham bus stations - whilst the blame for the delay and subsequent failure to scrutinise can be pinned on Tories; because they were responsible for the Planning and consultation behind the station. The money for it came from central government coffers allocated by the previous Labour government.

On regenetation; the opposition to local Conservative leadership has not been on the proposals; who could not want better bus facilities, and more regeneration, but it has been the manner it has been managed and the lamentable consultation and local implementation of projects.

Opposition also to the manner in which costs are hidden: the Tory leadership keep talking about budget outturns on regeneration projects but never ever tell you how much they are above the original budget estimates. The Council spin room, under orders from the Tory leadership no doubt, can try and obfuscate the truth badly, but the press statements from years previous are out there for all to access. You cant hide it when a bus station whose original budget estimate of £5m is now costing an expected sum of £7.3m.

Some back-bench Tories do get it. Though I do not agree ideologically with many of them, there is an attempt by those on the aspiring and community-based right to consult with people more actively - to take people with them - especially over Lodge Hill. That is good to see - because a new cabinet, comprised of a more dynamic breed of Tory Councillors could see projects better managed but also better consulted upon.

But until that generation step up. We are left with the clique, and that is where the Luton 'Healthy Living Centre' comes in.

The original proposal for the Luton 'Healthy Living Centre' was consulted upon with residents in 2009 and the location for the centre was rejected by the community - the location being behind several narrow terraced streets with very poor vehicular access. The Council also indicated that the centre was supposed to be built with additional funding for the Luton School improvements and the two were linked together. The suggested location for the living centre was dictated to by the PCT who indicated the centre had to be in the Luton area, whilst another centre would cover Wayfield, proposed at Hook Meadow.

Roll on two years and the position has changed. Not only have the Tories locally cut the funding for Luton School improvement, caused in my mind by a lack of funding partly as a result of overspends in Walderslade and Woodlands, but they have simply rehashed the same proposal that the public in the area rejected in 2009.

What is different though is not only cuts to the school improvements but that the PCT have also indicated that the original proposal for a Wayfield centre at Hook Meadow, has been kicked into the long grass.

Take into account also the poorly executed application; which proposes to bulldoze over green land without any ecological surveys and dodgy dates on consultation and yes, you alienate public support pretty quickly..

The residents in the area have not rejected a centre - they have therefore supported a new health centre but at a location that can benefit the whole community; on Barnfield or Street End Road.

This is what consultation should be about; and what Tory remarks represent is not a failure of campaigners opposed to development, but by agencies not speaking with residents, or each other, until the last moment and a foisted agenda of improvement without public support.

We have spent the last fortnight trying to get a compromise - perhaps better access via Pheasant Road, perhaps working with PCT on expanding the boundaries on the PCT guidelines given the situation on Hook Meadow, perhaps engaging with residents on more positive aspects of the scheme and getting information out there.

We do not support the scheme but compromises in politics are always an option. Alas not with the Tory leadership it seems.

It is the same old story.

Residents want a new health centre just in a location it would be better suited. They are accused of being against 'change' and being NIMBYists.

The campaign in Luton is not to oppose the Healthy Living Centre, it is to oppose the location and to call for it to be moved to serve all the residents of the ward.