Nigel Martin

The Council is in the process of publishing the allowances and expenses for all councillors for the 2008-09 financial year.

The list for Durham County Council is published on the following web page:

http://www.durham.gov.uk/PDFApproved/CouncillorsAllowances0809.pdf

The details of my personal allowances and expenses for both the County Council and for my membership of the former Durham City Council is set out in a web page on this site - simply click on the link in the left column here.

For the sake of transparency I have included some comments on the detail of my expenses claims. If anyone wishes more detail I am happy to provide it.

One final comment. There have been some highly inaccurate comments in the letters column of the local press alleging that Councillor Carol Woods (Lib Dem PPC for Durham City) had claimed £30K last year in expenses/allowances while Deputy Leader of Durham City Council.

The actual figure was £13,871 being the combination of £5,571 in Basic Allowance and £8,300 in Special Responsibility Allowance for being Deputy Leader with nil claims for both travelling and subsistence expenses. [In normal parlance the word ‘allowance’ would be ’salary’, but council-speak is a mystery unto itself.]

I hope those peddling a gross error will now have the good grace to apologise.

If I were being charitable I would say that they had overheard a conversation and misheard ‘thirteen’ as ‘thirty’; nevertheless they had a duty to check the facts before sounding off shock-horror in the press!

I have just received the following flier that Community groups may be interested in.

     £50 Grant  

Do you run a community group?

Are you interested in arranging fun activities to celebrate the European Day of Languages on 26^th September?

If so, and you would like a chance to win a £50 grant towards event costs, please read on……………

To encourage our communities to take part in European Day of Language celebrations, Europe Direct North East, which is hosted by Durham County Council, is offering groups a chance to win one of ten £50 grants.

What are we looking for?

Community activities, with a European language or cultural theme, to take place on or around the 26^th September. For example you could organise:

·     European language taster sessions so that people can learn e.g. French, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, etc.

·     Projects that raise awareness about other European cultures, e.g. demonstrate or learn songs or dance from another European country; or display or make traditional dress from another European country.

·     A party that brings together members of the community, some of whom originated in other European countries, e.g. Poland

How to apply

Please contact us as soon as possible for an application form or further information. Telephone: 0191 383 3448 or Email: europe.direct@durham.gov.uk

Deadline – we must receive your completed application form by

5 p.m. Friday 24^th July 2009

Given the national mood over MPs expenses which seemed to be encouraging many voters to give all of the three main parties a good kicking, I was relieved and heartened by the Lib Dem showing in the North East.

We held off the UKIP challenge to retain the third seat for Fiona hall, who has been an excellent and respected MEP over the past five years doing some leading EU-wide work on environmental and climate change issues as well as working hard for the North East.

The vote across County Durham was counted at the Abbey Sports Centre yesterday evening with the following result:

So the Lib Dems were confirmed as the leading opposition party across County Durham.

There was no separate count for the City constituency area as happened last time because of local government re-organisation, but at the voter verification on Thursday evening we estimate that we took around a third of the City vote about half as much again as the Labour vote. It was difficult to be very accurate as the votes were verified face down and so we had to rely on impressions of marks coming through the back of the ballot papers!

Government’s management of data is a hot topic at the moment. That’s why Lib Dems were concerned when we noticed that Durham County Council’s entry in the register appeared not to have been updated since its change of status to a unitary council.

Worse still, Durham County Council’s Electoral Registration Officer did not seem to be registered under the Data Protection Act – but was in the middle of running a European Election.

A bit of further research showed that most of the District Councils are still registered, though they ceased to exist two months ago – and they are still registered to handle election data!The worst aspect of all, from my point of view, is the lack of answers from County Hall.

They have neither told us when or whether the county has submitted an application for the Electoral Registration Officer, nor when the Information Commissioner was notified of the county’s change of status and all the resulting extra types of data it is handling.

When we asked if this meant that the county had not carried out these responsibilities we got the impression that they weren’t sure.

The sooner they make an announcement about the position the better. Everyone in the county has a right to know if their data is being handled in compliance with the law.

Some good news - I have just had a telephone call from a Journal reporter to say that Banks Developments Ltd have issued a press release saying that they are withdrawing their planning application to develop Mount Oswald.

Banks say that they are going away to consider their options for the site, but given that they have again been sent away with a flea in their ear, maybe we can hope that this is the last we hear of them on this issue for the foreseeable future.

But we should not be complacent!

So many thanks to everyone who has contributed over the past two or more years to the campaign against developing Mount Oswald - a small celebration might be in order.

“The Age of Stupid” is a film about climate change and will be shown at the new Durham Johnston School this Friday (22 May) at 3.45 pm and again at Clayport Library at 7.30 pm. There is a small charge for admissions.

There have been rumours going round that the University may be intending to increase its student numbers with a corresponding impact on housing and rented accommodation in the City.

I am pleased to say that, after an exchange of e-mails between the Crossgate Partneship and the Vice Chancellor,  this will not happen in the near future.

The VC said the following:

“I don’t know who stated undergraduate intake would be increased by 250 next year because this is wrong.  Indeed, even if we wanted to increase numbers we would not be able to because the Government has cut all additional numbers.  There is a need for fewer, not more, multi-occupancy houses in Durham.

“I hope I have clarified University strategy.  We are not intending to increase undergraduate numbers in Durham City, and we have gradually reduced numbers over the past five years.  You will also notice that we have been very successful in bringing our students back into College and University properties which is why there are so many empty houses around Durham with estate agent signs.  Indeed, estate agents are writing to me complaining that their business is being undermined, showing our strategy is successful.  What is now needed is for the residents who inappropriately converted their houses into multi-occupancy properties to return them to family houses.  This will require the landlords working with the local Council and I would strongly support any such initiatives.  There are already too many multi-occupancy houses in Durham and it is a shame that so many were converted on ill-informed notions of student numbers. 

“I hope this helps and reassures you.  Anything you can do to work with the Council and landlords to prevent further conversion of private houses into multi-occupancy housing (I see some are still proposed in Whinney Hill) would be helpful.  The University supports this. … Anything you can do to work with the Council and landlords to prevent further conversion of private houses into multi-occupancy housing (I see some are still proposed in Whinney Hill) would be helpful.  The University supports this.

This is pretty definitive stuff and supports the view of most residents that we need to stop the conversion of family homes into student lettings.

The former City Council refused planning permission for a number of these conversions but was often overturned on appeal.

Let us hope that the County Council continue to oppose this trend and can hold the line against the continued loss of city-centre family housing.

The first AAP Forum for Durham City was held last week at County Hall and decided two things - the name of the AAP (it will be the highly original “Durham Area Action Partnership” [DAAP]) and the strategic priorities for DAAP in its first year.

The voting on the priorities was as follows:

Altogether it was a very good meeting and was well oversubscribed. There will be a follow-uo event for those who could not be accommodated, but I do not know the details of that as yet.

The other good thing was the presence of a good number of new faces, so it was not just ‘the usual suspects’.

We have Euro elections on 4 June, so I have created a separate page with information about key dates and forms for getting on the electoral register or asking for a postal or proxy vote.

A link to the page “Elections and Voting” is at the left or you can click here: Elections and Voting.

It is now more than six months since the latest Banks planning application for Mount Oswald went in and residents are starting to ask why it has not yet gone to committee for decision.

I have just spoken to the planners who tell me that they have made it clear to Banks that their proposals could not be recommended to Committee for approval as they stand. On the other hand, because Banks have an agreement with the planners to extend the normal decision-making period, they can still try to amend their proposals to try to make them more acceptable.

This surely should not go on much longer and a time surely has to come soon when this is decided one way or another.

If you want to see progress on the application, you can see the current state of things on the City Planning Application Details web site .

I have spoken to a number of people who are concerned about possible university expansion onto Mount Oswald. The University lodged a letter of objection making it clear that they have no interest in having more student residences built there.