Rocke
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Another week that wasA fair bit of toing and froing on some constituency matters this week, otherwise I'd have been paying back allowances.
Housing issues and a sort of eternal triangle which we're trying to sort out.
It's surprising how rules and guidelines that help ensure fairness sometimes lead to illogical or awkward situations.
A fair part of 3 separate days spent on it, with little to show at the moment. Frustrating, but understandable from my point of view. Nevertheless I'll be trying to get something sorted.
Thursday was the Environmental Health & Public Protection Committee.
Supt Warrender gave an update on the new policing policy and how it was proceeding. Since April there's been fixed neighbourhood police and support officers and a flexible force ( around 50-60 officers ) who report to Tredegar at the start and end of their shift and are deployed on a daily basis.
We had a presentation by Steve Jones, our head of Trading Standards, who's also Chair of WHOTS ( Wales Heads of Tarding Standards ).
It was about the effect TS has on the local economy.
For example, rogue traders can be given ( by the courts ) orders that make them pay from the proceeds of their crimes such as counterfeiting.
Also there's a large amount of money in redress ie. where customers have their money back for shoody goods. This can then be spent with genuine businesses. There's also the catching of forged and counterfeit goods. The removal of these means local businesses get your money, not the criminals.
A report on the Pennington enquiry into the E-coli outbreak a couple of year back that resulted in the death of poor little Mason from over the Rhonnda. Prof. P made a number of recommendations and this report was to update Members so we could be satisfied that the council's doing all it can to protect the public.
I'm confident that we are, although I've made the point that our Env dept are understaffed/overstretched, as pointed out by our officers. Someone will be looking into that.
A report on street cleansing.
Our streets ( as in every other authority ) are randomly selected for a little survey.
A 50-yard stretch of a selected street is examined thoroughly and then graded A ( absolutely spotless ) to D ( PSF ). Marks are 3 to 0.
We attained 63.2% last year and that's 19th out of the 22 Welsh authorities.
I'm not happy and I said so - b ut I also stated that I wouldn't be happy with 63.2% and top of the tree.
However, to get things into context the top was 76% and only 1% divided us from 12th or so. 2% better would have seen us in the top 10.
The examination is that thorough.
Anyway, we're on the way up and our officers' initiative to employ very local litter wardens for 12.5 hours a week is definitively a very good one.
Bit disappointing to see more officers than Members at the meeting ( 8 councillors out of 15 ). It's becoming the norm.
The Executive was due to discuss funding for the Six Bells - Aberbeeg cycleway this week. I'll let you know what happened when I get the Minutes.
Cheers.
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