Fighting for Our Area
Whether it’s a planning decision, a regeneration project, a new cycle lane or a change at a local park, it is hard to believe that all the decisions made in our area are properly informed or understood
Usually in Sefton decisions are made without debate in private by a single Cabinet Member from the ruling clique who cannot be expected to understand the needs and peculiarities of each area and community in Sefton.
For that reason Sefton used to have area or town committees made up of all the local councillors in each area - Southport,Bootle Formby, Maghull and Crosby- to review, scrutinise and suggest amendments to any plans for their particular area. Local residents could lobby and speak directly to these “area committees” and expect their voice to matter.
The current Sefton Labour administration abolished all these committees that represented the communities that make up Sefton and centralised all decision making in an all powerful 9 person Cabinet. Such a body can ride roughshod over local opinion and make bad uninformed decisions, leaving local communities feeling powerless.
We want to reverse this arrogant centralisation, bring back powerful area committees, ensure that the public can have proper input and put power in the hands of councillors who know their area and are accountable to it.
Devolving power isn’t just good democracy -it ensures better decision making, giving local communities a say in what happens on their doorstep.
Right to GP Appointments
Southport’s local ‘Healthwatch’ has found that the number one issue for many of us is anxiety about getting GP appointments. 66% of us are unhappy with current arrangements. It’s getting ever more difficult to see your family doctor with phone calls and e-mails replacing the traditional face to face consultation
Alternatives like e-consultations have not been very effective locally and no-one expects the situation to get better by itself. This can only impact on the early diagnosis of serious disease and the management of chronic conditions.
Part of the problem is due to an acute shortage of family doctors.There has been complete lack of workforce planning by government. Britain has been training far fewer doctors than other developed countries.
The struggle to have that confidential chat rather than a quick call is why the Liberal Democrats are arguing for patients in England to have a right to a face to face appointment within a week and in urgent cases within 24 hours. “This does not solve the doctor shortage,” says Cambridge Ward councillor, Leo Evans , “ but unless patients are given reasonable rights, access will get worse. It will make the government wake up to the crisis and train more doctors.”
End Secrecy
Currently huge amounts of local taxpayers money are being spent in Sefton without local taxpayers being able to find out if they are getting value of money. It all started under the Labour administration with the secret purchase of the Bootle Strand Shopping Centre for £32M . It was supposed to give the Council an income from shop rentals of £1M a year. In reality It costs the Council last year £2.5m to run (including the repayments on the loan Sefton took out to pay for it) . Residents will still be repaying that loan for decades.
Currently the Council are planning to borrow a further £52M to help finance the Council ’s flagship project the £106M Events and Conference Centre at Southport. Again the project is shrouded in secrecy with only the Sefon Cabinet knowing the full details and costings and opposition councillors being denied access to key documents. The Sefton Cabinet is a 9 person group of Labour Councillors who make all the key Sefton decisions -often behind a smokescreen of commercial confidentiality.
Among their other projects are a housing company (Sandway Homes) that uses £8M of Council tax payers’ money as working capital and a catering company that posts six figures losses and still gets contracts from the Council.
Much of this is kept beyond the scrutiny of ordinary councillors in a culture of secrecy, denying residents any chance to find out what they are getting from the use of their taxes. The Council has to have Scrutiny Committees by law but Labour ensure that all these are chaired by Labour councillors only- even though Labour have only just over half the total number of 66 councillors.
Liberal Democrats believe that this “culture of secrecy” is not only a bad way to run a Council but leads to poor decisions and cover ups. A key objective of ours is to end Council secrecy and allow residents to judge if their money is spent well.