Avril Davies

A report in The Bucks Herald on Wed 31st March, stated that: “Bucks County Council, supported by all of Bucks district councils, is advocating a route which follows the west coast mainline and includes an intermediate station at Milton Keynes”.

It must be made clear at this point that as far as HS2 Ltd and the Department of Transport, the West Coast Main Line options have been rejected and Bucks County Council have not been invited to state a preference. Consultation on a single route west of  Wendover and Aylesbury is scheduled to begin in October 2010.

Bucks County Council has published a full colour A3 leaflet opposing the officially proposed route, proposing instead one of the rejected alternatives along the West Coast Main Line, supported by all County Districts.

At an AVDC council meeting on 14th April, under pressure from Avril Davies, (Lib Dem, Pitstone and Ivinghoe) Corry Cashman (Lib Dem, Cheddington and Marsworth) and Peter Cooper (Independent, Wingrave and Aston Abbots) the District Council withdrew its support from the west coast main line option, and declared its opposition to all HS2 routes through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding natural beauty and Aylesbury Vale.

However the County Council Conservative administration put a motion to the County Council on 22nd April which stated that ‘any routing’ through the AONB was unacceptable, and that the proposed alternative routings through Buckinghamshire are ‘equally unacceptable’. They then went on to say that if a case was made for high speed rail the council’s preferred routes are ’along the West Coast Main Line or in a non-AONB routing.’ The County Council cabinet members were unable to clarify if they were referring to the HS2 (rejected) west coast main line proposal, passing MK to the west, or an option of their own devising alongside the existing route.

Avril Davies proposed an amendment to the motion, requesting removal of any mention of the west coast main line preference, which was defeated on party lines. She said that if the main reason for opposing the route was the effect on the AONB, preferring a different route, still through the AONB, would weaken their case. That it was not clear which route they meant, that it is not necessary to commit to any route at this stage, and that they no longer had the support of AVDC. Persisting in advocating the WCML would bring a blight on house prices in the area which HS2 had specifically intended to avoid by proposing one route only.

There are many other very good reasons for HS2 not to follow the WCML, most of which contribute to its official rejection by HS2 and the government as an option.

In the County Council debate the cabinet member for Transportation made it clear that they wanted to use the west coast main line option as a trade off for ‘our more beautiful Chilterns’, and said that ‘people who live by the West Coast Main Line knew they were near the railway when they bought their houses’. The Cabinet member for planning stated that the possibility of a station at Milton Keynes would bring benefit to the Bucks economy.

Afterwards Avril Davies said ‘Their motion was nothing more than crocodile tears about the AONB, as they made it quite clear they are perfectly happy to offer up parts of it as a sacrifice to protect their own back yards, and gain some economic advantage at the expense of others, namely, us. They made it quite clear they place a lower value on the quality of life for residents of this part of Bucks’.

County Councillors Annual Report 2009-10
Each year some of the Parishes in the Ivinghoe Division ask me to contribute an annual report as County Councillor so I usually make it my contribution to the newsletter at this time, to share it more widely. I am County Councillor for Ivinghoe, Ivinghoe Aston, Pitstone, Edlesborough, Dagnall, Northallm Slapton Cheddington and Marsworth and was re-elected in July 2009 for a third term. I am also District Councillor for Pitstone and Ivinghoe and I will write a similar report for the next newsletter for the District Council as well as any up to date news.

In June 2009 four yearly elections were held and the County Council began a new term with 46 Conservatives and 11 Liberal Democrats. There are no Labour members. Two former Labour members who joined the Liberal Democrats were re-elected for a High Wycombe Division. All members sign a Code of Conduct, make a Declaration of Interests on the public record, and are paid independently assessed allowances, which are also published. Local Government is far more tightly regulated and far more transparent than National Government on these matters.

The County Council is run on a Cabinet system with cabinet members responsible for service areas, and a Scrutiny Committee which keeps controversial decisions under review and sets up working groups to scrutinise aspects of the County Council services and make recommendations to Cabinet. The County is responsible for Adult and Family well-being, which includes Social Services; Children’s Services including Child Protection and Education; Transportation, Planning (some) and Environment. It has Libraries, Trading Standards, Archaeology, Archives, and Museums, Registrars and Economic Development, Country Parks and other such discrete services fitted in to the three main directorates. This is also the first year that services have been delivered in a significantly different way via two major contracts; one for home to school transport and one for highways and related matters.
The very wide range of County services is reflected in the Cabinet Forward Plan. For July there were 60 items, and it rolls forward throughout the 4 year term. Many decisions (in the plan) are about long term strategy documents, and service plans, such as the Freight Strategy and the Local Transport Plan 3 that are being consulted on at the moment and have been to the Local Area Forum for example. Some, but very few, are major strategic decisions such as the Energy From Waste Procurement decision, from Covanta in Bedfordshire, which I mentioned in my October report, but which is currently being re-visited because of a legal matter. Most decisions are operational, about a school, such as Academy Status for Quarrendon, or additional money for potholes.
All this can be found on the County Council website, but only a taste in the Buckinghamshire Times. The website recently won a SOCITM award for its design ,content and useability.

To give you a personal flavour, as it’s very hard to know what to report on in such a report, I would say that since the elections the main preoccupations of the Council have been the ‘transformation’ of the organisation - its structure, its way of working, its use of IT, in order to reduce its costs. So far about half of the 500 anticipated staff cuts have been made and as you can imagine this makes working at the County Council very difficult for people not knowing how long they will have a job for, and inevitably services will suffer to an extent. For two years or more the County has been working with the four Buckingamshire Districts and the Fire Authority to set up a shared ‘back office’ service with a partner from the commercial sector such as BT or IBM. The costs of this so outweighed the savings that all the Districts and the Fire Authority withdrew in the New Year. The budget process takes a good 4 - 6 months with officer reviews, majority party reviews, and finally a public questioning by an all party scrutiny panel of each cabinet member over 2 days. Fourthly, the two contracts I referred to above with Amey and Jacobs Ringway have also had to bed down , and among members there is considerable concern as to whether these are going to be able to deliver.
Locally, looking at my quarterly reports over the year, published since 2008 on the County Council website, this year has been no exception with items on the perennial topics of HGV traffic and the Speed Limit Review, Now finally in Public Consultation for this area. It will take as long to develop the Freight Strategy Partnership approach to HGVs, as outlined in the recent consultation, but it is better than doing nothing, which is the current approach. The major planning application for Quarry 2 Pitstone still hasn’t come to committee more than a year after it was submitted,. The Children’s Centre in Ivinghoe, but for the whole Division, should begin building any day now - as with the speed limit review this part of the County is last or nearly last to be commenced. The Household Waste and Recycling Centre has opened at Aston Clinton which has been good news.

Finally, very locally I am always pleased to be able to put the Community Leaders’ Fund to good use and this year it has helped Cheddington Scouts, Slapton Village Hall toilets, Marsworth Parish Newsletter, and a new stairlift for Ivinghoe Town Hall.

The Local Area Forum has made a big difference to how the parish Councils and the County Council work together. The parishes from three County Divisions, Wing, Great Brickhill and Ivinghoe have worked together on their priorities and made some major achievements. The budget grant went to Cheddington last year for its footway, but the Ivinghoe circular walk which links Ford End, Great Gap and the Grand Union Canal attracted enough grant funding from elsewhere to make it look as if it’s going to happen any time now. Aston Abbots was also successful in getting a footway. Each Forum opens with a police and highway maintenance ‘clinic’ and has a varied agenda to follow. It has looked at good neighbour and community car schemes for example, and has had information directly on the Childrens Centres, Adult Social Care, Buses, and meets annually with London Midland Trains.

My role as a Councillor, as well as the local casework and correspondence which is easily an hour a day checking emails or phone calls plus at half to a whole day actually doing something about them, is meetings and preparing for meetings. I am a member of the Scrutiny Commissioning Committee which since July has had quite a heavy workload. It has looked at the value of all County ‘discretionary’ - prevention in social care for example. I have looked at the Swan Rider scheme which was losing #4M a year, and am currently looking at the Thames Valley Partnership which costs Bucks #1.4M to maintain speed cameras from which it gets no return, and other speed enforcement. I went out to Whaddon one morning at 7.30 am with an enforcement team recently. I didn’t do the budget examination this year, although I did on two previous years. Important reviews coming up are the Winter Maintenance review which will look at everything connected with gritting and potholes. I have been in correspondence with a local resident and asked if his letters can go to the review group as evidence of how the County is perceived by a reasonable citizen, with a view to the committee putting that point of view to those responsible for winter maintenance, both officers and cabinet member. Performance of both the major new contracts are going to be scrutinised minutely. In September I am going to chair a review of how the County carries out its consultations.

I am also a member of the Public Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee which is the local statutory watchdog for health services locally. This committee has recently joined with Oxfordshire and Hampshire to look at rural response times for the Ambulance Service. I am also the spokesperson on Adult Social Care for the Lib Dem group. Finally I am a member of the Bucks and MK Fire Authority where my main interest is the work the fire authority can do in reducing health inequalities with the PCT and County Council.
Avril Davies