lib dem

The City now has its third housing boss in the last six months. Congratulations to Liberal Democrat Cabot Councillor Mark Wright on his promotion to Executive Member for Housing and Service Improvement.

I shall now remind him of a pressing matter in his area of responsibility.

The two nice old people above are Frank and Doreen Vincent. They have lived in their home since 1945. They bought it from the council and transformed it from a pre-fabricated house into a brick bungalow.

Frank and Doris moved into their house in 1945, two years before Council Leader Barbara Janke was born, and have lived there for 64 years almost twice as long as new Executive Member for Housing Mark Wright has been alive.

After World War II, Bristol along with many other municipal corporations built loads of pre-fabricated houses for returning servicemen and their families. Officially these were supposed to be temporary structures for 10-20 years at most, but we’ve still got quite a few of them around here.

In Bristol, the majority of pre-fabs are social housing – predominately Council-owned – and as a responsible landlord the Council has undertaken a large project to rehouse the tenants in more convivial accommodation. But the Vincents would prefer not to move, and respectfully declined the Council’s offer to buy their home.

So the Council applied for and obtained a Compulsory Purchase Order, with which they can take the Vincents’ property without consent. At the Full Council meeting at which the CPO was announced, their daughter made the following statement. Please watch it.

Perhaps Cllr Wright can answer the same question that was put to his predecessors, most recently by Cllr Ashley Fox MEP (C) at the 31st March 2009 Full Council meeting.

MQ4 COUNCILLOR A FOX TO ASK COUNCILLOR TIM KENT, CABINET MEMBER FOR HOUSING AND SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

Q1 Does the Cabinet Member intend to use the Compulsory Purchase Order, applied for by his Labour predecessor, to forcibly remove Mr & Mrs V from their private home in Dorian Road, Horfield?

The previous response was that the Vincent family are an "incongruous insertion”.

Does the new executive member, who is also Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol South, intend to send in the bulldozers?

You may recall that the new Lib Dem cabinet of the City of Bristol announced their front bench team, as follows (via the Evening Post):

• Barbara Janke - Leader of the Council
• Simon Cook - Deputy Leader & Executive Member for Culture, Sport and Tourism
• Mike Popham - Executive Member for Efficiency and Value-for-Money
• Tim Kent - Executive Member for Housing and Service Improvement
• Clare Campion-Smith - Executive Member for Children and Young People
• Gary Hopkins - Executive Member for Environment and Community Safety
• Jon Rogers - Executive Member for Transport and Sustainability
• Bev Knott - Executive Member for Care and Neighbourhoods

Also via the Evening Post, the Labour party have announced their shadow cabinet:

• Councillor Helen Holland - Group Leader
• Peter Hammond - Community Cohesion and Care and Safer Communities.
• John Bees - Resources and Transformation.
• Mark Bradshaw - Transport and Planning.
• Terry Cook - Regeneration and Sustainability.
• Judith Price - Homes and Street Scene
• Councillor Rosalie Walker - Health, Leisure and Culture
• Derek Pickup - Children and Young People

Now how do these match up? Simon Cook is executive member for Leisure and Culture, but not Health. But Rosalie walker is shadow spokesperson for Health, Leisure and Culture. But the Lib Dems don't have an executive member for health. John Bees is shadow for resources and transformation, but the Lib Dems don't have an executive member for either, although Mike Popham is in charge of Efficiency and Value-for-Money and Tim Kent is in charge of Service Improvement. Tim is also responsible for Housing, so he must be partly shadowed by Judith Price (Homes). Peter Hammond is shadowing Community Cohesion and Care and Safer Communities, which presumably covers Gary Hopkins' Community Safety role and Be Knott's Care role, but Gary's Environment role and Bev's Neigbourhoods responsibilities are presumably shadowed by Terry Cook (regeneration) and Judith Price (Street Scene). Also, very importantly, Mark Bradshaw is the spokesperson for Transport, but Terry Cook is leading on Sustainable Transport, So both are presumably shadowing Jon Rogers who is responsible for Transport and Sustainability.

Is everyone clear on that?