Welcome to My Website
You are very welcome to my website. I hope you enjoy browsing through what is on offer in the various sections and in the many links that you will come across.
My website is aimed at keeping the residents of Buckley, Flintshire and any other interested parties up to date with our Flintshire local government authority’s activities, which concern and affect us all.
As Christmas of 2011 fades into memory, along with the New Year celebrations for 2012, the first month of the new year is already fast becoming history too. It will not be long before this session of municipal councils ends on 3rd May, 2012 and perhaps some new faces, new thoughts and fresh ideas, workable or barmy, enter upon the scene. The time between now and then will pass swiftly, of that I have no doubt. As Leader of the county council, that period I intend to use to best effect, to ensure that the Budget for 2012-13 is delivered on time and in good order to best serve the interest of the residents. The Budget has been in preparation since September of last year, as councillors and officers have put their collective heads together to cut away any waste of finance, effort or material resources, in order to keep services adequate in quantity and first class in quality.
I shall also do my best to see that issues of Single Status Negotiations (Equal Pay Arrangements), the Council Housing Tenants' Choices Ballot and our Schools Modernisation Consultation all proceed apace. There is more on each of those below.
This coming financial year will see another drop in real terms in the supporting finance from the Wales Government. This time one of close to £400k in funding compared with last year. That takes no account of increased demand caused by age and demographic growth or the effects of inflation. Dealing with that lot together means that the county has had to find close to £9Million of savings in order to maintain services and still balance the books. Our target date for Budget presentation is 1st March. In the meantime, our outline proposals are proceeding through assorted Scrutiny Committees, aiming towards a full council meeting where members will be asked to approve our proposals.
I shall also do my best to see that issues of Single Status Negotiations (Equal Pay Arrangements), the Council Housing Tenants' Choices Ballot and our Schools Modernisation Consultation all proceed apace. There is more on each of those below.
This coming financial year will see another drop in real terms in the supporting finance from the Wales Government. This time one of close to £400k in funding compared with last year. That takes no account of increased demand caused by age and demographic growth or the effects of inflation. Dealing with that lot together means that the county has had to find close to £9Million of savings in order to maintain services and still balance the books. Our target date for Budget presentation is 1st March. In the meantime, our outline proposals are proceeding through assorted Scrutiny Committees, aiming towards a full council meeting where members will be asked to approve our proposals.
In updating this website, I need to offer a sincere word of apology to those who encountered difficulties with new system of refuse removal and recycling collections in the period between November 7th and the New Year. The new scheme of weekly recycling collection has been necessitated by a Directive from the EU, limiting the tonnages we can send to landfill and imposing a £200 penalty surcharge for every ton we go over our annual limit. The pilot scheme, carried out through summer and autumn of last year worked well, with barely any snags. While it is fair to say that in the majority of wards and roads the new scheme caused no problems, in a limited nu mber of localities there certainly were far more than had been expected. Our waste management department is used to handling around 400 calls a week, for information and assistance. In the first week after 7th November, there were 6,000 such calls. Even though we had added another 8 lines to the call number, it proved inadequate. Now, in January, with the new system working much better, I can at least set out the positives. There has been a huge increase in recycling and a huge decrease in tonnage of material sent to landfill. That is what was needed!
My website has been updated lately, with assorted bits and pieces that I feel you need to know about, in Buckley Town, Flintshire County and Wales National terms. If you have any questions, contact me on arnoldwoolley@hotmail.com, or arnold.woolley@flintshire.gov.uk. If you are happier with telephone conversations, try me on my home number, (01254) 549421, or at the office on (01352) 752108, or (01352) 752121.
Schools Modernisation
Mr. Leighton Andrews, Minister for Education at the Welsh Government, has a bit of a thing about empty places causing a waste of money in schools all over Wales. He has required that any school with over 30% vacancies should be looked at and ways should be found of redressing the situation. At that 30% level, few, if anyone would argue with him. Sadly, here in Flintshire, we have 3 schools in that "Do Something" range. Elfed High School in Buckley, Holywell High School and John Summers High School.
FCC as the education authority, could have simply drawn up firm proposals, announced a Statutory Consultation Period and implemented any necessary changes approved at county level. Instead of that, we decided to try to work with the local comm unties, to listen to them and to try to meet their aims and aspirations as far as we could, in moving towards Schools Modernisation, which has been outstanding for too many years, probably because the previous administration, just like the Housing Ballot and the Single Status Agreement, appeared to feet the matter was a potato too hot to handle.
At the end of June we went out to an informal dialogue with schools and interested parties in all three areas, Holywell, Deeside and Buckley. To help kick off the debate, we set out a small number of Options, not recommendations, for consideration.
From all three locations, we have been bombarded by campaigns based on "You're not closing OUR school!" Local schools activists have been supported by local councillors, senior and junior.
Well, we have recognised the strength of public opinion and taken a step backward in time, so as to re-shape and better inform the process of consultation and dialogue. That has slowed up the Schools Modernisation Programme in this county. For that slowness and for the fact that ordinary members of all political persuasions, or none, appear to have patently failed to grasp the essential need for thinking strategically, we, as a county, have been criticised by the school inspectors, Estyn, who have recently carried out an inspection of education services in the county.
Whatever happens when the consultation is resumed and finalised, the excess number of places in our schools has to be brought down to a sensible figure of around 10%. If Members and members of the public cannot agree to achieve that target, I am certain that the Minister will not hesitate to send in the men in grey suits to make sure that that the target IS achieved. He has done just that already, elsewhere.
WLGA News Release
Please take time to visit the Welsh Local Government Association's website here where you will find lots of information on many current local government topics, including:-
1) The chances of a freeze on Council Tax for the year 2012-13.
2) Wales Data Unit's Annual Report on Performance of counties for the year 2010-11. (Overall, Flintshire was 4th, or 6th, depending on which way you do your analysis!)
3) Education (Modernisation and Improvement)
4) Social Housing
and lots more.
Outstanding investments
Here is the latest schedule of investments that Flintshire County Council has.
Here is Flintshires Long Term Borrowing Analysis 2010/11. Please note the dates when the money was borrowed.
Council Housing Future
In their wisdom or otherwise, the Welsh Assembly Government appear to have decided, a few years ago, that they would be very happy if Local Authorities were to get out of the Landlord Business. They required each of them to hold a ballot of all tenants, to allow the tenants to freely choose between remaining with their Local Authority, or becoming tenants of some other old established, or newly created, Registered Social Landlord.
The exercise was tied into a requirement from the WAG that all Local Authority Social Housing Stock should be brought up to a Welsh Housing Quality Standard by 2013. For reasons best known to them, the WAG were unwilling to provide any additional resources for the Local Authorities concerned, but were willing to offer £Millions of grants to any Social Landlord for that purpose of upgrading the housing stock by the due date.
Most of the 22 Local Authorities in Wales have already balloted their tenants. Some have elected to remain under their Local Authority, others have decided to move away.
Flintshire's present administration took the line that it was not up to us to urge our tenants one way or the other. It has to be a free and fair, well-informed choice, made by tenants themselves. Following on from that neutral stance, we have held meetings with tenants to explain the advantages and disadvantages of going this way or that and worked closely with the WAG to ensure that a free and fair Ballot might be held.
After many months of deliberation and consultation, on 22nd November, 2011, some 50 or so of your 70 county councillors approved the wording of a "Choices" document that will now be distributed to every council tenanted household in the county, as a precursor to a formal Ballot that will be held in February of next year, 2012. The result will be announced towards the end of March of 2012.
The Choices document contains a detailed comparison of what improvement works county council would be able to afford over a timescale and what works a proposed new registered social landlord, nominally called Dee Housing Association, would be able to afford over a timescale.
The Ballot will be held under the auspices of an independent monitoring agency. A simple majority will decide the issue, one way or the other. If tenants decide to remain with council, so be it. If tenants decide to vote to go the other way, council will facilitate that change and re-organise our structures accordingly.
It really is an exercise in local democracy and people power. Long may that continue! Fortunately, the significant cost of carrying out the exercise has been underwritten by a grant of some £1.4Million from the Welsh Government, for which we are grateful.
Primary Authority Scheme
Flintshire County Council is one of the first councils within the UK, and the first in Wales to enter into a partnership agreement with a local major retailing chain, Iceland Foods Ltd, under the governments new Primary Authority Scheme. Lord Carter, Minister for Regulatory Reform, welcomes the official signing of the partnership agreement citing Flintshire as amongst the "most innovative Council" in taking the process forward.
The partnership scheme enables businesses and local authorities to work together to cut through bureaucracy, create stronger and more consistent working relationships and save valuable time and money.
The partnerships will also mean better co-ordination of local inspection and enforcement activity, as well as reducing red tape.
Primary Authority Partnerships will be available to any business that trades across two or more council boundaries, regardless of size.
Bistre East Ward
For government information on the Ward of Bistre East, and a map of the area covered please click here 
to see a ward profile
Many of the links in this site are to .PDF documents. To read these you will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. If you do not already have it, you can download it from here.
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