Arnold Woolley.com

Welcome to My Website

All of my ward newsletters can be found in the News section. The local affairs section has been updated with new articles including what I feel is an emotive subject with many people I speak to - that of dog fouling.

I have made a couple of changes here and there to my website. I have got rid of the 'Blog' section as unfortunately I simply do not have the time to create regular entries, since my duties at both Ward and County level keep me exceptionally busy. Many thanks to the individuals who took time to contribute their own comments though. I found some interesting points raised.

I have created a section 'Newspapers' which is a way for me to address the inaccuracies and misquotes that appear in the press. I will update this as I feel necessary.

Here is an updated schedule of the Flintshire County Council investment portfolio.

Local Government in Wales

A Welsh Local Government survey published in March 2009, concerning the effects of the economic slowdown on Welsh councils indicated that 11 of the 22 local authorities will make job cuts during 2009-2010. 300 job cuts are expected in the South East Wales authorities and over 200 in the authorities in South West Wales. However, more than half of the 22 loccal authorities in Wales expect the present recession to ressult in greatly reduced employment levels over the next few years, with around 2000 compulsory redundancies likely to come before 2011.

In addition, the councils anticipate a loss of nearly £35 Million of investment income monies during the 2009-2010 financial year alone. This is from the loss of interest on investments, loss of planning appplication revenues and the overall efects of the economic slowdown.

Here is an article on the impact of the 2009 budget on Flintshire County Council.

Flintshire County Council Awards

Flintshire county Council has won two Excellence Wales awards which recognise good practice and service delivery. Flintshire was the only Council in Wales to win a highly commended award for improvements to the whole authority and a second award for its work with children , young people and older people.

Council Housing Future

All Council housing tenants within Flintshire will be balloted on whether they want to transfer to a new social landlord or to stay with the council.The Welsh Assembly Government requires all social landlords to bring all of their homes up to a standard called the Welsh housing Quality Standard (WHQS).

As a result, a lot of work needs to be done and a lot of money spent in order to meet the WHQS requirements. A ballot is expected to be held by mid 2010 and there will be ample communication and consultation before then with tenants and their associations so that everyone has the information they need to make an informed decision about the future of their homes.

Information on Flintshire County Council's Housing Capital Programme can be found here.

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

Brunswick Road Jubilee Clock Buckley Cross Jubilee

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.