Arnold Woolley.com

Click here to see my Electoral Message to the people of Bistre East Ward.

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.

It will not be long before this four-year session of municipal councils ends on 3rd May, 2012. On that date there will be fresh local government elections. New faces, new thoughts and fresh ideas, workable or barmy, will enter upon the scene. Whether I am returned as a Town and County councillor will depend upon the voters of my own ward, which is how it should be. The time between now and then will pass swiftly, of that I have no doubt. As Leader of the county council, until a new administration is set in place, I intend to use the time to best effect, to ensure that county council services are all delivered on time and at high standard. To that end, the Annual Budget for 2012-13 was approved on 1st March, 2012. The proposals in that will form the foundation of county council activities for the financial year ahead. That budget is balanced, prudent and workable, despite the fact that we have had 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.

Not only have we cleared the Budget, but, on 20th March, 2012, the future of our Council Housing Stock was decided.
On that date, council tenants voted by a majority of 88% to 12% to remain with the council as their landlord, rather than move to a new Registered Social Landlord. The turnout was 71% of possible voters, which was a record for this exercise in Wales. Now there must be some serious discusssions between this county council and the Wales Government, who would have handed a sizable cash dowry to the proposed new RSL, to help them achieve the Wales Housing Quality Standard for all council house tenants in quick time, but are not, presently, prepared to provide this county council with the same level of funding to achieve that same target.

Since I last updated this website, we have achieved the status of an Enterprise Zone for much of the Deeside Industrial Estate and the new Northern Gateway proposals based on the area of the old Sealand Airforce Base. That was no mean achievement. It opens up the route to support funding from the Wales Government. We need to use that to attract serious international and national industrial and commercial organisations to the area. We need high quality employers and a highly skilled workforce if we are to compete successfully in a very competitive world.

Meanwhile, Flintshire County Council, led by myself and our CEO, Colin Everett, has been working hard to collaborate better with our neighbouring councils and others in North Wales. That way we can form better links, for the purpose of providing economies of scale and learning from examples of best practice. We are also sitting round the table with our colleagues in the Police, Health, Fire and other public services, so as to ensure that our combined efforts are co-ordinated and supportive, rather than competing, overlapping and duplicating. All for the purpose of providing better services to you, the public, in difficult financial times, which will be with us for several more years yet.

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, (01244) 549421, or at the office on (01352) 752108, or (01352) 752121.

Programme of Highway Works

Here is a link to the works programme on Flintshire County Council's website as agreed at Environment Overview and Scrutiny on 21st March.

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 communties, 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 feel 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 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) 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!)
     2) Education (Modernisation and Improvement)
     3) 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.

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.