Dear Resident,

Here is my latest update on things at Derbyshire County Council.

Well, it’s that time of year when local authorities are setting their council tax.  Derbyshire County Council have agreed a 3.99% increase for the year 2019/20, but that won’t mean services won’t be continued to be cut.  I use the word cut because the controlling conservative group insist on referring to them as efficiency savings.  £90 million of cuts have taken place since austerity began in 2010 – we were all told it would last for 5 years.  Nine years later it is still with us and services like Learning Disability Day Care is now subject to a consultation on closing a number of facilities – Parkwood being one of them.

Youth clubs are being closed down throughout Derbyshire and support for vulnerable children is being removed.  This is called the Early Help Offer.  So much for not making our children pay.

The library consultation has just been completed where they were gauging views on community groups taking them over.  Of the 20 libraries consulted on, only one had any interest shown in a group taking it over.  What happens next to Somercotes Library and the others.  CLOSURE?

Locally I have been reporting light outages throughout the community because the night patroller is no longer funded, so it falls down to us to report faults to Derbyshire County Council. 

I have asked for various roads and pavements to be considered for resurfacing.  This depends on the council’s budget and priorities for spending.  The government have given £8.6 million one-off funding for highways which needs to be spent by 31 March 2019.  We will see how much of this comes to this area.  I have, over the months, supported many organisations with grants from the Derbyshire County Council Community Priority Funding which helps support the valuable work in the community continue.

TRAFFIC LIGHTS / ROAD CLOSURES

We seem to be inundated with road closures at the moment due to water and electricity faults.  For the people who use Sleetmoor Lane as a route, the traffic lights and signage have been installed at this location due to the continuing problem with water seeping onto the road and it freezing causing a highway safety issue.  Meetings and exploratory excavations have taken place to resolve this problem and a scheme is being programmed to resolve it by Derbyshire County Council and Severn Trent.  Councillor Steve Marshall-Clarke and I are both pursuing a solution to this.

For bus users it’s great that we are in the 21st century with some stops having the next time display installed – it saves having to carry a torch to read and try and understand the bus timetables. 

I continue to hold Members Surgeries with Cllr J McCabe and Cllr B Little on the first Saturday of each month 11am to 12 noon at Somercotes Parish Hall.

Please come and join us.