onlineFOCUS – News and Stuff For Rochford District since 2003

The government collects lots of data from councils. For example, if you click here you can find out what each council in England has done about fly-tipping. The most recent data is for the civic year 2011-2012.

Reading through the stats, Rochford had 384 fly-tipping incidents (356 on the highways, 23 on council land , 1 agricultural and 4 on private land. The council spent £12,672 on clearing things up.

You can see for yourself whether Rochford actually took any legal action against anyone…

June 17th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

Mike Steptoe takes over economic development and regeneration

The new district council year starts in earnest with Annual Council next Tuesday.

It’s a bit like the start of the football season. Just as premiership teams have to submit their squads, each year the political groups have to send a list of councillors in their group. The political groups also send in the names of their leaders, deputy leaders and nominations for each committee place available to them. You can find all the details here.

Groups and Group leaders: No surprises here. Councillors Cutmore, Black, John Mason and Michael Hoy remain leaders of their respective groups. And no councillors have defected to another party.

The Council Cabinet : A few changes here. In particular Cllr Colin Seagers is no longer in the cabinet. (This may be because he is now a county coucnillor). He is replaced by Simon Smith, which means that one Rayleigh member can now speak at cabinet meetings! Also some other responsibilities have been swopped round, so that Keith Gordon takes over recycling from Mike Steptoe. In return Mike Steptoe takes over economic development and regeneration. So if you want to talk about regenerating town centres, the affable Cllr Steptoe is now the man to talk to.

Other Committees : Perhaps the biggest change is that Phil Capon will be the new chair of the Development Committee, with Cheryl Roe as vice-chair (which many people will see as deserved promotions). Also the Lib Dems have nominated Chris Lumley to the chair of the Review Committee, instead of his wife June.

May 18th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

Our first post was on May 4th 2003……

May 4th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

The Conservative Group on the District Council have put forward the following motion for Tuesday’s Full Council:

In the light of the recent pronouncements made by the Leader of Southend Borough Council concerning the potential merger of Southend, this Authority and Castle Point Borough Council, this Council would like to place on record its strong opposition to any such proposal. That said, this Council remains committed to examining potential options for Shared Services with its neighbouring authorities, and other authorities for that matter, where it makes sense to do so and where it is of benefit to Rochford District residents and businesses. Our new ICT services contract with Capita involving Braintree District Council, Colchester Borough Council, and Castle Point Borough Council, as well as this authority, is an example of such working arrangements, which have brought significant financial and other benefits to all four Authorities.’

April 21st, 2013 | Category: No Category | Comments (5)

Chris Black writes:

I’m working on a leaflet for the County Council elections – we’ll be announcing our candidates soon. There’s a bit of blank space left! Any suggestions on what to write about there? What do our readers think are the important local topics at the moment?

March 31st, 2013 | Category: No Category | Comments (5)

The District Council has tonight refused planning permission for a change of use in Rayleigh High Street.

The application was for no. 74 High Street, which until recently was Johnsons Dry Cleaners. This is a retail use, and the application was to change it to restaurant/cafe use. In fact, it would have become a Pie and Mash shop.

Officers were recommending approval, but councillors refused it on the grounds of it being against our council retail policy of at least 75 % retail use in the town centre….

February 28th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Comments (40)

No new stuff today, due to a touch of flu…

January 27th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Comments (8)

The District Council has just one job vacancy advertised on its website at the moment – as a collections officer:

We are looking for a target driven person to provide excellent customer service to customers.

As a Collections Officer, you will be contacting customers on a low income who are experiencing difficulties in paying their council tax following the implementation of the Council’s new local council tax support scheme starting in April 2013. Using your excellent customer service skills, you will be responsible for contacting customers to help them understand the new scheme and negotiate the best possible solution to help them pay their new council tax liability from April 2013.
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You will need to provide support and be able to go through a range of options to help them out. This could be setting up a suitable payment plan or helping them to review their finances and reduce their current expenditure. You will need to work very closely with the Citizens Advice Bureau to achieve these objectives.
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As a core member of the Recovery team you will need to have a minimum 6 months recent experience of collections within a debt recovery environment. If you enjoy working to targets and tight deadlines then this is the job for you. You will need excellent negotiation skills and be confident to use persuasive language during the chasing and following up of outstanding debts.
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This is a temporary 12 month contract. The position may be extended if the level of debt collected meets or exceeds expectations.

January 5th, 2013 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

We wish a happy and successful 2013 for all our readers…..

hat-tip: George Takei

January 1st, 2013 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

Best wishes to all our readers. May there be peace on Earth, and goodwill to all.

We will be back on Thursday.

December 24th, 2012 | Category: No Category | Leave a comment

From the District Council website:

Do you want to give your garden the best Christmas present this year?
If so head for the Freight House Car Park in Bradley Way, Rochford on Saturday 15 December between 8am and 12pm and stock up on FREE compost!

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are interested in coming along please bring your own shovels and sacks to take the compost away with you as the council will not be able to provide them!

December 13th, 2012 | Category: No Category | Comments (1)