onlineFOCUS – News and Stuff For Rochford District since 2003

It’s probably been a looooong time since a leader of one of the political parties came to our district. David Steel stopped off for a photo at Rayleigh Weir in 1983, but we can’t recall any others since then.
However according to Cllr Michael Hoy, the leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett, will be coming to Hullbridge and Hockley tomorrow.

Clearly the election there is hotting up…..

We’d like to officially deny the rumour that David Cameron was going to come, but was afraid of getting marooned in Watery Lane!

Watery Lane

April 21st, 2013 | Category: Elections, Green Party, Hockley, Hullbridge, National Politics | Comments (12)

Green party councillor Michael Hoy writes here about the County Council contest in Hockley West.

April 11th, 2013 | Category: Elections, Green Party, Hockley, Hullbridge | Leave a comment

The local Green Party view on the Local Development Framework can be found here. Worth a read!

December 2nd, 2012 | Category: District Core Strategy, Future Housing, Green Party | Leave a comment

Councillors Michael and Diane Hoy have submitted the following questions to Full Council on Wednesday:

1.2 From Cllr Mrs D Hoy:-
Of the Leader of the Council
Further to the question I asked at the meeting in June and the full answer I
received could you please advise me:-
(1) Of the income received for advertising within Rochford District Matters,
how much is generated from Rochford District Council itself?
(2) In the answer given in June it was stated that a measure of Rochford
Districts Matters circulation was through the feedback received by the
Council to articles and notices in it. For the record, how many
communications (split by letters, emails and phone calls) were received
from the public directly in relation to items in Rochford District Matters
over the last financial year?

1.3 From Cllr M Hoy:-
Of the Portfolio Holder for Young Persons, Adult Services, Community
Care and Well Being, Health and Community Safety
With regard to the Ageing Population Strategy 2011-14:-
(1) On page 15 the Strategy talks about ‘Support the financial security of
older people’.
Current provision includes ‘Signpost those who cannot pay their bills to
the Citizens Advice Bureau and similar organisations’.
The objectives for Action includes ‘Continue to support financial and
income advice services, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau’.
How do you reconcile the pointing of people towards the Citizens Advice
Bureau for help whilst at the same time cutting its funding by a third?
(2) On page 16 the Strategy talks about ‘Supporting Access to mainstream
services and information for older people’.
Current provision includes ‘Supporting Wyvern Community Transport
Scheme’.

The objectives for Action includes ‘Continue to support community
transport within the District’.
How do you reconcile this with the fact that Wyvern Community
Transport received no grant for the current year, despite a specific
request for £5,000, and in fact the reason given was …‘it received
funding from other sources’?

It’s good to see a new councillor like Diane Hoy getting ‘stuck in’ and being active at full council….

October 30th, 2011 | Category: Green Party | Comments (5)

The following motion has been submitted to next Thursday’s Full Council:

The Proper Officer reports that, pursuant to Council Procedure Rule 13, the following Motion has been received from Cllrs M Hoy and Mrs D Hoy:-

‘Further to the consultation on the Allocations DPD Discussion and Consultation Document, which closed on 30 April 2010, the 891 responses received from Hullbridge residents, of which 4 were in favour, 20 were comments and 867 were objections, and with regard to responses from the District as a whole, this Council recognises that over 90% of the respondents to the Allocations DPD Discussion and Consultation Document object to that document and that the Council agree that they should not be pursuing a policy so overwhelmingly rejected by the population in all parts of the District.’

July 15th, 2011 | Category: Future Housing, Green Party, Hullbridge | Leave a comment

.. according to their website, they have won yesterday’s district council by-election in Hullbridge by 198 votes.

Hullbridge people don’t like the idea of hundreds of houses by Watery Lane, and they like Diane Hoy.

The Green Party now become an official group on the District Council.

Congratulations to Diane, and commiserations to the losing candidates.

We’ll publish the full result when it is up on the council website.

Update:

Mark Peter Hale The Conservative Party Candidate 555
Diane Hoy Green Party 757
Angelina Donna Marriott The Labour Party Candidate 182
Carl Whitwell UK Independence Party (UK I P) 76
Rejected Papers 2
Turnout 29.01%

Green gain from Conservatives.

June 17th, 2011 | Category: Elections, Green Party, Hullbridge | Comments (27)

Hulbridge Green Councillor Michael Hoy has revamped his blog here.

He writes:

After 18 months of Mikes Musings we have decided a major revamp is in order.

The name is now gone but the blog remains, renamed A Green Read. The idea is to widen the scope of the blog to bring in all of the Rochford District and allow other members to contribute. Although it may not seem so it can be quite hard sometimes to find the time to write on here (the amount of council business I deal with on top of my normal work can be quite large) and the extra people should allow more regular posts.

May 10th, 2011 | Category: Green Party, Web Stuff | Comments (8)