onlineFOCUS – News and Stuff For Rochford District since 2003

As the Guardian reports here, Bullwood Hall Prison in Hockley is to be closed by this March.

This is obviously bad news for the staff who work there; we understand some may be offered transfers to other jails or to take voluntary redundancy packages.

It may also have an impact on the District Council’s core strategy. The Bullwood Hall site is a ‘brownfield site’ in the Green Belt. Although we can’t see the District Council giving a reprieve to Rawreth or to Hullbridge ,because the general locations have already been chosen. But this site could conceivably be used in the future, to avoid another site from being selected elsewhere.

January 10th, 2013 | Category: District Core Strategy, Employment, Future Housing, Hockley | Comments (1)

Some good news today nationally! There has been a surprise fall in unemployment .

Youth unemployment is also down , as the Guardian explains:

The ONS data also showed that youth unemployment improved, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work falling below a million in the three months to August, down 62,000 compared with March to May. That took the jobless rate among young people down to 20.5% from 21.8%.

The Guardian also has information on a district-by-district basis:

As you can see, youth unemployment is starting to drop in South-East Essex, except in Rochford, where the figures are unchanged. But the figures for young people still out of work and claiming after 6 months are still creeping up.

October 17th, 2012 | Category: Castle Point, District Wide, Employment, Southend | Leave a comment

One of the issues discussed at the LDF sub-committee last night was about which land should be used for new industrial / commercial / office uses in the future.

It was agreed that:

These recommendations now go to full council.

March 22nd, 2012 | Category: District Core Strategy, Employment, Rawreth, Rawreth Green Belt, Rayleigh | Leave a comment

The Guardian has the latest unemployment figures, broken down for each constituency.

In Rayleigh and Wickford the situation is still fairly reasonable. Only 2.1 percent of people are claiming benefit , though the number is going up slightly.
But in Rochford and Southend East the figure has risen to 6.4 percent, and is going up faster.

Here is the information in more detail:

Rayleigh and Wickford :
2.7% of men claiming benefits
1.6 % of women claiming benefits
Total number of people : 1,294
Overall % of people 2.1% A increase of 8.6 % in the past 12 months.

Rochford and Southend East:
8.7% of men claiming benefits
4.1 % of women claiming benefits
Total number of people : 3,832
Overall % of people 6.4% A increase of 13.1 % in the past 12 months.

February 16th, 2012 | Category: Employment | Leave a comment

Bad news today.

Fountains, the company that is the grounds maintenance contractor in our district, has gone into administration.

They have the contracts for a number of councils around the country – another one is Norwich. In some cases the contracts are being taken over by another company, OCS Group – but this isn’t happening in Rochford.

Our hearts go out tonight to the employees of Fountains.

As far as the council is concerned, senior offficers of the council are in urgent meetings, making sure that arrangements are in place for the really urgent stuff, such as issues involving the cemetery.

In the long term councillors will have to decide what to do with the contract.

January 23rd, 2012 | Category: District Wide, Employment | Comments (5)

Rochford District Council have 3 vacancies on their website:

Title Salary Closing date Posted
Street Scene Officer £17,161 to £19,126 03/01/2012 (13 days) 7 days ago
Assistant Planner/Planning Officer 19,621 – 23,708 18/01/2012 (28 days) 8 days ago
Senior Building Control Officer £31,754 ro £34,549 16/01/2012 (26 days) about 1 month ago

December 20th, 2011 | Category: Employment | Comments (1)

The Guardian has the latest unemployment figures, broken down for each constituency.

In Rayleigh and Wickford the situation is pretty reasonable. Only 1.9 percent of people are claiming benefit , and the number is going down.
But in Rochford and Southend East the figure has risen to 5.7 percent, and is going up.

The average for England is 3.7 percent.

Julian Ware-Lane has more data for Essex here.

August 18th, 2011 | Category: Employment | Comments (2)

A new job club is opening in Rayleigh on September 2nd.

Place? The Warehouse Centre , Brook Road, Rayleigh.
Time? 11 am to 1 pm every Friday.
Contact details ? southend@seejobclub.co.uk Phone: 07957 _498340

“Practical help and advice to anyone of ANY AGE looking for work. A safe place to chat and unload, share experiences and network in job sharing. Free to join, free to attend, voluntary led.”

If you require any further information, we can probably assist….

August 9th, 2011 | Category: Employment, Rayleigh | Leave a comment

Statistics show that on average women who live in our district and work full-time earn more than men working full-time.

Earlier in the week we wrote about the number of local people without qualifications..

We now have some more information – but this time, based on Rochford District as a whole, not on parliamentary constituencies.

These figures are all for adults aged between 16 and 64, for the year 2010:

Qualifications

These figures are a bit depressing…

Employment

These figures are a bit encouraging….

Earnings

These figures are a bit surprising

So what can we deduce from this? Well, quite a lot of our adult population left school without qualifications, but have still found jobs and careers. And we have quite a lot of people -especially women – who commute out of the district, are probably managers or senior officials and have decent salaries. But people who work locally receive much lower earnings….

The data comes from the Office of National Statistics and you can find it here. We’re grateful to the person who pointed us towards this information.

August 6th, 2011 | Category: Employment | Leave a comment

The Lib Dems on the County Council have made the following points about the “Bank of Essex”, which is now being scrapped:

1) When the first phase was launched in December 2009 the stated ambition for Banking On Essex was to create a local municipal bank.
2) The County Council put aside £50m from it’s cash balances to support the scheme.
3) It cost £380,000 to establish the scheme but the money could never be recovered.
4)Lib Dem County Councillor David Kendall asked for the scheme to be reviewed by the Economic Scrutiny Committee and this took place in June 2010.
5) By May 2010 only twelve loans had been approved with a value of £320,000
6) No figures were ever made available on the number of applications turned down.
7) Following the scrutiny in June members were told they were going to get regular updates on how the scheme was going but it never happened.
8 ) The Leader Cllr Peter Martin was due to be questioned about the Banking on Essex scheme at the Economic Development & Environment Policy & Scrutiny Committee this Thursday (24/2/11) by Cllr Kendall and other members of that Committee.
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Speaking about the decision Cllr Kendall said :

“I believe the County Council has made the right decision to scrap Banking on Essex. I had serious concerns about £50m of Essex residents money being set aside to support Banking on Essex. I was also very concerned that it cost £380,000 to establish the scheme back in 2009. Since then the number of loans granted has been quite small and only half a million pounds has been lent to local businesses. I was also concerned that no figures were ever made available as to the number of applications turned down and members were not given updates on how the scheme was performing. There were also instances of businesses applying for loans experiencing problems with paperwork being lost. I have never been convinced that it was right for the County Council to get directly involved in Banking and it seems the Tories running Essex County Council have now finally come to the same conclusion”.

February 23rd, 2011 | Category: Council Budget, Employment, Essex & East | Leave a comment

Last Thursday’s Development Committee had to consider an application to convert an empty building on the Purdey’s Industrial Estate into an indoor roller skating rink. It was a particularly difficult decision – and in the end it was REFUSED by 12 votes to 11

You can download the full report here (970kb) – it’s the third item on the agenda.

Basically, this is a shiny bright, new building that was originally intended to be a furniture showroom. Hpwever although the building was completed, it’s never been used for that. Instead a company called Thermo Fisher Scientific moved into part of the building (towards the back). They employ 48 people , in the design and manufacture of scientific equipment.

The shiny glass part of the building has remained empty – and a local outfit applied to open up a roller skater rink there. Council officers recommended approval. With councillors generally very keen to encourage more leisure facilities for young people, you might expect it to be passed.

However Thermo Fisher Scientific were very much against, being deeply concerned that the noise and vibration would affect their business (after all , some scientific instruments are very delicate). They also have special Department of Transport clearance allowing items packed there to be exempt from being opened at airports, which they felt might be in jeopardy if there were lots more people around their premises. Thermo Fisher made it clear that if the noise and vibration did affect their equipment, or affected the concentration of their engineers, their parent company might well relocate them out of Rochford and the UK.

So one of the Conservative ward councillors, Mrs Lucas-Gill, moved refusal on the grounds of the effect on the adjoining business , and unsafe pedestrian access along Sutton Road. Around about half of the councillors present sympathised on the first point, but they were very doubtful on the traffic issue. Just about every councillor agreed that the roller skating would be very useful – the question was, was this the wrong place?

Ron Oatham said that from his experience of working as that kind of engineer for over 2 decades, engineers weren’t such delicate flowers and wouldn’t be affected by the noise .

When it came to a vote the application was refused by 12 votes to 11. (which meant that 16 councillors were either absent or abstained.) Voting completely cut across party lines. All 5 Lib Dems were present – three of us (Chris Black, Chris Lumley, June Lumley) vote to refuse, two of us (Jackie Dillnutt and Ron Oatham, wanted to pass it.

August 21st, 2010 | Category: Employment, Leisure and Sport, Planning Applications, Rochford | Comments (1)