Some key points from last night:
Fire Stations:
There were about 50 people present, including about 25 in the public seats
Representatives from the Fire Service explained the reasoning behind closing Hadleigh and Rayleigh Fire Stations and replacing them by one station at Rayleigh Weir. The existing stations used by retained (=part-time) firemen who had to live within 5 minutes of their station. The new station would have full-time firemen ready at the station, so the average times for answering calls would be reduced.
Rayleigh Weir station would be a ‘key station’ which meant that if both applicances were going to be busy at an incident for a while an appliance from another station such as Hawkwell would moved over to Rayleigh Weir to answer any further calls.
The Fire Service carried out an official public consultation on this back in 2006 – they circulated 4000 leaflets inplaces like libraries but only 25 were sent back by the public. (None of the councillors present seemed to know about the consultation)
Dave Sperring (Rayleigh Town Council Chairman) and Chris Black both supported Mark Francois MPs idea of keeping the Rayleigh station open until the gas pipe roadworks were finished.
From the public seats, Mr Terry Jacobs, who was against the closure, pointed out that although there had ben some press coverage about closing Rayleigh Fire Station in 2006, it didn’t mention there was an official consultation that the public could reply to.
Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour:
Inspector Andy Parkman was present and councillors were each given 6 pages of various crime stats, broken down by council ward and month.
District Councillor Simon Smith spoke about the recent stabbing in King Georges Field and asked whether Rayleigh was a safe town.Inspector Parkman’s response was yes, crime levels are still low. After the stabbing someone was arrested within a matter of hours and charged, and is still remanded in custody. He hinted that there were interesting circumstances about what happened that should come to light when the case comes to trial.
District Councillor Chris Lumley pointed out that the figures we were given didn’t include drug offences. Inspector Parkman siad he could provide figures in future but that, although the police were active against drug-dealing, they were not treating possession of cannabis as a priority crime.
The Inspector provided some good news – 3 extra new permanent neighbourhood police officers were starting work in Rayleigh soon. (with 3 more in Rochford too)
Chris Black pointed out that problems of vandalism were increasing – and mentioned St Nicholas School. He pointed out that although reports of anti-social behaviour had gone down in previous years, in the past year there had been a big increase from 53 in Rayleigh in August 2008 to 106 in Rayleigh in August 2009.
Rawreth Parish Council Chairman Alistir Matthews said that theat problems were increasing in the Rawreth and Downhall area, thought thatmany of them were drink related and wondered if it was connected with the granting of a certain lanning permission.
Dave Sperring said he thought this was the worst summer for anti-social behaviour in 5 years.
St Nicholas School
The Headteacher Mrs Bright spoke about how the school was suffering from repeated heavy vandalism. The cost of repairs was affecting the school’s budget, and the school nearly had to be closed on Monday.
Inspector Parkman said that there had been 5 offences of criminal damage , the last being at 2345 hours Sunday evening. They were aware of the situation , there were possibilities of covert patrols and the police had contacted the landowner of the site next door with the rubble that the vandals were using to cause the damage.
We were puzzled by the cryptic reference to the ‘landowner’ so Chris Black asked if the council knew ‘who the landowner was’. We were told ‘yes’. When Chris (pretty sure of the answer already) asked who it was , the answer came ‘The District Council’.
There was an outcry from across the room about this, Chris asked for the ‘rubble’ to be moved as quickly as possible and Committee Chairam John Pullen said he would refer it straight to the Executive.
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Due to the system adopted by RDC officials and the Chairman,I still find it difficult to get answers from councillors at the Area Committee meetings, something I have been pushing with RDC. for some time now.
Last night for example I submitted a question for the Community Forum and specifically stated that I would like Cllr. Mrs. Mavis Webster to respond as it was her that I originally asked to look into a problem related to highways in Rayleigh/Rawreth.
My request for a councillor to answer was apparently not acceptable as the question was replied to by Shaun Scrutton.
Although I accepted Mr Scruttons reply, and spoke to him personally after the meeting, I feel a reply from the councillor, as requested, would have been the right thing to do.
Why are councillors protected all the time? Surely they are there to be accountable for themselves and should be given the chance to reply when asked to.
To be fair to Cllr. Webster, I do not believe she was even made aware of my question prior to the meeting, but surely she must have realised it was related to my earlier conversation with her.
For any councillors reading this, please be more open at these meetings. After all we, the public, are in attendance to hear your views and opinions. That is why you were elected!! . By remaining silent we can only assume you do not have any.
Also in response to the Fire Service response that 4000 reports were put out about the closure, this was countywide to the 1.3 million population of the county. I have a link here for the report; http://www.essex-fire.gov.uk/images/izone/irmp2007.pdf I’d be interested on feedback from anyone that can actually find on this where it specifically states that Rayleigh Fire Station is closing!
Greenbelt – It’s an interesting comment that you make. Councillors – especially those in power- are not really encouraged to interact directly with the public. (Cllr Hudson is an honourable exception, whether you agree with him or not, he’s never afraid to address residents directly).
Interaction creates the possibility that a councillor might find themselves supporting residents against a party line or officer recommendations.
Bear in mind that the deputy leader of the council was present at thsi meeting, there was an opportunity to intervene on the ‘rubble’ issue there and then. But it wasn’t taken.
Admin, did Inspector Parkman mention why there were no figures on drug offences, was it that no one had requested them in the past? I would have thought with all the comments being made on this website that these figures would be part of the stats for the meeting? Was there any mention of ‘stop and search’ or if there is to be a police presence in the pubs, where most of the deals seem to take place? Did Insp. Parkman say what was being done to curb the youths in Little Wheatleys Chase or Websters Way car park?
It just appears to me that the Police report given during the meeting, just leads us to believe that we are still a comparatively safe area to live in. What we need are facts and figures to back this up. There are still many acts of anti-social behaviour that do not get reported. What we need to know is what the police are doing to stop crime increasing and the type of crime that leads to more serious criminal activity is drug related.
Inspector Parkman or any other Police Officer reading this can you please inform the residents of this town what you are doing to curb drug related crime?