Thursday, May 25, 2006

Annual Council meeting

The Annual Council Meeting in Merton was tonight a very lively meeting. Labour member Geraldine Stanford was elected as the Mayor of the London Borough of Merton, which means that the Conservatives do not have the casting vote on the council. Every member of the Council turned up (sixty in total) and we had four votes of 30 all(with the mayor using the casting vote in our favour each time), we were successful in making various amendments to the minority conservative administration proposals. The Labour group on Merton are not pushovers and we will fight for what we believe is right, if the tories think they can do what they like in Merton then they should think again, Council will be a check and balance on their power. Among the issues we were successful on was ensuring the Conservatives only had half the members on Licensing Committee, voting to keep the education forum along with the environment and safety fourm(obviously not tory priorities despite what they may say) and ensuring respresentation on Wimbledon bodies I was also confirmed as the The Way we Work Panel Chair at the Annual Council meeting.

My former Pollards Hill coleague John Cole was also made an Honourey Alderman of the London Borough of Merton along with Joe Abrams and Danny Connellan (who both recently received made Honourey Freeman of the Borough in March). I also gave a tribute to my former colleaguebJohn Cole for the work he had done in the area as a Pollards Hill councillor and his achievements are considerable. This includes getting the youth centre re-built, the community centre extension and being involved in the stock transfer of housing which has resulted in huge improvements to the social housing in Pollards Hill. Locally, he also served for many years as Chair of Governors at Sherwood School and was treasurer of the Community Centre. John has been a dedicated and hard working councillor with sixteen years service in total for Pollards Hill. In recent months he has suffered from ill health following an illness picked up abroad but now seems to be on the road to recovery and has considerably improved. I would like to thank John for his service and wish him well for the future.

Off to Blackpool in the morning for NATFHE Conference and up there till Monday.

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