Now it seems normal service has resumed, no sooner was High Peak declared a drought zone, than it started raining – and it has hardly stopped since!! Although at the time of writing the skies are clear and we look to be in for a lovely spring evening, with curlews whistling across the fields on Brown Edge Road.

Politically too the scene as been quite turbulent but in Buxton at least, Labour has a good story to tell, winning the Buxton central by-election and doubling our majority into the bargain – in a seat the Tories were convinced they would win back.

The significance of this win should not be underestimated, it leaves Labour still one short of overall control on High Peak Borough Council, but that’s considerably more secure than being two votes short.

So life the on the Council appears, for now at least, to have calmed down. 

With the election over the Council was finally able to announce that the deal to develop The Crescent has finally been signed – and this week we’ve seen the first signs that work has started to repair and renovate this magnificent building.  More about that in my HPBC Leader Blog: http://www.highpeak.gov.uk/hp/your-council/about-the-council/leaders-blog   and in the official press release: http://www.highpeak.gov.uk/hp/news/historic-agreement-paves-way-for-crescent-development

It’s still not all plain sailing – as the project is still £5m short – thanks to the short sightedness of the Coalition Government in abolishing regional development agencies and failing to recognise the importance of this scheme through the Regional Growth Fund.

Perhaps fittingly we have also been able to announce plans to spend £3m bringing empty homes in Buxton back into use as affordable housing and offer apprenticeships to local people. The next step is to use this experience to bid for Government funding to extend the scheme to the rest of the borough.

As for the Tories and LibDems they are still trying to clear up the mess left by Chancellor George Osborne’s hapless and hopeless budget. First the Granny tax then it was the pasty tax, not to mention the cuts in working families tax credits which were announced before the Budget and will probably have the biggest single impact.  If that wasn’t enough they had to create panic at the petrol pumps – and the Post Office, with the announcement that the cost of stamps will rise by 30%.

Locally the Tories ran a largely negative campaign in the by-election, seeking to frighten voters back into their fold.  It didn’t work, partly because locally Labour is proving that it is listening to people, taking up their causes – and despite everything is helping to make a positive difference to people’s lives in High Peak.

In the past week we have seen the true face of the Tory Party. First there was George Osborne’s Budget which has been roundly condemned for its attack on pensioners, the ridiculous pasty tax and, of course, the massive tax cut for millionaires. Then, to cap it all, there were the revelations about cash for dinner with the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street.

Meanwhile local Tories are spreading mischievous half truths in an increasingly desperate bid to win back a seat they never expected to lose. But what is perhaps most surprising about their claims – is that many of the policies they accuse Labour of promoting – are actually supported by sitting Tory (and LibDem and Independent too) borough councillors.

So it’s not just the Labour administration at the Council that they are attacking – it’s their own leadership!

Let’s be clear about this:
1. Tory councillors support plans for a new wheelie bin so that we can collect plastics for recycling for the kerbside. It is also supported by many residents.
2. We are looking how High Peak Community Housing will be run in the future. There will be w wide ranging consultation, including consulting tenants. Again Tories on the Council support this approach.
3. The Tories set up the Alliance with Staffordshire Moorlands – are they now arguing that this was the wrong thing to do?
4. Since taking control last May Labour has continued with the plans set out by the previous Tory administration – and despite a 28% cut in government grant has also found money to put into community ventures.

What Labour has done:
1. Pegged council tax, leisure and car parking charges
2. Lobbied strongly against the closure of the Corbar Birthing Centre
3. Called for the retention of a second fire engine in Buxton
4. Backed young people in their campaign against plans by Tory Derbyshire County Council to close youth services, including Buxton for Youth
5. Maintained funding for CABs and the CVS
6. Continued to work with police and other partners to keep communities safe.

This election will be close. Labour won by just 10 votes last year, a vote for any other party will let the Tories back in.

If you want us to continue working with and for local people; speaking up for local services and making your voice heard vote for Jean Todd, the Labour party candidate.

Thursday 29 March. Polls open 7am to 10pm.  Polling station: St Anne’s Parish Centre, Hardwick Square West

It has:

• Pegged council tax, car parking and leisure charges
• Lobbied against the closure of the Corbar Birthing Centre
• Called for the retention of Buxton’s second fire engine
• Backed young people in their campaign against Tory DCC’s plans to close and sell off youth centre closures.

Meanwhile the Tory LibDem Coalition has continued its attack hard working families

You’ve heard what is going on nationally – now it’s happening locally too.

Cuts by the Tory-LibDem coalition are causing chaos in our communities, attacking the young, the ill and the elderly

• Buxton’s Corbar Birthing Centre is one of the first casualties – soon to be followed by Johnson Ward – as part of the Government’s plans for the NHS, pushed through despite massive opposition from doctors and nurses.
• Tory Derbyshire County Council plans to close all county run youth centres – including Buxton For Youth.
• In the past year the number of unemployed 18-24 years olds in High Peak has gone up by a massive 193.3% – a result of the Tory-LibDem Government’s abolition of the Future Jobs Fund and EMA and increasing tuition fees to a whopping £9,000pa.
• Cut £5m funding from Buxton’s Crescent project – and turned down two new funding bids.

And now they are are asking millions to pay more – so that millionaires can pay less.

At a time when families are being squeezed by rising fuel prices, seeing their tax credits and child benefit cut, when one million young people are out of work and there’s a big deficit to clear, it is the wrong priority to cut taxes for millionaires.

• Families on £20,000 will lose £253 a year – on top of the VAT rise which is already costing families an average of £450 a year
• 4.4 million pensioners will lose on average £83 a year, while people turning 65 next year will lose most, upto £322 a year.
• 4,000 millionaires will get a tax cut worth more than £40,000 a year each – more than many Buxton families earn in a year.

In recent years much of the focus around council budgets has been on the size of the increase in council tax. In some ways things are no different this year. Residents rightly want high quality services at an affordable price and given the economic pressures everyone is facing, there is a push for all councils to agree not to increase council tax.

So let’s look at the figures. Although High Peak Borough Council sends out the bills and collects the council tax, only 12% of the bill comes to the borough; 72% goes to Derbyshire County Council; 11% to Derbyshire Police; 4% to the Fire and Rescue Service; and 1% to town and parish councils.

Thus for 2011/12, HPBC received £174.42 for an average Band D property; that’s £15 per month or £3.35 per week. A Council Tax increase of 2.5% would see the amount households pay to HPBC rise by just £4.30 a year; that’s 36p per month or 8p per week – again for an average Band D property. Across the borough as a whole it would bring in around £149,000 per year. So we are not talking huge sums.

However, to say that the Government has given councils a dilemma is putting it mildy! In fact what the Tories are doing is placing a smoking timebomb in the middle of council finances.

Last year, it offered to pay a bribe equivalent to a 2.5% council tax rise for four years to all councils who agreed to set a 0% council tax for 2011/12. This year, it has offered to fund the equivalent of a 2.5% council tax rise but this time the funding is for one year only. Both are time limited – and so cannot be built into the council’s base budget.

This puts councils in a very difficult position as it leads to a year on year loss in income – and for residents that could mean poorer quality or fewer services.

It means that, when it comes to setting its budget for 2015-16, it will be based on the Council’s budget for 2010-11, which will be more than half a million pounds less than if it had raised its council tax by 2.5% each year.

So, in effect what looks like a helping hand, is actually a further cut on top the £3m cuts the council was forced to find last year and this year.  And with the Government struggling to make cuts elsewhere it is highly likely that it will again look to local government to make yet more cuts.

As Ed Balls told Labour councillors this week, where some ministers defended their departments against savage cuts; Mr Pickles offered up local government as a sacrificial lamb!

Locally the both the Tories and LibDems have made it clear that they too want a 0% council tax rise - purely because it is Coalition policy.

Further councils, like everyone have to pay the extra costs of inflation and higher utility bills. Even a 2.5% council tax rise does not cover the cost of inflation, currently running at 4.2%, down from 4.8% in November.

S0, we have based our budget on a 0% council tax rise and will therefore accept the Government’s bribe of the equivalent of a 2.5% council rise. Whether we can continue to do that, given the almost certain impact on services, is a very different question.

In High Peak it means the following DCC run Youth Clubs will close: Buxton for Youth; Chapel-en-le-Frith Youth Club; Chinley Youth and Community Centre; Fairfield Youth Centre; Gamesley Youth and Community Centre; Hadfield Youth Centre; New Mills Youth Centre; Whitfield Youth Centre.

The County Council is planning to stop running its own youth service and will instead give grants to volunteers and community groups to set up their own. The details of how this is supposed to happen are not known and no mention is made of the impact the closure will have on other services that are located in the same building.

The following questions need answering urgently:
• How much money will be available?
• Who will pay for the hire of buildings?
• How will the volunteers be trained?
• What will happen in those areas where nobody comes forward?

Young people are already bearing too much of the burden of austerity. With youth unemployment at over 1 million, tuition fees trebling, Education Maintenance Allowance scrapped and bus fares rising, we run the risk of creating another ‘lost generation’. With the closing of youth centres, young people will lose another vital service – a safe place to go, a place to seek advice and support, a place to learn new skills and try new activities, a place that belongs to them.

At the same time the Conservatives at Derbyshire County Council are spending new money on:
• £462,000 on the police-run Ozbox activities – boxing related fitness programmes for young people. There has been no consultation with young people about this and it will not appeal to the majority.
• £1 million on ‘Big Society grants’
• £94,000 on a Rights of Way officer:
• £90,000 on a Waterways Officer
• £60,000 on a Corporate Literacy Co-ordinator.

All of this while 157 youth workers’ jobs are at risk and youth centres face closure.

Please support the SOYS (Save Our Youth Services) campaign. For more details contact: anne.western@derbyshire.gov.uk

You can have your say on the Tory plans at: http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/council/have_your_say/consultation_search/Consultation_search_index/future_of_youth_activities_in_derbyshire.asp
And you can sign the SOYS (save Our Youth Service) petition at: http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/council/have_your_say/Petitions/new_petition/sign.asp?status=Support&RecordID=190

Not that I’ve been sitting around clicking my fingers, far from it. It’s surprising what a difference winning an election makes .

I know the Tories will say we didn’t really win, as we are one short of an overall majority on the borough. But it certainly feels like a victory to us – and as a Labour Group we will be pushing hard to get as many of our manifesto commitments through the Council as possible.

Discussions with officers suggest, even at this early stage, that there is no reason why many of our plans cannot be put into practice, with some careful financial management.

The Budget set by the Council – unanimously I think – back in March, left plenty of room for manoeuvre with saving s targets identified but not specified. This means that we can move money around to match our priorities – and that’s exactly what we will be doing between now and our emergency budget in October.

So we will be looking to extend kerbside recycling to include plastics, and hopefully save some money along the way; this is on top of the £70,000 savings from the round restructure in the Hope Valley.

We have made clear our commitment to involving the public fully in plans for Glossop’s public halls. This will not be an easy nut to crack, as can be seen from other similar projects across the borough. However, our new team of Glossop councillors is keen and more than willing to do all they can to ensure a good outcome for the town. Making sure that we made the best use of funding and support from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the scheme was an important part of setting the future direction for the town.

Over the hill in Buxton, the saga that has nearly sunk Buxton Pool continues. I am hopeful that there will soon be some good news to report. It’s probably the one issue on which I have spent most time since I was elected Leader of the Council.

I am as frustrated and disappointed as anyone that the town’s Pool remains closed – and like most residents I find it hard to believe that we still cannot give a firm date for its re-opening. I desperately wanted the Pool open for the whole of the summer and I am very upset that this has not been possible.

Both I and officers are exerting as much pressure as we possibly can on our contractors to get the Pool open. We are also talking to DC Leisure about offering free swimming sessions to local youngsters, especially those who have missed out on free school swimming and, of course, to Buxton Swimming Club whose members have also0 suffered from the Pool’s extended closure.