Eye on Moseley

We went to the Hustings this year so you didn’t have to.  It seems that  this message didn’t very far as a couple of hundred  other people also turned up. As so many other people were there we only stayed for an hour. There were a number of reasons for this, mainly because  this was our fourteenth hustings in Moseley and we quickly realised that it was going to be exactly the same issues that have come up for the last decade. Equally after three quarters of an hour we noticed that everyone else was in the pub. After an hour we also went to the pub.

This year the organisers took the novel step of combining Moseley and Kings Heath residents so there was just one event in Queensbridge School. This had the obvious potential to  ”kick off” as the two very different communities came together. It didn’t “kick off”. It was quite amicable. The best thing about this  is that we got the evening chaired by a bloke from Kings Heath. As Moseley residents no doubt know, our usual Chair insists on answering the questions along with the candidates. Fortunately  this didn’t happen.

The following is an obviously biased and flawed remembrance of the first hour.

First up was Conservative candidate John Turner. John is a new candidate for Moseley and it’s nice to see the Conservatives still trying, though John did admit that he didn’t really expect many people to vote for him.  Although it is unlikely he will get in, it probably isn’t a good idea to remind people of that in your opening speech. Apparently the key things we need to know about John are  that he has lived in Moseley for over 20 years, he’s  a lawyer and he agrees with everything that David Cameron and Mike Whitby say. As David Cameron has made policy flip flopping his own,  we can only assume that John too celebratates contradiction. We have to respect John’s agreement with everything that Mike Whitby says. Mike is, currently, trying to develop his own version of English and it is usually difficult to figure out what he is saying. John did state that he completely agrees with the budget set by the  Council this year. As two elements of  that budget have been found to be unlawful in the High Court in the last few weeks, we might suggest that John shouldn’t be your first choice when it comes to legal advice.

Next  up was Labour’s own Martin Straker-Welds. It wasn’t the  most dynamic performance from Martin. Though to be fair to him it’s really in his interests to just keep his head down and win this election by default. He gave a list of notable Labour achievements  such as removing children from poverty. Possibly  he confused achievement with aspiration. With the scale of cuts to services in Birmingham it was hard for Martin to not make some of the most obvious points about the City’s poor governance. He made these points well.

The opening speech from, incumbent, Cllr Emily Cox was a strange affair. It came across as much more of a  goodbye/thank you rather than a bid for another term. She consistently emphasised her local work and where she has disagreed with her party  both locally and nationally. You really have to feel sorry for Emily. We think most people recognise that she’s been a decent local Councillor but has been desperately betrayed by her own parties shameless grab for power. She did make an interesting point that she would have liked to vote for an alternative budget but one wasn’t presented by the Labour Party. Is this a hint that she would be willing to change allegiance? One doubts that  her current home situation would really make this viable. At one point she was asked what the Lib Dems would do if current polling is reflected in the election result, and Labour were the largest party without a majority. She answered that the Lib Dems haven’t even thought about this. A difficult position to put her in because that eventuality would obviously mean she had already lost her seat.

Last but one was William Lilley from the Green party. This is William’s second time standing and at last years hustings he hadn’t prepared a speech. He hadn’t prepared a speech this year either. Come on William with a years notice you can find five minutes to throw a speech together. He did speak for his full time allocation and made the point that he had warned us  last year about the impact of the cuts on the most vulnerable. He’s not wrong, he did warn us last year. William came across as about the most convincing candidate on the night.  He made good points about examples  of alternative budgets and the social costs of cutting services.

Alan Blumenthal is always  good value for money. Although he sounds a lot like a really sad robot, his tone obviously hides a steel trap mind. Well it might hide a steel trap mind. He explained to us that as he’s standing for UKIP he is the only candidate who’s party can claim to have the word independent in their name. This is very true. He also claimed that this means he is truly independent, apart from the commitments that were in his party’s  manifesto. I think if we’ve learnt one thing in the last year it is that manifestos mean pretty  well nothing.  His actual speech didn’t have any stand out points though later he did claim that he would reduce youth violence by getting rid of speed cameras and putting  more Bobbies on the beat. This got a typical Moseley cheer as everyone in the room ignored the economic nonsense of his plan.

The one issue that has most confounded residents this year has been the Tesco development. Obviously this was a question that was raised and it was interesting that pretty well all the candidates  were consistent with the line that little could be done now. All except Alan. He has  a plan to change national planning law so that people making planning applications have no right of appeal. Good luck with that.

So, there is a summary with completely partisan comments thrown in for no good reason.

Possibly much interesting stuff happened  after this, but  given the quality of the  illogical heckling coming from the  audience it’s doubtful the level of debate managed to substantially improve itself.

The quite frankly odd campaign to Save Moseley Village appears to be happily reigniting itself.  As the plan to redevelop the derelict Meteor Ford site returns to planning for another go, all manner of incredible accusations seem to be flying around.

Probably the most ludicrous being Mullaney’s suggestion that the people of Moseley should enter into a contractual arrangement to indemnify Planning Committee Members against poor decision making. Remember this man is in charge of a budget, until the Council takes it off him this afternoon. Possibly one of the arguments that excessive cuts are not such a bad thing.

It’s no secret that we have been quite supportive of this plan  but we recognise that we are in a minority.

There are quite a few fantastic claims being thrown about that need to be addressed.

1) Moseley “Village” Needs Saving

The notion that we live in a “village” is very amusing but the reality is we don’t. We are a suburb, only a stones throw from the centre of the second largest City in the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an active community with a coherent identity but that is not sufficient to make a village.

The development of a new supermarket will not destroy this notion of a “village”. There does seem to be some confusion around how a supermarket will impact on consumer choice in Moseley. If Tesco opens it will not be compulsory to shop there. If you want to support other stores then your free will remains in tact and you can buy as much stuff as you want from them. If other people come to Moseley and only shop in Tesco then this will have no impact on other stores as this is trade they currently do not have.

There is a valid concern around traffic but again this will not destroy our suburb. We live on one of the major arterial routes into Birmingham. Traffic may increase inconvenience to people and may prove to be more dangerous but Moseley will still exist. The validity of this argument needs to be subjected to proper testing through the Planning process and possibly the courts.

2) The Developers are bullying Councillors

This is possibly the strangest claim. The developers have sought legal advice and based on this have expressed an intention to appeal if the decision of the Committee does not support their proposal. A consequence of them winning such an appeal will incur cost on the Council (and possibly the Councillors, more later on this).

This isn’t bullying. This exercising a right according to the process that applies to everyone. If they believe that a decision could be successfully appealed then they have every right to do this. The reverse of this is that if they appeal and lose then they will incur costs, that’s how the courts work.

Simply stating an intention is not bullying and characterising it as such is just childish.

3) Planning Committee Members will lose their houses

Ok, the last point wasn’t the strangest one. This is.

Let’s get this absolutely clear. Members of the Planning Committee will incur no personal legal cost whatever they decide.

It is true that taking a decision that is contrary to advice, that later results in costs being incurred by the Council, could result in them being surcharged. The important thing to remember about this process is that it would be the Council pursuing costs against the Councillors and not the developers.

If the developers appeal and win, their costs will be paid by the Council, who in turn could seek to get these back from the Members.

No Council will ever seek to get this money back however legally justified they might be. This is for the simple reason that taking money off Councillors, that might one day be in charge of your career progress, is a stupid move. No officer would even suggest it.

If the Council lose an appeal then it will be Birmingham residents that will be paying the legal bills.

This final point is really the crux of this whole issue.

Council officers have advised the Committee that rejecting the proposal is likely to result in a successful and costly appeal. They do not know this will be the case but it needs to be considered.

Local campaigners believe that they have a sufficiently strong legal case to win in court. Possibly they do.

Members of the Planning Committee need to weigh up a number of different issues. Firstly is this a sufficiently important issue to risk Council Tax payers money in court? Secondly is the case made by local campaigners compelling enough that it would persuade a court where it hasn’t persuaded planning officers?

If the answer to both of those questions is yes then they should reject the application.

If the answer to either is no then let’s just get building.

The consequence of losing such a case in court will cost a lot of money. It isn’t just the concern of whether Councillors lose their houses. There are many other things that we can spend that money on. Street Wardens, Social Services or even schools.

Considering the consequences of all available actions isn’t submitting to bullying. It is the responsible action that we expect of those that we ask to represent us.

When the people of Moseley speak they speak loud. When the people of Moseley speak they usually say “We don’t want it”.

For those people that quite literally didn’t want a new Tesco this week has brought good news. Across Moseley, people with a keen interest in local history are delighted that the derelict site in the middle off our fine shopping district has been saved for future generations.

When plans for a new shop/medical centre/sheltered housing first came to light, residents were quick to write a list of things that Moseley doesn’t want. This includes:-

• Better shops
• Access to medical treatment
• Jobs
• Economic development
• Contaminated land being cleaned

The preservation of the derelict site means that the massive rat population will not need to be rehoused, local drug users will not need to find somewhere else to shoot up and Benzene can continue to leak from the disused petrol station into the wider area.

The main complaint against the proposed plan was outlined to us by a local historian, “What most people don’t realise is that this site is dripping with local colour. Did you know that this is the very spot where Oswald Mosley first saw a meteorite thus giving our village its name? Is better access to medical facilities really a fitting tribute to the father of British fascism?”

The claim that the development of a new Tesco would have brought new jobs and economic development to Moseley was disputed by a mother we spoke to “I’m not having Hugo working in a shop, he’ll work in new media like his Dad, where he’ll speak incomprehensible babble and learn to dress like a twat.”

Concerns that  the collapse of this plan will leave residents with nothing to complain about are a worrying reality.

If it weren’t bad enough that Moseley residents only had two weeks to give their views on the proposed CCTV scheme it now seems if you gave the wrong answer your views will be disregarded.

As you no doubt know, in addition to being able to make a response, to the consultation, online you could also get forms to complete in a number of businesses around Moseley.

One such business is the Prince of Wales pub. Keith Marsden, the licensee, spoke quite eloquently at the recent Forum meeting and expressed a view that not all businesses supported this wanton waste of tax payers money.

It now appears that Cllr Martin Mullaney has decided that all responses collected in the Prince of Wales should now be disregarded. Why has he reached this crazy conclusion? Because he claims that attempts to talk to people about the implication of the scheme have fixed the results.

Providing people with information so they can make an informed decision is apparently contrary to the spirit of this already corrupt consultation. It should be noted that it is not claimed that any false responses have been completed, no, just that information has been given to residents.

If the Ward chooses to disregard the views of residents on such spurious grounds then it will be a sorry day for all of us.

After the great news that the unlawful Automatic Number Plate Recognition system is to be removed, Moseley residents might have thought they would get some respite from this nonsense.

Unfortunately not. It looks like we’re going to have another similar scheme sprung in us with little notice and very little consultation.

Our local Lib Dem Councillors have announced that they have managed to get £100,000 funding from Safer Birmingham to install cameras in the centre of Moseley. Safer Birmingham are the same organisation that came up with the Project Champion that we’ve been complaining about for the last year.

It seems that our Councillors are claiming that this is at the request of residents and local businesses. A claim we are very dubious of.

We know that Home Office Evaluation of CCTV demonstrates that it doesn’t have an impact on overall crime. This finding is backed up by similar research across the planet. We know that CCTV has no deterrent effect when it comes to anti social behaviour as a result of alcohol consumption.

So what is this scheme actually going to do?

It stands a good chance of displacing car crime from the car park to surrounding streets. Thus increasing the burden of crime residents.

It will be a further £17,500 the ward will have to find to operate the scheme in coming years. This will have a negative impact on services in Moseley.

So we can pay £100,000 and have more crime and less services.

Though there is a chance that one of our Councillors will get re-elected next year which is what this is all about.

There is a consultation on line on Birmingham City Council Hall Green page. This consultation is only due to last a few weeks and not the three months that good practice would dictate. This is an obvious attempt to stop people having their say.

Moseley Forum have organised a public meeting at the Community Development Trust for the 24th November.

Make no mistake, the view of our Councillors is that this should happen whether we like it or not. If you have any concerns then you need to voice them in the little bit of time we have been given to do so.