Town Council Planning Committee – 11th March

The planning committee of Nelson Town Council met on 11th March to consider the small number of applications made for building works in the town since we last met on 25th February.

These comprised entirely of non-contentious house extensions and we offered no comments or observations on any of the schemes we considered.

Nelson Town Council – 11th March

Nelson Town Council met in full session on Wednesday, 11th March to discuss a variety of issues related to our moving forward as a council.

The  draft application form and relevant criteria for the council’s Small Grants scheme was checked over by councillors, with one or two amendments being suggested.  Applications will be invited in May and November.   Once this scheme is launched, applications will be invited from local organisations to be made via the Town Clerk, Mr. Harrison at Nelson Town Hall.

In addition, the council also discussed the issue of the employment of a Town Crier.  Our clerk Mr. Martin Harrison reported that he had received costings for the provision of a costume, but that he was still awaiting further quotations from other suppliers.  It must be recorded that this is very much an outline proposal at present, and nothing has been agreed by the council as to whether we will be proceeding with the idea of having a Town Crier in Nelson.

Mr. Harrison and Council Chairman Cllr. George Adam reported that negotiations related to establishing a website for the Town Council and providing email contact information for the clerk were still ongoing, and that it was hoped this matter would be resolved shortly.

The council has agreed that Mr. Harrison should join the Society of Local Clerks in order that he may receive the necessary training to enable him to prepare and maintain our accounts and maintain his already significant and invaluable knowledge of legal and operational matters related to the administration of the council.

Rewarding Failure – Just Plain Wrong

This article is written close on the heels of a letter published in the local press and written by my party colleague Councillor Smith Benson.

Many, many people in Britain are quite rightly deeply annoyed about the bonus culture and high life enjoyed by senior and middle ranking executives in many of our now compromised and discredited financial institutions.  The fact that many of these executives have continued to seek bonuses despite the losses being incurred by the banks which employ them smacks of both complete financial ignorance and possession of first degree arrogance.

Even more annoying is having to read of these people effectively writing their own contracts of employment requiring the continued payment of bonuses irrespective of the financial performance of their own company.  This is a practice which simply must not be allowed to continue, for most people, the contract of employment is written by the employer, not the employee, so it beggars belief that these people are allowed to dictate their own terms of employment.  Indeed it was recently reported in the national press that investment bankers displaced in the recent finance sector upheavals had dictated contracts of employment to their new employers with bonuses being guaranteed at 2007/2008 levels.  This is completely unacceptable at a time when the sheer incompetence of  certain people in high finance is leading to many ordinary working people being placed either on short time or being thrown out of work.  Another unacceptable statement reported in the national press this week was that of a leading city headhunter saying that if bonuses were outlawed then bankers’ salaries would have to rise by 10% to compensate, what complete and utter nonsense.

The rule of thumb in business should always be that if bonuses are paid, they are paid when a company is performing well, and should not be paid when a company is either merely breaking even or at worst making a loss.  This is certainly the rule followed by my own employer, and quite rightly so, but there again, in the travel industry, bonus payments have always been based upon the performance of the company you work for.  Seemingly this is not the case in the “I want it, and I want it now” arena of investment banking and corporate finance, and it is the so-called “talented” people who work in these sectors who have led our country’s economy almost to rack and ruin with their sheer unadulterated greed and excessive uncalculated risk-taking.  I do not bear an ounce of malice toward the bank cashier or branch manager, it’s the directors and senior management who I believe are purely at fault for the situation many financial institutions are now in.  They have relentlessly and aggressively set high sales targets and lent vast quantities of money that some borrowers are never likely to be able to realistically repay, and should shoulder full responsibility for their critical management failures.

I completely agree with Councillor Benson when he categorically states that pay rises and bonuses should not be paid until the banks are once again profitable and taxpayers have been repaid the money that has been pumped into the banks to keep them afloat.

Town Council Planning Committee – 25th February

Nelson Town Council’s Planning Committee met on 25th February to consider a number of issues in the town.

Most were related to kitchen extensions and didn’t raise any concerns for us, one was a retrospective application for a garage at a residential property, again this wasn’t an issue we had any issue with.

The issue which we were very concerned about was a planning application for yet another hot food takeaway in Manchester Road.  Councillors were of the view that permission should not be granted for this facility, as there are already two such businesses already operating in the block of properties concerned.  Our principal reasons for objection were related to the lack of provison for car parking and increased littering in the area.

Town Council Finance Committee – 25th February

I chaired the monthly meeting of Nelson Town Council’s Finance and General Purposes Committee on 25th February.  The committee met to discuss a number of issues:

 The provison of business cards for the Town Clerk.  Mr. Harrison reported that he considered it uneconomic to order a batch of these from a commercial printer and was now likely to print them himself.

The employment of a Town Crier.  Mr. Harrison had been requested to investigate this by council chairman Cllr. Adam.  Mr. Harrison reported that Barnoldswick Town Council does not employ their Town Crier but pays her an honorarium of £180 twice a year, thereby avoiding further costs of employment to the council.  Mr. Harrison added that his enquiries into the cost of the provison of a costume had so far been unsuccessful, but he would report further at the next meeting.

The committee received the amended financial report from the Town Clerk, and resolved that the council will place 10% of its annual income into a contingency fund.   The council is awaiting the outcome of a meeting between the Chairman, the Town Clerk, representatives of Pendle Council and Liberata before making a decision regarding the funding of improvements to allotment gardens in its ownership.  We also resolved that the amount allocated for the Council’s Small Grants Scheme for 2009/2010 be £10,000.

The final decision taken was that the Town Council should open a deposit account, and that Mr. Harrison would commence negotiations with the Marsden Building Society to this end.  The committee took the decision to use the Marsden Building Society as the society is locally based, is in mutual ownership and employs a significant number of local people.