Paying your rent in Sandwell

Well the elections are over, Labour won and in no time at all Housing offices begin to close 

remember this

Or perhaps you remember this 

Notice the weeds in the gutter

These are just two of the housing offices closed while under Labour control, places were one could report 

                                                                      1, Housing problems

                                                                      2, Anti social behavior

                                                                      3, Pay the rent

                                                                      4, Pay the council Tax

                                                                      5, Pay the Water Rates

                                                                      6, discuss council problems 

 People from the north of the borough can now catch a bus, or go in a car to Wednesbury (pay to park )

and that's if they can get a parking space 

 

the alternative is to go on the internet or ring a call centre ( if you have a phone)

Sandwell Tory said 

I wonder how many pensioners have i pads at £300 a go

 

New Pool for Wednesbury

I see that Sandwell is jumping the gun and Wednesbury has its new pool 

This one can also double as a car or pedestrian  washer

( note the surrounding ground is dry but the foot path soaked)

Do you know of a better pool in Sandwell ?
send us a photo (jpeg)

Sandwell Tenants right to buy

Following years of Labour slowly removing the discounts from council tennants right to buy scheme,  
the Government has set up a information route for the tenants who may be interested in buying their home

Under the new system eligible tenants can claim discounts of up to £75,000 off the value of their home 

take a look at the announcement
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/newsroom/2186954



The Governments call centre phone number is 0300 123 0913

and the web site     http://righttobuy.communities.gov.uk/


Sandwell Tory said
The report goes on to say that some councils have already reported a surge in applications, but in a survey
approximately 80% of the tenants asked did not even  know there had been a change to the rules

Possible boost for Sandwell jobs

Under the Local Government Finance Bill introduced last year, there are proposals to encourage local authorities to start economic growth in their area

This new legislation changes the local government finance system, with financial measures that the Government is pursuing to support local economies.

This new Bill will and I quote the Governments site

    Enable local authorities to retain a proportion of the business rates generated in their area,
providing them with strong financial incentive for them to promote local economic growth.

    Enable local authorities to carry out Tax Increment Finance, giving them the ability to undertake  borrowing against future business rates growth, supported by the forecast tax increment that accrues from additional development.

Reference
http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/localgovernmentfinance/lgfinancebill/


Sandwell Tory said , So now its down to the Labour controlled council to see if they use this to bring back jobs and trade to help Sandwell residents it will also help reduce the debt Labour left us with


Here's the actual document

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/2146726.pdf

lets wait and see what they do?

No parking tickets from this car park

This was once a thriving car park on the middle of a small shopping area called Great Bridge, it was regularly used and residents from afar used it for the shops, market hall and regular car boot sales.

Then there was a plan! and the plan involved closing the car park and so its been for almost 2 years.

heaven knows what the effect on the local trade has been but some shops have now closed

Sandwell Tory said
I wonder if the "plan" involved the traders business plans?
and as I was asked this morning what happened to the plan?

Boost for town Centres

I see business rates are to be reduced in three towns, using part of the coalition Governments High Street help fund of £100,000.
This will definitely help new traders to move into empty shops and bring in trade, they will also be "Sprucing up the towns"

One tiny little problem ?

Its not in Sandwell but in Cannock, Rugely & Hendsford

In the Sandwell towns of West Brom, Wednesbury, etc, it looks like you will get flowers


Sandwell Tory said
We have also called on Sandwell to cancel parking charges and reduce rates for new shop start ups


                         but after all,  flowers outside this card shop should make it look nice

Reference
http://www.expressandstar.com/business/midlands-business/2012/06/30/business-rates-drop-for-three-staffordshire-towns/

Bomber Command memorial

I see with pride that we now have a bomber Command memorial, It is however almost 70 years late.
Every man , women and child owes their life to the 55,000 lads that lost theirs, helping protect our country.

I have the utmost respect for all the young lads who 70 years ago defended our country



Respect

Sandwell Tory said

A special thought goes to those who came home and never lived long enough to see the memorial



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165852/Lancaster-drops-payload-poppies-Queen-unveils-Bomber-Command-memorial.html

Sandwell Town centre Quiz

I see Sandwell as been awarded some money to help the 6 towns, 

here is the quiz :-
 
What is one of  Sandwell's plans for the money?


a, Cancel car parking charges to help local people and traders bring back prosperity ?


b, Reduce local rates to help traders to help them survive ?


c, Cancel all market charges for a period of time to help traders ?


d, buy flowers





                   You've won tonight's star prize yes its the flowers 


Quote "bosses are confident that the cash will bring in shoppers".

Read more:

 http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/06/22/100000-boost-for-sandwell-high-streets/#ixzz1yboikL6u

Sandwell Tory said
You could not dream this up !

O levels

The old saying , "Education free's the people" is never more true than now.

Around the world countries are educating their people, India, China,  in fact all up and coming
countries are devoting resources to educating the young into hi tech.

What have we done, from the 1960's the UK has slowly slipped down the international league
for education,as politicians tinkered with the system. Sandwell it self is one of the lowest achieving boroughs in England, Sadly its old Grammar School a former pinnacle of education in the borough is now in special measures and I well remember "an experiment" back in the 1960's to teach English using a system of write it as it sounded, (wot u doin)  I often wonder what became of those test subjects.

but what of politicians most of whom came through the education system of old, it seems political dogma
has them stuck in a Ground hog day.


Ever larger numbers of Politicians have the bare faced cheek to say the education system they benefited from cannot be enjoyed by the youth of today.

"Health & Safety" played its part to, "you cant use copper sulphate or magnesium ribbon, or make Hydrogen Sulfide ( stink bombs ) to you and me

Currently children who do not succeed in a qualification only re-sit and re-sit till a pass is obtained, items which once were part of a 15 year old curriculum are now the resolve of a 18year old.


Our kids have to compete with kids from other boroughs and now kids from other countries in the race for technology and we are losing this race, those technology jobs brought with it the manual jobs to build the products, in the words of the advert ( Its Simplessss)

40 or so years ago the UK had major car exports, its own Missile program  ( blue Streak), Concord, we built hi tech ships, we had a boat that traveled at 300MPH and a thing called TSR2, is there a link with the educational changes and the demise of UK technology, I wonder? 


Sandwell Tory said
If the old ways were best don't be afraid to go back to them, but then again if Labour don't want our kids to be free, just carry on and throw them another promise. 

Who's got the right plan

Our European masters came out with a cunning plan, they were going to have a currency across all of europe
one minor little problem, some countries are industrialised some were not far from being Agricultural economies all with differing growth, export and income rates.


So in this cunning plan weaker countries were brought up to the economic levels of other countries, fine so far ?

The problem is I have not mentioned that the weaker countries borrowed money to do it, then along came a rainy day
ie, banks funding this growth made some bad deals around property building, yep everyone was building houses, the USA, Ireland , Spain and it needs an ever increasing number of people to buy them.

http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes9.asp#axzz1xsKiW6uv


this is a bubble

we should all be used to bubbles

see
South sea bubble  http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/  
Dotcom bubble  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8558257.stm

bubbles should come as no shock to older people, but now the bubble burst and with it land and home values fell, banks assets, went overnight real cash became king




But I fear that leaves us with another bubble being inflated,its called Government debt

We now have a stupid situation were Spain has been given E100 Billion, problem is Italy has had to bung money into that fund to help Spain

Italy as borrowed the money to pay Spain at 7% and is loaning Spain the money at 3%

so we have Italy's debt rise from the borrowing and on top Italy pays the 3% difference



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18438044
  

Now Spain's borrowing costs have risen
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18438044  so  10-year bonds hit 7%    even countries cant afford those rates


And a major credit organisation cut Spain's credit rating to just above junk and Italy's borrowing costs rise to 5.3%,

we will soon have countries that have had bail outs bailing out other countries , what a complete mess
and all we hear from Labour is Spend some more or Britain's doing it all wrong.


Sandwell Tory said
What a complete mess,  Labour take a look across the channel