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New council leader pledges £80k spend
Wednesday 2nd December 2009, 11:30AM GMT.
The new leader of Sandwell Council today promised an investment of £80,000 to clean up the borough as he formally took over the running of the authority.
Councillor Darren Cooper, who replaces Bill Thomas, took over at last night’s full council meeting. He promised the investment and told the meeting that people over 65 would no longer be charged for bulky waste collections.
This will cost £50,000 and the removal of wasp nests, and other pest control services will become free – costing the council £30,000. Both are expected to take effect from April.
A borough-wide blitz on graffiti will also take place from Monday and following the clean up Councillor Cooper promised that all reported graffiti would be cleaned up within 24 hours.
He said: “We are in many ways a poor borough, rich in good people but low in income. I am determined to clean up this borough. It is what residents demand, a clean and tidy environment in which to live, work and play.”
Councillor Cooper, who represents the Soho and Victoria ward in Smethwick, also underlined the council’s pledge to build new swimming pools in West Bromwich and Tipton. The £21 million investment was last night welcomed by councillors.
And he reinforced his promise for a “root and branch” review of the council’s senior management, investigating high costs and excessive pay packets within the authority.
Mr Cooper, aged 45, who was born and bred in Smethwick, takes the reins from 69-year-old Bill Thomas, who stepped down after pleading guilty to theft last month.
He was nominated for the role by Councillor Steve Eling, who had been standing in as leader since Bill Thomas’s arrest and subsequent resignation.
Councillor Derek Rowley, cabinet member for safer communities, will take over from Councillor Cooper.
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Sandwell ‘low in income’, Darren?
What? After receiving £60 million more each year in central government grant than neighbouring Dudley, for instance?
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“People over 65 would no longer be charged for bulky waste collections” Councillor Darren Cooper?????? You mean we won’t be charged again because we already pay for rubbish removal in the form of council tax; it was Sandwell’s Labour council that decided it would be a nice little earner to charge people again on top of the council; tax they have already paid.
I love the idea of bulk rubbish removal though, how about starting with the Sandwell Labour Councillors who are wasting millions of tax payers money on none essential, harebrained schemes like installing speed bumps in the Upper St Marys Road area of Bearwood, you were not satisfied in destroying Bearwood High Street , now you have blighted the area surrounding it, who wants to buy a house in Bearwood that has a problem with supposedly speeding drivers????????
Jim Gull, Bearwood.
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more rubbish….same old, same old…..nothing changes.
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£80,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to the money spent on other things, for example the cost of pursuing/prolonging a war in Iraq, or Afghanistan. Oh I’m sorry, there are political/corporate/global interests at stake there, so best not to rock the boat I guess. I commend his apparent enthusiasm, however I generally detest the way this local council suddenly ‘wakes’ up just before an election, too.
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Looking at the wider picture, I honestly feel that Sandwell is – thanks to successive under-funding, poor management and restricted access to services – at or near the bottom of so many league tables that people like sam and are in the majority. I think people have simply had enough of the reactive rather than pro-active approach, especially with the nightmares they have to put up with: traffic, crime, health. And the dismay spreads, it spreads like a cancer to the point where ‘English’ culture is decimated in favour of a society that does not live, but merely exists..exists to fund the kind of propaganda I think you’re reading here. It’s going to take decades to even begin to put this right, and we aren’t going to do this with empty promises, or chump change in the run up to an election.
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£80,000 to clean up the borough?????? Does he have any idea how long the borough has been neglected? I have lived in Park Road, Bearwood for 35 years and the drains have only ever been cleaned out twice in all that time, they did come and clean one drain out once as a special operation, they had to hire the drain cleaning vehicle from Worcester, doesn’t that tell you something? Surely if the drains were cleaned regularly they would have their own vehicles, this council is pathetic.
£80,000??? I doubt that would cover the Councillors expenses that they are going to claim to organise the clean up.
Jim of Bearwood.
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