Windsor Wheel

The Wheel is back – so big it didn’t fit in the camera shot. Great attraction for the summertime.

Two important meetings

We held two important meetings last night – taxis and Health Service.

On taxis the Licensing Panel met to discuss a proposal to increase the number of licenses from 87 to 100, and to amalgamate the old Maidenhead/Windsor/Ascot zones into one. There are a number of vested interests here from existing taxi drivers, people waiting for licenses, people operating in one area who would like to pick up in other areas … the proposal went through I understand.

On the NHS ‘Right Care, Right Place’ a number of discussions have been taking place because NHS services are being proposed to move around in/out of Borough and changes to services provided. In the end the package was accepted but we ensured that Heatherwood retains the confidence and operational business of a local hospital – there are fears in the Ascot area that services will be forever downgraded and eventually lead to closure proposals. It looks like that is not the case!

Strike

UNISON are on a two-day strike at the moment over pay. I’m not sure quite how many of our own Council staff took action but it wasn’t an enormous number. They did leave their placards kicking around in front of the Town Hall last night, ready for another day of action!

Recycling again

We hit the headlines today on the BBC and the Guardian – the talks we’ve been having with Recyclebank were highlighted by George Osborne in his speech today and we’re very hopeful that we will be able to introduce additional recycling by incentive rather than by implied or threatened punishment. This is what we promised to do in our manifesto

The good thing is that there is no reason why it can’t work, but inevitably with so many ‘bits’ there is a lot of work to do – financial, contractual, legal, nuts & bolts – to properly evaluate the best solution for an ‘on the ground’ delivery. Liam Maxwell’s quote in the Guardian isn’t correct in terms of timescale but having visited Recyclebank in New York (when I was there on a private visit in April) and also having met with them when they were visiting the UK a few weeks back, we’re certainly keen to progress a solution.

Edit : Once again our manifesto ideas have been picked up by the wider body politic (fourth bullet point says to ” encourage recycling by use of incentive schemes ” … Boris plans to plant more trees, and Gordon asked Government buildings to fly the Union Jack routinely, the week after we did it here at the Royal Borough!