Martin Brookes Oakham Rutland

Martin Brookes Oakham Rutland

Twitter: @oakhamuk

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Oakham Town Council Spending and General Administration Keep On Rising

Oakham Town Council Spending and General Administration Keep On Rising 

If you live in Rutland you can open the booklet provided with your council tax bill from Rutland County Council to page 42 to see details relating to Oakham Town Council nnd its precept for 2012/13

Where a parish council budget exceeds £140,000 Rutland Council is required to provide a breakdown of the parish's expenditure and income. For 2012/13 as most previous years this applies to Oakham Town Council.

Whilst most other council are cutting expenditure Oakham Town Council's keeps spending more and more.

A large percentage of the spending is spent on General Adminstration.

In 2010/11 the Council spent £199,390 of Oakham residents money

In 2011/12 the Council spent £214,590 of Oakham residents money

in 2012/13 the Council plans to spend £269,720 of Oakham residents money, holding firm to the Clerks claim "it's the Council job to collect the taxes and spend as we please"

Oakham Town Council publishes an income it does not have 

PWLB Loan £50,000

The Town Council obviously assumes it will be granted this loan, even before it has lodged its application.

We found out at the last council meeting there are now new requirements.

Before the application can be submitted the Council must consult with all Oakham's residents about the proposed project for new play equipment at Royce Recreation Ground.

It must also ask all residents there feelings about the Town Council borrowing this money.

So it surprises me they have included this figure in the publication when they have not met either of those requirements. The Clerk said "The Council always intended to consult the public, but as they have not yet done so the project is now two months behind" At the last meeting he suggested this matter was not rushed and put on hold till later in the year. Cllrs not wanting to be seen to fail decided to rush ahead and ignore his advice. i think that is typical of this Council.

In the past I criticised the Councils ability to set a budget and this is justified as it is shown there is a £21,251 underspend 2010/11 and this was placed in Council reserves to date it is never clear how much money The Town Council has stashed away. It is not really clear if the publish figure is correct because when I was a Councillor I was told varying amounts.

Although the Town Council has not raised the precept for 2012/13 I can not see this continuing If the present un-elected* Cllrs continue with their policy to collect and spend. They might find it easier to raise the precept rather than comply with rules of borrowing.

* The resident of Oakham only have themselves to blame,  we have a self serving council that relies on public apathy and no one stands against them at elections and then they co-opt those they know and trust to sit along side them. Is that democracy?

Oakham Town Council need to take a look at what Uppingham did, of course they won't because 

they want to hang onto their egotistic, self serving, power, something a real democratic process would likely to relieve them off.

Rutland Winter Video by Grumpyjag (JH ) 10th Februrary 2012 Birds

Rutland Winter Video by Grumpyjag (JH ) Februrary 2012

Uploaded by Grumpyjag1 on 13 Feb 2012

Couple of minutes of the hard few winter days in Rutland and feeling sorry for the birds

I spotted this video after watching a interest documentary on TV about birds and the changes in relationships people have had with the garden birds over the years and the big changes during war time. 

Clubs were set up Like the Sparrow Club because it was considered a threat to the wartime food supply, sparrows had a price on their heads.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fndv1

I was surprised to see how vicious the Robin actually is.

Various methods and changes were shown about how we feed our garden birds.

When I was a child we used to as shown just hang out the red netted bags of peanuts. These nuts were described as unfit for humans and later found to be killing the birds. No wonder my mother used to tell me not to eat them as a boy.

Rutland County Councillor Alan Walters Twitter view of Prayers at Rutland County Council

Rutland County Councillor Alan Walters Twitter concern and question of Prayers at Rutland County Council

Alan Walters @onecouncillor

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Prayers at Council - concerned at comments that we have "an established Church" - surely we should recognise all religions or mention none?

1:04 PM - 14 Feb 12 via web · Details

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Snow Films Rutland

American singer and actress Whitney Houston has died in Los Angeles at the age of 48. R.I.P

 US singer and actress Whitney Houston dies aged 48

 

  American singer and actress Whitney Houston has died in Los Angeles at the age of 48.

 

 

Oakham Snow Photographs Via Mobile Phone

Oakham Snow Photographs Via Mobile Phone

RESIGNATION OF Oakham Town Councillor Chris Hopkin

RESIGNATION OF OAKHAM TOWN COUNCILLOR

Chris Hopkin has resigned as a Town Councillor for the Oakham North East Ward. 

Chris was one of the few decent Town Councillors.

I wonder why every time the council attracts a decent person? they either go mad like Cllr Lowe or they join the bullies like Cllr Nowel strangely he went from saying the council is corrupt to worshipping those who control it. 

If they don't do either they are excluded.

Sometime ago Chris told me he felt excluded. He attempted to become part of the rotten group when he agreed to sign a standards complaint raised against me, by Cllr Dewis.

In the end this letter was not signed. I don't hold this against Chris as I knew how much pressure he was put under by Cllr Dewis to sign.


Cllr Lucas, Haworth and Dewis have a lot to answer their behaviour is disgraceful.


Cllr Dewis was seen on BBC East Midlands Tonight News, last year attempting to show his support for local traders along with the leader of Rutland County Council Conservative Roger Begy.


I noticed today they both have something in common, driving to Stamford to shop at Lidl.


Oakham Town Council currently has 3 vacancies

St Thomas of Canterbury, Christmas Day Exton, Rutland

St Thomas of Canterbury, Christmas Day Exton, Rutland

Sunday 25th December, Christmas Day

9.00am Holy Mass of the Nativity

Rutland County Council Deletes Data To Cover Trails

Rutland County Council deletes trail, 

I can only assume one reason for this and going by the damming and offensive e-mails I have read that were not deleted and handed to me, I can only assume they were worse.

I can assure Rutland County Council I am not mad and the behaviour of the Chief Executive and conservative members over the last two years has been disgusting.

All this for complaining about one a drunk amongst you.

I will continue to publish all the emails I have, below is today's from your Data Protection Officer.

Personally I feel All the Conservatives and the Chief Executive seriously need to consider their positions.

I will keep pressurising the police to find who sent me the illegal post.  

I read Terry King telling a officer to estimate financial answers. I think its time our council is inspected, no one has answered where he found the £1,000,000

Is his offer still on the table for cash to shut me up I would not mind buying Toots Sweets. Sorry I won't accept, I wont join your corrupt group like he did all those years ago.

Dear Mr Brookes,

I refer to your e-mail response regarding your subject access request.

In relation to the comments made by ex-Councillors I am not able to explain regarding the content.  However, you question whether you have received all information held by RCC. We can confirm that we have disclosed all the information we hold. All our mailboxes have a size limit, therefore we actively encourage good housekeeping and routine records management to ensure mailboxes sizes are managed appropriately.  This applies to Councillors and Officers.

As for the gaps between the e-mails you refer to, it appears that only part of the trail has been retained – for this there is no explanation, all we can advise is that any other sections have been deleted at some stage.

I can also confirm that all ex-Councillors electronic storage areas have been deleted from our system and are not retrievable.

Regards

Lisa

Lisa Wakeford | Data Protection Officer

Rutland County Council

Catmose, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6HP

t: 01572 722 577

e: dataprotection@rutland.gov.uk

www.rutland.gov.uk

Voluntary Action Rutland Keeping its head above water after huge funding cuts imposed by Conservatives at Rutland County Council and Oakham Festival

Oakham Town Councillor Maureen Dodds reported Voluntary Action Rutland Keeping its head above water after huge funding cuts imposed by Rutland County Council, The Conservatives Cabinet at Rutland County Council imposed huge cuts to all voluntary organisations throughout Rutland.


They also banned grant applications from Arts and Community groups and added this excludes Conservative Councillors Peter Jones Arts for Rutland??

Maybe Oakham Town Council can give some funds to VAR, instead of giving away public money too the Festival and not knowing how this will be spent.


Oakham Town Council  imposed a similar ban like RCC, they said they would only accept applications from their very small list of favourite groups. This includes Joy Everett's  Oakham/Rutland Festival. She is also a committee member of Arts for Rutland and recently proposed Conservative Peter Jones for the May council elections. Joy was also part of the Oakham Carnival who have given up after infighting amongst the committee members, leaving Councillor Maureen Dodds responsible for a large amount of public money, which she now says she has given away to various Rutland Charities. the money given by Oakham Town Council was required by law too only benefit Oakham residents not the whole of Rutland. If she was the only remaining member how did she do this? was there not more than one signature required on the account and what safeguards are in place so she does not give away Oakham in Bloom funds if that committee happens to fall apart. Councillor Maureen Dodds is also Chair of that committee and receives public funds from Oakham Town Council.


Funding rules have changed arts groups must provide full audited accounts and match funding from this month.


when I return to Oakham Town Council, I will be asking Oakham Town Council to lift its ban and scrap the exclusive list  as I feel this restricts other parts of the community doing their own thing.  They have just as much right to a chance to access public money as any of those listed on the group.
 
The Oakham/Rutland festival have been on the phone begging for their grant, they have still failed to tell the council how this public money will be spent for the benefit of the Oakham Community.

The Town Clerk said "They can have the money and they will get it as soon as the first half of the precept is received from Rutland County Council"

I believe this grant has been awarded illegally and the Joy Everett and the Town Clerk are going to make sure the Festival gets its money. 


If Joy has said the festival was going to use the money to scrap admission charges to the castle events I would not be complaining. Many families cannot afford the £10 per head admission, so this means events in the castle grounds become restricted to the elite along with their M&S hampers and sparkling wine. (Most people have seen my past photographs). In the past grants have never been used for the benefit of all Oakham's residents.


Voluntary Action Rutland supports and promotes local voluntary action by providing advice, information, support, training and consultation

www.varutland.org.uk