Essex Police has launched details of its new Policing Blueprint model. The proposed changes will be implemented by March 2012. According to the police, this will build a capability and a capacity that will serve well the people in Essex and continue to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in the years ahead.
Details of new bus services in both urban and rural parts of the Borough have been announced, and they confirm that we are bucking the trend and protecting and even improving services here at a time when they are being slashed elsewhere. Of course, as with any changes to bus routes, it is not uniformly good news, but overall across both urban and rural parts of the Borough access to decent bus services is being maintained and even improved. The headlines from the changes to both the Stagecoach commercial routes and the new Bedford Borough Council-tendered rural services run by Grant Palmer include the long hoped-for extension of services in Bedford and Kempston until up to 11pm, free rural weekend travel for under 16's and new paperless smartcard ticketing in the urban area. We are also continuing the vastly improved new Sunday services we introduced in Bedford recently, with routes which mirror those run commercially by Stagecoach over the rest of the week.
I recently attended a small ceremony to mark the opening of a new 'changing place' disabled toilet at River Street Car Park. You might wonder why a ceremony was held to mark the opening of a toilet, but the opening of this facility really is something worthy of celebration. It's the first facility of its kind in the Borough, and it will make a real difference for local residents and visitors with physical disabilities which make using standard accessible toilets difficult or, very often, impossible.
The Essex Chronicle reports: DEPARTING employees pocketed almost half a million pounds of taxpayers' cash in the past 18 months from Essex County Council to keep them quiet.
Figures have been uncovered that show Essex County Council spent £173 million on consultants and agency staff over the last three years. The figures were uncovered by a question from Liberal Democrat County Councillor David Kendall at a full council meeting.
Wiltshire Lib Dems have congratulated Bath and North East Somerset Council on leading the way in saving money and energy with their new LED street light system in Keynsham, near Bath, but questioned why Wiltshire Council isn't engaging in similar schemes to cut costs in our county.