Category

Leisure and culture

• Being Labour, Breaking News, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  Swim spin

  07.07.10 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  It look like I’ll have to publish the Tory Council statement on the decision to end free swimming for Over 60s at the end of July.  
  Here it is, dated 29th June:
  “West Lancashire Community Leisure Trust, in partnership with the Council, currently provides free swimming for the over 60s with a grant from Central Government covering [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  Another day, another Tory failure: this times it’s football

  06.18.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  The Skelmersdale Advertiser this week carries the story of organisers of a new U16 and U18 boys’ football league being denied the chance to get it going because the Tory council won’t give them pitch space.  As one of the organiser says:
  I think it’s despicable that 16-year-old lads from Skelmersdale can’t play football in their [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  Power and irresponsibility: the rottenness at the heart of Tory government

  05.04.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  This was written for www.torystories.com but I’m not sure it’ll get posted there. 
  In what was hailed as a land mark speech on local government In February 2009, David Cameron said:
  ‘We’re going to give local councils much more power and responsibility. We’ve got to recognise that the central state can’t have the imagination and flexibility to [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  That Serco report in full

  05.03.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  I have been asked by interested readers to republish in full the report I wrote in January 2008 on Serco’s operation of the Tory council’s leisure services.
  Below I reprint the Executive Summary, and here are links to that summary, to the full report, the appendices, and the press release (all pdf files):
  SERCOexecsummary fulllSERCO pressrelease14jan08 AppA(2005rawdata) AppA(2006analysis) AppA(2007analysis) AppC
   SERCO SO FAR
  A Labour review
  Interim [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  15 months late

  04.01.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  West Lancashire Borough Counci’s ‘Open Space Strategy’ has finally been published.
  I haven’t read it yet but will do before there is a presentation on it on Tuesday 06 April.
  The strategy is AT LEAST 15 months late being published. It was commissioned un June 2008, and I was interviewed for it in December 2008. 
  It has been [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  What didn’t get printed

  03.17.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  I completely forgot to post this letter I did to the press the other week about the Tories’ scandalous behaviour in a) unilaterally refusing to hear council motions b) then using the press to reply to a motion that they might have liked to be on the council agenda, but in fact wasn’t.
  The press only printed one sentence of it, so here [...]

• Being Labour, Breaking News, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture, Uncategorized

  Scandalous delay on open space strategy

  03.02.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  Back here I commented on the Tory council’s failure to produce an Open Space Strategy, already then nearly a year late, and despite spending thousands of pounds of consultancy fees on its preparation.
  This strategy is important, because it should inform what goes into the long term Local Development Plan.  Without it, there is a risk that [...]

• Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  A bit of self-defence

  02.19.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  I was asked by a local journalist whether I wanted to defend myself  from a really quite personal attack on my character by the Chairman of West Lancashire Community Leisure Trust, in the light of the story about theft from Burscough Leisure Centre, which the press had decided to cover in January (I don’t think I even [...]

• Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  So who knew?

  01.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  West Lancashire Leisure Trust is now saying that the £22,000 went missing from Burscough Sports Centre in February 2008. 
  Fair enough.  Except that I’m pretty sure I went to the West Lancashire Leisure Trust in July 2008, and it didn’t get a mention anywhere. I wonder which Trustees of West Lancashire Leisure Trust actually knew about this [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council, Leisure and culture

  The bizarre logic of Tory irresponsibility

  01.20.10 | Permalink | Comment?

  There was an interesting extrapolation from figures presented at last night’s West Lancashire Borough Council Conservative cabinet meeting. 
  The portfolio holder for leisure services commented on the quarterly performance indicators for the period up to the end of September 2009, referring specifically to indicator WL18 ‘Use of leisure and cultural facilities (swims and visits)’.
  This table shows [...]

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