Sandy 4 St Albans

Sandy Walkington is the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for St Albans

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Urgent Care Centre decision a stab in the front for local people

March 26th, 2010 · SOS Herts NHS, Sandy's blog

Yesterday’s suddenly announced decision by the PCT that they are not going to proceed with plans for the Urgent Care Centre on the St Albans City Hospital site is a stab in the front for local residents.

It was only a few days ago that I blogged about the closure of A&E at Hemel Hempstead and then blogged again about a young resident writing to me about how he just did not know what services were provided any longer at the St Albans site.

Yesterday’s communication is just another sad chapter in the long and sorry history of broken promises and betrayal over health service provision in our city and district by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

So much for all the consultation by the PCT on its Developing Quality Healthcare programme for Hertfordshire, the fancy slideshows and glossy brochures.  For the residents of St Albans, the fancy promises have turned out not to be worth the paper they were printed on.

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Is First Capital Connect waking up and smelling the coffee?

March 24th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I received an e-mail from Neal Lawson, Managing Director of First Capital Connect.

He wrote that he and senior colleagues “have spoken to and corresponded with many customers as well as meeting with a high proportion of MPs along the route.”

And guess what, they have decided to improve the compensation package for season ticket holders (annual season ticket holders will now get a 7 percent discount and weekly ticket holders a further two free tickets).  He also announced investment in trains and also in better communications technology for staff when future problems happen.

Anyone would think there was an election in the offing.

Perhaps they are finally smelling the coffee.  But it has come so late that it will do little to quell the fury of travellers.

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Fascinating feedback on local NHS

March 23rd, 2010 · SOS Herts NHS, Sandy's blog

I am getting a lot of letters and e-mails on local residents’ perceptions of local NHS services following my invitation to people to write about their experiences.  They show a fascinating range of opinion, some rating our local health services as very good, some as not so good, all of course coming from the same tight geography of the St Albans constituency.

Here are two e-mails received within an hour of each other:

As a resident I find the situation with regard to the hospital both confusing and worrying. I like to think I keep myself up to date with local events but I can honestly say I don’t really know what services the St Albans hospital can now provide, due to this I would never proactively go there as a first port of call.

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Solomon in all his glory

March 21st, 2010 · Sandy's blog

One of Francesca’s friends sings in St Albans Bach Choir and we went to last night’s performance of Handel’s Solomon at the Abbey.  (I then realised how many of my friends and contacts are also members – it’s a real community thing.)

Solomon is a work I have never heard performed before and it was a treat, both musically and verbally for I found the poetry of the libretto most moving too.   The choir and the accompanying Sinfonia Verdi filled the Abbey nave with glorious sound.  My old friend John Manning said he had never heard them in better voice.

The big surprise for me was hearing Solomon sung by a counter-tenor (the brilliant Tim Travers-Brown), presumably to indicate his youth, and the trio between him and the two harlots portraying the Judgement of Solomon was particularly beautiful.

You can read all about the St Albans Bach Choir and find out about their future concerts (highly recommended by this audience member) by visiting their website at http://www.stalbansbachchoir.org.uk/

And how about the last two lines of the oratorio as a theme for the coming election?

The name of the wicked shall quickly be past,

But the fame of the just shall eternally last.

Great stuff!

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The NSPCC’s I Stand for Children campaign

March 19th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I have been contacted by many supporters of the NSPCC in St Albans about the NSPCC’s I Stand For Children Commitment.  I have been very pleased to sign it.

My association with the NSPCC goes back over 40 years.  As a child I went round carol singing every year to raise funds for what was then called in rather patronising language The League of Pity, the junior arm of the NSPCC.  I remember the collecting box was made of papier-mache in the shape of a blue egg on a yellow base – the bluebird being the logo of the League.

Then in the days before desktop publishing, I used my secondary school printing press to design and print programmes for their fundraising events.

2008_091611jan070020 (2)Later, when I ran BT’s corporate social responsibility programme, we had major partnerships with the NSPCC.

And recently I was pleased to be asked to chair a fringe meeting organised by the NSPCC at the LibDem national conference on the issue of child safety on the internet – see the picture here.

In this regard Liberal Democrats have set out plans for online bullying and abuse to be tackled by using quick-report buttons on social networking sites, enabling offensive postings to be speedily removed, or concerns about abuse to be addressed immediately.

As for other aspects of national LibDem policy, we produced a child protection paper in 2009, and within it we committed to many of the other requests made by the NSPCC in this campaign.

They include continuing to fund Childline (with which I had a very close association when I was at BT, providing the major source of industry funding). The LibDems have also called for helpline services to be accessible and confidential so people know when and how to report suspected abuse.

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Councillor bites dog

March 18th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

Well sadly not but it got you reading the post.  I was out with Joy Mann in the Lower Road area of her Bedmond and Primrose Hill ward.  (For the information of St Albans viewers, this is about as far west and north as you can go in the parliamentary constituency, next to the West Coast mainline and to all intents and purposes in Hemel Hempstead – but I digress.)

2010_0318StAHalfMarathonPoolC0045Anyway the first house where Joy was called, the residents weren’t in, she pushed a leaflet through the letter box and a silent dog lurking inside bit her finger.

Just to be on the safe side, I took her to the doctor’s in Kings Langley – where the nurse was fully booked doing vaccinations.  So off we went to Hemel Hempstead and the Urgent Care Centre.  The picture shows Joy duly bandaged and armed with antibiotics afterwards.

But it reminded me of the dangers faced every day by postmen and deliverers of every kind.  And also how difficult and inconvenient it is to get to the rambling hospital site at Hemel.

Last weekend I wrote a post about Hemel A&E closing and that all roads no longer led to Hemel – well today they did.

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Campaigning for lower rail fares

March 18th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I have spent so many winter mornings standing outside St Albans City Station handing out leaflets to hurrying commuters that I ought to have a season ticket.

2010_0318StAHalfMarathonPoolC0021Today it was at least warm, the mornings are getting brighter, and I was there for the thoroughly worthy and non-political cause of promoting the Campaign for Better Transport’s push for lower rail fares.

The Campaign for Better Transport is the lobby group for improving public transport in the UK.  They used to be called Transport 2000 but they realised they should change the name when we entered the 21st century.  How different from Thameskink 2000.

I am pictured with local St Albans resident Stephen Joseph, who is director of CfBT.  I am glad to say that we received a very warm response in spite or perhaps because of wearing giant fake tickets round our necks.  We could have given away many more postcards than we actually had.  The cause should resonate with St Albans travellers since they pay more per kilometre than any equivalent commuter journey.

I am grateful to my Labour opponent and former council colleague Roma Mills, who joined us this morning, for taking the picture on my camera – I then took one of her!  Sadly Mrs Main was not present.

You can sign up to the campaign by visiting the CfBT website here.

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A new vision for our railway

March 17th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

It was rather an irony that we had to slightly delay the start of last night’s public meeting on FCC’s lamentable performance and what steps can be taken to hold them to account or even remove their franchise.  This was because main speaker Norman Baker’s northbound train was delayed.  You couldn’t make it up.

FCC meeting 2

The picture taken by Gary Shore of Gaslight shows Norman and myself telling the audience at the end of the meeting that we were off to The Goat, where Norman had performed in a gig back in 1978, long before he got into Parliament and achieved his current reputation as a tireless campaigner and Liberal Democrat spokesman on transport.

But first of all there was the serious stuff.   Chris White, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Herts County Council, opened the meeting and set the context.  I then covered all FCC’s multiple failings which have been well rehearsed previously in this blog – just type First Capital Connect into the search box on the right hand side.  I pointed out that statutory mechanisms exist for franchises to be taken back temporarily into public sector management as has happened with East Coast Mainlines currently and previously happened with the terrible Connex.

The audience was then invited to share their own experiences,  and we had a stream of interesting comments and questions, including whether it is now possible for FCC to lose their franchise.

Norman listened hard to all the points and interjections, and then gave a thoughtful and detailed response, showing a considerable grasp of First Group and FCC’s history and performance both on Thameslink and elsewhere.  He reeled off the statistics on FCC’s relative performance not just over this last winter but for the previous few years and showed how they had consistently under-performed the rest of the rail industry.

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All roads lead to Hemel – or do they?

March 15th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

Once upon a time St Albans had an A&E.  Then the previous Conservative government broke their promise and closed it.  So the slightly surreal sign pointing to Hemel was put up at the exit from St Albans hospital in order that the injured should know which way to turn – left down the hill to Batchwood Drive rather than right to the town centre.  Sandy hospital map2

But even though the current Labour government has just this last week closed the Hemel Hempstead A&E department, that forlorn sign to Hemel still remains.

So when can we expect to see the sign replaced with one pointing to Watford?  Or will patients be expected to make their way to the Hemel site where another sign will then point them on to Vicarage Road in Watford in a patient pass-the parcel?    Where will it all end?

It is a sorry tale and provides graphic illustration of the way that St Albans residents feel that a once local NHS has left them and become ever more remote.

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A larger audience than Nigel Farage… and an interesting debate on what makes a fair tax system

March 14th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

On Friday I spoke to the St Albans School 6th form before rushing up to the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham.  The school certainly has an interesting range of speakers.  The previous week they had Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP.  This week they are going to have Esther Rantzen.  It is an intriguing progression!

I will confess to some satisfaction that my audience of well over 100 young people was more than twice the number that listened to the UKIP leader – beat that, Esther!

St Albans School pupils have never been shy at voicing opinions – this is the third time in recent years that I have spoken there, and I also used to have fairly regular sessions there in the 1980s when I was a governor.

Questions were thrown at me about the economy, the merits of hung or balanced parliaments, our membership of the European Union of course, tuition fees.

What was most interesting to me was the debate round creating a fairer tax system, and in particular the equalisation of tax relief for pensions.  They could not see why their parents (at least most of them I presume) should “pay more”, I said it’s not about paying more, it’s about making it fair between  high income earners and the person cleaning the room (or equivalent) after school finishes.

Higher rate tax payers were given 65% of the £28bn granted in pension tax relief in 2008-09, though they make up just 19% of pension savers.

And the very highest earners, the 1% of adults whose income is over £150,000 a year, gained 25% of all pension tax relief, worth an average of £20,000 a year to each of them.

If no tax relief was given to anyone, that would put £28 billion back into public coffers – so we are talking big money here.  Of course no-one is suggesting that tax relief should be ended in that way, it’s too important that we encourage people to save for their retirement.

But it seems fair and even-handed to me that Sir Richard Branson and his ilk should get no larger a percentage relief on each pound that he saves for retirement than the person cleaning the school lecture theatre .  The same for the rich as for those on modest incomes – just like our proposal to raise both Sir Richard’s and the school cleaner’s basic tax allowance to £10,000.  What could be fairer than that?

Anyway I hope I left the St Albans students with something to think about.

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