The Making of a Mayor

Torbay, despite its size, is a unitary authority with an elected mayor. London has an elected mayor, but it is a little bigger than Torbay. Now here's the thing, despite what you may have been told size does matter, but there we go.

For the past four years we have been under the bailiwick of Mayor Nick Bye and that has, to say the least, been an interesting experience for us all. But you see in my opinion the elected mayor should not be a party animal (political party that is!) otherwise the zealots tend to let rip and sadly they have been very much at play in Torbay. Nick Bye started out as an independent but in truth was always part of the Conservative group and that faction at this time is very much in the proverbial driving seat.

During Nick Bye's tenancy we have been offered a curious landscape that has developed from an almost biblical document known as the Mayor's Vision. I say biblical because the promotional DVD came complete with the little red footprints of an ancient prophet and of course, needless to say, at the time I did produce an alternative script using quotations from the Old Book. This DVD featured images of the Torbay is today followed by a flash of white and then up popped the vision which had high rise apartments, bistro seating and other stuff in a foretelling or perhaps foreseeing role. I have to say that some or the Vision was very good, but some had me reaching for an out of town bus timetable.

On Monday (11th April) I am attending the first Mayoral Debate at the Riviera Conference in Torquay in the hope of hearing something meaningful from the mayoral candidates. My worry is that if that if the local population show the same apathetic response to this election as they did last time and we don't get a mayor with the charisma to disrupt and captivate then the future will be bleak; very bleak indeed. I did talk to Nick Bye recently about the need to captivate people and change the way they see themselves at citizens of a united Torbay. Unless that happens then all the topographical changes will simply be lost in that sea of apathy. I've always thought that Nick has been a little unlucky since he has been the one being belted with rotten fruit whilst others making decisions behind the scenes have kept their heads down. He is standing again which does take courage.

Oh well, let's see how Monday evening shapes up!!

The DofE - Duke of Edinburgh Award

Sometimes I find myself scratching my head and this morning was such a time. Why the scratching? Well it is all about doing the best that you can for as long as you can. You would have to be a brick short not to have realised that we are living through troubled times. So what of the future? What sort of world is on offer to our young folk and they work their way through the self inflicted financial chaos? Who can know? But one thing is certain and that is things will never be the same again. For me there is another certainty and that is unless we all pull together things will continue to unravel. I guess that is why I have always been captivated by the Duke of Edinburgh Award. I am, in the words of HRH, a 'Veteran Gold'! My journey started back in 1962 and I am still banging the drum today because you cannot achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold without sharing with and helping others. That makes the DofE hugely socially cohesive at a time when all too easily things become unstuck! My message is simple. If you are aged between 14 and 24 Google 'DofE' or 'Duke of Edinburgh Award' and follow the link. Sign up and get stuck in. If you are older then do the same thing and see what you can do to help. School and college people? Well our young folk need every 'leg up' that they can get and for me the DofE should be the cement holding the students together. In business? Well what a great way to motivate a work force! Public Services? Of course you are doing this already! Come on people, let's make this happen!

No parking - no local shopping

This, written by me, appeared in the Herald Express today...time for action....

People won't come back to shop in town centres if they can't park – it's that simple!

YOU would have to be a modern Rip Van Winkle not to have noticed that life has changed dramatically in the past few years.

So much of what we had previously taken for granted seems to have been blow away in a sort of financial maelstrom that has left many people buffeted, battered and hugely confused.

A little while ago – well in point of fact it was actually four years ago – I delivered a number of lectures based on the concept The Tsunami of Change.

Basically, I had become increasingly worried about the gathering financial storm. That worry was not in isolation, since others had also started to become concerned about financial instability in the markets.

Of course, anyone with two thirds of a brain working would know that if the markets became unstable then the impact would hurt the most vulnerable sectors of society first.

The Tsunami of Change, in financial terms, is very much like that nasty wave. The incoming rush of water is bad enough but the real problem is when sea level is re-established. As the water rushes back to the ocean it pulls so much ugly rubbish with it and, sadly, enormous financial changes do the same, and yes you've guessed it, those most vulnerable in society suffer most.

In recent times the old story of frog cooking has a new relevance because in so many ways we have all been heated slowly and some of the changes happening leave us too apathetic to find a place of safety.

Why don't we react? Well too often it is simply the worry of change and being pushed from what we might call the comfort zone.

Most people will have heard about Roosevelt's 'All we have to fear is fear itself' comment in his first inaugural speech.


One obvious impact of the financial storm is the change in town centres. Take a walk through the centres of Paignton, Brixham and Torquay and count the number of empty shops.

Do you remember when local communities used to gather around the post office? Community disengagement is very dangerous indeed and this is a time when we all need to pull together for what we might deem to be the greater good.

Government, both national and local, has started to react and you will have been aware of the Business Improvement District initiative that has featured recently in the Herald Express. BID is shared investment between government and local business to energise town centres to try to pull people back to the town centres. It is a good and wholesome project which is captivating people and that has to be a very good thing.

But here is the rub. Why do people not come into our town centres? They always used to, so what has changed? The building of huge supermarkets around our towns, which seem now to have taken the place of Christian cathedrals and become the new cathedrals of consumerism, cleverly captivate people.

There we find an almost egalitarian approach in that the well-lit shelves offer goodies to all as families trundle from aisle to aisle. Have you attempted to visit a supermarket for a bottle of milk and leave with just that?

The nice thing about an out-of-town supermarket is, yes you've guessed it, easy free parking. Cars are welcome and in this day and age if the car is welcome then so are the people. The opposite is also true. If your family car is unwelcome then you feel unloved also.

It follows, therefore, that if nipping into the town for something means that you will have to a pay a pound-plus for parking then we tend to get a little twitchy.

Parking meters dominate the town centre which doesn't actually cause a problem. One immediate benefit of a parking meter is that the all-day parkers don't dam the possible parking spaces for shoppers.

No, it is not the parking meters that cause the problem. The problem is the parking charge. Road Tax hurts, insurance will bring tears to your eyes, fuel is at an all-time shocking high and having a car serviced can leave you sleepless for weeks.

Now add to that a parking charge every time you nip into town then it really is the final nail.

It's even more annoying when you nip into town spend your hard-earned cash on a meter charge, get home and then find you have forgotten something and have to head back into town and pay another parking charge.

For me the answer is blinding simple: Make the car as well as the person welcome. That immediately will be one of the biggest business improvement district outcomes. So how do we make them welcome?

Yes, that's right, make the first hour of parking free.

We've already got those lovely blue parking meters and all that needs to happen is a quick bit of reprogramming.

You will still need to display a ticket, but that hour is free. If you want to buy a ticket for longer then the charge would start after the first hour. How simple is that?

Now, I can already hear the curmudgeons on the attack. But stand back you harbingers of doom. Give it a chance and let's see whether folk start to gravitate back to the towns.

Coupled with the good work of BID I think that we could be on the edge of community regeneration which has to be a wonderful thing.

Torbay Council may cry 'oh no, oh no' at the thought of parking revenue dropping, but will it?

But here is another idea for you guys. How about toll gates on the approach to out of town supermarkets? Simple lever arm and bucket activation as a pound is thrown in. Now that has to be a winner, but of course will never happen.

Working on the harbour, I'm outside the Paignton BID, but the problems are the same. Harbour Sports shops are also located in Exeter and on Plymouth's historic Barbican and guess what? Yes, that's right. With one hand we are saying 'come and see us' and with the other we are saying 'but we'll sting you for parking'.

It's time for a little action, boys and girls. Time also I suspect for a little joined-up thinking rather that endless disparate initiatives and biblical visions.

Amen.

LONELINESS

I must admit that I did raise an eyebrow when reading the ‘Loneliness hidden killer for OAPs” headline today. The reason that it caught my attention was the memory standing, unsuccessfully, as a local councillor five years ago.

Treading the streets and knocking on doors was quite a humbling experience in so many ways. Of course I was already aware of the financial disaster looming just over the horizon and walking the ward made me realise how isolated so many people had become. Social disengagement is a dangerous thing.

There was a time when folk paused to chat with neighbours, looking out of the window, walking down to the local Post Office and allowing the local community to engage.

But things change and now a huge amount of time is spent flicking through endless TV channels, surfing the voyeuristic internet or playing explosive virtual reality games. All this has us facing away from the window and as likely to send a neighbour an email rather than knocking on the door.

What I also noticed was the number of folk living alone listening to every heart beat and the sound of silence. One elderly lady that answered the door said that she had not spoken to anyone for over a week. We chatted for a while.

So there you have it. Fight against isolation and find the time to chat with neighbours, seek out the lonely and hold out a helping hand.

It’s not much to ask.

Education........

South Devon College with the new University Centre

When I had just left school someone asked me what I thought of the statement ‘Education is what is left after you have forgotten what you had learnt’ and to be quite honest at the time I didn’t really think about it at all. I now know that the quotation came from Einstein and oddly enough after all these years it still troubles me.

This month I have a French girl working at Harbour Sports as a business intern and today I took her to South Devon College for a quick tour. Amelie was impressed with what she found, stunned by the view of The Street from the third floor and enjoyed meeting Pat Denham (South Devon College Deputy CEO). We also had a little trip around the new University Centre, which is where I work on a part time basis as a lecturer and business innovation mentor.

I love South Devon College and think that what has happened there is quite amazing in building a community that has become exclusive by being inclusive. Now that may sound a little odd, so let me explain. I have always worried about the huge number of young people who become disenfranchised and marginalised during their school years. Their identity, the way they feel about themselves, may well build a life that becomes hardened by that feeling of marginalisation. You have only to walk around the campus to see how this community pulls together and offers a shared and meaningful experience to all.

So what about all that learning? How do we use that knowledge in a world that is increasingly dysfunctional? What do we do with the skills gathered? Well it is perhaps upon that very platform we build the future. A platform that is indeed the essence of what is left when learning merges into everyday life. After all is said and done learning is so much more than lessons and lectures. It is about the totality of that experience.

Hmm, a shared experience in a caring environment. Is it really that difficult?

The Big Society?

Of course the post-Christmas period can be something of an anticlimax, especially if like me you find Christmas a magical time. But it is more than that. After digesting huge amounts of political rhetoric over the past six months I am attempting to understand what is really being said.

The odd thing is that the numerous U-turns, mind changes, broken promises and a myriad of other devices simply confuse us all. Poor old Vince Cable seems to be bouncing around all over the place, which is a shame because he is actually a clever man with, I thought, his feet on the ground. At the moment he appears to be in training to the British 2012 Olympic Gymnastics team, with the finest series of political flick flacks that I have seen for a very long time.

Watching the New Trinity of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg makes me shiver. Did you see the Captain SKA You Tube video clip? Worth a watch and I have added the link at the bottom of this rant. The thing is I didn’t vote for a coalition government and it upset me when Clegg jumped into bed with Cameron. Parliament, in my opinion, works best without a huge bundle of lemming politicians rushing in different directions when the pack leader coughs.

It was pleasing to see Torbay MP Adrian Sanders making a stand the other day and attempting to demonstrate that not all Liberal Democrats fly a flag of political convenience! Sometimes you have to stand up for what is right rather then being swooned by the offer of a ministerial chauffer driven car.

What 2011 holds really is in the proverbial lap of the gods since we are living though uncharted times and being buffeted by an international fiscal storm. If we are to get through these troubled times then we really must pull together and share the wealth. It seems to me that the evidence is stacked against that in this present political landscape and the worry is that the social disorder demonstrated by students recently will start to spread as more and more people become marginalised and disengaged.

So, let your life be lived for the good of all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFwxw57NBI

The mythical cucumber......

The next government spokesman to say that student loans are interest free I will beat around the head with a mythical cucumber! That a student loan is interest free is simply not true. Interest is applied to the loan from the START of the FIRST term and continues to build as the undergraduate years go by.

Being told that you have to pay nothing back until you earn over £21,000 is again misleading because if your first job pays below that then the student loan balloon continues to expand like volcanic magma as the interest builds.

But it’s not just about student loans. Students are mercilessly encouraged to use sizable bank loans and credit cards as a route to get even deeper in debt. Therefore by the time they graduate the debt is really enormous and super heating if graduation includes huge card debt. With the new fee structure it will be possible to have a graduation debt of anywhere between £30000 and £50000. That is serious debt.

Do you know that higher education can seriously damage your financial health?

Think about this, a young graduate couple could be starting life together with a debt of perhaps £100,000, which really is shocking. £100,000 – that really is unbelievable. Welcome to the future boys and girls!

I’ve been banging on about this stuff since 1999 when the first horde of undergraduate lemmings hurtled toward what they thought was the bright new future under mega star Tony Blair. Sadly David Cameron is now ‘compounding’ it and Vince Cable seems to have done a complete U turn with the energy of an Olympic gymnast.

My generation, sadly, has done a very good job of spending our children’s future whilst at the same time crippling the international financial structure.

Welcome to bedlam.