Making the most of the elected mayor regime

Herald Express 6th May 2011 - a few published 'Frank' words......

SOMETIMES when you get what you think you want you find it wasn't what you wanted at all.
Perhaps during the process of getting you couldn't understand why everyone was rushing around and now you suddenly realise that you didn't understand the nature of the beast.
But now you have it and perhaps worry that you don't quite know what to do with it!

I've watched the antics of Torbay's mayoral candidates and listened to the almost endless rhetoric. We've now popped out of the first mayoral reign which was a time of visions and dreams, some of which did actually become a reality while others disappeared like the morning mist on a hot day. All this happened at a time of great economic, political and social change. What a stunning rollercoaster! Well here we go into the second term of mayoral leadership. But you know nothing is truly going to change unless you can capture the hearts and minds of the population.

Now I know that term easily runs off the tongue, but it is the essential truth! You can paint the buildings, construct new facilities, plant beautiful flowers and hold endless gatherings, but unless you can capture the identity of a community nothing, absolutely nothing, will change. We live in troubled times and it has been increasingly easy to focus on the negative, to look for what has been done badly and to find fault.

That has to change. Let the new mayor build community that looks for the positive, celebrates what has been done well and seeks not to find the proverbial splinter in a neighbour's eye whilst sporting a plank in our own eye. It isn't impossible but it does require the rejecting of empty political rhetoric and the almost constant cross-party sniping. Whether you like the mayoral system or not is neither here nor there because for a while we are stuck with it.

That being the case, let us use it to advantage and make it a shared experience. It is our system of government and so we must use it as best we can. But here is the rub. Our mayor must also use it as a post of social responsibility and captivate us all into a more meaningful vision. It is a time for pulling our people together, of energising communities and demonstrating that there is a better way. So here is the starting point; an open gathering perhaps once a month at the Riviera International Conference Centre, which has potential as a village hall for Torbay. Gather the people and share the excitement of a shared journey and see a new social horizon together. At the end of the meeting everyone can take away a bag and on the walk home pick up all the waste paper drifting on the wind. What a wonderful shared experience and a simply way of increasing community pride.

There you have it. A new mayoral vision for Torbay.

A Single Tear

A single tear ran down my cheek this morning as I read a Western Morning News (Good Friday 2011) headline “Anglican Priest Makes Catholic Switch”. It seems that Moretonhampstead Anglican vicar and father of eight, with a ninth on the way, is to be ordained as a Catholic priest. So why do I have a tear running down my cheek this morning?

The tear is for all the young men who had a vocation to the celibate Catholic priesthood, giving up the joy of married life and the pleasure of children. Now for them the knowledge that it’s OK to join the club via the backdoor and be a married Catholic priest.

I guess what has caused me to raise an eyebrow is that Father Hellyer is only forty-five whilst most of the other switchers have tended top be rather ancient.

When I was young I thought that I had a vocation to the Catholic priesthood, but my director of vocations suggested that I might be best to work through college first. I met my wife at college and that was the end of my priestly route!

I have a friend who would have made an excellent husband and father but became a celibate catholic priest. We meet from time to time and experience a sort of sliding doors moment in wondering where we might be had the roles been reversed.

Perhaps now is the time for a change in the Church of Rome and allow priests the option to marry or remain celibate. Accepting married Anglican clergy without first allowing Catholic priests the opportunity to marry seems to me to be a little unkind.

Having said all that I would like, as a Catholic, to welcome Father Hellyer to the Church. Perhaps his arrival will trigger a change and that celibacy in the Catholic priesthood will become an option rather than a requirement.

Cristos anesti!

The Making of a Mayor #2 & a glimpse of heaven...

.....................but unfortunately the two are not related!

On Monday 11th April I pitched up at the Mayoral Debate oganised by the Torbay Business Forum at the Riviera International Conference Centre (aka The English Riviera Centre) to see the candidates strut their stuff. As previously stated I am not in favour of an elected mayor for Torbay, however Conservative Central Office in its wisdom has decided that we are stuck with the system and must therefore simply get on with it. Mayor Nick Bye has decided to bravely stand again given that the local Conservative group decided to select someone else as their official candidate and I have to say that it was Nick who carried the evening.

So where do we go now? Well, on May 5th we have the joy of voting for (a) a new mayor, (b) numerous local councillors and (c) a new alternative voting system. Hmm. It's enough to make your head spin, especially since all this follows immediately after the late Easter and the Royal Wedding! Many of us will doubtless stagger to the voting kiosk in a state of religious euphoria or alcoholic semi-oblivion and attempt to make some sense of the assorted boxes just waiting to be ticked.

So the choice is yours boys and girls, do you stick with Nick Bye or elect one of the others? There you have it - one of the others. Hmm. Perhaps that should be Nick's strap line for this election - Stick with Nick. Seems to me that it is one of three devil choices. The devil you know against the devil you don't and as usual the devil will be in the political detail! I guess for the moment my money is sticking with the devil that I know.

..............................and now that glimpse of heaven! The other day Pete Hobbs (Oak Tree Garage in Paignton) gave my Noddy car (a Westfield) a really good going over and when I picked it up in the evening there was only one thing to do - go for a blast! The joy of Devon lanes and the late afternoon sunshine...................brings a little smile, well actually huge smile as Donal Lang and Matthew Porter will testify when I shot through Stoke Gabriel....

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.