Councillor Mike Flower

May is nearly here and elections loom once again. Having been re-elected last year its not my turn this time but that of my colleague Keith Sears. How quickly the year has gone. In fact how quickly the year and a half have gone. It doesn’t seem like yesterday since I was plodding around in the rain, in dark November, delivering leaflets and knocking as many doors as I could. November 23rd is now 18 months ago! So much has happened and has been and gone - and yet so much remains the same. If you’d have said to me 18 months ago that i’d be walking around Walsall Wood as a councillor with David Cameron then I probably would have laughed long and hard!

Its a good time to reflect on some of the things i’ve done over the past year - starting with committees.

Development Control: This has been my favourite committee and one I feel I made a difference on. We met every three weeks and meetings have often run from 5:30 to 9pm and beyond. But its good to have a different perspective on things, fight for a bit of common sense and my overarching theme is that I am unwilling to sit there rubber stamping issues. Otherwise we might as well delegate the lot and go home! This evening we had another case. 304 houses/flats to be built in Darlaston. Multi million pound scheme that needs to last a century and house thousands of people. Considering they were going to have to contribute a lot of money to the Council (ie - the taxpayers of the Borough) it needed to be got right. Yet we turn up to find that discussions are ongoing and six pages of extra information is tabled. I was pleased to get the application deffered. We can’t decide on something that is still a work in progress. We owe it to the taxpayer and to people that will live there in the future. A little bit more time will give everyone something to enjoy. I’ve managed to get some mobile phone masts turned down too. I’ve won some battles and lost others. Its been a good experience.

LEA Governor’s Appointment Panel: does what it says on the tin really. I’ve been vice chair for the year and never had to chair a meeting yet (before you ask I get no extra allowance for that and quite right too!). They last about ten minutes and to be honest it really is a rubber stamping exercise. Still someone has to do it and it’s been done.

Regeneration Scrutiny: I’m not really sure what to make of the scrutiny process. Some discussions we had on skills and development in the town centre have been really interesting and we’ve had good input into. Other than that i’ve not found it that rewarding - personally. All the councillors on there have been a pleasure to work with. It did give me a constant excuse to keep mentioning Shire Oak junction!

Full Council: Met every eight weeks when all sixty councillors get together. Really its an official opportunity to question the portfolio holders on the cabinet, propose motions and approve reports that become policy. The cabinet is the real decision making body now so Full Council’s main roles are to approve the Budget and appoint the Leader and Cabinet. A lot of these meetings have been long and not the most effective. I fear that is always going to be the case when you get 60 of us in one room together! Still a 2.9% tax rise is good incomparison to other councils and below inflation.

LNP and CAG meetings: It feels like these are every three to four weeks but they vary. I have to admit I am not the greatest fan of this system because i’m not sure it is entirely effective. We tried to get a community action group to focus on Walsall Wood - which was voted down. Thats meant we’ve had to do a lot of our work outside of the LNP system to keep momentum going - like the Walsall Wood Regeneration. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think LNPs are still trying to work out what they are there for. In terms of public engagement however ours hasn’t been the most effective - I think I counted 5 members of the public at the last LNP meeting. I have to admit I quite like Birmingham City Council’s ward committee system which seems to work quite well. Might be something to look at in the future.

Walsall Wood Allotment Charity: Another productive meeting which occurs every four weeks. We’ve managed to help a lot of people out who are struggling and hopefully brought a bit of light to a few people.

University of Birmingham Court: Its been a busy year at the University with high level management changes and the restructuring of the University into a college system. Once the changes have settled in the real challenge now is for Birmingham to strive to be that best University outside of Oxbridge/London. It has ambitions that will not only help Birmingham but the wider West Midlands and Walsall aswell.

So those are just a few of the meetings I go to officially. More thoughts on the year over the next few days….