Recently in Wirral council Category

LABOUR has selected a candidate to fight Leasowe and Moreton East ward - a key battleground for the party after it elected its first Conservative councillor at the lastr local elections.

What had long been seen as a Labour stronghold saw Ian Lewis take a council seat there in 2008.

Labour had selected Lorraine Krimou to fight the seat but she stood down and the charity she runs is in dispute with the Leasowe Development Trust which is chaired by Ron Abbey - a Labour councillor in the same ward.

THE first blows have been exchanged in the election battleground that is the Wallasey constituency - and you can read the entire exchange below.

Liscard Labour candidate Darren Dodd has taken the offensive the sitting Liscard councillor Leah Fraser, who as well as defending her council seat is also standing against Angela Eagle for the Parliamentary constituency.

Mr Dodd has taken issue with the fact that Cllr Fraser is standing for re-election in Liscard as well as challenging Angela Eagle. The implication being that the Liscard councillor is not sufficiently confident of winning against Ms Eagle and wants to keep hold of her council seat just in case.

This story appear to have ruffled feathers and (again) made me unpopular at Wirral Council.

Essentially, the story was about a report done done for the authority about retail in Wirral. To be able to compete against out of town centres such as Cheshire Oaks, along with Liverpool One and Chester, the borough needs more capacity.

The recommendation was to focus on Wiral Waters (and possibly Birkenhead too). However, today the council has issued the following statement:

I KNOW Margaret Thatcher was seen as "revolutionary" in many respects - first female Prime Minister, radical shift in monetary policy and commitment to controlling inflation rather than employment, privatisation and sale of council houses to name but a few - but I have generally seen the Conservative Party being what it says on the tin - conservative.

This is not a bad thing, and it doesn't mean they don't have new ideas, radical policy initiatives, and so forth, just that they are often seen to represent a desire for the status quo, traditional values, among other things.

So it was with some surprise that I read Denis Knowles' "Seacombe Matters" blog in which he compared revolutionaries Che Guevara and Fidel and Raul Castro to some of his local Conservative colleagues - or maybe the other way around.

It must be almost every politician's dream - to be taken for the most generous and popular man of the Christmas season: Santa Claus.

And after the year the ruling coalition of Labour and the Lib-Dems in Wirral have had, some Christmas cheer would no doubt be very welcome.

So it was a bizarre turn of events when a member of Wirral Council was unexpectedly approached while out shopping to be Santa at one of the area's most popular Grottos, Burleydam Garden Centre's Father Christmas by the Fireside, which also raises money for Claire House Children's Hospice.

WHETHER it's a reflection of these difficult economic times or maybe a result of all the publicity Wirral's libraries have received, it's hard to say.

But even Wirral Council was surprised at the response when they advertised for a home reader to work for its library service.

The part-time job, which let's face it is some way off what the chief exec gets in remuneration, attracted an extraordinary response.

AFTER the mauling Wirral Council received in the media (including us) yesterday following the criticisms levelled at it by libraries inspector Sue Charteris, the Government has launched a consultation document on the future of libraries.

Headlined "Libraries must move with the times to win back public support and secure their future says Culture Minister Margaret Hodge" it seems to be the document Wirral Council's leaders were hoping for.

None of this negates the criticisms of Sue Charteris, indeed in her comments accompanying the Wirral Libraries report the minister Margaret Hodge said: "The Secretary of State welcomes Wirral MBC's decision to reconsider plans to restructure their library service. We hope that they will take account of the issues raised, alongside the conclusions which emerge from the national libraries review, when considering future decisions."

The leader of the Conservative opposition group has responded to the libraries report:

Cllr Jeff Green said the "public of Wirral owe Sue Charteris a huge debt of gratitude".

He added: "She has exposed the way this administration has treated the Wirral public and how they disregarded the needs of the most vulnerable in our community."

Lib-Dem leader Simon Holbrook has released a candid response to the report by Government-appointed library inspector Sue Charteris.

Cllr Holbrook said they withdrew their library closure plans because "having been unsuccessful in challenging Sue Charteris' interpretation of the 1964 Libraries Act, we simply considered the risk of being found in breach of the Act too high for the Council to take".

He reiterated the comments made after the council abandoned the library closure plans that the delays were also affecting setting Wirral's budget.

But Cllr Holbrook added: "In any event, we believe that many of the opinions of Sue Charteris expressed in her report will be superseded by the results of the national consultation on the future of libraries which we understand the DCMS will launch tomorrow. We hope that the Government's consultation on the future of libraries will provide the guidance on the Libraries Act which this inquiry has shown is sadly lacking."

This is the press statement in full from Cllr. Steve Foulkes, Leader of Wirral Council following announcement by the Secretary of State on the libraries public inquiry,

Wirral not in breach of their Statutory Duty

I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State recognises that we are not in breach of our statutory duty and I welcome too the fact that the statement recognises the autonomy of local authorities and the fact that they are well placed to decide on local needs.