Live in Stradbroke or Eye? Pay up to £12 recycle your rubbish. Live in Stowmarket? It's Free

Protesters at Brome earlier in the year (Photo EDP)

The Diss Express reports that the Brome waste site that closed on 31st July is soon to re-open. This sounds on the face of it good news but when the site re-opens a private contractor will be charging between £3 and £12 for residents to recycle their waste.

Meanwhile down the road in Stowmarket Suffolk County Council's waste site is still open and residents pay nothing.

Residents pay identical Council Tax in both places and it is difficult to see this as anything other than completely unfair.

It is also very strange that Brome's Parish Council seem to be involved in the process in a strange way. Now I am a Parish Councillor myself and a fan of local decisions being made locally but waste sites are a strategic service provided at County level. It seems ridiculous that a small parish council and the larger Eye Town Council seem to be left having to make the best of a bad situation.

I am grateful to both Council's for what they have done getting the site re-opened and am certain that the volunteer councillors will have got the best possible deal for everyone who uses the site. But the point is they should not have to do this. It is bad enough local councils being left to run local services like libraries but ridiculous that strategic services used by literally scores of parishes have to be rescued by local parishes that happen to contain the services.

Ironically on the same day as this is is announced Suffolk County Council issue a press release complete with photos of Leader Mark Bee and Cabinet Member for Waste Lisa Chambers visiting waste sites. This, apparently "is part of a series of planned visits to find out more about the work of the authority and talk to staff who provide important public services."

Mark Bee is quoted as saying:

“The staff I met today and the services they deliver are a testament to the work Suffolk County Council does day in day out. We must not underestimate the challenges ahead of us, both in terms of service delivery and financial savings. But they are not insurmountable and I firmly believe that by working with partners, our staff and Suffolk residents, we can find the solutions we need.”

The thing is Suffolk County Council aren't working with partners but completely abdicating themselves of their responsibility to run services that we are still paying for and leaving local people to pick up the pieces.

Pilots in 14 Suffolk Libraries including Stradbroke, Eye and Debenham announced

Suffolk County Council have announced that they have agreed to begin negotiations with groups who expressed an interest in running 14 of the 44 Suffolk libraries as part of a "pilot" of new ways of running libraries.

Stradbroke, Debenham and Eye (as a group) are included as part of this and I have had a few people asking me what I think of the idea.

Firstly I should make it clear that I am actively involved as part of Stradbroke's bid as a Parish Councillor and a member of the Library Working Group. I will be part of a small group across the three parishes who will be taking the plans forward and talking to the Council.

I have mixed feelings about the plans but generally feel it is the right decision to be part of the process and to work with the County Council.

Back at the start of the year we all started campaigning to ensure the survival of Suffolk's libraries. This campaign has been really successful and thankfully we are now not in the position of facing the closure of a large number of libraries in April 2012. In fact there is no current closure threat to any library.

I think it is right that all of us do whatever is best for our local communities whatever mis-givings we might have personally and politically about the direction of travel. In this case I think that means the time is now right to engage positively in the pilots.

I am concerned that the longer term motivation Suffolk have is to "divest" themselves of the service but they have already had to make important concessions and retain overall ownership of the service and a good deal more responsibility than they wanted.

For local communities there will be more work and on some level it would be a lot easier if things just stayed as they were. But that option was never on the table and I think that there is much local communities can gain from engagement in the proposed pilots.

For Eye and Debenham their libraries might move to more convenient and larger sites. In Stradbroke the Courthouse building might see wider community use such as a community cafe.

Personally I don't entirely trust the County Council and I don't suppose they trust me either but the future of the service is more important than any of that. There is enough common ground in my view to work together and hopefully to build back some of the trust that was lost.

I know some won't hold with this approach and I respect that but I think the outcome will be far better for Suffolk's libraries if people who really care for the future of the service are the ones taking part in developing the future service. Sure, we won't get it all our own way, but we will get much more influence taking part than we would from the outside.


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Apply for Council Tax re-banding due to less local services says Suffolk Cabinet Member

Unhappy with local services closing? Think it unfair that we in Stradbroke and Eye will soon have to pay to use Brome waste tip when people in Stowmarket get a free service?

At a meeting of Stradbroke Parish Council, Suffolk County Council Cabinet member Cllr Guy McGregor came up with the solution. He suggested we apply to have the Council tax banding of our houses reduced as fewer local services meant they were worth less.

No really - he actually said this. Councillors looked somewhat stunned by this suggestion.

I think many would prefer Suffolk County Council to provide the services we pay for rather than have our Council Tax reduced. After all as Suffolk Household Waste Centre tweeted today:


The point, as even Cllr McGregor appears to concede is we have paid already. That is what Council tax and general taxation is for...

The tip at Brome is now closed. As this Tweet shows Suffolk CC hope it will soon be re-opened - by someone else who will charge.


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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 First Impressions

Someone at work dropped a flyer into my office today for the UK launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android Tablet. The first lucky 50 people to purchase the 10.1 inch tablet (16Gb WiFi version £399) at PC Word on Tottenham Court Road would get a cool £100 of accessories free at the launch event.

Now Samsung have been doing really well in the Smartphone market of late, reportedly outselling Apple in the last quarter. This is mainly down to the Galaxy S and S II both of which are Android smartphones.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the event, maybe a handful of geeks but it was quite different. A good number of people and very much event managed with canapés, drinks and even a DJ.

The event actually had a bit of a buzz...kind of like an Apple product launch. And this I think explains part of the success of Samsung in stealing a bit of the Apple magic. So much so Apple have again resorted to their lawyers, apparently even blocking the Galaxy Tab launch in Australia...

But back to the product which is in many ways exactly what I expected. It is actually thinner than an iPad and it feels really great to hold. Solid in an iPad way and really well built but thanks to a textured back it felt easier and safer in the hand than the "bare metal" experience of an iPad. In short it is really desirable to look at and touch.

Specification wise it seems to match and beat the iPad on most fronts. Less ports than most Android tablets again makes it really iPad like (even down to selling the SD and USB ports just like Apple do).

They had quite a few accessories including the pictured good-sized keyboard dock. Nice looking keyboard although not as practical to carry around as an Asus Transformer or iPad with Logitech Zagg keyboard. But the keys are certainly bigger.

I didn't take advantage of the offer this time but this looks like a really great tablet. Maybe it will kick off some more development of Tablet apps for Android as this really is the weak area compared to the much more mature and established iPad apps. I expect there is actually a good chance of this, after all there are plenty of Smartphone Android apps and pretty much everything comes out for both iPhone and Android now.

I hope to get my hands on a Galaxy Tab 10.1 soon for a few days so I can write a full review.

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