(As predicted in the comments on my last post). The extra ordinary meeting of the Council called by the Lib Dem group to debate what I consider to be one of the most important issues facing Barnet today will not be held until November 4th. Frankly it’s a disgrace that when an extraordinary meeting is called that it is not held at the earliest possible time.
We don’t use the option of calling this type of meeting very often. In fact I can’t remember the last time we did so. …

That someone being neighbouring Haringey Council. Lynne Featherstone MP for Hornsey and Wood Green has the details here.
At least they have had a Full Council meeting and been able to uncover some of the detail. Here in Barnet the only information Councillors have been given is the Q&A I posted earlier. I am hoping to be able to report soon that we will have an opportunity to learn more.
The Liberal Democrat group on Barnet Council have called for an Extraordinary meeting of the Council. Under the constitution there has …

Most of which could not have been withdrawn as they were invested in fixed term deals. Where this leaves the Council tax payers is anyone’s guess. It will largely depend on whether central government is willing to protect these investments. It’s a lot of money. I calculate about £83 per head for everyone in Barnet.
Update:- Barnet have produced a Q&A which I have reproduced below.
Icelandic Banks __ Questions & Answers
Has the council lost the £27.4m?
It is too early to say whether or not the money has been lost.
We are also …

Barnet are replacing all their street lights using a 25 year PFI deal. I have now had several complaints about the company employed to undertake these works. The new lights are being located in different location to the old ones. The problem is that the planning for this appears to be being done on out of date maps.
The letter to residents also states that the lights being replaced are either life expired or in a dangerous condition. From my observations neither is true in most cases. The other interesting question …

Last nights council meeting demonstrated many of the things that wrong with local democracy both nationally and in the London Borough of Barnet. The main part of the meeting consists of a debate on a number of motions put forward by Councillors. The agenda for the meeting lists these motions in the order they are submitted and states that they will be debated in that order. There are always more motions that there is time to debate them.
At the beginning of this section of the meeting the Tories …

That’s how long it took us to walk 100 kilometres on the Trailwalkers event. It was a gruelling event and by 60k I was beginning to seize up, but with lots of encouragement from my team mates we all made it to the finish line. A big thank you to all those who supported me. We have raised over £1,800 for the Gurkha welfare trust and Oxfam’s work in Nepal, well over our £1,500 target.

This weekend I’m walking further than I’ve ever walked before. In fact I’m walking 100 kilometres in under 30 hours. This is all in aid of Oxfam and the Gurkha welfare trust. If you would like to support me and make a donation you can do so here
I’m walking as part of a team of four. At least three of us need to finish for the team time to be recorded. The furthers I’ve walked in practice is 55k and that nearly killed me so 100k is quite a challenge.

I’ve always felt that people should be allowed to comment on what I post. However the level of abuse from one or two people have made it impossible to continue without some form of moderation. I’m happy to receive comments critical or supportive but I won’t publish comments that are personally abusive to me or anyone else. So please feel free to comment but they will in future be moderated.

In last weeks Barnet Times there was an article on Coucillors pay. In the comments section on the Times website some of the posters wanted councillors to share their diaries. Well here is mine for last week.
Monday evening – attended the Hadley Residents AGMTuesday evening – Read through the paperwork for Corporate JNCC Committee the following evening.Wednesday evening – Corporate JNCC. I also should have been at a school governors meeting but it clashed with the JNCC. I also wanted to attend Barnet FC’s launch of the Kickz programme but …

Fellow Barnet Cllr, Robert Rams has asked me to mention a new cross party think tank called Londonsays that he has founded. Part of this is a campaign called iwant The press release is below.
Londonsays Launch iWant Campaign
Londonsays has today launched its iWant campaign to hear what Londoners want from their Mayor of London.
We would like to invite you the public to contribute to the debate by visiting our website: www.londonsays.org, dropping us an email at: iwant@londonsays.org, or by joining our Facebook group and letting us know what is important …