Breakdown Britain

The break-up of co-habiting couples leads to severe social problems, a Conservative report has warned. Half of co-habiting parents split by their child's fifth birthday, while only one in 12 married couples did, the social justice group report says.

It puts the cost of this family breakdown - in poverty, drug abuse and debt - at £20bn a year.

This is manifested in appalling rates of family breakdown, educational failure, welfare dependency, drug and alcohol addiction and indebtedness.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, these five "pathways to poverty" reinforce and entrench each other.

"Breakdown Britain", the interim report of the Conservative Party's Social Justice Policy Group, shows that in spite of all the government's spending, relative poverty is getting worse, not better. Iain Duncan Smith's group, which is shaping Tory policy on poverty, publishes its interim report next week.

Labour trumpets its supposed success of taking 2 million children out of poverty, even though the government's own statistics show the true figure is a more modest 700,000.

It is true that vast sums have been spent through tax credits in moving people who are just below the poverty line (60% of median income), to just above it. Many of the families receiving tax credits that take them over the poverty line are still in desperate circumstances. Over 1 million children live in homes where someone is an alcoholic. What chance do the 350,000 or more children whose parents are addicted to hard drugs have to fulfil their potential? Children who have suffered family breakdown are 75% more likely to suffer educational failure.

Conservative leader David Cameron has said families are the "ultimate source of our society's strength or weakness".

He said his party must "look at ways of supporting families and also supporting marriage so that couples are encouraged to get together and stay together". The UK would be better off with more marriages and fewer divorces, he added.

Mr Cameron added: "Families matter because almost every social problem that we face comes down to family stability. If marriage rates went up, if divorce rates came down - if more couples stayed together for longer, would our society be better off? My answer is yes."

References

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6165833.stm 10th Dec 06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6161155.stm%20%208th%20Dec%2006

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6211432.stm 10th Dec 06

Government gives Southampton a green light to take over Eastleigh Borough

The Government has given the go ahead to unitary authorities such as Southampton to submit plans to expand their boundaries in a new blueprint for the reorganisation of Local Government.
Eastleigh Conservatives are totally opposed to plans to submerge Eastleigh Borough into a greater Southampton.

We believe that the Borough should continue as an autonomous self governing body.
It should continue to set its own Council taxes and its own priorities for service delivery.

Background:

In “An Invitation to Councils in England” the Government says:
“Any proposal [for expansion of a Unitary Council] must relate to the area of the
Council, or each of the Councils, submitting it. The area covered by a proposal may, in addition to the area of the Council or Councils submitting the proposals, also include adjoining areas which are currently outside that of the submitting Council or Councils.”

Government White Paper “Strong and Prosperous Communities” 26th October 2006

I do not want our Borough to lose its identity and watch as our town and villages become joined up suburbs of Southampton.

I lived on the Wirral when Liverpool took over the area and bled the people of their taxes in order to pursue their own agenda in the city.

While our own Councillors are not angels, it is much better if we can hold Eastleigh Councillors directly accountable for what they do here.

Eastleigh Borough Council are currently supposed to be considering the matter. But have your views been taken into account?

Do we want Southampton to take over the running of

• Our Social Services which are currently rated as Excellent by the Auditors


• Our Health Service Primary Care Trust which has just merged with the rest of Hampshire


• Our Schools and Colleges which are achieving some of the best results in the Country


• Our Highways Services also rated Excellent

Do we want to join a failing debt ridden authority which is already cutting vital services to balance its books?
We all know what will happen to much of our council tax – it will go to Southampton.

We have two months. Act now!

Speak up now and say NO to any merger of Eastleigh with Southampton

Victory in the Battle of Grantham Green!

Local residents are celebrating the defeat of Lib Dem plans to build flats on Grantham Green which they denied existed in the May 2006 election. A packed meeting of the Local Area committee on 19th September saw the Lib Dems cave in to public pressure.

A public consultation will now follow to decide how the green can be improved with the need for housing development. Robert Quane, Eastleigh Central Conservative spokesman led the campaign which was supported by hundreds of local people.

Sadly, already £20,000 of developers contributions towards the green have been frittered away by the Borough Council in “consultations” and £13,000 on upgrading the children’s play area.

When Velmore’s Cox Road playing field was allocated over £50,000 for “redevelopment” many people were consulted, but in the end a few children’s playground rides, a teenage shelter and one set of football post were all the council managed to come up with for the money.

Eastleigh Lib Dems call for massive house building in the borough

The Partnership of Urban South Hampshire (PUSH) has recently published its recommendations for the number of houses to be built in the Solent Area over the next 20 years.

Keith House, leader of Eastleigh Lib Dems, is a member of PUSH which is recommending that 4,000 houses are to be built every year in the Solent area with between 615 and 720 new houses in Eastleigh borough every year. The current building rate in Eastleigh Borough is under 500 per year. These options are higher than for Winchester (390-580).

Conservatives are opposed to a Strategic Development Area in the Borough that leads to the high number of houses allocated to Eastleigh. The Conservative advice is to reject the proposed ‘new town’ and identify just sufficient land for housing to satisfy our own local needs.

We say that our roads are already full of cars during the rush hour. Every time we experience heavy rain certain roads in South Eastleigh are flooded with sewage from a system which is unable to cope with the runoff and effluent from all the houses in the Eastleigh and Chandlers Ford area. We feel that these issues urgently need to be addressed before any more houses are added to an already creaking infrastructure.

Allotments Association still fighting the Borough Council and Government

Eastleigh Allotment Association is now in their 4th year of a campaign to save three allotment sites threatened by housing development. In December 2002, Lib Dems in Eastleigh Borough Council announced plans to allocate the allotments in South Street, Monks Way and Woodside Avenue as sites for new homes. These proposals appeared in the Local Plan Review, which went to Public Inquiry in 2004. Supported by hundreds of allotment holders and 14,000 local residents, the Association presented evidence to the inquiry in opposition to these controversial housing proposals.

In July 2006 The Government Offices for the South East (GOSE) announced that the Secretary of State’s decision was to grant consent for the disposal of South Street and Monks Way allotments for the building of 435 new homes. An affected plot holder has recently applied for a Judicial review of the decision.

Despite a large waiting list of people wishing to cultivate an allotment, the Council refuses to let vacant plots at South Street, Monks Way and Woodside Avenue allotments.

Eastleigh’s streets are getting dirtier

Rubbish is slowly building up in Eastleigh’s back lanes! With refuse collectors refusing to take any bin with a lid which is not closed, people are forced either to take it to the tip themselves or leave it lying in the street.

Liberal Democrat Louise Bloom, Council Cabinet Member for the Environment boasted recently that this policy had reduced their collection by 25 tons a week. But what happens to that rubbish?

When the grey bins are collected the refuse is burned to produce electricity, so saving on energy costs and landfill. If refuse has to be taken to the tip or is collected by a special council tidy up team then it goes to landfill at a cost of £40 a ton. So 25 tons not collected by the binmen could be costing Council Tax payers another £1,000 a week for land-fill fees. A weekly grey bin collection would reduce our rubbish, rat and maggot problems.