Loughton Residents Association

 

County

LRA sponsors councillors on all three tiers of local government, including County, in order to be able to get things done. We try to cut through bureaucracy and foster communication between the three tiers, for the good of the residents. The County Council is responsible for key aspects of community life: education, highways, social services, the environment, libraries, fire service, police, youth services, transportation, trading standards.

Essex County Councillor for Loughton Central

Chris Pond has been appointed as vice-chairman of the Essex County Council Safer and Stronger Communities Policy & Scrutiny Committee (police, crime, safety, relationships with other councils and voluntary bodies, etc) and as a member of the Standards Committee.
Loughton Central covers the Loughton wards of St. John’s, St. Mary’s, Alderton and Fairmead. (see ward map).

LRA in the rest of Loughton
A few years ago, despite LRA's objections, the Boundary Commission changed the County Council seats for Loughton to Loughton Central (St John's, St Mary's, Alderton and Fairmead), Buckhurst Hill & Loughton South (Forest and Roding plus all of Buckhurst Hill) and Chigwell and Loughton Broadway (Broadway and all of Chigwell and Chigwell Row). This makes it much harder for LRA to field candidates for the two seats that cover more than Loughton. In the BH&LS county division, talks were opened with the Buckhurst Hill Residents' Society in autumn 2008 to see if a joint candidate for June 2009 could be agreed, so as to give all residents the option of an independent, locally accountable councillor, but unfortunately a suitable name was not found. However, LRA will continue to seek such a person for the next ECC elections in 2013 and to work with the BHRS on matters of common concern.

County Council Scrutiny reports:

  • Meals on Wheels in Essex
  • Dementia Services in Essex.

Community and Older People Policy and Scrutiny
Committee. click here

See Essex County Council

Essex County Council budget
Essex County Council has announced the start of changes which will affect over 2,500 employees, of whom over 400 will be made redundant; the council will be trying to avoid compulsory redundancies by reviewing and/or reducing the use of agency, temporary or interim workers, and by voluntary redundancies. At this stage, we don’t know how or when this will affect local services.

The County have frozen Council Tax. Their Government grant settlement was £40m less than that for the current year, with more cuts to come in future. Cuts so far include:

  • As part of their cutbacks, the County Council has reduced Library opening hours:
    • Loughton: Monday – Saturday, 9am – 5pm (closed on Sundays)
    • Debden: Tuesdays & Thursdays 1pm – 5pm; Friday & Saturday 9am -1pm.

This follows a public consultation which, unfortunately, only gave residents the chance to choose from two options for Loughton and three for Debden, so alternatives such as Monday-Saturday 9.30am – 5.30pm for Loughton were not considered by the Council.
You will be able to pick up a bookmark with details of the new opening times at the libraries.

  • a review of the Home to School Transport policy, including removing escorts and the subsidy for travel to faith schools, and reviewing of SEN offering
  • a review of opening times and locations of Recycling Centres for Household Waste
  • savings from setting up new civil parking partnerships with District Councils.
  • Connexions service : because of finance cuts, the County Council closed the universal information, advice and guidance (IAG) arm of Connexions from July 2011. Connexions workers have moved into schools, redeployed within the Council, or moved onto new opportunities. A new National Careers Service (NCS) will start by April 2012 and will take over IAG responsibilities for schools from September 2012. The Council have allocated £1.5m to develop a core interim service from August 2011 to July 2012 to provide support to schools and young people until the new NCS is fully developed and schools take on their new responsibilities.
  • The Youth Service is undergoing a review of its structure in light of the discontinuation of Connexions.
  • Youth Councils will continue to operate under the Youth Service as they currently do.
  • Funding for the supervisors who currently travel on the buses the County provide, as they are not a legal requirement.

Essex County Council (ECC) subsidy for Transport to Faith Schools
The ECC Cabinet have approved the removal of discretionary subsidies for travel to faith schools, whilst retaining it for low income families and for pupils already receiving the subsidy (so the change will affect new primary and secondary pupils with effect from September 2012 who do not have a statutory entitlement to subsidised transport).