The summer holidays may only just have begin, but Greenwich Conservatives have already been out and about for some time talking to residents this summer.  Greenwich Council's "Great Get-Together" events were held in three locations around the Borough during June and July, and Conservative Councillors were well represented at each.

Last night was a meeting of the Audit and Risk Management panel which looked at a range of accounts, annual governance letter and internal audit reports, which while important are generally quite opaque. 

Labour change manifesto after the elections.

Conservatives revealed today that Greenwich Labour rewrote their commitments to the electorate after the election in May.

On Tuesday 20th July, local Conservative representatives Ryan Acty (Greenwich West) and Malcolm Reid (Peninsula) attended the Transition Greenwich forum to discuss how best to balance the various transport, business, residential and visitor requirements of Greenwich Town Centre in terms of traffic management. The meeting was held in St Alfege’s Church Hall and was well attended by local residents, community groups and businesses.

The Department of Health launched the new 2010 local authority health profiles last week which showed worrying results for Greenwich. The statistics are collected annually by the Association of Public Health Observatories and are designed to help local people understand what is happening in their area in regards to the services provided by the local council and health services. The statistics also allow residents to compare Greenwich’s performance against England as a whole, and against other London authorities.

Transition Westcombe and other Transition Towns in Greenwich are joining together to organize meetings about issues which affect a wide area, and are forming a network called Transition Greenwich.

It has been a busy week at the Council, with £8m of cuts decided on Monday and a full Council meeting on Wednesday. I was at the Full Council meeting and have written a couple of articles about that already so thought I would just report back on the less interesting parts of that meeting in this article. If you make it to the end I suspect you should be contacting me to stand for Council as you really are interested in local politics!

During the consultation at Davenport house last weekend, a number of Conservatives responded to the Council's preferred option for a one-way gyratory system clockwise on Creek Rd, Greenwich Church St, Greenwich High Rd and Norman Rd.

Among comments made to different Conservatives visiting the consultation were:

Government figures published this week highlighted that the council still has some way to go in collecting council tax.  In 2009/10 the council only managed to collect 94% of the £82,655 it needed to collect, well below the national average collection rate of 97.01%. 

The latest Children and Young Peoples Scrutiny Panel has highlighted worrying data on the prospects for looked after children in Greenwich.  The meeting focused on Greenwich Council's performance in meeting certain local and national targets for educational standards, outcomes for looked after children, supporting parents, improving access to services for young people and improving behaviour.