It's a Balls-Up!

The staggering and public humiliation piled on the Medway Conservatives this week over the bus station 'balls-up' shows the wheels are coming off this clapped-out administration

Everything that could go wrong with the white elephant of a bus station has gone wrong. It has been a horrible week for bus users, and one which serves to highlight the feeble and incapable Tory cabinet, but also the emasculated and weak Tory backbenchers who have so little backbone they feel obliged to support a cabinet of total second-hopers.

This has been a monumental screw up at all levels.

Not only is the bus station 5 months late but at a cost of £7.3m is £2.3m overbudget. A sum that represents £30 for every man, woman and child in the Medway Towns, and staggering when added to the net sum of waste over the regeneration on the Brook, Woodlands, Walderslade, the Ridgemeadow closure, Civic Centre and countless other failures.

We have an endemic problem of poor political leadership at the very heart of our Council. A cancer of Tory failure which corrodes and eats away at public good-will.

Remember this has been ongoing for months. The Tories knew the bus station was overbudget and badly managed but deliberately obfuscated on public questions in the Full Council chamber from the Labour opposition, led by Councillor Vince Maple. They shamelessly colluded to cover up the truth from the public prior to the local election.

Omens were poor last week when the Council press office, or the politburo or pravda (depending on which paper) as its known in local media circles, started sending out press about the new facility that was due to open. The Council, according to sources, sent out shocking photo's of the previous Pentagon Centre whilst exaggerating the 'butterflies' and greenery of the new facility. Alas, the Council forgot to read the statement and included a reference to not even knowing the companies who were to use the facility in the first place. The irony wasnt lost given this was the exact issue debated in the Emergency Council meeting in September

So it opened and on site were Tory cabinet members in pinstripe. Unfortunately all was not well...

Key parts of the facility were either missing or seemingly forgotten. We have no seats for elderly residents, no toilets for families with kids, no shelter for the majority who now have to fight the elements every winter, waiting for a bus service which has been rated amongst the worst in the country by resident polling. Most importantly we have no zebra crossings, which were presumably a key part of the contract (!?).

The bus station was incomplete - which is now exactly why despite being opened we still have workman finishing the job; whilst the public stand by and watch.

The politics of this situation have been bungled - The Council were seemingly unaware of the status of the bus station before it opened; or if they were not have kept surprisingly silent... I say unaware, because if you knew parts were incomplete or not working you would not send in your political cabinet to umm, take the credit. The Tory cabinet surely been advised by somone with a brain-cell, that perhaps attending an incomplete bus station was a bad idea. You would think...

It reached eye-wateringly painful levels when Cllr Wicks, the man whose utter incapability are legend across the towns, decided to visit the Bus Station. A decision which must stand at the pinnacle of political incapability. A truly stupid move...

Yes, the very same Councillor Les Wicks, who has bungled programme after project; whose stock is so low amongst the public it makes Liam Fox look like a paragon of capability, should have been kept well away... instead he swaggers down to tell concerned travellers that the facility is 'unsafe' to use after being cornered by a fella who thinks the whole thing is a 'balls-up'.

Cllr Rodney was there of course citing a few, eer, 'teething problems' which even in the Chamber's lexicon of low impact, of which he excels, is laughable.

It was a travesty of shocking management and bungled leadership - his bungled leadership.

The other protagonist, always the politician, saw the danger and kept well away. Silent hath the Jarrett been; no wonder, grubby fingerprints of poor financial scrutiny are all over it. His inability to work with the opposition in a constructive manner and heed warnings says it all.

This bus facility was 5 months late and £2.3m over budget. Plans were bungled from day one and rushed and rammed through Planning without listening to the public. Delays have seen months of congestion and pain added to the commuter and whose cost of £7.3m could have been better spent on a better bus facility with full public consultation. The result; a facility opened with no seats, toilets, working signs or crossings...

Update

It appears that the Tories had also planned for the Pentagon bus station to become a Council Staff car park... outrageous really, but are you that surprised?

The bus station isnt finished; neither politically or indeed in reality

Bus Station Fiasco costs £2.3m

The ballooning cost of the bus station on the Brook has been subject to much debate in the corridors of power over the last two weeks.

It isn’t a new debate – Labour has been asking public questions for months about the ongoing cost increases for the bus station. Councillor Jarrett has deliberately obfuscated and the Conservatives deliberately failed to answer questions prior to the local election.

No surprises some might say!

Over the last 12 months Labour has expressed constructive concern about several aspects of this project:

• The original budgeted cost has ballooned from £5m (Medway Renaissance estimate) to a now predicted outturn of £7.3m. An increase in cost of £2.3m on the original budgeted expenditure. Some 45% increase
• The original timetable for completion was April 2011. As most residents have been aware this has now been extended and extended into October 2011. Some five months late.
• The original planning process was tardy and delays from the Tory-led planning committee coupled with a poor original brief given to consultants, led to a proposal with little merit and being rejected. The subsequent proposal was rushed and was still poorly designed
• Heritage has been bulldozed - including several historic trees on the Brook.

The bus facility has little public backing and though more modern than its current it is clear the public could have seen a better outcome for £7.3m of Labour government grant money.

All in all the public are extremely unimpressed by the seemingly endless litany of errors, mistakes, oversights, delays and buck-passing.

The emergency Council meeting was called by Labour because the public has become fed up with the constant increase in cost and the manner in which incompetence is being covered up by Tories. It is all very well for Councillor Jarrett to keep writing the blank cheques for fiasco after fudge – but Council tax payers need transparency and openness.

According to the Medway News; the latest charge to emerge is a failure of the Tory administration to engage and negotiate with Arriva, the bus operator in Medway, on a move to the new facility. Given Arriva had already signed a lease agreement with the Pentagon it is simply baffling that the bus company was not being engaged earlier on any move. Apparently not.

Councillor Jarrett admitted today that negotiations have been going on for several months; but given this station was being planned in 2009 and permission given in 2010... this should have been clear at that point.

As it is, Cllr Jarrett's incompetence and delay led us into the negotiations with a far weaker hand and thus a result where we either paid up or had the main bus operator snub the bus facility. Oh dear...

Last night, it was clear that not only were we fed up with the failure to manage capital programmes but the silence from the Tory back-benches spoke loud and clear. The chill in the air was palpable.

The Liberal Democrats meanwhile didn’t even bother to attend despite the significant impacts on residents across Gillingham. Outrageously lazy to not turn up to a crucial crunch vote on the future of bus provision for residents but then they have gave up the ghost months ago.

Cllr Juby was last spotted yesterday lunchtime having lunch with Cllr Jarrett. They do say birds of a feather flock together...

SouthEastern Commuter? Do you drive?

Medway Motorists and bus users and SouthEastern rail commuters face a transport tripple whammy next week when petrol tax rises add nearly £2 to filling a tank, and inflation-busting fare increases confirm the rail network as the priciest in Europe with commuters from Medway suffering the full Conservative Party sting to fare increases

The Tory sting in the tail begins in earnest as commuters on trains wake up to find the same old service but at extortionate cost. Conservative MPs and Councillors have failed to reign in Tory rail increases in what is seen as a slap in the face to commuters, despite claiming to fight for commuters at a Council meeting in November.

Tory Councillors are simply ineffective and continue to support a government which is about to launch the biggest tax on commuters and drivers since Thatchers VAT rise.

To fan the flames, Arriva busses in Medway will continue to charge over-extortionate fares to travel because Conservative Councillors have failed to scrutinise the operator over the last decade. We have poor service and expensive bus fares.

UK Motorists already spend £10m more a day on petrol than a year ago, according to the AA, but the railways will offer little relief. Rail fares increase by an average of 6.2% from Sunday but some season tickets on busy routes will go up far more. The £5,000 season ticket is a growing phenomenon, with Southeastern charging £5,192 for journeys from Hastings and Tonbridge to London that connect to its high-speed service – a 12.7% rise on last year.

The Campaign for Better Transport will be establishing a campaign next week which will be supported by local residents. The Tory government, and their Council supporters, have pushed onto Kent commuters rises of nearly 13% and warned of people being priced off the trains. This despite election promises and campaigns deliberately targeted at train commuters prior to the General Election.

The Conservatives have treated train commuters as cynical mugs, and they have casually taken the votes of this group for granted. Despite all the usual mutterings and minor complaints, the fares will continues to go up as many MPs travel to work on first class subsidised train tickets.

A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said said above-inflation fare rises were the result of government policy which has "sought to sustain investment in the railways by reducing the amount that taxpayers contribute and requiring passengers to pay more".

But CBT said it was unfair that millions of commuters already facing pay cuts and reduced hours in their jobs were now having to pay more to get to work.

It also said higher fares were pricing people off the rail network, risking increased road congestion in the nation's cities.

The fare rises meant some travellers were being asked to pay 20% of the average UK salary for their annual season ticket

This was the equivalent, in percentage terms, of transport secretary Philip Hammond MP being asked to pay £27,034 for a season ticket, campaigners added.

Railfuture, a campaign group, warns that higher fares will force passengers on to the roads, where motorists already face a costly start to 2011, regardless of a global oil price that reached two-year highs recently. The AA has said that an increase in fuel duty of 0.76p a litre todaytomorrow, allied with a 2.5% VAT rise days later, will add around 3.5p per litre to the price of fuel. That equates to an extra £1.75 on the cost of filling a tank.

However, the rail user watchdog believes that the vast majority of commuters will not take to the roads as an alternative. Anthony Smith, chief executive of the watchdog Passenger Focus, said cars were not a valid alternative to train for commuters: "In London and the south-east people don't have any choice."

The rail network's dominance by passengers in south-east England, and by the comparatively well-off, has triggered debate over whether the huge investment in the network neglects the rest of the UK. Seven out of 10 rail journeys start or end in the capital. More than 10% of Londoners use the train at least three times a week, compared with less than 5% elsewhere.

The RAC Foundation, a motoring thinktank, claims that the annual £5bn subsidy of the rail network disproportionately benefits Londoners and the well-off, with 40% of households earning more than £50,000 a year using the railways at least three times a week – double the figure for those on less than £25,000 per year.

By 2014, the farepayer is expected to foot three-quarters of the cost of operating the network. Currently, rail users pay £6bn a year into the railways, which are also funded by up to £5bn in grants and more than £20bn in state-backed debt.

So much for vote blue, go green!