Page 16 - Phonebox Magazine May 2013

OLNEY Future of the Kitchener Centre
As reported last month, Age UK has been MERCURYmanaging the Centre under contract to Milton Keynes Council (MKC) since 2000. The contract to manage the Kitchener Centre had been out for competitive tender and the bid process has just been completed. There had been 10 Expressions of Interest but only Age UK had tendered and its application had been rejected because it is £100,000 more than MKC’s tender value of £312,000. Jeremy Rawlings said the decision could be ‘called in’ if 20 members of the electorate requested it and suggested that David Rumens went down that route’. Why had the other nine parties declined to bid, he wondered. Could it be that the indicative price had put them off? He also observed that OTC only had Age UK’s estimate that it would cost more to run the service, since no other bids had been submitted. David Rumens said that as part of the bid process any interested party could submit questions and the answer would be made available to all of the other parties so they would have been fully aware that that Age UK had received no
Bethune proposed that the scheme be rejected in favour of one of the cheaper alternatives: parking spaces on the retained garden of 102 Weston Road. This was seconded and passed unanimously, meaning that every member present voted. This is a most unusual occurrence for OTC.
Community Defibrillator at Recreation Ground
The Joint User Group (JUG) has recommended that a defibrillator be located at the recreation ground for the use of the various sports clubs that use it. Steve Clark wondered if the clubs would be prepared to assist with funding and Town Clerk Liam Costello said that the individual clubs had schemes through which funding would be available. It would be housed in a lockable unit with a key or combination given out in a controlled manner. Alan Richardson wondered whether such a unit should also be located at the Olney Centre. It was agreed that OTC would contribute £1500 for the installation of a community defibrillator at the Olney Centre and £1000 for one at the Recreation Ground.
Olney Brass request for funding
The council have been asked to consider a request from Olney Brass that they award a grant of £2.5K towards the running costs of the youth section of Olney Brass for the coming year, possibly from the Community (previously Sydney Dix) Fund. As part of the application Olney Brass were required to submit a copy of their accounts and on inspection the council agreed to the request.
Exclusion of Public and Press Representatives
Whenever matters are to be discussed that the council deems to be of a confidential nature the following item appears on the agenda: ‘To consider exclusion of Public and Press Representatives pursuant to the Public Bodies (admission to meetings) Act 1960 on the basis that publicity would be prejudicial to the public interests by the confidential nature of the business to be transacted’. Joe Stacey questioned whether the item to be discussed warranted the exclusion of the public and press, since it was a matter of public interest. Debbie Brock agreed, saying that she had often questioned the rationale behind such exclusions. Peter Geary was of the opinion that because the matter was of a financial nature relating to the tendering of contracts this justified the exclusion. The council resolved to seek guidance from Bucks Association of Local Councils on when exclusion is justified. For information, the draft minutes published on OTC’s website state: The council considered quotations for surfacing work at the Recreation Ground. As all three contractors had provided different specifications, they are to be asked to re-quote on a like for like basis.
Annual Town Meeting
This will take place at 7:00 pm on Thursday 2nd May in the Olney Centre and all Olney residents are invited to attend to question the council on any matter of concern to them. If you want to know why the precept you pay to OTC as part of the Council Tax has risen by 5.8% this year, why we may lose part of the recreation ground to a car park or have any other concerns, then come along and exercise your democratic right.
REPORT
Public participation
There was only one member of the public wishing to speak at this month’s meeting and that was ex-Olney T own Councillor David Rumens speaking on behalf of Senior Voice MK. David explained that the contract to run the Kitchener Centre was recently put out to tender by Milton Keynes Council and they had set a tender value of £312,000. Age UK is the only organisation to have tendered for the contract but its tender was rejected as it was substantially above MKC’s valuation. This raised the question of whether the original tender was correctly valued, he said. The fact that there was only one bid from an existing provider and that it exceeded the tender value by a considerable sum suggested that something may have gone wrong during the tender valuation process. There is considerable concern being expressed about the ability of Milton Keynes Council to deliver a Day Care Service at an equivalent standard on the allocated budget both now and in the future, he said. As things stand the service will be brought in house and decision will be made by Councillor Debbie Brock, as Cabinet Member of MKC with Portfolio responsibility for Adult, Older Years and Health, as to whether the council or Milton Keynes Service Partnership will manage the Day Care Service. This matter was discussed as a formal agenda item later in the meeting and David was invited to stay for that discussion.
Superfast Broadband
Present at this month’s meeting was Nick Brown from MKC planning department. Nick explained that his role was to negotiate with Openreach to identify the best locations for the additional street cabinets that are necessary to contain the equipment that provides the service. They need to be located as near as possible to the existing cabinets which they connect to. There is one such cabinet in the High Street opposite the Flower Shop and the proposed site of the equipment cabinet is in the Market Place, opposite Darwins Gifts and Cards. Nick explained that it could not be positioned next to the existing cabinet due to the requirement for Openreach to access the cabinet every time a customer was set up for the service, which would restrict access on the footpath. The proposed position would enable parking while the engineer carried out the work, he said. The usual locations selected were footpaths, which MKC own as part of the highway, so there are no issues with access. The member present felt that the box would be rather obtrusive in the proposed location so agreed to Nick’s request for it to be moved back a few feet on to the Market Place and rotated by 90 degrees so that it was parallel with the wall for the planter. Nick said he expected work to commence in 6-8 weeks.
replies.
Debbie Brock said that due diligence had been applied and MKC were confident that £312,000 to run the service is a realistic figure and as portfolio holder she felt that ‘internalisation’ is the best option. Jeremy said that, with respect to Debbie, MKC did not have a good track record on due diligence. Debbie said that good grounds would have to exist in order for the decision to be called in, but Jeremy replied that Age UK’s expert opinion that the service could not be run within that financial constraint should be sufficient. Jeremy formally proposed that OTC recommend that the decision should be called in. The motion was seconded by Deidre Bethune and passed by a large majority.
Parking in Oakdown Crescent
Following on from last month’s discussion about the Parking in Oakdown Crescent there was an item on this month’s agenda to discuss one of the options: A new road running from Dagnall Road through The Pyghtle to serve the properties which face it, i.e. numbers 70 – 92 Weston Road. This scheme would involve the council relinquishing part of The Pyghtle, which caused some consternation to members. Steve Clark observed that when permission was granted for the houses on The Pyghtle there was a condition that at least half of the land must be retained for recreational use. Even if OTC agreed to relinquish the land it was unlikely that MKC would fund the scheme he said, since it was estimated that it would cost £250K. John Sharp noted that part of the problem with parking in Oakdown Crescent was due to the fact that a fence that previously existed had fallen down. If that was reinstated then there would be no shortcut making parking there less attractive, he thought. Peter Geary stated that because the fence had been down for a number of years it was now effectively a right of way. Joe Stacey wondered if providing parking spaces in the garden of the houses in Oakdown Crescent might alleviate the situation but Peter Geary pointed out that most of the cars parked there did not belong to residents. (Mercury wondered if this might be a passing reference to the revolutionary ‘Driveway Parking Scheme’ announced in the April edition of The Phonebox, as did a number of other councillors, apparently!) Deidre
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