Annual Report 2017-2018: Cllr Carole Pattison

This was my third year as a Councillor representing Greenhead Ward and I work full time as a councillor alongside my colleagues Councillors Sokhal and Ullah.  With them I have spent almost every weekend out in the ward knocking on doors, offering help and getting to know the issues that face people on a daily basis. We work very hard as a team together.  It has been a busy year and our ward work kept us very busy.

I’m pleased to say that Mohan Sokhal was re-elected as a ward councillor this year in May.

We have continued to work with local groups in the community, as well as individual residents, and our multi-agency or partnership group, which I Chair, has gone from strength to strength.  Some good ideas have come out of the group, ways in which we can improve services locally, and these have begun to bear fruit having attracted small amounts of funding to kick start them.  One such idea was support to small voluntary groups to help them manage in this digital age, helping them to set up web sites or Facebook pages, hosting web sites and providing some training so that in future groups have the skills themselves to develop their digital offer. 

We continue to support Friends of Greenhead Park, Friends of Norman Park, Friends of TP Woods, Birkby Community Garden, Marsh Forum, we continue to work alongside the Mosques and Churches in the area and in particular we have contributed to the work that Holy Trinity is doing to establish more community facilities for residents.  We have supported Paddock Village Hall Trust, attending many of their local events that they hold not only in Paddock but also in Birkby and Fartown.

We have also been working with the Hillhouse Group. A project was established some years ago to provide solar energy and other carbon neutral facilities in this area, one of the poorest in Kirklees. We are hoping that following further discussions with the community we will see some real progress on this project this year which will benefit all residents in the area.

The Children Centres in the ward have closed now but we are working the school hubs and the council’s Community Plus service to ensure that services lost because of the closure these centres is replaced for those most in need.

The Ward Partnership Group that I spoke about encompasses all these groups above and by working closely with the community we hope to make sure that we are able to either help groups with some funding or point them in the direction of funding as appropriate to ensure that the important work that happens in the community continues to do so despite the ongoing constraints that there are on the councils budget. 

The challenges this coming  year will be to ensure that our communities are protected as much as possible from the cuts in service that we are being forced to make by the government cuts that are being handed down to local government.  Already we have seen a reduction or changes in the way services are provided.  The highways budget has been slashed which has meant that road repairs are taking longer to implement, there has been changes to the way waste collections are organised and grass cutting and weed control has been reduced.  Thank fully Greenhead Park remains a priority for  maintenance but other areas in the ward are now no longer maintained as well as they were.  As a resident and a councillor I abhor these cuts that we are being forced to make and take no pleasure from it.

But on a positive note the new Primary School on Luck Lane has now been joined by a new school in Highfields, Brambles Academy, which will benefit many of the children in the ward. The council is also putting more emphasis on “place” issues or the environment that we live in and placing councillors at the heart of that programme.  This has already meant that we have seen some improvements in the environment that we live in from the resurfacing of Luck Lane to smaller improvements such as white lines and bollards to prevent cars from parking in inappropriate and inconsiderate places.  We hope to tackle this coming year the big problem of parking that we have in our area too.

Surgeries

We work as a team and hold mobile surgeries visiting a few streets each weekend as well as making a few individual calls to people that have contacted us during the week by telephone, post or e-mail to ask for help and advice.  Most Saturday’s my ward colleagues and I proactively visit several streets to ask residents if we can provide any advice or assistance. This also helps us to keep in touch with what is going on in particular areas and listen to the feelings of local residents. I also pick up a significant amount of ward work when visiting local groups.

Local Community Group and Organisations
I have attended the meetings of the following groups when invited and when able:

• Friends of Greenhead Park
• Friends of Norman Park
• Marsh Community Forum
• Paddock Village Hall Trust
• Trinity And Greenhead TRA
• Hillhouse Community Group

We helped Friends of Greenhead Park to fund raise to successfully get the new play train in the toddlers play area.

Council Meetings and Committees
I have had a very high attendance level at:

• Full Council Meetings
• Strategic Planning Committee
  
  
• Licensing and Safety Committee
• Joint Overview and Scrutiny Health Committee
• Corporate Governance and Audit Committee
• Corporate Resources Scrutiny Panel
• And I also sat of Licensing and Appeals Panels

I am Chair of the Licensing and Safety Committee and also Chair of the Labour Group of Councillors.

Outside Bodies
I also represented the council on quite a few outside bodies such as

• Kirklees Theatre Trust
• Kirklees Music School, now called Musica
• Kirklees Community Association
• Kirklees Schools Services

I am also active in the community as an individual and I have been a governor of Royds Hall Community School, Vice Chair of Fusion Housing and involved with Discover Huddersfield and Huddersfield Creative Arts Network.

Training or learning I have undertaken

I have also undertaken most if not all modules of the New Council training provided for us.

I also attended Planning and Licensing training which is required for members of those committees

I have attended training sessions provided by the Labour Group on Budgets and Finance and the New Council.

I have taken part in an officer/member shadowing opportunity which gives both parties a chance to learn about one another roles and how this can benefit mutual relationships.