Kirklees Council Cabinet members Cllr Rob Walker and Cllr Carole Pattison on being a cabinet member and their portfolios

                                             Cllr Rob Walker on being a cabinet member

                                          Cllr Carole Pattison on being a Cabinet member


Cabinet members Cllr Rob Walker and Cllr Carole Pattison give their views on their role in the Cabinet in Kirklees Council. Please click on the link to see the video.

Annual Report 2018-19 Cllr Carole Pattison, Greenhead Ward

This was my fourth 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 I was re-elected as a ward councillor this year in May and I look forward to continue to represent the ward and its residents.  I am also pleased to say that I have now been appointed to the Cabinet of the Council with a portfolio responsibility for Learning, Aspiration and Communities.

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 Chaired during the last year, 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.

Through the ward partnership group we meet with and are working the two school hubs and the council’s Community Plus service to ensure that services for those most in need are co-ordinated and provided where ther are most needed with in the ward.. 

The Ward Partnership Group 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.   

After many years of cuts in local services, and some more cuts to come in future years to services, we are reviewing what has worked well and what has not worked so well and trying to put back some of the services that may have been lost but which have resulted in unnecessary hardship or led to greater problems.  For instance we have lost the youth service as we knew it and possibly as a result we have seen an increase in youth violence and anti-social behaviour.  We are working hard with officers and the police to try to right this and ensure our youth are protected from gang violence and have something positive to contribute to in the community. 

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.  As a council we have declared a climate emergency and we will do what we can in the ward to contribute to reducing emissions and reversing the emergency. 

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  

Council Meetings and Committees
I have had a very high attendance level (almost 100%) at: 

·                  Full Council Meetings

·                  Strategic Planning Committee

·                  Licensing and Safety Committee

·                  Joint Overview and Scrutiny Health Committee

·                  Corporate Governance and Audit Committee

·                  And I also sat of Licensing and Appeals Panels 

I was 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.

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.

Annual Report 2017-2018: Cllr Naheed Mather

I would like to thank our residents for their continued support in allowing me to represent them and I will do my utmost to represent all residents in the Dalton ward. In the past year, I have particularly enjoyed seeing some fantastic work being done by our local Volunteer’s, Community groups, Friends of Groups  My appreciation and thanks also go to my fellow ward councillors Mus Khan and Peter McBride for their continued support.

It has been another interesting and challenging year. I was once again appointed to Cabinet Leading on Communities & Environment portfolio which includes: Safer Kirklees, Community Cohesion, Prevent, Migration, Third Sector; Streetscene & Highways, Parks & Grounds Maintenance , Cleansing & Waste services, Air Quality and Enforcement.

The role of a councillor is very demanding as a result of government policy of austerity which has imposed cuts on the Council and the resultant impact of reduced budget on our residents. The impact on our communities is devastating, and people need more help and support with Universal Credit, PIP Assessment Child Tax Credits, etc, etc.

As always there are many issues of concern for our residents throughout the ward from Planning to Licensing to bin collections. Cuts have affected households across Kirklees and will continue to do so as the council is having to implement cuts amounting to £1 million pounds per week. The Council is no longer able to operate as it did before and is having to focus on its first priority of statutory responsibilities.

Mobile Surgeries

The Dalton team works all year round on issues of community safety, road and pavement improvements, Community clean up’s and much more. We have worked hard to reduce crime, removal of litter/ rubbish and fought for more and better accessible services for families, individuals & groups.

Residents can contact me by phone, post or e-mail in order to ask for help and advice. The Dalton team is out most Saturday’s in some part of our ward, proactively asking residents if we can provide any assistance or advice. These mobile surgeries help us to keeping in touch with issues and events in particular areas and listen to the concerns of local residents.

The council is having to deal with huge reductions in government funding cuts. And is unable to provide all of the services that it used to and we are encouraging local groups to work together. This allows us to concentrate on supporting people and communities to do more for themselves, whilst ensuring early intervention and prevention of future problems.

Council and Committee Meetings

• Council
• Cabinet
• Cabinet Committee- Local issues
• Chair of Communities Board
• Sub on Huddersfield Planning Committee
• Labour Group
• Huddersfield Partnership
• Suez Board
• Employment & Skills Panel (WYCA)
• Chair of West Yorkshire Sub Regional Group
• Yorkshire & Humber Prevent Network

Training and Development

In addition to receiving regular policy updates at Labour Group meetings, I have undertaken the following training and development: 

• Planning – UPDATE
• Corporate Parenting
• LGA Officer / Member Relationship
• LGA Leadership Essentials: Prevent
• CSE

Kirklees Council has successfully upheld its decision to revoke the licenses of two taxi drivers

The council successfully defended its decision on two separate licenses at appeals at Huddersfield Magistrates on Friday 3 November 2017.

The first case involved a driver who had failed to inform the council of a serious offence for which he had previously been convicted.

In one case the driver was a new applicant who failed to inform the council of serious offence he had committed. The offence committed cast doubt into the honesty of the driver and as someone who could be trusted to deal fairly with paying customers as such the council refused his application.  The driver appealed the decision by the Council not to grant a license but the Magistrates agreed with the council’s decision.

In the other case an existing driver appealed the removal of his badge. The council took the decision to revoke the licence of one of its taxi drivers following a collision that resulted in the fatality of a pedestrian.

The collision took place in 2015 and the driver was found not guilty of death by careless driving however the Licensing authority had concerns over the conduct of the driver immediately after the accident. The driver had fare paying passengers in his vehicle at the time the collision occurred, he failed to stop and continued with the journey, he then went on to pick up another passenger, all whilst  there was substantial damage to the vehicle.

The driver in question appealed the council‘s decision to revoke his licence however this was dismissed, with the chair of the Magistrates commenting that ‘The council made entirely the right decision’ and awarded the council our costs.

Cllr Mather Cabinet member  with responsibility for enforcement said: “The council takes its enforcement role very seriously, and will always look to take action where it is necessary to ensure that the people of Kirklees can live and travel safely.”

Cllr Carol Pattison, Chair of Licensing Committee said: “The council is committed to the safety of the travelling public and takes all possible measures to ensure this safety.  The successful outcome of this appeal demonstrates the importance of our continuous partnership with the West Yorkshire Police.”

Annual Report 2016-2017: Cllr Carole Pattison

This was my second 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. 

 

There were no local elections this year but during the year we have had both the European Referendum and a general election which also kept us busy.

 

As usual we have worked with local groups in the community and this year we have established a multi-agency group, which I Chair, formed from groups who are working in our community. This has meant that we have focussed on the work and issues affecting Greenhead Park, Paddock Village Hall and schools in the area.

 

We have supported Marsh Forum and worked with them to help fund and site a defibrillator in Marsh shopping Centre.  

 

We have supported Paddock Village Hall Trust, attending many of their local events, and helped them to achieve a new training kitchen in the Hall. We are working with the Friends of Greenhead Park and Norman Park to help ensure that users of the parks get the best use possible from them.

We have also been working with the Hillhouse Group, holding family fun days, clean up campaigns and looking to improve the fabric of the houses in the area. We have also worked with TRAs and in particular the Greenhead and Trinity Street TRA.

 

The Children Centres in the ward have closed now but we are working with the Royds Hall Community School Hub and the Council’s EIP hub to make sure that the loss of these centres is replaced for those most in need.

 

The District Committee no longer exists but by establishing the MAG Group that I spoke about 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. We again helped to make sure that council tenants in the ward benefitted from an Environmental Schemes Budget that Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing award. We put forward a couple of schemes to improve the environment that were successful. 

 

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. But more is to come in cuts to Children’s Services and the Libraries and Museums Service. 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 will be joined by a new school in Highfields which will benefit many of the children in the ward.

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 

There are only so many evenings in a week and we often find that meetings of community groups clash and we can only attend one.

 

Council Meetings and Committees

I have had a very high attendance level at:

• Full Council Meetings
• Strategic Planning Committee
• Huddersfield District Committee
• And I also sat of Licensing and Appeals Panels 

Outside Bodies

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

• Kirklees Theatre Trust
• Kirklees Music School
• Kirklees Community Association
• Kirklees Schools Services 

I am also active in the community as an individual and I am 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.

  

  

 

Cllr Carole Pattison: Annual Report 2015-2016

This was my first year as a Councillor representing Greenhead Ward.  Whilst I have lived in the ward for 35 years I still took time to get to know the people who live in the ward and the local groups that work in the ward.  I work full time as a councillor.

With my colleagues, Mohan Sokhal and Sheikh Ullah, we 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 very busy year.  Our ward work kept us very busy and then we also worked with local groups and community centres to help secure their futures and the projects that they are working on.  Marsh Forum, Paddock Village Hall Trust and the Friends of Greenhead Park and Norman Park are all well-established bodies that we keep in touch with to offer support and help when needed.  The Friends of Birkby Library we helped to establish as the library in Birkby/ Fartown lost paid staff hours. We have helped to establish a volunteer’s bank to help make up this short fall.  WE have also worked with TRAs and in particular the Greenhead and Trinity Street TRA.

When I first became a councillor for the ward there were two Children’s Centres operating in the ward, Birkby and Paddock but as the cuts imposed upon local authorities started to impinge on this service the way they delivered has had to change and now the Paddock centre has become part of the school in Paddock and the Birkby centre is run in a different way.  We continue to support the valuable work undertaken by this service.

We have also been working with the residents of the Hillhouse area to establish a community group that can help to invest some money in the area on green initiatives that has accrued from a solar panel scheme installed some years ago.  The excess electricity generated by the solar panels that were fitted to houses in the area has been held by the Council to be spent on green initiatives.

We organised an event called “You and Your Community” which was held to enable community groups to apply for small grants to help with their work. This was very successful and we awarded £2000 pounds in total to several local groups.

We were also instrumental in making sure that council tenants in the ward benefitted from an Environmental Schemes Budget that Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing award.  We put forward a couple of schemes to improve the environment that were successful. And finally, we also sought to help improve the environment and safety by using monies allocated by the District Committee on several scheme schemes in the ward.

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.  But more is to come in cuts to Children’s Services and the Libraries and Museums Service.  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 we are pleased to see that a new Primary School has been opened on Luck Lane and look forward to another new school being opened in the next couple of years in the north of Huddersfield which will also serve the children on our ward.

Local Community Group and Organisations
I have attended the meeting of :

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

When invited and when able.  There are only so many evenings in a week and we often find that meetings of community groups clash and we can only attend one.

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

• Full Council Meetings
• Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee and one of its panels
• Policy Committee, which I chaired, and I chaired one of its Working Groups
• Strategic Planning Committee and Huddersfield Planning Committee
• Huddersfield District Committee
• And I also sat of Licensing and Appeals Panels

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

• Kirklees Theatre Trust
• Kirklees Music School
• Kirklees Community Association
• Kirklees Development Company (now Dissolved)

I am also active in the community as an individual and I am 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

Whilst I was new to Greenhead Ward this year I had previously been a councillor for the Crosland Moor and Netherton Ward. However, I did undertake much of the New Councillor Induction programme as things change so rapidly I wanted to keep up to date. 

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