Dewsbury Moor Crematorium set to reopen

                                    

                           

18.9.19 Councillor Rob Walker explains when the Dewsbury Moor Crematorium will reopen:

Services will soon be available at Dewsbury Moor Crematorium again with Kirklees Council's refurbishment works almost complete. The improvements, which started earlier this year, include the replacement of outdated cremator equipment and the full refurbishment of the chapel, to offer improved services for bereaved families. The works also include a redecoration, new carpets and new windows. Dewsbury Moor Crematorium will be looking to accept bookings of one cremation per day from 30 September 2019 as part of the continued commissioning process.

From Monday 14th October this will increase to four bookings per day whilst further testing and commissioning is undertaken and completion of works on site can take place.
Huddersfield Crematorium and neighbouring councils have continued to offer cremations while Dewsbury has been temporarily closed. These improvements are part of a £3 million investment to refurbish Dewsbury and Huddersfield crematoria.
Councillor Rob Walker, Cabinet member for Culture and Environment, said: "It's absolutely crucial that services like these are delivered to the very best standard. People deserve thoughtful and dignified services and that's what this investment is all about. The works took longer than anticipated but with projects on this scale this can often be the case. If we didn't make these improvements the equipment would be at risk of failing which would have caused significant disruption and distress to affected families already going through a difficult time."
"I'd like to thank local funeral directors and families for their cooperation  and understanding during recent months whilst the crematorium has been temporarily closed. I'm delighted that Dewsbury Moor Crematorium will soon be open and fully-functional again. These vital improvement works will offer bereaved families the very best facilities for their loved ones."

Ravensthorpe in times past

RAVENSTHORPE or Raven St. Hope?

Searching through some junk (or treasures) I came across this collection of postcards of Ravensthorpe and remembered that the Ravensthorpe ex Councillor once got a letter addressed to Raven St. Hope.

I thought it might be a challenge to find the locations today, in fact thought it would make an interesting election leaflet.

RIP Fred Pickles

This is just one of the many times Fred won for the Labour Party. Sadly Fred passed away last week.

Vigil in Dewsbury after attacks on London Bridge - Cllr Pandor: "We are one community"

 



Eric Middleton - The Labour Candidate for Ravensthorpe in 1951

ERIC MIDDLETON 1951

Homeless / Rough Sleepers Support agencies information

Homeless / Rough Sleepers Support agencies Support services for Huddersfield and Dewsbury It’s important that the public campaign highlights the services out in the community.   Your Change can help more than one person-support a local charity     SUPPORT NOBODY NEEDS TO BEG. NOBODY NEEDS TO BE HUNGRY OR HOMELESS IN HUDDERSFIELD If you need HELP please contact any of the support services below   Housing Solutions

Kirklees Council Huddersfield Customer Service Centre Civic Centre 3, Market Street, Huddersfield, HD1 2YX Mon-Thur 9am-5pm, Friday 10am-5pm                 Housing Solutions/Homelessness/Tenancy/        Council Tax/Housing Benefits Enquiries                 Homeless – 01484 221350   Fusion Housing, 2nd Floor, Pearl Assurance House, John William St, Huddersfield                Mon, Tues, Thur & Fri 10am-12 noon & 1pm-3pm            Free confidential advice on all housing and housing-related matters.                                                                               Housing support to people aged 16-30 Learning Opportunities   Basement Project, Union Bank Yard, New Street, Huddersfield, HD1 2BP  Support for substance and alcohol misuse Drop-in at breakfast club every Thursday 9:30am-12pm Signing posting local services for housing, benefit Advice and mental health

Huddersfield Methodist Mission, 3-13 Lord St , Huddersfield Support homeless people with meals, clothes, housing advice   Homeless Hostel Clare House, 19, Clare Hill, Huddersfield, 20 beds providing accommodation for homeless people and support. Referral only from Housing Solutions Rough Sleepers Referral Service Night Shelter open when the temperature is below 0°C   CHART (Choices for Health, Addiction and Recovery Team) 2 St Peter’s Street, Huddersfield, HD1 1RA Monday-Thursday 9am-5pm, Friday 9am-4.30pm

GREAT SCHOOL ROBBERY

GREAT SCHOOL ROBBERY

Three of the Kirklees constituencies feature in the top hundred constituencies who's schools have lost most money in the government shake up of funding. (I am presuming the other constituency is just out of top one hundred)

The worse hit is Huddersfield who are set to loose 13% of their funding with a cut of £668 per pupil, closely followed by Dewsbury who will loose £534 per pupil which is 12% of their funding, Batley and Spen will loose 11%, £510 per pupil.


The good news part of this story is that the money will not go to waste as schools in the Tory Heartlands down South will have a boost in income. Can anyone still be surprised at this callous manipulation of government spending? The only surprise is the number of people who live in the North and still vote Conservative.

Putting the Lid on Dewsbury Maket

PUTTING THE LID ON DEWSBURY MARKET

Kirklees Cabinet  this afternoon approved spending of £97,000 on essential repairs to Dewsbury Market.

A fantastic afternoon spent with comrades and the new full time MP for Dewsbury Paula Sherriff celebrating her fantastic victory in Mays elections.

 

MAGIC MONEY - Tory deficit denial

MAGIC MONEY - TORY DEFICIT DENIAL

In their continual "Deficit Denial Mode" the conservative local election machine is going into overdrive to spend the Magic Beans to convince the electorate that cuts are not happening.

Robert Light has stated that the cuts to Kirklees are justified as the Labour Government gave Kirklees too much money and that all that is happening now is that the imbalance is being redressed and money is being transferred to rich areas, mostly down South.

What Robert is describing is method that was used for over 100 years (until Eric Pickles got his hands on the cash) to distribute government grants on a basis of need, based on such things as how many old people you looked after, how many unemployed people live in your area, how many miles of road you had etc. ect. .

 Eric has abolished that system and now money is distributed on the basis of how rich you are, the richer you are, the more money you get (sound familiar).

Robert Light wants to impose that system on Kirklees, he wants to distribute local cash on a basis of where it is raised. Not an accident that Kirklees largest rate payers are in his ward, though everyone else will appreciate that they are serving the whole area, it is not only people from Birkenshaw that shop at Ikea. What he fails to tell conservatives in all other areas is how much they will loose, what he fails to tell people is how much will be taken from the Social Care of the most needy. What Mail and Telegraph readers always fail to understand, is that anyone can fall on hard times, or be hit by illness that they can not deal with themselves, that everyone is getting older.

Tory leaflets in Dewsbury and Huddersfield are not telling the electors there that he tried to divert millions away from them at budget time.

Always remember the Conservatives are there to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, something that they are very good at. Whereas Kirklees has lost £180m in grant, some richer authorities have actually gained. We may be all in it together, but some are much deeper than others.

Village hall could be torn down

What does this headline conjour up for you? I imagined an old historic hall being lost to a community but just check out the piece from the Dewsbury Reporter.

http://www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/news/local/village-hall-could-be-torn-down-for-home-1-7080497

Shannon Mathews - BBC have put an hold on their intended Shannon Mathews fiction

 

Due to the iminant negotiations over licence fees the BBC have put a "tempary" stop on the productuction of a fictitional version of the Shannon Mathews story as they think it's bad taste might upset their negotiations. Given that the events were inspired by a story line in the program "Shameless" the proposed program asks all sorts of questions, as to the level of taste at the BBC.

Another issue is their casting department, they do list the program as fiction yet the person chose to play Shannon's mother (above) does show how far they intend to move away from reality. 

 

 

Remembrance Day: The sacrifices of the sons and daughters of Dewsbury

 

Wreaths were laid at the war memorial in Crow Nest Park, following Remembrance Day events in Dewsbury Town Centre.

Members of Dewsbury British Legion, organisers of the event, had invited the public to walk with the procession to the park.

Cllr Paul Kane, who lead the commemorations as Deputy Mayor said, "We are all here to remember the sacrifices made on our behalf by the sons and daughters of Dewsbury"  

"In honour of them, what a fantastic event this years Remembrance Day was"

The event was attended by over 400 people, including the Deputy Lord Lieutenant and colleague Cllr Eric Firth.



 

Kirklees Librarians secure prestigious event for Ravensthorpe

You will be interested to know that Kirklees librarians have secured a prestigious event for Ravensthorpe with the aim of encouraging children’s reading in a disadvantaged area.   

On Saturday 13^th September The Greenwood Centre will be supporting Good Morning Britain’s national ‘Just Read’ campaign, to encourage parents and carers to spend ten minutes reading with their children every day.

The campaign will see the library giving away 50 copies of bestselling book Diary of a Wimpy Kid to local children aged between 8 and 12 years old on Saturday 13th September during a special Wimpy Kid celebration event, hosted in partnership with Ravensthorpe Children’s Centre and Integrated Youth Support Service Young Leaders Volunteering Project.

 

Hospital campaigner accuses local Tories of "cheap political trick"

Image via Dewsbury Reporter

Dewsbury councillor and hospital campaigner Karen Rowling, has accused Kirklees Conservative Group of playing a "cheap political trick" over the issue of Dewsbury & District Hospital.

At yesterday's Full Council, the last before the May elections, Cllrs Robert Light (Conservative, Birstall & Birkinshaw) and Cllr David Hall (Conservative, Liversedge & Gomersal) tried to pass a motion supposedly against the huge downgrade proposed for Dewsbury Hospital.

But when an amendment in the name of hospital campaigner Cllr Karen Rowling (Labour, Dewsbury West) was put forward, Conservative leader Cllr Light and his Deputy, Cllr Hall, instructed their councillors to vote against it. The amended motion passed, with the amendment supported by every other group in the council.

Cllr Rowlng said: "It's a shame that these councillors convictions don't stretch far enough to criticise the disastrous polices that their own party are implementing nationally."

"In the wording of their motion Cllrs Light and Hall wanted to put all the blame on Trust management. It's true that the Trust has suffered from bad management, for a number of years. But to completely omit a mention of the disastrous affect that government policy is having on our NHS is disingenuous in the extreme. It's playing politics."

"My amendment made two modest changes; against mass privatisation of our NHS, and against Clause 119 of the Care Bill, which allows politicians in Westminster to shut hospitals without public consultation. Cllrs Light and Hall immediately instructed all of the Tory councillors to vote down the amendment."
"So can we conclude from this that every Tory councillor in Kirklees agrees with privatisation and is against public consultation?"

"Cllrs Light and Hall, and also Cllr Bolt, have all made noises in the last few weeks as though they are against the massive downgrade of our hospital. But yesterday we learnt that it's all talk. They have used the last Full Council before an election to cast themselves in a caring light, but the reality is there is no substance to what they say. It's a cheap political trick."

"I have been fighting these plans for over two years, alongside many colleagues on the council. I don't remember these three out on the campaign trail."

"The changes being proposed at Dewsbury put peoples lives at risk, and this is what the local Tory party are doing. Local people deserve much, much better."

 

Dewsbury Hospital - How can 33,000 local people be wrong?

Following the heavily flawed consultation process carried out by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust last year the full picture relating to the downgrading of services at Dewsbury & District Hospital is now much clearer. The Trust has been tasked with presenting the horrific Tory cuts to our services with a positive spin. Here is their vision of a “vibrant” hospital at Dewsbury:

• Severely downgraded Accident & Emergency (40% less capacity) • Severely downgraded Maternity Unit (expectant mothers, if you need a Consultant then pack your bags and go to Pinderfields) • Complete closure of our Children’s Ward • Sell-off of numerous Hospital buildings • A 69% reduction in total beds

If the plans go ahead it will mean 250 out of 360 beds removed from our hospital by 2017, with Pinderfields’ bed numbers boosted by only 70 to cover the shortfall. This is a 69% cut in bed numbers at Dewsbury Hospital – these are the Trust’s figures, not ours.

Over the past two years your Labour team has been at the forefront of the battle to save our local services, with our Save Dewsbury Hospital campaign.

Kirklees Labour's Cllr Cathy Scott, a founder member of the campaign, said: “The true scale of the cuts has been hidden at every point in this shambolic consultation. Lengthy and expensive material was produced with no mention of this dramatic reduction to services. It’s quite clear the impact this will have on Dewsbury – it will cost lives.”

Last October, the Wakefield and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee took the decision to refer the Trust’s plans to the Secretary of State, who will review the plans. The cross-party Committee said it was not convinced that the proposals were in the “best interests” of local people.

Remarkably, with almost 33,000 signatures on our petition to save services, Dewsbury’s part-time MP Simon Reevell openly supports the Trust’s plans. Sadly, Mr Reevell has put politics before people. He has even gone so far as to lobby the Health Secretary, asking him to impose the huge cuts to our hospital without hesitation.

Scrutiny Committee member Cllr Eric Firth said: “A judgement by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected in late March, we will keep local residents updated.”

Reports in the local media have revealed just a glimpse of the crisis that our local NHS services have been plunged into by the Tory government.

In December a local man asked a paramedic why an emergency ambulance had taken so long. The paramedic replied: “Why don’t you ask your MP?”

Cllr Karen Rowling said: “Our sources within the Trust and our Hospital all say the same thing; staff are being stretched to breaking point and morale is at rock bottom.”

In January a Freedom of Information request from your Labour team revealed that last year the Trust was forced to spend £2.3million on highly paid, temporary A&E locums, a 50% increase since 2010. This is symptomatic of a management crisis. This has been brought about by radical Tory re-organisations, arguably designed to lay the foundations for mass privatisation of our NHS.

Cathy said: “We all want to save money in public services, but this gross waste has been brought about by Tory cuts and bureaucratic meddling. The same work could be done by permanent staff at a fraction of the cost.”

The figures also show that our local A&E departments were the fifth busiest in the country in January. With waiting times rocketing up past FOUR HOURS David Cameron and his Dewsbury MP Simon Reevell still believe that Dewsbury Hospital should see a beds reduction of 69%.


Related Articles:
Cllr Simon Alvy: Campaigning to protect Dewsbury District Hospital
Dewsbury and District Hospital to lose 250 beds
Health bosses approve radical plans for Dewsbury and District Hospital



 

Cllr Graham Turner: Cost of Living Crisis Campaign

I, along with thousands of Labour Party members will be out on the streets this Saturday to highlight the cost of living crisis affecting hard working family's caused by the governments current failed economic policy.

Come and see us in Dewsbury Town centre from 9 30am onwards - Saturday, 11 January 2013

Pictures from this national campaign will appear here next week.

The part time Dewsbury MP who gets paid £66,000 a year!

Photo via the Dewsbury Reporter

The part time MP who gets paid £66,000 a year to represent the people of the Dewsbury constituency spoke in a staggering 5 debates in Parliament last year, that works out at £13,200 per debate. Clearly this is a bargain, and I am sure that his hard working constituents don't begrudge him this money from their taxes.

The good news of course is that being a part time MP means he has time on his hands to continue working as a barrister so that he can supplement this meagre income by earning more than £70,000 a year in the legal profession.

The people of Dewsbury deserve to be served by a full time MP, who will work hard all day every day for the residents of the constituency, and not spend their time charging £200 an hour to appear in court or giving legal advice to corporate company's.

Earnings? You can see the evidence here!

Cllr Simon Alvy: Campaigning to protect Dewsbury District Hospital

There have been a few letters in the Spen Guardian asking what Local Councillors have done to protect Dewsbury District Hospital. Local peoples concerns are understandable and I think it is important to let you all know I am actively campaigning, not just as a councillor, but as a member of the local community.

Prior to becoming a councillor in May this year I was already speaking out as part of MP Mike Wood's Save Our NHS group and took to the streets at both save our hospital marches in Dewsbury.

Since becoming a councillor I have lobbied the joint health scrutiny panel on behalf of my worried constituents and a local hospital campaign group, attended Clinical Commissioning Group meetings and questioned the chair Dr Kelly about their plans as well as responding via letter to Simon Reevel's bizarre request in the Huddersfield Examiner for the Dewsbury A&E to be closed.

I have done all this for several reasons; as a rugby player I was always lucky enough to have a high quality local A&E to call upon when injured, more recently we have used the services of a consultancy led maternity ward and having a young family draw comfort from having comprehensive hospital services within easy reach. Being able to use our local hospital means  not only having good local service but also the support of family close by which is so important particularly to children and older people.

During my election campaign many people raised the issue of the future of our hospital on the doorstep and no one I spoke to believed it was safe. This why I have and will continue to campaign to safeguard local services.

Related Articles
Dewsbury and District Hospital to lose 250 beds
Health bosses approve radical plans for Dewsbury and District Hospital