Dorothy Thornhill

I’m pleased to officially welcome Councillor Steve Johnson, the former Watford Borough Council Conservative group leader and mayoral candidate, to the Liberal Democrats.

He had become increasingly disappointed by the right-wing drift of Conservative party rhetoric, particularly its attitude to welfare issues – and had found his views to be more in tune with the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition, in balancing financial sense with compassion and fairness. 

Plus he’s always believed that we were doing a good job of running the council and felt the other parties offered little in the way of a positive vision for Watford.

I’ve always believed Steve to be a well-informed and respected voice in the council chamber, in particular on housing issues. He is also a dedicated and effective ward councillor and I have long felt that his views are more in tune with us than with the Tories!

I was really pleased to hear that we’ll be getting a ‘Little Waitrose’ in within our John Lewis.  It will open in June and will be on the second floor of the department store.

It’s being pitched as the sort of store that you would use for topping up on the weekly food shop or for popping into to pick-up something for dinner or a quick snack – so it will be much bigger than the current offer next door in Boots but not the size of a full supermarket.

The company is still very keen to take forward their plans for a full sized supermarket store on the former National Grid gasworks site down near Bushey Arches. However, they have identified a number of constraints and additional works that will involve further costs. They hope to resolve these and be in a position to submit a planning application. 

I hope there is a way forwards as the new major store would create some 180 jobs for local people – not to mention give us all an alternative place to do our shopping! 

In the meantime I’m very pleased we’ll be getting our Little Waitrose in the town centre.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting the new chief executive of West Herts Hospital Trust, Sam Jones.  She’s clearly come to the Trust with a wealth of experience including being chief exec of another hospital.  I was heartened by her positive attitude towards our hospital particularly and the Trust in general.  It’s clear to me that she’s got firm ideas on what needs to be done, about what she values and I have no doubt that she will instil changes.  She struck me as a force for good!  She’s wholeheartedly behind the Health Campus plans and making our hospital the best it can be.

Some residents have contacted me about gritting, so I wanted to clear up the confusion.  Watford Borough Council is not the highways authority and so doesn’t do Watford’s ‘official’ gritting.  The statutory responsibility lies with the County Council – it is they that receive the lion’s share of your council tax (75%), which pays for the gritter vehicles and the grit etc. 

Their policy is to grit A roads, B roads and major bus routes. They do it several times a day, outside of peak hours.  They don’t grit side roads and pavements as a rule – to do so would be difficult given the size of the vehicles and the likely compensation claims for all the inevitable damage that the grit would cause to parked cars! There would also be a cost implication – gritting isn’t cheap, so any extension to the gritting routes would require additional staff, more grit and more vehicles – which I don’t imagine anyone wants to pay more council tax for.

But although here at Watford Borough Council we don’t have to do any gritting by law, we do assist with the gritting of a small number of pavements in a limited number of high use priority areas - town centre, main local shop fronts, subways and some ‘healthcare’ and main commuter routes – and all these are dealt with in priority order as best we can.  The staff who carry out the pedestrian gritting are street cleansing teams redeployed to this activity because they can’t do their day job.  Sometimes our bin men get involved too, but this time round they’ve been continuing with their collections. Read more »

Although we’ve only had a small number of complaints from residents I wanted to update everyone on what is happening with our bin collections during these snowy conditions. 

Our crews are out trying to collect bins but have been told they are not to venture down any roads they deem unsafe.  This is because our lorries weigh 26 tonnes and will cause a great deal of damage to anything they hit if they lose control on the ice, or god forbid they should hit a pedestrian.

Most people recognise the bin men are just human beings trying to do their jobs in very challenging circumstances. Trying to negotiate icy pavements on Devon Road for example while pulling a wheelie bin or with a box of glass in your hand isn’t for the feint-hearted!

If your bin is missed this week, then the advice from the waste team is this:

Black bins (domestic) – If we are unable to collect your bin on your normal collection day this week, we will collect excess waste that you’ve put in bin bags on your next scheduled collection. 

Recycling  boxes – If we are unable to collect your bin on your normal collection day this week, we will collect excess recycling on your next scheduled collection.  Please leave any additional separated materials alongside your recycling boxes on your next collection day. 

 Greenwaste – There will be no collections on Monday 21st January as staff have been redeployed on domestic and recycling crews.  We will not be returning to collect greenwaste until the next scheduled collection day.  If your bin is/gets full before next scheduled collection, you can stack cardboard at the side of your bin and put any green or food waste into your black bin.

Thankfully, we’ve kept weekly collections in Watford, as elsewhere some households will have to wait three weeks to have their missed bins emptied!

I’m really pleased to hear the coalition will be setting up a new independent pubs Adjudicator to help struggling landlords who suffer from unfair practices in the industry.  I recently met with a former local publican, keen to return to Watford, who’d been telling me how landlords were often forced by breweries to only buy from them – I’m sure he, and others like him, will welcome this news.

The Adjudicator will enforce a new statutory Code, which will oversee the relationship between publicans and large pub companies. It will ensure publicans get a fair deal on rent and the prices they pay for beer and stop pub companies exploiting and squeezing their tenants by unfair practices and a focus on short-term profits.

Good news for our landlords!

Every month I write a column for the Watford Observer.  This is my latest one, published on 11th January:

There has been much in the news recently about drastic action councils around the country are taking in response to government cuts.  Some 25% of authorities are reported to be increasing Council Tax by 2% next year, and many are making wholesale redundancies, significantly reducing the standard of services for residents.

In Watford we’ve had to cut our base budget by 7% in real terms and as a consequence have to find new ways to reduce our costs – especially as we won’t be raising council tax to mitigate the loss.  My mayoral pledge was to not increase council tax above inflation, but for several years now I decided it was right to not increase it at all.

Our biggest cost is our wage bill.   I committed to freeze my salary for this mayoral term.  Your councillors have frozen their allowances for 10 years, which is effectively a cut in real terms.  It’s important to lead from the top as staff pay has been frozen for the past 3 years too.

We have still had to make some redundancies, but we have protected our frontline services and reduced our numbers of managers instead – we will have no senior directors other than the Managing Director by the end of March.   Read more »

You may have spotted some charging units for electric cars have been installed into a  number of our car parks – so far in the Gade, Sutton, Queens, Avenue and Town Hall car parks in the town centre, as well as Longspring in the north of the town and the new improved Pinner Road car park at Bushey Arches to the south.

A further two will be stalled in Timberlake Car Park off Radlett Road and also at the WatfordBusinessPark car park off Greenhill Crescent. We hope all will be operation by the end of March. 

Each unit serves two vehicles – they are linked to the County Council’s EDF supply via a feeder pillar, so the County Council is footing the bill (through a special government scheme called Evalu8).   

At the moment we’re not enforcing the bays, as we are waiting for a countywide special parking order to be produced once all the bays were installed, but hopefully most people will take note of the signs and leave the bays free for those residents who have opted to get an electric car.

At present the numbers of people with electric cars are still pretty low, but unless we have bays in place for people to charge them easily, people will always be reluctant to make the switch.

Last week I had my first official meeting with David Lloyd since he became the county’s first elected police commissioner.  I’ve known David for many years and wish him well in his post. 

There are many similarities between the mayoral system and that of the police commissioner system.  In both roles you have to be able to shed your party colours.  You do what is in the best interest of the residents of your town, or in David’s case your county, even if it conflicts with your party says on a national platform.

 It was most surprising to find out that David and I share a lot of the same views on crime and policing issues – despite being from different political parties. Yes the Lib Dems and Tories may be in coalition nationally – but that means we find compromises rather than starting out with the same views!  We even agreed on controversial issues like the funding of PCSOs – both of us agree it’s not for a council to fund police personnel!

We discussed issues particular to Watford and I updated him on the latest plans around the night time economy.  Maintaining good relationships with David and the police are a top priority of mine, as we can be most effective by working together.

I’m pleased to say we’re all on the same page!

A side issue last night was actually the opposition to  building new homes.  Lack of housing is a real issue for the town which is why private landlords are doing very well for themselves right now, as rents are high due to shortage of decent properties to rent (no criticism intended just a fact!) that’s why our social housing waiting list is now in excess of three thousand!! 

The council has to do a Housing Need survey every few years and our last one makes it quite clear that we need more homes. I guess if we were a rotten place to live with no facilities then homes would be cheaper, congestion less etc; it’s a catch 22! 

We can’t say Watford is full up –  there is no such concept. But we do need to say where we will build those houses and our top place to do so is on brownfield sites.   These are sites previously developed, like the Health Campus – a derelict eyesore for decades.  If we can’t put homes there then where can we put them? On the green belt? I don’t think so?

This development is actually an opportunity to create a new neighbourhood complete with infrastructure (a new road to feed the hospital) quality public realm and genuine green open space. PLUS  Homes people want to live in – the view over the valley will be glorious and so close to town and eventually an underground station.  It’s hard to visualise it now but I believe it will be a real lift for west Watford.

I know many are concerned about shortages in school places and the pressure new homes add.  Daft as it may sound we’re also not allowed to turn down a development due  to a lack of school places.   The problems Watford parents are facing is one parents across the entire country are facing.  What we can do – and what we are doing – is work with the County Council (the education authority) to find new sites for schools.  We’re currently working with them on finding three new sites – one of which will be Wiggenhall Road another will be Ascot Road.