I was able to throw a little more light on how Council Officers at New Forest District Council managed to invite the flooring company, “TPS” to tender for work, despite a new tender process having been put in place following the “Slippery Floors” scandal.

I used the opportunity of a meeting of the Leisure Review Panel Scrutiny Panel today to quiz officers about what had happened. I took advantage of the fact that any council member can get an item placed on the agenda, by notifying the Chief Executive. This displeased one conservative member who Chairs the Corporate Overview Panel, who said it was no business of this panel. However, I was supported by the Chair and Officers when I pointed out that about a fifth of the contracts related to leisure services.

I learnt that TPS had been contacted by an officer who (amazingly) had been unaware of the history and bad blood between the council and the flooring company. It seems this would not have happened had the contract been worth £10,000 or more. The new arrangements that are supposed to ensure suitability of a contractor is only used for high value contracts.

I think I succeeded in firing a warning shot towards officers and the administration running the council. Hopefully, they will be exercising a much greater level of care when contracting. Taxpayers will not want to see another “Slippery Floor” case, with a loss of £340,000 of taxpayers money.

Interestingly, the Chief Finance Officer said there is now no reason why the council should not employ the services of “TPS”. It seems the council has moved a long way since blaming them for supplying faulty floor surfaces. Whether TPS would want to work for the council is quite another matter!

There are a few red faces at New Forest District Council. The Conservative run authority attracted national publicity and was even included in the “Rotten Boroughs” section of Private Eye, for losing over £345,000 of taxpayer’s money when it took on a flooring company who, they claimed, was responsible for slippery floors in the Health & Leisure Centres.

The case went spectacularly wrong when the District Council took the flooring company, Titanium Polyurethane Seal (TPS) to the High Court. The Judge ruled that the floor was slippery because of the inadequate cleaning systems employed by the council. He was severely critical of the authority for the way it managed contracts.

The ruling Tory group rejected demands for an inquiry and nobody was ever sacked or even disciplined. An internal officer report promised that the whole process of awarding contracts would be tightened up to stop such a thing happening again. There remains a lot of ill feeling between the council and the flooring company, TPS.

The Directors of TPS were therefore amazed when they recently received an E-mail from the council asking them to quote for work needed to a sports hall floor. The company have politely declined.

Councillor David Harrison, Liberal Democrat Shadow spokesman for Leisure matters says “It seems that a council officer was asked to get estimates for work on the sports hall floors. He found the details on Google and e-mailed TPS for a quote. It doesn’t inspire any confidence that procedures for tightening up contracts has improved since the slippery floor case”.

A towering inferno of fun was enjoyed by young people in Totton recently.

Scores of young people attended a special T-shirt designing workshop at The Tower Youth Club, based at St. Winfrid’s Church, Salisbury Road, Totton.

The project was funded by a community engagement grant supplied by Hampshire County Councillor David Harrison. He says “The adult volunteers who run the Tower Youth Club do a great job all year, providing a safe facility for young people to meet up and enjoy themselves. The idea of a special T-Shirt Workshop went down very well with the young people who were able to walk around afterwards, displaying their artistic talents”.

Conservative Councillors on New Forest District Council have ignored pleas to save swimming for thousands of people at the council run Health & Leisure Centres.

On the run up to the school summer holidays, the conservative cabinet member for Leisure, Culture & Youth Matters, Councillor Di Brooks, announced that she was scrapping the free swimming scheme for under 17 year olds and over 60’s.

The news was met by a storm of protest as the scheme had proved a great success, increasing swimming participation by at least 20% and a real boost for people who could not afford to pay for regular swims.

Lib Dem Councillor, Shadow Spokesman for Leisure Matters, says “This decision will effectively shut out our most deserving people from engaging in good, healthy exercise. This knee jerk reaction to withdrawal of government funding is unfair and unnecessary. Thousands of youngsters will be deprived of the chance of a swim during the school holidays and we all know the consequences of bored youngsters having nothing to do. It’s a terrible, short-sighted decision.”

Councillor David Harrison today failed to persuade a review panel, comprising of a heavy conservative majority, to ask the cabinet member to reconsider funding the scheme by other means, such as commercial sponsorship, use of councillor grant budgets or even a few pence increase in council tax.

Councillor Harrison adds “Council tax payers are already funding the cost of these leisure facilities. It makes no sense at all to shut out thousands of people by imposing charges that we know they can’t all afford. The council isn’t purely a business, it’s a service to the people who live in the New Forest.”

“Avoid using sun-beds” – that’s the stark message from leading health campaigners in the New Forest District.

Hampshire County Councillor David Harrison, a member of the Authority’s Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee, told fellow members that he was shocked by figures released by the Department of Health revealing significantly high rates of skin melanoma in the New Forest.

The New Forest District Council banned the use of sun-beds from council-run Health & Leisure Centres only last year, after a long running campaign, highlighting the dangers of exposure to the powerful UV rays given off by the sun-beds.

Councillor Harrison succeeded in persuading the committee to keep monitoring the statistics, in the hope that a better educated public and withdrawal of sun-beds will improve matters.

Councillor Harrison says “I invite anyone who doubts the dangers of sun-beds to visit any of the major cancer charity web-sites and see what the experts say. There are alternatives to using sun-beds. I’m now working to get the District Council to toughen up regulation of private operators”.

A number of residents have asked me why the brand new pavement surface in Rumbridge Street, Totton is already beginning to look like a patchwork quilt. In several places, it has been dug up. Unlike the surrounding high quality yellow coloured surface, the repaired patches are just black asphalt.

My enquiries with Hampshire County Council have revealed that the culprits are Southern Water. They have an obligation under the New Roads and Streetworks Act to replace the surfacing on a like-for-like basis. Under the legislation and Code of Practice they do have a period of six months to complete the work.

I’m not able to monitor every repair and the timescales involved but am pretty sure that some of the patches exceed the 6 month period. I have pressed the council street-works inspector to press Southern Water to finish the job properly. In the meantime, why can’t Southern Water do the job properly first time around? Surely it would save money? I have written to the company asking why!

I have rather fallen out with the majority of members on the New Forest District Council. In my view, they talk tough but act soft when it comes to care of the environment, especially in my home town of Totton.

The most recent example of this is a decision not to declare the Eling Wharf area as a polluted site. I stood up at the last council meeting and lambasted them for adopting a softly, softly approach and relying on the owners to clean up the cocktail of chemicals, (includes cyanide and arsenic).

"I think an authority like New Forest District Council should adopt the
highest standards when it comes to caring for the environment. The
failure to designate land that is very clearly polluted is inconsistent
with its legal and moral obligations".

"Commercial interests will run rings around local authorities if
allowed to".

"It's no good talking tough and acting in a different way"

"My home town of Totton has an area designated as an Air Quality
Management Area (AQMA). It has been monitored for the best part of 10
years and nothing effective done about it".

I was recently one of a few County Councillors who took the chance to visit the Silchester “Town Life” Project.

If you are tempted to discover what secrets can be uncovered in Hampshire, you could do a lot worse than to travel out into the beautiful countryside around Silchester, where can be found probably the best preserved Roman town in northern Europe, called “Calleva”.

A team of expert archaeologists, supplemented by hundreds of volunteers, including many students from Reading University, are carefully excavating an area inside the town walls, known as an Insula (basically a block of buildings). The excavation is open to the public, including two special open days per annum and receives between 5,000 and 6,000 visitors per season.

From a raised platform in the middle of the site, you can see the remains of the old town walls, giving a really good idea of the actual size of a Roman town. It’s something of a mystery that the town was effectively abandoned and didn’t become a settlement, such as in Winchester.

The detailed excavation work has been going on for some 14 seasons, revealing ancient roman streets, rubbish tips, wells and buildings. Items are being found on an almost daily basis, including silver coins, brooches, tools, cooking utensils (including pottery that originated in the New Forest area!). During my visit, I was able to handle items that had been dug up only hours earlier, precious items that had been buried for centuries.

The work undertaken so far has uncovered evidence that the area was once an Iron Age settlement comprising of wooden buildings that were burnt down (whether deliberately or accidentally), then replaced by a Roman street grid, to an entirely different plan.

If you fancy going to have a look for yourself, please do so. Hampshire County Council are using some of your money (as taxpayers), to help fund this important work. Even better, if you want to get directly involved as a volunteer, I’m sure they would be pleased to hear from you. Two websites you can contact for more information ; www.silchester.reading.ac.uk and www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology

Do let me know if you pay a visit or decide to help and how you get on. For feedback or to contact me about any other County Council service, e-mail me on dharrison100@aol.com or visit my web-site www.dharrison.org.uk.