Where is James Dudderidge?

The end of 2014 is nearly upon us, and the media frenzy has already started for the General Election. I was thinking where is our local Member of Parliament James Dudderidge? Shouldn't he be speaking to his constituents, and listening to their opinions and how to take Southend into a new era of national politics. In the past Southend on sea was always a safe seat for the Tories, but I have come to the realisation the days of The Tories holding onto their seat a pretty slim at the moment. Whilst speaking to residents in Southend it became clear in the conversations I had, they are dischanted with the national government and would like a different approach to national politics, and Southend has demographicaly changed in the last few years. In a way I am looking forward to the 2015 General Election as could be a big change in national politics.

Friends of Shoebury Common

Spending a cold December Sunday morning on Shoebury Common is not my idea of fun, but this was no ordinary December Sunday morning, today was a peaceful demonstration organisised by the Friends of Shoebury Common with help from SKIP and the Green Party to highlight to the media that the residents of Shoebury do not want this prosposed wall. There was about 350 people who attended today's demonstration. The BBC Look East filmed and interviewed Ray Bailey, Peter Lovett and Peter Grupp Friends of Shoebury Common and the demonstration will be televised sometime this week. Southend Council will hopefully wake up and realise that the people of Shoebury do not want the wall and more new houses as our infrastructure will not be able to cope with increase traffic and a strain on public services.

Meaningful Politics

My blog has somewhat been neglected over the last few months, due to my own proscrastination and my dislike of national and local politics. In my opinion there are too many self-serving individuals who are not connected with the electorate, I will use Shoebury Common Wall as my example, this wall is not about protecting the residents from global changes to our enviroment and rising sea levels, which there is scant evidence to suggest Shoebury will be effected. The Shoebury Common Wall will have to be erected to pamper to the needs of a building contractor who wants to build houses on our green space and to increase the population of Shoebury. The local councillors except for Cllr Anne Chalk have forgotten that Shoebury doesn't have the infrastructure for all these new homes. My daily communte on the A127 will be even more traumatic and tiredsome then it already is, and eventually traffic along our two major A roads will come to standstill. These minor arguments are forgetten when planning is given to build more houses in Southend-on-sea. Pardoxically, the South East will require new homes for our future generations, but the the real loss will be our lack of green spaces and natural enviroment for our wild life. When a local councillor has the gumption to discuss items which give people a sense of meaning to their lives and a belonging to their local community that is someone I would like to represent in local government.

A Nostagic View of Shoebury Common and East Beach

These old photographs of Shoebury Common and East Beach, clearly shows how busy these areas used to be. What happened? The flood defense wall will look out of character with the rest of the Shoebury Common beach and stop visitors and potential residents to this beautiful part of the estuary.

Ignoring the wishes of the residents

Recently, I haven't much spare time for blogging and this my first opportunity to write. There has been some interesting developments in Shoeburyness over the last few days with more emails going through cyper space than silicone valley. The Tories councillors of Shoeburyness have ignored the residents wishes about the beach huts, flood defence wall, and the over development of Shoeburyness. The good people objected to the beach huts, Cllr Roger Hadley stated he did not receive any objections, which is a lie because there was a petition objecting to the beach huts and the residents of rampart street voiced their concerns about vandalism and pollution. I stated in a previous blog that the flood defence will be as iconic as the Berlin wall, and divide Shoeburyness. The residents who life near shoe bury common have a leaflet informing the residents not to elect Cllr Cox, Cllr Jarvis as the West Shoe bury residents feel let down by them over the flood defence wall and these councillors put their own wishes first over needs of the residents. When the middle-classes start turning I would become very worried if I was a councillor, because I believe there is a revolution coming in Shoeburyness.

Shoebury Health Centre

When the issue of a new Shoebury Health Centre, I have always rejected to idea as I am aware any new medical centre in Shoebury will have to be funded by a private company (PFI) which could eventually leave the tax payer with the bill for the extortinate upkeep of this medical centre. However, my opinions have changed after reading the report on the Mid-Staffordshire hospital and the high death rate at the hospital and elderly people left on hospital trolleys in the A&E department, patient neglect and a general lack of compassionate staff. A new medical centre could potentially reduce un-necessary hospital admissions, there would be more choice to die at home, and mental health services could become localised and GP led, dementia and alzheimers are already GP led. There could also be minor operations at the centre which could reduce the risk of infection, improve recovery and reduce hospital waiting lists. All these services would be beneficial to the community and would create a localised service. The population of Shoebury has increased over the last ten years, this could be a good time for a new medical centre and to give something back to the people of Shoebury.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

In today's Southend Evening Echo there was an article about the conference on Wednesday with Nick Alston the new Police and Crime Commissioner. There was a quote in the Echo from a local Tory councillor who shall remain nameless, stating he is going to ask magistrates to give out tougher sentences. This is a contradiction to Chris Grayling's vision. Chris Grayling and the Minstry of Justice have instructed magistrates and crown courts to hand out more community based sentences to educate and rehabilitate offenders. Offering a holistic approach to a offenders is much more beneficial as this approach can address the underlying reasons why a person offends. Punitive sentence packages do not work for low risk offenders as statistics have shown they actually increase offending, young people see prison as a badge of honor and a criminal record gives a young person a identity and sense of importance. In my opinion there should be more restorative justice and the vicitim is in control and of the how the offender is sentenced, and the offender is more aware to the damage to the community and the victim, this should be the future of criminal justice.