Question 1
Question from Councillor Lee Anderson to the Leader of the Council:
“Could the council leader please advise on what damage, if any has been caused to our war memorials in Sutton and Huthwaite Cemeteries?”
Question 2
Question from Councillor Lee Anderson to the Leader of the Council:
“Could the council leader please advise why there has been an apparent lack of money spent of keeping all our War Memorials in good condition?”
Question 3
Question from Councillor Keir Morrison to the Cabinet Member (Outward Focus):
“Given that Cllr. Wilmott was the deputy leader of the council at the time the decision was taken to close Hucknall’s public toilets, could he inform the council when new public toilets will be built in Hucknall?”
Question 4
Question from Councillor Don Davis to the Deputy Leader of the Council (Outward Focus):
“It’s clear that there’s a demand in the Ashfield District to accommodate the travelling community, instead of travellers setting up encampments illegally, does the portfolio holder agree that the council needs to explore options in order to reach a long term sustainable solution for all parties?”
Minutes:
In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13, the following questions were
submitted:-
Question 1
From Councillor Lee Anderson:
“Could the council leader please advise on what damage, if any has been caused to our war memorials in Sutton and Huthwaite Cemeteries?”
The Leader of the Council, Councillor Jason Zadrozny, responded as follows:-
“Madame Chairman can I thank Councillor Anderson for his question. I know what a very keen interest he has taken in the Watr Memorials and their preservation particularly in Sutton and Huthwaite.
Councillor Anderson will be aware of the historic addvice we’ve taken from the Conservation Officer that did show previous cleaning of the War Memorials had caused some damage. The damage, particularly where well-meaning people had used abraisive chemicals like turtle wax which bearing in mind the stone we’ve got, it’s a pourous type of stone, our Conservation Officer seems to think it absorbs into the stone and can degrade it from inside out so we’ve had to be extremely careful about the work we’ve done.
We’ve taken advice from the War Memorials Trust that said we shouldn’t clean War Memorials unless the dirt is harmful to them for example harardous fumes and things like that. However, that said, we did undertake to do some very light steam cleaning work and Councillor Anderson joined me as we watched in happen in Sutton and then onto Huthwaite. We undertook the most sensitive type of work we could do trying to make sure that the Armistice days were celebrated in the best way that we could.
It’s too early to say if any damage was caused with that sort of cleaning but in order to avoid any damage, we were concerned that the least intensive methods were used so that meant no high pressure work, no detergents and no scrubbing.
We realised that people have an emotional family attachment to our War Memorials but we must remember that the War Memorials are nearly a hundred year’s old and many are fragile so the cleaning has potential to damage them irreparably. This can happen by weakening the lead letters on names, by loosening the mortar leading to water ingress and frost damage, by exposing the stone surface pores meaning that they become dirtier quicker and by bronze staining from plaques etc.
Ironically, cleaning can make the situation become worse and more visibly damaging if it’s not done properly. It is for those reasons we decided not to have an extensive programme for cleaning this year, on the basis of the advice of the Conservation Officer and the War Memorials Trust, and when they are cleaned it will be in an appropriate and gentle method carried out by specialists and in that way we can ensure that they are still around for the next hundred years.
Madame Chair, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Councillor Anderson particularly for the work he has done on raising this issue and making sure the Council has a sharp focus on it. We were all very disappointed when we had the very late advice from the Conservation Officer that we shouldn’t do any work and so we scrabbled around at the last minute to try and make sure we could do as much sensitive work as we could. That involved putting planters out, planting up with red flowers, primroses and rows of primulas, cleaning around the areas in the churchyard and cleaning the Memorials in the most sensitive way that we could.
Councillor Anderson I hope recognises the work that we did do and what I’d also like to say Madam Chairman that as you know and that all Members know across the Chamber, this year was an enormously special year. 100 years since the end of the First World War and all of our Armistice Day celebrations/commemorations across the District were attended by four or five times more people than they would normally be and that is a real testament to our community spirit.
The public have done us really proud remembering those who fell to make sure we can enjoy the freedoms we’ve got today and aside of working out what we are going to do with War Memorials I’m very proud that we supported the Poppy Downpour on the Regent Cinema. That was an outstanding piece of work that I’ve not seen anywhere else in the country and we also put decals on 11 of our roads and the tommy silhouettes also. I think we should make sure this Council does all it can to make sure we do keep remembering those who paid the ultimate sacrifice Madame Chairman, so thank you and thank you Councillor Anderson for your question.”
In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13.5, Councillor Anderson was invited to ask a supplementary question but he duly declined.
Question 2
From Councillor Lee Anderson
“Could the council leader please advise why there has been an apparent lack of money spent of keeping all our War Memorials in good condition?”
The Leader of the Council, Councillor Jason Zadrozny, responded as follows:-
“I’ve got an answer from the officers that disagrees fundamentally with what I think Councillor Anderson so I’m going to read out the points they have written for me but them I’m going to tell you what I think is firmly the truth.
I do think there has been systemic underfunding of the things that are very important to us. This year was 100 years since the end of the First World War so we all had a sharp focus on it but next year is 80 years since the start of the Second World War and we should have an equally sharp focus on it.
I was really proud to stand with my grandad outside there, a former paratrooper, when we unveiled the tommy silhouette and a young guy from Kirkby who served in Afghanistan. We should never forget that we all stand here affording everything we have because of those people that gave an immense amount for our freedom so my answer written here says that it’s not the case that they have been underfunded and the fact that Hucknall War Memorial had restoration work carried out on it as recently as 2005. Well that’s not a great answer to me Madame Chairman.
I don’t think I can stand by that because I think we should be doing more than that. When I was Leader in 2007 until 2009 there was a specific budget for War Memorials’ maintenance and ongoing repair and restoration work. That budget stopped in 2009 so since then, of course, £180,000 pounds of investment never happened to those War Memorials and we’ve got dozens and dozens of them across the District. Councillor Sears-Piccavey has recently been walking around every single one of them; they are not all grand, big memorials but we’ve got lots and lots of various ones.
Shane, who Members will have now met, our new Scrutiny Research Officer, has been writing an extensive historical document for us all to be able to look at that lists all of our War Memorials across the District and their history. It will include whose listed on them, wars that they fought in, what stone they are made of, what condition they are in and what we need to do…..and so I think we need to do a damn sight more.
We should be incredibly proud of Ashfield and the Sherwood Forest regiments and all those things we’ve got. Ashfield does not sing about its history enough and we have a damn proud one and I have already worked with Councillor Sears-Piccavey to be making sure that a budget line is back in next year’s budget. We will be having a small restoration budget, £10,000 to £20,000 each year to ensure that small works can be done, year after year after year, so we are never in this place again.
So that the lead letterings are back, so that the families who contacted me saying their grandfathers’ names had eroded out of the sandstone, that the lead lettering had fallen out…. I was embarrassed when I had those phone calls this year and I don’t think it is fair or right and I’ve got shivers now because I remember some of the phone calls, people crying to me that they’ve come over here to remember their family at a really important time and they weren’t there. What a horrific indictment on this Council, that those people who fell for us, that their names are literally washing away with time.
We should never forget them and I don’t think this is a political thing, I just think I was never really on it and now its back I don’t think we’ll ever forget it again. So again, I thank you for reminding us with these questions but look…..whoever’s here in whatever form of local government we’ve got in 100 years, I want to make sure those names are still there and that nobody ever forgets. The one thing I was incredibly proud about at the Armistice Day parades, I hope you had it in Sutton as we had in Kirkby, was the immense amount of children, scouts and schools that came and were taught about local history and they remembered. I think that was the most wonderful part of it, that we are passing on that baton and that hopefully, someone will always be there to remember Madame Chairman and that’s the only beautiful thing we can hand on and I really think we should. so thank you Councillor Anderson.”
In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13.5, Councillor Anderson was invited to ask a supplementary question but he duly declined.
Question 3
From Councillor Keir Morrison:
“Given that Cllr. Wilmott was the deputy leader of the council at the time the decision was taken to close Hucknall’s public toilets, could he inform the council when new public toilets will be built in Hucknall?”
The Cabinet Member (Outward Focus), Councillor John Wilmott, responded as follows:-
“First of all can I thank Councillor Morrison for his question and giving me the opportunity to search a number of issues over the past few years and they’ll be very interesting to read indeed.
Yes, I was Deputy Leader of the Council when the decision was first made by the Labour Party to close the facility on the 20th February, 2014, although I was not the Cabinet Member with executive responsibility at that time. This followed a programme of closures that the Labour Party wanted to do which saw every Council run toilet closed in the entire District, including Kirkby, Sutton Station, two in Skegby and one in Huthwaite.
At that time the ruling group were informed that the Authority was facing a serious financial position and for those that were on the Labour Group and the Council at that time they would remember that several were put before us as possible savings to balance the books. The decision to close the toilets was made by the Labour Group as one of the options that was put before them and then it was endorsed by full Council later.
Members in the Labour Group will know what a lively debate took place in the group’s meetings before all these decisions were made in fact then, a further report by the then Deputy Leader, Councillor Cheryl Butler, on her report to the full Council on the 8th October, 2014 said ‘that following a public consultation in budget savings/priorities undertaken in late 2013, the decision was taken by Cabinet on the 20th February, 2014 and approved by Council on the 3rd March, 2014 to close the public facilities across the Ashfield District.’ That was almost eight or nine months after the first decision.
Councillor Butler continues saying ‘Hucknall and Kirkby which were the last two facilities to be closed were finally closed on the 6th June, 2014 and were boarded up with the exception of one cubicle of the Hucknall toilet made available for use by market staff on a temporary basis.’ After these reports became public, the Council received an enormous amount of criticism, particularly from residents in Hucknall, where there are fewer private establishments where people could access a convenience.
In May 2015, I stopped being a Councillor on this Authority and it was at this time that members of the public were pleading with the then Labour Administration to re-open Hucknall toilets. Their requests were ignored and a report to Council on the 10th December 2015, put forward by Hucknall’s Councillor Nicole Ndiweni in her report to full Council, said that ‘the Hucknall public toilet building was subject to a planning application to demolish the building and landscape the area and make good the Church boundary wall.’ It was anticipated that subject to planning application approval and Council approval of revised capital budgets, the work would commence in Spring 2016, two years after the original decision with completion of the project in the Summer of 2016.
Councillor Ndiweni in the report also went on to say that the Council also sought out arrangements for nearby facilities that could be used as an alternative….the H2O bar, the Half Moon Public House and the John Godber centre had stated that their toilet facilities could be used by traders but no mention of the residents, or elderly people or people with disabilities, no mention whatsoever.
This was over two and a half years ago after the decision to close the facility so the Labour Party had considerable time to change the decision if they were so inclined to do so. They chose not to.
Whilst I was on the County Council, I obtained a petition to have the toilet facilities in the public library as well as in all other libraries in Nottinghamshire. That facility at the time…hundreds of thousands of pounds were being spent on the renovation of the Hucknall library so it was an opportune time. On the 26th November, 2015, I presented a petition with 1416 signatures to the full County Council meeting begging the Council to create public toilet facilities for Hucknall people.
Guess what? Whilst I was fighting on behalf of the residents I represent, the Labour run County Council chose to ignore the people of Hucknall’s request. I am told that the staff in the library, at their discretion, will allow the elderly and disabled to use the toilet facilities but all over the country it seems public toilets are being closed at a rapid rate but in the end, it would be nice to see a facility at Hucknall. I will therefore continue to look at possible options to increase public conveniences in my town.”
Prior to Councillor Morrison being invited to ask a supplementary question and in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 13.3, the Chairman advised that due to the lateness of hour and the fact that there was insufficient time for any further questions to be asked, all responses would be duly provided to Members in writing.
(During questions from Members, Councillors Cathy Mason and Helen-Ann Smith left the room at 9.14 p.m. and 9.17 p.m. and returned to the meeting at 9.17 p.m. and 9.18 p.m. respectively.)