SORENSEN: COULD IT BE THE END?
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Thursday, February 7, 2013
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FIVE YEARS, 1,200 DEATHS, NOW SOMEONE IS LISTENING
NO U-TURN BY ALEX CAMPBELL
alex.campbell@thesentinel.co.uk
DEFIANT council leaders today confirmed £21 million cuts will go ahead – and insisted a new HQ in Hanley is the only way Stoke-on-Trent can prosper in the future. Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s final budget proposals for 2013/14 include almost no concessions for campaigners. It means St Michael’s care centre in Chell will shut, half of the city’s school lollipop crossing patrols will be axed, 24-hour CCTV monitoring will be scrapped and free nursery class provision will fall from 30 hours a week to the legal minimum of 15 hours. And 200 more jobs will go from April. The council said Government funding cuts will have triggered savings of £100 million by 2015 – forcing the authority to abandon all but the services it is legally obliged to provide. Raising new income from business rates will be one of the few ways to offset spending cuts, and leaders today restated their view that Hanley’s Central Business District (CBD) – which includes the new civic centre – is vital for sparking economic growth. Chief executive John van de Laarschot said: “If you can't generate the
GOING....
GOING....
GONE
CUT: 24-hour CCTV monitoring in Stoke-on-Trent, safety crossing wardens and St Michael’s Day Centre, in Chell. income, you can't provide the services. It's as simple as that. If we're absolutely serious about curing the biggest malaise in the city – the high levels of worklessness – then we have to stick to our guns.” Last-minute changes to the budget include: ■ The £191,000-a-year environmental crime unit to tackle fly-tippers and litterbugs cut by just £50,000 rather than shut down; ■ Free nursery care will be halved to 15-hours a week, saving £1.7 million, but changes will now be introduced in
phases leading up to September 2014; ■ Three of the 43 lollipop patrols facing redundancy in a £101,000 cut will be saved after new safety assessments. Council Tax will be frozen at £952.47 for Band A properties in exchange for a £600,000 Government grant, equivalent to a one per cent increase. The council has come under fire over its plan to sell the Civic Centre and other buildings in Stoke and invest up to £55 million in its CBD project. But Labour and council leader Mohammed Pervez said private businesses will follow the council into the CBD – generating footfall for the planned new City Sentral shopping
centre, creating 4,000 jobs and bringing in new business rates. He said: “We must reiterate that we cannot borrow the CBD money to run services. We can borrow money from Government at low interest rates to fund regeneration projects. It will carry on cutting until we can provide nothing but basic statutory services. If we are to continue to provide services, the income has to come from new businesses and we have to provide the right conditions.” ‘No-one listened and it’s a sad day: Page 2
Is the council right? Email us at letters@thesentinel.co.uk
CAMPAIGNER Julie Bailey believes the scathing report into the Stafford Hospital scandal will put patients at the ‘top of the agenda’. But she says nothing will change until those responsible for the tragedy, which saw up to 1,200 patients die unnecessarily, are held to account. Miss Bailey, above, who formed the Cure the NHS campaign group after her 86year-old mother Bella died at the hospital, also called for the resignation of current NHS chief Sir David Nicholson, who was chief executive of Shropshire and Staffordshire Strategic Health Authority at the time. She said: “We can’t have hundreds of people die at Stafford and nobody to be held accountable for it. We need a change in leadership.The report shows that general hospitals like Stafford are not safe.” Inquiry chairman Robert Francis QC refused to be drawn on whether Stafford Hospital should be downgraded. But Newcastle MP Paul Farrelly has called on the Prime Minister to prevent a repeat of the scandal at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire. He said: “‘The tragic events at Stafford are having a continuing impact on UHNS. “So when rather distant bureaucrats at the Department of Health respond to these pressures, will they put patient safety at the heart of that response?” Patients let down by catastrophic failings: Pages 6&7
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