West Berkshire Council Announces Executive Reshuffle

West Berkshire Council has announced its' new composition at the annual ceremony.

The main roles will be filled as follows:

Chairman of Council:	Cllr Keith Chopping
Vice-Chairman of Council:	Cllr David Holtby
Leader of Council & Conservative Group Leader:	Cllr Gordon Lundie
Deputy Conservative Group Leader:	Cllr Pamela Bale
Liberal Democrat Group Leader:	Cllr Jeff Brooks
Deputy Liberal Democrat Group Leader:	Cllr Roger Hunneman

Conservatives have overall control  by 39-13 and hold the 10 Executive Portfolios, which are shadowed by 8 Opposition members.

Aldermaston Ward's Councillor Irene Neill is in charge of the Education department. She will continue to be shadowed by Cllr David Allen.

In addition to these reshuffled membership was announced for various other positions: the Health & Wellbeing Board, the Overview & Scrutiny Management Commission, the Licensing Committee, the District Panning Committee, Eastern and Western Area Planning Committees, the Governance and Audit Committee, the Personnel Committee and the Standards Committee.

Here is the full list:
 

EXECUTIVE (10 Members)

Portfolio	Member
Leader of Council	Gordon Lundie
Highways, Transport (Operations), Emergency Planning, Newbury Vision	Pamela Bale
Children and Young People, Youth Service, Education	Irene Neill
Community Care, Insurance	Joe Mooney
Planning, Transport (Policy), Culture, Customer Services, Countryside	Hilary Cole
Finance, Economic Development, Health & Safety, Human Resources, Pensions, Property	Alan Law
Cleaner & Greener, Waste, Environmental Health, Trading Standards, Thatcham Vision	Dominic Boeck
Strategy & Performance, Housing, ICT & Corporate Support, Legal and Strategic Support	Roger Croft
Partnerships, Equality, Communities, Hungerford and Eastern Area Visions	Graham Pask
Health and Well Being, Community Safety	Graham Jones

SHADOW EXECUTIVE (8 Members)

Portfolio	Member
Leader of Opposition, Finance, HR, Economic Development, Pensions, Strategy, Property, Insurance, Legal	Jeff Brooks
Community Care, ICT, The Visions	Roger Hunneman
Environment, Environmental Protection	Royce Longton
Housing, Council Plan, Health & Safety	Tony Vickers
Highways, Transport, Planning, Emergency Planning	Keith Woodhams
Health and Wellbeing, Public Health, Partnerships, Equality, Customer Services, Strategic Support, Community Safety	Gwen Mason
Children and Young People, Education, Youth Service, Culture & Leisure	David Allen

HEALTH AND WELLBEING BOARD (April 2013)

Name	Role/Organisation	Email
Councillor Graham Jones	Portfolio Holder for Health and Wellbeing	gjones@westberks.gov.uk
Councillor Graham Pask	Portfolio Holder for Partnerships, Equality, Communities, Hungerford and Eastern Area Visions	gpask@westberks.gov.uk
Lise Llewellyn	Strategic Director of Public Health	Lise.Llewellyn@bracknell-forest.gov.uk
Dr Catherine Kelly	North and West Reading Clinical Commissioning Group	c.kelly1@nhs.net
Dr Alex Anderson	Newbury and District Clinical Commissioning Group	alex.anderson1@nhs.net
Rachael Wardell	Director of Community Services (role covers Children Services and Adult Social Services)	rwardell@westberks.gov.uk
Lady Emma Stevens	Local Healthwatch representative	emma.stevens@healthwatchwestberkshire.co.uk
Leila Ferguson	Representative from the Voluntary and Community Sector	ceo@westberkshiremencap.org

OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION (16 Members)

Conservative Group (9 Members)	Jeff Beck, Brian Bedwell (Chairman), Marcus Franks, David Goff, David Holtby, Mike Johnston, Tim Metcalfe, Andrew Rowles, Virginia von Celsing, Quentin Webb, Emma Webster, Laszlo Zverko
Conservative Substitutes (4 Members)	Peter Argyle, George Chandler, Carol Jackson-Doerge, Garth Simpton
Liberal Democrat Group (3 Members)	Jeff Brooks (Vice‑Chairman), Alan Macro, Gwen Mason, Tony Vickers
Liberal Democrat Substitutes	Roger Hunneman, David Rendel, Julian Swift‑Hook, Keith Woodhams

LICENSING COMMITTEE (14 Members) – no substitutes

Conservative Group (11 Members)	Peter Argyle, Jeff Beck (Chairman), Paul Bryant, Adrian Edwards, Manohar Gopal, David Holtby, Tony Linden, Andrew Rowles, Ieuan Tuck, Quentin Webb, Laszlo Zverko
Liberal Democrat Group (3 Members)	Billy Drummond, Mollie Lock (Vice‑Chairman), Geoff Mayes

DISTRICT PLANNING COMMITTEE (12 Members)

Conservative Group (9 Members)	Pamela Bale, Brian Bedwell, Paul Bryant, Hilary Cole (Chairman), Alan Law, Graham Pask, Garth Simpson, Virginia von Celsing, Quentin Webb (Vice‑Chairman)
Conservative Substitutes (4 Members – 2 from the Eastern Area of the District and 2 from the Western Area of the District)	Jeff Beck, George Chandler, Richard Crumly, Tim Metcalfe
Liberal Democrat Group (3 Members)	David Allen, Royce Longton, Alan Macro
Liberal Democrat Substitutes (4 Members – 2 from the Eastern Area of the District and 2 from the Western Area of the District)	Geoff Mayes, Roger Hunneman, Julian Swift‑Hook, Keith Woodhams

EASTERN AREA PLANNING COMMITTEE (12 Members)

Conservative Group (9)	Peter Argyle, Pamela Bale, Brian Bedwell (Vice‑ Chairman), Richard Crumly, Alan Law, Tim Metcalfe, Irene Neill, Graham Pask, Quentin Webb (Chairman)
Conservative Group Substitutes (4)	Roger Croft, Sheila Ellison, Manohar Gopal, Tony Linden
Liberal Democrat Group (3)	Royce Longton, Alan Macro, Geoff Mayes
Liberal Democrat Group Substitutes (4)	Jeff Brooks, Mollie Lock, David Rendel, Keith Woodhams

WESTERN AREA PLANNING COMMITTEE (12 Members)

Conservative Group (9)	Jeff Beck, Paul Bryant (Chairman), George Chandler, Hilary Cole, Paul Hewer, Garth Simpson, Anthony Stansfeld, Ieuan Tuck, Virginia von Celsing (Vice‑Chairman)
Conservative Group Substitutes (4)	Howard Bairstow, Adrian Edwards, Mike Johnston, Andrew Rowles
Liberal Democrat Group (3)	David Allen, Roger Hunneman, Julian Swift‑Hook
Liberal Democrat Group Substitutes (4)	Billy Drummond, Gwen Mason, Tony Vickers, 1 vacancy

GOVERNANCE AND AUDIT COMMITTEE (7 Members)

Conservative Group (5 Members)	Jeff Beck (Chairman), Paul Bryant, David Holtby, Tony Linden, Quentin Webb
Conservative Group Substitutes (2)	Peter Argyle, Brian Bedwell
Liberal Democrat Group (2 Members)	Julian Swift‑Hook (Vice‑Chairman), Geoff Mayes
Liberal Democrat Group Substitutes (2)	Gwen Mason, Tony Vickers

PERSONNEL COMMITTEE (5 Members)

Conservative Group (4 Members)	Peter Argyle, Tony Linden, Andrew Rowles, Quentin Webb (Chairman)
Conservative Group Substitutes (2)	Jeff Beck, Adrian Edwards
Liberal Democrat Group (1 Member)	Mollie Lock (Vice‑Chairman)
Liberal Democrat Group Substitutes (2)	David Allen, Jeff Brooks

STANDARDS COMMITTEE (6 Members) (There are no substitutes on this Committee and these Members cannot form part of the Standards Committee’s Advisory Panel)

Conservative Group (4 Members)	Peter Argyle (Chairman), Adrian Edwards, Garth Simpson, Virginia von Celsing
Liberal Democrat Group (2 Members)	Mollie Lock, Gwen Mason (Vice-Chairman)
Co-optees (2)	Chris Bridges, Mauline Akins

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A4 Accident Raises Road Safety Questions

A serious accident occurred on Thursday 11th April when a lorry jack-knived and ran out of control into the Rising Sun pub on the A4 between Woolhampton and Aldermaston. The road was closed for most of the afternoon and the driver was airlifted to hospital.

Meridian News posted a full selection of eye-witness accounts and BBC Berkshire also covered the story with this report.

The Rising Sun's landlord, Wayne Sangwell, has led renewed calls to improve safety, saying, "I'm lucky to be alive... it was an accident waiting to happen,".

A 30mph zone is in place through Woolhampton village, but speeding remains an issue, especially once drivers get beyond the speed cameras.

In 2006 the Woolhampton Parish Plan identified speeding along this section of the road as a longstanding issue at the same time as traffic flows showed marked increases. The lay-by was created in the 1930s after work was done to reduce the sharp corner and gradient, but the road has remained dangerous even after an speed restriction was imposed in1980 - as the DfT's interactive accident map highlights.

The cameras and pelican crossing were put in several years ago in response to the A4 Study conducted by West Berkshire Council in 2007, but as you can see on p14 of the draft document these measures represent the minimum scale of proposals identified through in consultations around the A4 study.

According to figures from the Department for Transport the traffic profile for West Berkshire shows an increase of 1/3 for light good vehicles since 2000. Meanwhile the capital spend by WBC on road safety in the years 2006-11 is loaded to the 2009-10 budget - ten-times more was allocated for road safety in the pre-election year than the annual average for the other years in the cycle.

Should more be done?

And, why wasn't more done when funding was available?

Midgham Station Improvements?

In January Network Rail completed their work to upgrade the access facilities at Midgham Station, adding a ramp to the shelter on the Newbury side of the tracks. Unfortunately the dilapidated wooden structure of the shelter collapsed only a couple of weeks later.

It has been boarded up since the beginning of February.

No shelter from the elements

This is what it looked like when the Aldermaston Ward Focus Team stopped by last weekend.

Local commuters are dismayed and frustrated - not just at the discomfort and the delays in sorting out this problem, but also the unnecessary waste occurring while rail fares continue to rise faster than inflation.

Your local team of LibDems are campaigning to find a solution.

'Six-to-Fix'

Local LibDems have identified a selection of priority campaign areas.

The six areas to fix include:

1. Finance issues (Council Tax, spending and waste etc) and economic development;
2. Housing;
3. Transport;
4. Education;
5. Health & Social Care (ie needs for the vulnerable); and
6. Communications and general services.

As we head towards the next round of municipal elections we will seek to raise issues and find solutions to represent the interests of residents.

So if you feel that something can or needs to be done, please get in contact with us.