Somerset gear up for the future.

You have probably heard by now that the Somerset and Devon bid for funds to develop a high speed BroadBand network across both counties has been successful. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) put everyone out of their misery early on Friday morning when they announced that Somerset and Devon were to receive £31 million out of a total pot of £50 million to bring high speed BroadBand to the South West.

It is difficult to over estimate how important this announcement is, whilst it will be great for all of us that use the internet to have world leading connection speeds, it is business that will be the primary beneficiaries, and the fact that we will have the infrastructure in place will have a profoud impact on the prospects for business growth.

The bid model indicates that this injection of investment will bring an extra 50,000 jobs to the two counties and £750 million in extra turnover, in an area that has traditionally had lower than average incomes with higher than average house prices, an injection of business at the predicted level will have a dramatic impact on prosperity.

When the project is completed it is predicted that over 85% of people will have access to super fast BroadBand, with speeds up to 200 magabytes per second. If we compare that with what we have currently, many rural areas have virtually no BroadBand at all, and when there is a connection they are lucky to have speeds of 1 or 2 mbps. Even in the major towns it is unusual to have speeds over 10 mbps, I live just over a mile from the Shepton exchange and my speed is 8 mbps.

Direct connection to a fibre optic pipe will certainly give speeds in excess of 200 mbps, but even if the fibre optic pipe is only brought to the local junction box, with the original copper connection from there to the house it is likely that we will see 40 mbps or more in the majority of homes.

With more and more remote working, or "agile working" as it is sometimes called, it is essential that households have access to good communications to enable development to continue.

Back in the Groove.

It's been a sort of get back to normal week this week, I've even manged a few days of paid work, quite a change after spending pretty much all of the previous month involved in one way or another with elections, councils, or politics.

After changing portfolio's at Mendip, I've now got to get to grips with the all new "Regulatory" function, it appears that I have inherited Licensing, Car Parking Enforcement, Planning Enforcement, Environmental Health, Contaminated Land, Environmental Protection, Community Safety and Civil Contingency, basically everything from parking tickets to nuclear war!!

It is going to be a very steep learning curve for the next few weeks, with the first meeting of the new cabinet scheduled for early June, we all need to have our fingers on the pulse before then.

At county I've done my initial introductions and all of the legal stuff, we have our AGM on Wednesday next week, as a new boy I'm not expecting to be given any particular area of responsibility, I think the next 12 months will be a small matter of learning the ropes and representing Shepton effectively at county level. I already have a large case load that I'm working my way through, and if it is anything like my Mendip experience, dealing with cases gets you involved with the various departments within the council and enables you to learn who does what much quicker than any training course.

Tuesday night next week sees the first meeting of the new Town Council, we have lost three very experienced councillors in Margaret Robinson, who retired before the election, with John Gilham and Colin Lockey who were not re-elected. These three have been replaced by Susan Gibbs an Independent with no previous council experience and two Liberal Democrats in the form of Sue Cook and Garfield Kennedy. Sue similarly has no previous experience while Kennedy has at least served a few months at District level.

 I think Tuesday's meeting will be very interesting, there is no political majority at Town level, the Conservatives are still the largest group with 6 councillors, so there will have to be cross party support for whoever wants to hold the various chairmanships and portfolio's, I suspect the machinations could go on late into the evening!

Post Election Comment and a very sad loss

Having let the dust settle for a week, I thought it is about time that I looked at what happened last Thursday and what it all means in a wider context.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the euphoria that surrounds victory and sometimes we say things in the heat of the moment that we regret later, so I thought it better to wait a few days and then make a sober assessment of the results.

There have been claims and counter claims from the various spin doctors that this party or that party won this set of elections, however if we look at the overall results, the only thing we can say for certain is that the Conservatives had a fantastic night, and the Liberal Democrats had a thoroughly good pasting.

Not only did we win convincingly in Mendip, and Sedgemoor, we took control of West Somerset from no overall control and very nearly pulled off a huge result in South Somerset where the former Lib Dem stronghold was reduced to a majority of one!!

Nationally we gained very nearly 100 seats, an amazing result when the pundits were predicting that we would lose up to 1000! I can't ever remember a party in government winning seats at local level 12 months into a parliament especially when you look at the cuts that have had to be made in the first year. These seats were on top of the record numbers won in 2007 when the conservatives won 1500 seats mainly from Labour, at a time when the Labour government were as popular as a rattle snake in a lucky dip!

There appears to have been a slight resurgence in Labour votes locally, I suspect mainly due to the fact that traditional Labour voters have returned home, after lending their votes to the Lib Dems in recent years in an attempt to beat the Conservatives. However if you look at the picture nationally, Labour gained ground from the Lib Dems in the North, especially the North West, but they failed spectacularly to win in Scotland, ceding power to the Nationalists, and gained nothing worth noting south of Birmingham. Mr Milliband will have to do much better than this if he is to survive until the next general election.

On the subject of saying things that you later regret, I see in this weeks' Journal that Mrs Hudson, leader of the local Lib Dems is quoted as saying "but I think we have to be clear, the Conservatives have not won this election". Wells Mrs Hudson, when I played cricket and someone walked back to the pavilion complaining about the umpire and saying that they were "not out", the usual comment was "look in the scorebook son, and I'll think you'll find that you are".

On a totally different subject, I would just like to comment on the death of Seve Ballesteros. When I started playing golf 25 years ago, Seve was in his pomp, playing shots that us mere mortals could only dream of. He single handedly dragged European golf up by its boostraps, and was a major force in building the European Tour into the global force that it is now. Without him I doubt that Faldo, Lyle, Woosnam, Westwood et al would have reached the zenith of the game, and without him I doubt the Ryder Cup would have become the global phenomenon that it is today.

I can remember watching Seve playing in the Masters at Augusta, late at night, live from the USA, the sound of that perfect strike echoing around the pine trees sent a chill up my spine then, and inspired me to take up the game. Seve was a magician and a gentleman, a fierce competitor but always with a twinkle in his eye, the world is a lesser place without him, RIP Seve we are certainly going to miss you.

Election 2011, a Great Night for the Conservatives

The Story of Election Night in Pictures

The carnage starts, first result of the night and Peter Knibbs gains Beckington & Selwood from the Lib Dems.

Nigel Woolcombe - Adams returned to Mendip

Leader and Deputy happy with how things are going.

Tom Killen easily holds his seat, talks with Ron Forrest.

Another new Conservative Councillor, Wayne Closier welcomed by Stuart Brown CEO

Wayne Closier & Stephen Priscott win Ashwick, Chilcompton & Stratton.

Peter Bradshaw ousts Rob Reid in Creech.

The ever stylish Nigel Hewitt-Cooper is back.

Little and Large win Coleford & Holcombe

Phil Ham with Val Horler

Is it really true?

Graham Noel takes Moor from Les Bennett.

Carole Bullen wins in Frome College, welcome back Carole

The ever reliable John Brunsdon takes Glastonbury St Mary's

Julie Baker new winner in Rodney and Westbury.

Ron is back, Cllr Forrest wins easily.

John North delighted to win Wells Central

Shoulders back girls, Jeannette & Bente get their result.

Very happy campers!!! Shepton East remains comfortably in Tory hands.

Nowhere is safe from the Conservatives, George Steer wins big in the former Lib Dem stronghold of Street.

Harvey now suited and booted talks to the BBC

Yours truly very happy to win Shepton West.

A trio of winners in Wells, Andy Denison lowers our average age considerably.

Icing on the cake, 400+ majority in the County by-election.

Derek Marvin, me, Chris Inchley (Labour), Will Dunscombe (Independent), Jeff Curtis (Independent) and Judy Bartlett elected to Shepton West for the Town Council.

Bente, Jeannette and Terry for Shepton East.

My apologies for anyone that we missed, if you want copies of any of the photos let me know.

I'm glad its all over for now, County elections in 2013 next!!!!!!

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Visits Shepton Mallet

George Osborne Arrives at Gaymers, Shepton Mallet



 Harvey Siggs with the official welcome.

 I saw the Lib Dems go that way!

 Meeting the Candidates

 There are how many elections in Shepton?

 Jeannette Marsh introduced.

 Garfield who!!!!!!?



 Discussing the local issues.

 You can never get everyone to look at the camera!

 One for the family album.

Now thats what you call a pose!

Open letter to Shepton Mallet

May 5^th will be a crucial day for Shepton Mallet. It is a day when the voters of the town get to choose whether they want to elect a forward looking, proactive, positive group of Conservative councillors, who will work hard to bring vitality back to our wonderful town, or whether we are to return to the bad old days of negativity, in fighting, jealousy and mismanagement that was the feature of successive councils up until the Conservatives took control of Mendip Council in 2003 and Somerset County Council in 2009.

If you elect Conservatives on May 5^th, we can assure you that there will be no return to debt and financial mismanagement; the council will be run effectively, providing services at a price you can afford, without huge hikes in council tax and without the annual financial catastrophe that marked the past.

More importantly we are committed to continue with the investment into Shepton Mallet that has been a feature of the last eight years, whether it be the High Street South enhancement project, our fantastic Collett Park, the re-furbished Lido, the Cenotaph enhancement project or the £2 million of investment into the Town Centre via the Townscape Heritage Initiative, your Conservative Councillors have put their money where their mouths are and made things happen in our town after over thirty years of neglect.

I am extremely proud to have been selected as candidate for the County by-election, you have my promise that I will work my socks off to ensure the start we have made will be continued, myself and my colleagues Bente Height, Jeannette Marsh and Derek Marvin will fight your corner on Mendip District Council, and all of us plus Malcolm Hale, Judy Bartlett, Simon Davies and Janet Kinison will ensure the Town Council is run properly for the benefit of us all.

There are doers and talkers in this world, we don’t need any more talkers, we need the people who will do the things that need to be done.

On May 5^th make a positive vote, vote for the future, vote for the doers, VOTE CONSERVATIVE for Shepton Mallet.

John Parham

Candidate and Chairman of Shepton Mallet Conservative Branch