About Chris
Chris represents Mansfield South at the County Council, and has proudly represented the people of Mansfield at the County Council for over 25 years. He is currently the Shadow Portfolio holder for Adult Social Care & Health, and also sits on the Joint Health Committee, Health & Wellbeing Standing Committee and the Personnel Committee.
Latest News
Spring 2011
At the Nottinghamshire
County Council Budget Meeting on 24th February 2011 I joined my Labour
colleagues in voting against the Budget proposals.
While we welcomed the extra
spending being made by the County Council on child protection and services for
vulnerable adults, we did not agree with the proposals to reduce funding to
other areas such as the Libraries service, Supporting People programme and
grant aid to voluntary groups.
We asked the majority group
to consider a more detailed consultation with the public and partner
organisations in order to allow a longer term approach to making efficiencies,
with a view to many possibly not being needed as the economic situation
improved.
However, our proposals were
not accepted, and the Budget was eventually passed with a majority of five
votes.
27th October 2010
"At the Council Meeting on 21st October, along with my colleagues in the Labour group, I voted against the proposals being made by the County Council to make spending cuts of £150m over the next four years.
The Labour group made it completely clear that we welcome the extra spending in Children’s and Adult’s services but we also stated that we felt it inappropriate to withdraw funding from other vital areas such as Surestart and Supporting People, and that the Council was moving too fast with its cuts and not taking full cognisance of the impact on the most vulnerable.
The Labour group presented a longer-term alternative which would’ve seen the £50m from reserves currently earmarked for redundancies instead being reinvested into vital services, and enabling the County Council to retain skilled staff who wished to remain, while allowing others to leave through natural staff turnover.
We believe that our longer-term approach would minimise the impact on external partners, minimise the need for redundancy payments, retain valuable staff and achieve the necessary financial goals.
Our proposals were, however, dismissed, and the administration instead voted to implement their original plans to make immediate service cuts."
Councillor's Divisional Fund
The Electoral Division Initiative that we introduced a few years ago is now called the Councillor's Divisional Fund. However, the principle remains the same:
Each councillor receives £10,000 to help fund local organisations, causes, individuals and schemes, who would not normally have access to financial support for their smaller project
Please contact Chris if you would like to apply for some CDF funding. Here are just a few examples of the useful funding which was provided by Chris in 2009/2010:
- The Sure Start Centre in Ravenshead received £700 for a day trip to Centre Parcs for families who use the service.
- Dallas Street Resource Centre received £1,000 to pay for a trip for service users.
- £500 was given to HETTYS to help with the costs of Kinship respite holidays.
- The Literacy Volunteers also received £500 to help with student work in South Mansfield schools.
- The 6th Mansfield Boys Brigade Camp Fund received £1,200 of funding for their Boys Brigade camp event.
- Mencap were awarded £1,200 to help pay for mini bus hire & the purchase of new equipment.
- The Friends of Quarry Lane received £1,500 to help pay for a community fishing project, study day & equipment.
- Mansfield Pensioners Action Association received £500 to help pay for an outing for the pensioners.
