SACC Meeting 24 January 2011.
Planning meeting for demo on Thursday 27 January 2011.
1. 1. Leaflets have been printed out and will be given out in Southport on Thursday morning, targeting the Cabinet meeting. Celia, Blyth and Kat volunteered to hand out leaflets. Demo to start at 5.30pm. Kat will speak. TUC and unions will be there protesting too. Kat has had a banner made and we will display it to make our presence known. People were asked to bring placards with slogans such as ‘No mandate, no cuts’. We’ll meet outside the town hall, make lots of noise, chants such as ‘Listen; talk to us’
2. 2. A question was asked about whether we should lobby local political parties and counsellors. It was felt it would be beneficial to ask as many councillors face to face about the cuts and why they are not consulting with the public. We also could write to heads of department at the council and request meetings with council officers. The council has set up a new section of the website to give comments about the cuts, so we all need to go on there and give our opinions. Other councils have set up forums to consult with the public so we need to press for something similar. We need to ask whether they have considered the deeper implications of the Botanic Gardens closure eg cost of benefits to those made redundant and the negative impact on spending in the town due to the redundancies and the possible loss of visitors to the area. We need to find out if, when and where the councillors hold surgeries and go to them. Birkdale councillors are available at Birkdale library on first Saturday of each month. Nina will contact the council to see if they can give us a comprehensive list.
3. 3. John thought he might be able to push for a judicial review of the cuts decisions via his carers charity. He will investigate and report back. Lillian said she would push the council for a list of cuts and it was thought if as many of us as possible can keep going into the council offices asking for info about the cuts that are decided on on Thursday (if they are slow to publish) then that would be beneficial. Also if we can all ring the council to ask to attend the council meeting on Thursday, if we are told no we can claim that is undemocratic and is not giving us access to the council.
4. 4. The SACC will meet on the second Monday of each month and more often if necessary.
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