BBC transcripts
08:14 Thursday 12th July 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Let’s speak to Terry Rich, who’s Director of Adult Social Care at Peterborough City Council. Remind us just why the Council is consulting on whether these care homes should close. Continue reading “Council Interim Director and Care Home Closure Expert”
10:20 Wednesday 11th July 2012
Andy Harper Show
BBC Radio Cambridge
ANDY HARPER: You’ve obviously heard the debate on Radio Cambridgeshire, but obviously are party to it anyway. What are your thoughts?
ED MURPHY: My views are that the councillors in Peterborough and the north of Cambridgeshire should see sense, and they should support these essential social services. And tonight at the Full Council they should change the recommendation to look at the future of care homes in Peterborough, not the closure. People have already moved from Peverils into Welland House in Peterborough. They don’t need another move within a few months. And we need to look at the staff who provide a quality service as well. I’m afraid we’ve got one or two councillors on Peterborough City Council who are just obsessed with the private sector option. There’s room for both the private and the public sector, and in many cases the public sector provides the best service possible.
ANDY HARPER: So are these particular homes fit for purpose? Because that’s what the debate is all about, whether people have seen it or not.
ED MURPHY: The chap who hasn’t seen it has been saying that they’re not fit for purpose. I live round the corner from Greenwood House. It is fit for purpose. The quality of care there is brilliant. If in the future we need to improve the facilities, and we need to build a new residential care home, there’s loads of land. It’s right beside Vawser Lodge, which the Council have closed down that’s lying empty, and it’s right beside the former Peterborough Hospital site, which is publicly owned anyway. So I think we should be looking at improving on what we’ve got. It’s just been refurbished, and they’ve not opened the refurbished area of that residential home. And if it’s not big enough, and we need more homes in Peterborough, let’s not go down the risky private route, like Southern Cross who went bust etcetera. Let’s go down the less risky safer public route.
ANDY HARPER: And can the Council afford it?
ED MURPHY: Oh yes they can. They’ve got millions of pounds in the capital programme just for this. And at the meeting yesterday the workers pointed out that rather than spend £3.7 million on their redundancy payments, put some of that into improving the current homes.
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08:12 Wednesday 11th July 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: When you went round and had a look at these rooms, what did you find?
WAYNE FITZGERALD: Well you know very well that I haven’t visited either home as yet. It’s planned that we will visit, both the Director and I, before any decision is made.
PAUL STAINTON: So you’ve not been round the homes, yet you’re making these massive decisions that affect the most vulnerable in society. Continue reading “Care Home Closure – Wayne Fitzgerald”
17:18 Monday 9th July 2012
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
STEWART JACKSON: Well I am a reformer, and I do think that the present House of Lords is not entirely satisfactory. It’s got too many members, too many people that don’t attend. And certainly if we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, we wouldn’t have designed the upper chamber of the sixth biggest economy in the world in quite the way that it has been designed. But it’s an historical establishment. It’s full of people who have expertise, who’ve come from diverse backgrounds, who actually make a real contribution to refining and improving Bills. And these present proposals in my opinion are solely driven by the self-interest of Liberal Democrats. They don’t take into account the fact that different governments of all persuasions have tried for over a hundred years to reform the House of Lords. And most importantly there is not a consensus on this very radical constitutional reform.
CHRIS MANN: So are you prepared to vote against your own government on this? Continue reading “Stewart Jackson on Lords Reform”
08:18 Monday 9th July 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Many of you contacted us about the Peterborough Festival, the Finale of which fell victim to the bad weather this weekend. Thousands of you expecting to see Hard Fi playing in Central Park. But disappointment after torrential downpours, when Vivacity decided to put a stop to the festivities. A small scale street theatre performance was held yesterday on Bridge Street. It was an unfortunate way to end what would have been a great event. Wonderful stuff booked in. And it looked like it was only going to get better on Saturday. Criticism of how Council officials communicated with each other and the public, the way Vivacity and Enterprise perhaps worked together with the Council in the run up to the Festival. We saw a bit of confusion all round, and we spoke to Cllr Yvonne Lowndes earlier, who said the show should have gone on, should have carried on.
YVONNE LOWNDES: They could have cordoned off the areas with a lot of the mud, and everything could have gone ahead. In hindsight, yesterday it was quite dry, and we could have had continued the Festival. And there are lots and lots of disappointed people. And I was talking to them. Some people yesterday came all the way from Lincoln, thinking they were going to see the orchestra last night. And of course they were very disappointed.
PAUL STAINTON: Well Deputy Leader of the Peterborough City Council Matthew Lee is here now. Morning Matthew.
MATTHEW LEE: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Before I get into the weekend, can I take you back to the planning of this, last week, and the fact that .. this is how I read it last week .. there was an application to increase the capacity of Central Park to 15,000 at the last minute, which seemed like some sort of panic act by Enterprise. You, according to Cllr John Peach, knew nothing about this. And then at the last minute you slapped it down and said 5,000 would be enough. Have I read it right? Continue reading “Hard Fi Festival Fiasco – Massive Inquiry Planned”
07:14 Friday 6th July 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Mike’s been on this morning on text. He says “Hello Paul. I think your show has been blacklisted by the Council. These days, when you want to ask critical questions, they refuse to come on to your show. It all seemed to start after you started asking relevant questions about Children’s Services in the city.” says Mike. We are still searching for answers over this Hard-Fi gig Ed, and I wonder whether you’ve got an opinion on it. Because to apply for a licence to raise the capacity to 15,000 suggests, well a: it was last minute, so there was panic. It suggests that Enterprise and Vivacity thought, Oh, we might have more than 5,000 people. Now we are being told, no, no, it’s all right. There’ll only be 5,000. But we don’t know if people are going to be allowed in if you’re 5,002 or 5,003. And nobody from this big pow-wow yesterday has come on this show to answer questions for the public of Peterborough this morning.
ED MURPHY COUNCILLOR: Well let’s get the risk assessment published. There will have been work done on that, and it is a document that everybody should be entitled to see. They do plan for these things. I don’t know how well they plan in Peterborough. I find it astonishing that the local authority, over a number of months now, have not been responding to the media in Peterborough, and particularly your show, which is THE media in Peterborough.
PAUL STAINTON: Yes. Should we stop asking critical questions? Is that the problem, do you think Ed?
ED MURPHY COUNCILLOR: No. I think you need to continue asking critical questions. I don’t know whether they haven’t got the capacity. They pay people as special advisers to be communications advisers to the Cabinet. I don’t know what it is. I understand there have been people pushed out of employment in the Council. I think the spokespeople need to realise that’s what they are. That’s what the public expects from them. And don’t blame the officers. If you’re shy, don’t take on the role. Get some training. But just keep talking. The facts are the facts. And whatever you try and do, most of them will eventually come out. Tell the truth. If you made mistakes, put your hands up and learn from your mistakes.
PAUL STAINTON: And I have to say, whether it’s good news or bad Ed Murphy, you do come on the show. So thank you very much for that. Sometimes you get a kicking, and sometimes you don’t. But he always comes on. But there are questions that we need answering, I think, before Hard Fi come tomorrow. Hopefully it will all go off fine. But how to turn a good news story into a bad news story. There’s an absolute object lesson in how to do it between Enterprise, Vivacity and Peterborough City Council.
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08:08 Monday 2nd July 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Undoubtedly one topic has got you very very hot under the collar this morning. It’s about Peterborough City Council considering closing its two care homes, Greenwood and Welland House. If it happened, the 32 permanent residents, as well as those needing respite care, would be transferred to one of the city’s private care homes. Joining me now is Wayne Fitzgerald. He’s Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care at Peterborough City Council. Can you tell us why the Council has decided to consult on these two care homes. Continue reading “Care Homes Closure Decision With One Week’s Warning”
07:22 Friday 29th June 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
PAUL STAINTON: Cambridgeshire Police are to look at outsourcing some back office services. The county’s Police Authority approved a move at a meeting last night, but said officers need to look at other ways too to make savings. Along with forces in Besfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, they’ve all got to make savings of about £73 million by 2016. It’s thought bringing in private companies to run services like finance, HR and IT might help them do that. Our reporter Natasha Malcolm-Brown has been speaking to Chief Constable Simon Parr. She started by asking how realistic it was to think cuts wouldn’t now affect front line services. Continue reading “Policing and Profit”