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The Mark James budget is ratified
The first half of today's full council meeting was essentially to ratify the budget approved last week.As I and others commented at the time, it was the intervention of the chief executive which was...
View ArticleRoads and religion - yesterday's Executive Board meeting
The £5m link roadAs predicted (and covered in detail) over on Cneifwr's blog, the Executive Board were quite happy yesterday to plunder those supposedly precious reserves to fund the £5m link road for...
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The Carmarthenshire Herald - the fox is on the case...
This week's edition of the Carmarthenshire Herald picks up on County Hall's relationship with the Towy Community Church and their recent appearance on the Executive Board agenda.All summed up in this...
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Sian Caiach - Candidate for Llanelli
As I said back in January Carmarthenshire County Councillor Sian Caiach is standing for Llanelli in the general election on May 7th. She is standing under the 'People First' banner.True to the party...
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Ministry of Spin - leopards don't change their spots
Friday's Policy and Resources Scrutiny agenda sees, at last, a draft revised Press and Media Protocol. This has been an ongoing exercise which officially began in January 2014 but which has been called...
View ArticleFfos Las homes and another Section 106 agreement 'revisited'
The Ffos Las racecourse in Trimsaran has been one of the jewels in Meryl's crown and, over the past few years planning permission has been granted by the council for a whopping 528 homes on the largely...
View ArticleChild Safeguarding - A critical report...and other news.
Although clearly not connected to the ongoing police investigation, Operation Almond, Rhydgors Special school was back in the news today following a critical CSSIW report.It followed an earlier Estyn...
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Jumping the gun - Library for sale?
In it's hurry to sell off any council owned building which isn't tied down, the council have got a bit muddled over the wording of a consultation to move Llandeilo Public Library, which has occupied...
View ArticleLollipop sweeteners
In a somewhat bizarre move, and a month after the budget, the council decided to issue a press release the other day about the handful of services 'saved' by the Executive Board, including of course,...
View ArticleThompson v James update
For information;Further to correspondence exchanged in January, I received a letter from chief executive Mark James' solicitors, early this month, again regarding his personal damages arising from the...
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Noxious fumes
A few years back, after lengthy monitoring, Llandeilo's main street became a 'Air Quality Management Area' after breaching safe levels of NO2 emissions. The purpose of the official designation is that...
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This week's Herald
I'm please to see that this week's Carmarthenshire Herald picks up on the critical report from the Wales Audit Office regarding child safeguarding which I mentioned earlier in the week. Featuring on...
View ArticleChief Officers and disciplinary procedures
An interesting snippet of legislation was laid down just before parliament dissolved the other day which removed the requirement to appoint a 'Designated Independent Person' (DIP) in disciplinary...
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Monitoring Officers
Councillors over in Pembrokeshire have been expressing disquiet over the temporary appointment of a new Monitoring Officer to replace the retiring incumbent, Mr Harding who is leaving at the end of...
View ArticleNext week's agenda - the April meeting
With the election on the horizon our council has yet another perfect excuse to avoid controversial matters, of which there are many. This has led to a particularly thin agenda for next week's meeting...
View ArticleThe Candidates - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and Llanelli
The official lists have now been published and first up is Carmarthen East and Dinefwr;In alphabetical order;Jonathan Edwards, Plaid CymruCalum Higgins, Welsh LabourSara Lloyd Williams, Welsh Liberal...
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Pam Palmer ventures into the world of online advertising
As we know, Executive Board Member Decision Meetings are currently held behind closed doors, even backbench councillors are barred from attending and the agendas are not published until after the...
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The April shower - full council meeting
Following the usual formalities, the first item of interest was the election of chair and vice chair for the new municipal year.Carmarthenshire retains the quaint habit of appointing Chairs and Vice...
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A date for the diary
You might recall, in the dim and distant past, that the Welsh Local Government Association carried out a 'peer review' concerning the dire state of governance at Carmarthenshire County Council.The...
View ArticleFOI - bending the truth?
A few week's ago, Press Gazette ran a story listing the number of PR staff, or 'spin doctors' employed by council Press Offices across the UK. The story then appeared in the Western Mail.The figures...
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