All posts tagged: Council

Why Andy Burnham’s council house building boom is a recipe for disaster

Why Andy Burnham’s council house building boom is a recipe for disaster

Published by Sam Flores

On a Wednesday morning in Newham, east London, the Carpenters Estate is not a prepossessing sight. Once a bustling community hub, this collection of tower blocks has been reduced to a ghost town, subject to endless plans for redevelopment going back 25 years. Many of its flats have been rendered uninhabitable by flooding, structural issues and damp. All the same, provided they do not spend the night there, residents are free to return to the flats they still think of as home, however run down they have become. “We cook dinner in our flats, then we have to spend the night in a Travelodge,” says Warren Lubin, who has lived on the estate since the 1990s. “The council moved us out in November 2025 because of structural issues making the building unsafe, but we still can’t see or hear any work being done. Sometimes if it rains hard enough, you’ll have water running down the main stairs.” Residents like Warren Lubin just want a home to live in – Jeff Gilbert It is a similar …

Scrap £86m plan for Catholic ‘super-school’, NSS urges council

Scrap £86m plan for Catholic ‘super-school’, NSS urges council

Published by Sam Flores

The National Secular Society has urged a Welsh council to scrap its plan to build a new Catholic ‘super-school’ that would cost taxpayers almost £86 million. Flintshire County Council is proposing to build a new 3-18 through school on the site of an existing voluntary aided (VA) Catholic school, and to close a number of local Catholic schools. The costs of the new buildings would be provided entirely by public funding, with the Welsh Government covering 85% of the total project costs and the remaining 15% funded by council capital borrowing. Although the council estimates the costs of the project at £55 million, this rises to just under £86 million once its borrowing costs are factored in. Despite being 100% funded by the public, due to conventions of ownership regarding VA schools, the newly developed facilities would be handed over in their entirety to the Catholic Church, one of the wealthiest religious institutions in the world. The NSS described the proposals as “astonishingly poor value for money”, and a “misallocation of significant public funding for …

Andy Burnham ‘Not Actively Considering’ Scrapping Council Tax And Stamp Duty

Andy Burnham ‘Not Actively Considering’ Scrapping Council Tax And Stamp Duty

Published by Sam Flores

Andy Burnham is not actively considering replacing council tax and stamp duty, according to Downing Street. The i paper reported on Sunday that Treasury officials have been examining options for reforming council tax, replacing it with a 0.48% annual property tax. The prime minister also told the BBC that his government will face “big decisions” about the levy. But a spokesperson rejected the idea on Monday, telling reporters: “Suggestions that scrapping council tax or stamp duty are under ‘active consideration’ by the prime minister are not true. “As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the chancellor to set out at fiscal events.” Asked if Treasury officials are also looking at the policy plans, the spokesperson said all “decisions on tax are matters for the chancellor to set out at the budget”. “It wouldn’t be right to comment outside of those circumstances,” he added. When asked about the prime minister’s suggestion that council tax needs reform, the spokesperson said: “What has been clear is we need to honour the manifesto …

The completely unofficial L.A. City Council power rankings

The completely unofficial L.A. City Council power rankings

Published by Sam Flores

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government. There’s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members. But we analyzed three basic elements — meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted — to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to. Meeting attendance As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council sent a measure to the November ballot asking voters to allow it to reduce the number of council meetings from three per week to just one. The proposal received stiff pushback from at least one council member, Monica Rodriguez. For the record: 9:05 a.m. July 25, 2026An earlier version of this newsletter said a proposal to reduce the number of City Council meetings from three a week to one failed to make the November ballot. The measure did make the ballot. “Meeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the …

Trump-friendly council eyes historic preservation rule changes : NPR

Trump-friendly council eyes historic preservation rule changes : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A mock-up of President Trump’s proposed triumphal arch, pictured during the state fair on D.C.’s National Mall in June. The real thing needs to undergo a historic preservation review before it can be approved. Jen Golbeck/AP hide caption toggle caption Jen Golbeck/AP The Trump administration is eyeing a workaround for one of the procedural hurdles facing its proposed 250-foot arch: weakening federal oversight of all construction projects affecting historic sites. Critics say that the move would not only clear a path for President Trump’s controversial projects in D.C., but also endanger the preservation of historic and cultural places across the United States. “Every American who has any place in their heart that is historic or culturally significant to them should be concerned about this attempt to gut historic preservation protections,” said Greg Werkheiser, founding partner at the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners. The National Register of Historic Places contains over 100,000 properties, encompassing more than 1.8 million buildings, structures, sites, objects and districts. They take many forms, from a house to a burial ground, a …

NSS backs council move towards secular schooling

NSS backs council move towards secular schooling

Published by Sam Flores

The National Secular Society has backed a Welsh council’s plan to redesignate a faith primary school as a nonreligious community school. In May, Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC) voted to remove the Voluntary Controlled (VC) status from Cilgerran Church in Wales VC School and convert it to a school without a religious designation, following a consultation. Welcoming the decision, the NSS praised the council’s “secular approach to education” as the “best means of ensuring publicly funded schools are equally welcoming to all children, regardless of their backgrounds”. The NSS added: “Inclusive schools which educate pupils together are one of our best means of promoting community cohesion, whilst faith schools which divide children on the basis of religion and are entirely out of step with the irreligious and religiously diverse Wales of today. “Schools we all pay for should be managed in the best interests of everyone, not used as a vehicle for the agenda of religious institutions”. As revealed in the 2021 census, the nonreligious are the largest religion or belief group in Wales at 47% …

Council of Europe urges FIFA to tackle betting threats before 2030 World Cup

Council of Europe urges FIFA to tackle betting threats before 2030 World Cup

Published by skeptic

Betting-related threats should move to the top of football’s agenda once the 2026 FIFA World Cup ends, according to the Council of Europe. On the day of the tournament final, Secretary General Alain Berset called on FIFA to begin work immediately on a stronger international framework to protect the game’s integrity before the 2030 World Cup. He argued that fast-growing prediction markets and micro-betting are creating fresh opportunities for manipulation by allowing wagers on individual moments rather than only final results. Ahead of the FIFA World Cup final, Council of Europe SG @alain_berset calls for a “third half”, a global dialogue on protecting the game from political, financial and betting-related pressures before 2030. Read the full statement: https://t.co/LhjSwHPJdR pic.twitter.com/MFjafhm4IU — Council of Europe (@coe) July 19, 2026 Berset said the commercialization of sports betting has reshaped integrity risks across football. The Council of Europe said betting markets now extend to highly specific in-game events, making fraud harder to detect and easier to organize. It also noted that FIFA accepted a prediction market as an official …

Fury in UK’s traveller hotspot as council spends £3,700 removing camp | UK | News

Fury in UK’s traveller hotspot as council spends £3,700 removing camp | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

People living in the UK’s traveller hotspot have spoken out, with one describing their battle against illegal camps as never-ending. The council were even forced to spend thousands of pounds to remove one unauthorised site over a two-day period last year. Families of travellers have been appearing in car parks and fields across Buckinghamshire for years, and residents have had enough. Over the last two years, the county has recorded the biggest increase in the number of caravans of any across England. One park, in Rye, has been taken over by travellers a number of times, with Buckinghamshire Council splashing out £3,700 to remove one group in 2025. As reported by the Daily Mail, Amy, who has lived in High Wycombe her whole life, said: “It feels like they are always coming back. They go to lots of places across Buckinghamshire. Anywhere they get into – car parks, fields, anything – they will park up.” Other locals have expressed their frustration at paying high council tax rates just for the money to be spent on …