Theydon Bois Parish Newsletter November 2012

In November I attended a conference in Chelmsford for the Older People's Planning Group (OPPG), the planning groups for those with sensory disabilities and the planning group for those with physical disabilities.

I have been attending meetings of OPPG which has representatives from older people's organisation across Essex. Members have had presentations from ECC officers and outside organisations and have hopefully taken this information back to their organisations. Members have also been consulted on issues. However, the county council now wants to put more emphasis on input from these groups and that was what the conference was about. The first task is to identify the most important issues to focus on and a list of 34 possible topics was distributed for members of OPPG to respond to.

The conference also had a presentation on Healthwatch, the new consumers' voice on health issues. Its vision is to be 'an independent voice for the people of Essex, helping to shape and improve local health and social care services'. George Howard, a member of TB parish council, is a member of Healthwatch so residents can easily raise concerns with him.

Many changes are taking place in the way health services are organised. From April 2013 the county council will be responsible for delivering public health outcomes and, over the past few months, NHS officers have been moving into County Hall. I have attended meetings with them called by the Cabinet Member for Health in order to inform county councillors about these changes and seek our views. The Essex Health and Wellbeing Board is an important new statutory committee which brings together public health and social care. Local Health and Wellbeing Boards are expected to be formed.

A few months ago there was much publicity about the use of credit cards by the county council. The spotlight is now on the expenses incurred by Lord Hanningfield, who served nine weeks of a nine month prison sentence for falsely claiming parliamentary expenses, when he was the Leader of Essex County Council. The City of London police have investigated and said they will not be bringing charges so the county council has now published all this expenditure, totalling £286,000 between 2005-10, on the ECC website. The council admitted that controls on Lord Hanningfield's spending had not been sufficiently stringent. New controls are now in place.

The Epping Forest Local Highways Panel met for the first time in September and the meeting was mainly concerned with organisational matters. I, and other members, quickly identified omissions in the list of requests for highway improvements which was distributed. There were no items from Theydon Bois! I have asked the Parish Council for these.

As vice-chairman of the Community and Older Peoples (COP) scrutiny committee, I have been promoting the Ageing Well agenda to officers and members. This is a Department of Work and Pensions project to make our communities more age-friendly. It includes transport, adult learning opportunities, good pavements, seating and public toilets in addition to health and wellbeing issues.

Are there ways in which Theydon Bois could be made more age-friendly?

Cllr Janet Whitehouse