Not sure what happened as I thought this went up last week, sorry 
Here it is a week on...
Following my blog last week we have now had the licensing committee meeting and it has been decided that the three stalls, the donut and sausage stalls by Iceland and the mobile phone stall by Woolworths will all be unable to trade in their present areas from Feb 09. I am disappointed. 
It does hurt that they are small business which I feel we should be supporting. The vote was not unanimous.
We are most likely not able to offer new places for these stalls to be. There is a possibility of the mobile phone stall being up by the new library, there were no others offered to the two food stalls.
My mind this week has been on the licensing meeting, although I have tried to keep up with the Labour Conference. It remains to be seen how much of what we heard will be actioned and by when but I am pleased to hear about funding for two year olds childcare. It was an issue raised only last month with me by a young mum who works only to pay for childcare as she gets little above the cost of nursery for her son.
I started as a school nurse today, immunising Year 8's with the HPV injection. The girls in Commonweal were very brave and all seemed aware of what we were doing and why. 
Both the girls and the parents signed the consent form which was a good move. I see one school has opted out of letting its premises be used for the injection, I hope it turns out to be alone. Cervical Cancer is an awful illness, I am keen for my daughters to get this but they'll have to wait as they are in the wrong years for this year. At up to £90 a jab, the govt are spreading out the cost of immunnising all young girls over a few years.
I've also been busy being a corporate parents. All Councillors are 'corporate parents' to the children in local authority care and it is up to us to make sure they have the education and services that they should. I take this very seriouisly and remind other councillors of this important role often too. This week I had Foster Panel and Adoption Panel training. There was some talk of a National trend where Childrens Consultants are no longer keen to diagnose shaken baby syndrome or even other non accidental injury as they risk being discredited and sued. This is worrying, it is awful if parents are wrongly accused and I support anything that makes things fair but I guess what wories me is vulnerable children being let down with tragic consequences. The balance for social services and health care workers is huge and I have huge respect for all in that field. 
I've got a bit behind on my casework and will be onto it tomorrow. I have replies to questions from residents that I have asked on their behalf, the replies need to be passed back to people, sorry if you are waiting.
Full Council tomorrow, great joy!
