Labour props up heartless Tories to support school closures
Conservative and Labour councillors united to oppose a motion to prevent further school closures in North Yorkshire.
In the past few years a substantial number of schools have been closed in both rural and urban areas. Such closures have profound effects on the local communities. In rural areas in particular, a local school provides a focus for all sorts of activities and provides and important focus for community activities.
Councillor Steve Mason said, ‘When a local school closes the community loses one of its most valuable assets, which cannot be replaced.’
The Liberal Democrat motion asked that any further school closures should not be considered until the new local plan is in place for the North Yorkshire Council. Only then will the interests and plans for the future of the region become clear.
Councillor Andrew Murday, who has recently seen Fountains Earth School in Lofthouse close, after a long campaign by the local community to keep it open, said, ‘We cannot expect young families to settle in our rural communities when their children face journeys of many miles to the nearest school. Without young families, those communities will shrink and die’.
For more information contact Councillor Steve Mason. (cllr.steve.mason@northyorks.gov.uk)
Cross party Group calls for better funding for end of life care in North Yorkshire
At North Yorkshire Council's full meeting today a cross party group led by a LibDem Councillor Peter Lacey of Coppice Valley & Duchy division, and seconded by the chair of the Health Scrutiny Board ,a Conservative, called for greater support to the Integrated Care Boards to properly fund End of Life care and Hospices.
There are more people now at an age in our society who are coming to the end of their life and therefore more and more people are needing Hospice, palliative and end of life care. Sadly, funding for Hospices from the local Integrated Care Boards has not kept up with inflation leading to local end of life care being diminished. Besides for affecting families and individuals it is going against the direct responsibility of the Care Boards but also the responsibility of the North Yorkshire unitary authority to promote the well being of its own community.
Highlighting this at a national level, at a recent Health and Social Care Select Committee on 23 April, Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, said the devolved distribution of healthcare resourcing through ICBs “is not working for the hospice sector, and it’s not working for palliative care in general.”
Today in the full council meeting a cross party group, led by the LibDems, put forward a motion calling for the Council to write to the Sec of State for health asking for support to be given to the ICB to meet its statutory requirements concerning end of life care . Also to encourage collaboration at a local level ensuring a fair contribution for the work that Hospices do. Cllr Lacey remarked that ‘The quality and priority we give to the care of the dying is surely one mark of a civil society’ fearing that “ services will have to be shut down at just the time they are needed most.”
The motion was passed unanimously.
For further press information or photographs, please contact:
Cllr Peter Lacey
07834 209461
