Hugh Sandeman
Conservative Councillor for Bell Hill ward, Petersfield

Today David Cameron delivered his New Year message, it centred upon the Conservative Party and our move to becoming the Party that represents normal working people. Those people abandoned by the power hungry, chaotic and increasingly Orwellian Labour Government.

Cameron aspires to reinvigorate social mobility which has been so damaged by Labour's tax, red tape & educational failings. This will be helped by a working party examining the issues led by David Davis.

2007 will be a vital year for the Cameron leadership it will be interesting to see the opinion poll response to the meat being added to the bones of the policies trailed during 2006, given the recent trend, the future looks bright and most definitely blue.

Whilst I was surfing the Times website to find info about David Cameron's message for 2007 I saw the following article about the Labour Government and their dangerous attitude towards the Royal Navy. The ramifications for Portsmouth and Hampshire as a whole if the Naval Base at Portsmouth was to be shut are unimaginable. Especially at a time when our armed forces are committed to so many battles around the World it seems crazy to be cutting the strength of one of the UK's major extensions of power and influence.

Another year, another annual review in the local paper. Amused as ever to read in one how many Tories they could find to tease via their their equine themed comment organ.

To be fair there was a reasonable amount of material generated in the last few months for them to choose from, sadly the context of many of the issues or events commented upon were not fully explained thus reinforcing the widely perceived bias towards the yellow corner.

To confirm this commonly held view there were glowing references to a young local career politician from the yellow team who got praise for;

1: Their Age.

2: The fact that they organised a public meeting over a contentious issue...

..Of course there was no comment about the outcome of the meeting and the complete absesnce of any follow-up meetings or progress to alleviate the problem, but heck! - it wouldn't be fair to dwell on such failures and lack of dynamism over the issues that matter to the people of Petersfield now would it?

This years CF Christmas drinks party was at the Sterling bar located at the foot of the Gherkin in London. The venue was packed with Conservative Future members and as ever it offered a great platform to mingle and network with others from across the country.

According to the 'Spy' column in Friday's Daily Telegraph one of the guests fell asleep in a toilet cubicle and had to escape via a fire door at 3 am in the morning. And before you ask, it wasn't me - the drinks and bar snacks were pretty pricey and there weren't any free glasses of fizz to kick the evening off so it was a struggle to get too merry!

I am unlikely to write much here before the New Year so I hope everybody has a good Christmas. Hopefully 2007 will see this Blog re-open to comments from the readership, that reminds me I better buy my webmaster a Christmas drink in able to get a few of the bugs from the change of skin ironed-out asap.

Just a brief update about the hard work by Hampshire County Council to fix the road up Stoner Hill. Although the traffic levels are now back to their pre-closure levels on Bell Hill, the road once again forms an excellent route to the A32, Alton, Ropley, Alresford the A31 & Froxfield etc.

Also whilst singing the praises of HCC, some of you may have noticed the three new saplings planted on the grass verge at the bottom of Bell Hill - (Near the residents parking zone & telephone box). These were planted in the last couple of weeks by contractors working for the County Council. They replaced the dead cherry tree that has been in decline for a number of years.

As part of this planting I negotiated for a sapling to be planted in the Town Council's Bell Hill Recreation ground, close to the hedge at the bottom of Bell Hill. This tree is now enjoying the recent wet weather as it settles in its new location. The County Council provided this sapling as I had asked them to assess the dead oak tree at the bottom of Bell Hill, they hope to fell it in the next couple of weeks - it is pleasing to replace one dead tree with a new sapling, hopefully with hundreds of years of life to look forward to.

*UPDATE 29/12/06*
I have been informed by local residents that a dangerous section of pavement and kerbing have been repaired by HCC Contractors in Beckham Lane, pleasing to hear that the problem has finally been sorted. Moral of the story is for Residents and Councillors to make lots of phone calls to the relevant authority - it seemed to hasten the work, thanks to those at the Highways Dept.

I am back after the technical changes and migration from an old "skin" to a newer style as you may have noticed. There are still a few gremlins to iron-out, particularly the 500 or so spam comments I had got within 24 hours of the update! The regularity of these spam attacks and their follow-on emails alerting me to the new bogus posts have meant that my email account ground to a halt under the load, hence for the time being I have had to have switched off the opportunity for readers to comment on my ramblings, I hope to rectify this in the near future and also update you with lots of interesting Bell Hill Ward & larger-scale political news.