Well done to Andy Rankine for being re-elected on the Executive Committee for the Region and for his re-election to represent Yorkshire/Humberside at the English Council. Well done too to Helen Flynn on being elected to the Regional Policy Committee.
As Mayor I am committed to supporting business across the Borough, and this week Finance Portfolio Holder Cllr Michael Headley announced our move to give additional financial help to small rural businesses. We are amending the Council's policy and making a financial commitment to ensure that small rural businesses who receive rural rate relief are not disqualified from receiving further small business rate relief to which they would otherwise be entitled.
On 8th November Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority published its draft plans for the future in a document called Towards 2020, which is now available at www.kent.fire-uk.org.
The Workshop Timetable is now available and can be downloaded by clicking on Download Conference Papers and Booking Forms menu item on left.
All governments promise welfare reform. Very few deliver. In 1997 Labour promised to "cut the bills of social failure" and to "make work pay". But during its 13 years in office the welfare bill rose by 40% to £87bn. People moving into work can still lose more than 90% of every pound they earn: a punitive tax burden on the shoulders of the poor.
It was an honour to be involved in the Armistice Service in the town centre yesterday, which saw hundreds of people in town stop to observe the service and pay their respects to fallen soldiers from wars past and present. The services can never fail to be deeply moving, and all involved, from the Standard Bearers to the Salvation Army Band Members and all veterans present combined to ensure that the eleventh hour hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was marked in fitting fashion.