Tag Archives: portsmouth

Gosport Lib Dem leader banned from council for two years

By Stephen Tall | Published 8th July 2009 - 7:45 pm

Lib Dem Voice reported last week that Peter Chegwyn, Lib Dem leader on Gosport Council in Hampshire, would this week be facing a standards board tribunal following allegations he used a council vote to protect his music festival. Portsmouth.co.uk reports the result:

Controversial Gosport politician Peter Chegwyn has been banned from being a councillor for two years.

The Lib Dem group leader was ruled to have breached the councillors’ code of conduct after he voted to block a motion relating to his Stokes Bay Festival last year. …

Cllr Chegwyn, who has been a councillor for 26 years, said: ‘I will

…

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Hancock to take £1,000 a year “tenants’ tax” protest to Parliament

By Stephen Tall | Published 3rd March 2009 - 7:32 pm

Mike Hancock, Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South, together with his fellow Portsmouth Lib Dems, has taken his campaign on behalf of council tenants to the highest levels, including Downing Street and Parliament. The issue? One that is faced by 156 councils around the country:

… council tenants are angry because each household will be paying £1,000 a year over the next thirty years directly into the Government’s coffers. The Government takes money from Portsmouth and 205 other councils. Some money is distributed back to councils. 50 councils benefit and 156 pay money to the Government but there is an overall surplus that the Government keeps of £194 million. Therefore a large surplus – £4.6 million this year from Portsmouth alone goes into general Government expenditure – effectively a tax that only council tenants have to pay. With large increases due in the amount taken in coming years, Portsmouth City Council estimates that unless it is reformed Portsmouth’s 15,000 council tenants will pay £500 million over the next 30 years to the Government – over £1,000 a year.

Mike presented the petition in Parliament last night – here’s Hansard’s (somewhat quaint) account of proceedings:

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