Anne Milton - Guildford MP (and Dipstick)

If you take a look at Anne Milton's recent appearances in Parliament, it may well occur to you that she is desperate to visibly fulfil her promise to operate as a carbon-copy of Sue Doughty (minus the Lib-Dem policies that would spend your tax dollars on drug-dealing MRSA-infected murdering terrorists asylum seekers) as soon as is humanly possible.

One might even consider it all to be a bit rushed... but that would be ungracious.

Instead, let's looks beyond parliamentary posturing and gaze in wonder at The First Actual Result:

Yes folks, 6 months after she falsely took credit for it and claimed it was her idea in the first place, Vehicle Activated Signs have finally been installed on the A281 at Shalford.

Of course, they're not working today, but I'll get onto that in a moment.

First, I need to talk to you about timing.

6 months followed Milton's claim that it was all her own work and all her own idea, and nothing happened. Apart from someone putting a pole up.

So... following the mysterious appearance of these long-overdue signs yesterday, I decided to talk to the experts.

The signs are provided by a company called Westcotec. I talked to them this afternoon.

The signs were ordered as far back as February 2005, but installation normally doesn't proceed until the local authority:

1. erects the pole(s)
2. gets power to the pole(s)

And power is what we've been waiting on all this time. As the previous post points out, the work seen before 9th June involved illumination of an entirely different set of signs (and, judging by the path of the trench, this power comes via a cable under the nearest street-light). Up to this point, there was no indication that power had been installed in preparation for Vehicle Activated Signs.

But - miracle of miracles - about 2 weeks ago (i.e. sometime on or about the 9th of June - the date of the previous post) - Westcotec received confirmation that power had been installed in these poles and work could commence.

The signs were installed yesterday (the company operates on a 2-week turnaround at this time of year) and tested.

Sadly, they were not working today. I checked the back of the signs, and the LED power indicator is dead, dead, dead. This means that the sign is functional (as it was yesterday) but the power has failed.

One might even consider it all to be a bit rushed... but that would be ungracious.

Labels: inaction, publicity

At last!

After 4 weeks of trying (including the rather desperate measure of playing up the Julian Clary angle), Anne has finally made the local paper:

Surrey Advertiser - MP wades in over hospital beds row

Her contribution is short on inches, but high in spunk.

Labels: publicity

It has now been well over a month since 29.9% of the electorate expressed their belief that Anne Milton was a woman of action. But some of Milton's 'vote for me' signs are still in place. Perhaps she's hoping for some last-minute votes to boost her 0.7% majority. I've included pictures and locations of two signs to get her started on a belated clean-up:



But this is just the window-dressing. The important question - and one you should expect to hear often - is; what real and positive action has Milton taken since being elected (apart from shooting her mouth off over council tax)?

"She's only been in a month, give her a chance!" I hear you scream... but Milton assured us that she was taking action long before May 5th 2005.

Let's take the following as just one small but typical example...

The spectacular fire-engine crash on 4 December 2004 highlighted a notorious accident black-spot on the curve and bridge on the A281 in Shalford. The Surrey Advertiser responded by describing it as 'carnage corner' in a front-page report on Friday December 10th.

By the 15th, Surrey County Council issued this press release: Surrey County Council's (SCC's) Guildford Local Committee has taken action to improve road safety at Tillingbourne Bridge in Shalford in the light of recent collisions there by coming up with the funding for two vehicle activated speed signs. SCC's Guildford Local Transportation Service has already introduced signs and road markings reminding drivers to slow down and alerting them to both the hump-backed bridge and the bend. Street lighting has been improved and vegetation has been cut back but despite this drivers are still approaching too fast. The two signs, one on each side of the bridge, will illuminate when the vehicles approach the bridge too fast, drawing the driver's attention to the hazard and the need to slow down. The total cost of the signs, including installation and electrical connection, will be £12,000.

Funding came from 3 primary sources:
Veronica Stiastny, County Councillor for Shalford (Conservative)
Tom Sharp, County Councillor for Guildford South (Lib-Dem)
The 'Safer Guildford' partnership

But a few days later, Stiastny teamed up with Milton to take all of the credit for 'instant Conservative action' in this pamphlet, tying it in with this October 2004 pamphlet/petition with the claim that; "In October Anne Milton, Guildford’s Conservative Prospective MP delivered her newsletter to 40,000 households in and around Guildford calling for action to be taken to slow traffic down. She asked residents to sign a petition calling for Vehicle Activated Signs to be installed on some of Guildford’s worst road’s including the A281."

Erm, no she didn't. The pamphlet/petition clearly calls for action at the following locations:
B2128 through Wonersh and Rowly
The B3000 through Compton
Lanes in Seale and Sands
Clay Lane, Burpham
Farnham Road, Guildford

The A281 isn't mentioned. None of these locations are anywhere near this stretch of it.

The put it bluntly, Anne Milton lied over a matter as serious as road safety in order to gain political advantage.

But let's get back to the bit where she and (since-deselected) Veronica Stiastny claimed it was All Their Own Work. Y'see, this accident black-spot happens to be a two-way street. If Milton wants to take the credit, she needs to be prepared to shoulder the blame.

6 months has passed since the Vehicle Activated Signs were promised and Milton took credit for instant action... when really no action had been taken yet. And guess what? Little to no action has been taken since!

Here's a picture of one of the poles that was installed sometime last year:



As you may note; it's still just a pole. 6 months down the line.

But, to be fair, in the last few weeks, I've finally seen some workmen on the job, digging up the pavement in order to lay cables to an even newer pole - that now boasts its very own sign! Here's a picture of the aftermath of some recent work that I saw going on last weekend:



Yes, that is a sign. The cable, we can assume, is for illumination. So it's an illuminated sign. But it's not a Vehicle Activated Sign. A Vehicle Activated Sign looks like this, and is set apart from other signs because it, erm, is activated by vehicles:



Anne Milton promised action and took credit for delivery, when nothing was actually delivered and - 6 months later - still nothing has been delivered. Had I taken part in her campaign for safer roads in Guildford, I would be livid. But somehow, I don't think we'll hear any complaints. Here's a picture of your typical resident from Anne's October 2004 pamphlet/petition:



Well, look who it is - it's Grant Griffiths! Former Deputy Chairman of Guildford Conservatives, Anne Milton's Campaign Director, and serial 'typical resident' ringer:



I find it interesting that Grant features on this profile page at guildfordconservatives.com and this profile page at Bluelist.org, but in both cases he is the only person without a photo. Given his position, his habit of posing as a 'typical resident', and the past activities of this weblog, I'm sure you can work out why.

But a final mystery remains...

Grant lives in Wonersh. Unless he's been living as a hermit for the past 30+ days, he would have to have passed that 2nd left-over 'Vote Anne Milton' sign (mentioned at the top of this post) at least a dozen times... but he has chosen to leave it untouched.

Why?

I hope you'll pardon me for this deeply personal attack, but I think it may have something to do with maintaining a sustained erection.

Thanks for listening, and do drive safely.

Labels: inaction, tory ringers