Outside my house is a new yellow box full of grit.  Ironically there’s not been much call to use it yet, but hopefully this will make Belstead Avenue into less of a skating rink, which has been due to a change in policy to encourage grit bins.  I’ve also got the County Councillor to push for a grit bin in Brecon Close and I’m pushing for one in Maidenhall Green, outside the Stoke Green Baptist Church to cover the pavement.

If your street does not have the gritter visiting it, then get in touch with me about the grit bins.  We can’t rely on the greenhouse effect to clear our roads.  Unless we’re the Met Office.

Now I know that our absentee Labour Councillors are decent, well meaning types, but the thing that gets me up in the morning is their patronising attitude that they know best and we, mere residents, know least.  And that we should be grateful for their concern.

The Labour Party conference showed another example of this paternalistic attitude.  Bryony Rudkin attacked the Suffolk County Council divestment plans.  There’s a lot of questions to ask about this, and there is a job of opposition that needs to be done to keep a place healthy.

But what really stuck in my craw, and those who know me can imagine the violent revulsion that I had to this, was this little point:

At the council meeting last Thursday, one Conservative said his village had come together to build a new doctor’s surgery.

“That might be fine in the nice comfortable villages but who’s going to come together to build the doctor’s surgery in my area of Ipswich where there are some quite serious deprivation issues?”

Now, please tell me that was a clap line for a Neanderthal audience smarting from defeat, and that she didn’t think that it was a serious point.  There may be a more complete speech, which I will be glad to publish.

Bridge has the Wherstead Road Residents Association, still going strong after forty years and the longest continuously functioning residents’ association in Ipswich.  It has the Maidenhall Residents Association that keeps a presence and a community together.  The port noise was stopped largely by a concerted action from residents across Bridge and Stoke Park, spontaneously organising.  There is the Stoke Green Baptist church and Saint Mary Stoke which have great outreach services to people more deprived than you would find on Corder Road, which if we are going to get picky about this is closer to the area which Dame Bryony represents.  And this is not to mention such groups from allotment holders, social clubs, Pentecostal churches and Neighbourhood watch groups that do a great deal of good in Bridge.

These groups are ignored by that sort of dismissal.  Now building a doctor’s surgery may be a stretch but just because we do not have the most expensive houses in Ipswich does not mean that we are incapable of organising ourselves.  We need help, not direction.

If you want to insult us go and do it to our faces and in your leaflets, not to a hall of useless, overpaid, overpromoted and spendthrift public sector middle managers up in Manchester who got us in this mess in the first place.

At the South West Area Forum I made the point that there was a growing pattern of teenage vandalism on the Maidenhall Estate, and that this was a small and persistent group. The councillors for Bridge had more important things to do and unlike the other three wards did not even have one councillor present, after all the police were only setting priorities for the area – an exercise where Bridge came off very badly.

It is only getting worse. The Stoke Green Baptist church has been vandalised. Here’s the police report:

On Friday 23rd July between 7.45pm and 8pm on Halifax Road, Ipswich offenders have thrown a large stone through a window at a church.

A group of eight white males between 14 17 years old wearing sports clothing and carrying rucksacks were seen to run off at the time.

Were you in the area at the time, did you see anything suspicious? Do you know the name of the offender or offenders? If you have any information please contact Suffolk Police on 01473 613500 quoting reference IW/10/3280.

Here’s the link if you want to give information on line:

http://www.suffolk.police.uk/News+And+Appeals/Report+Information+To+The+Police/Tell+The+Police.htm

Another photo of Bridge, this time it’s the Stoke Green Baptist church, where Maidenhall Hall approach  meets Halifax Road:

One thing that is fascinating about this congregation is that they are one of the oldest non-conformist cogregations in Ipswich, but unlike the Unitarians in St Nicholas street it doesn’t get on the tourist trail.