March 25, 2013 8.02 pm
This story is over 109 months old
City of Lincoln Council approves £1m service cuts
Cuts approved: The urban rangers and Commons warden jobs will be axed along with the city’s sports development services, City of Lincoln councillors agreed on Monday night.
The urban rangers and Commons warden jobs will be axed along with the city’s sports development services, City of Lincoln councillors agreed on Monday night.
The council decided to withdraw the services by early July in order to make nearly £1 million in savings this year, and £3 million by 2017/18.
The Executive rejected a recommendation from its Policy Scrutiny Committee to merge the two services to provide some cover for the city’s open spaces, saying this would not deliver an effective service or the necessary savings.
The Policy Scrutiny Committee was swayed by a petition to keep the urban rangers signed by 1,200 local people, who argued anti-social behaviour and littering will increase in the city’s green spaces without the rangers.
Removing the three urban rangers posts will save the council £383,000 over the next five years, plus another £157,000 by axing the Commons wardens post.
The Commons Advisory Panel will now look at how it could co-ordinate volunteers with a view to setting up a watch scheme for the commons.
Closure of the sports development service will save a further £400,000. The team manages events such as the Lincoln 10K and Dance Factor, but the council assured it will find ways of continuing the events.
Members also confirmed the end of the Ward Budget scheme in which each of the 33 councillors was able to spend £1,000 on community projects in their ward.
Councillor Ric Metcalfe, City of Lincoln Council Leader, said: “These are decisions which nobody here wanted to have to take but we have been left with no option by the cuts in government funding.”
“We are left with the stark choice of doing fewer things but doing those well, and we can no longer make the necessary savings without impacting on services.
”We share people’s concerns but our anti-social behaviour team and other communities staff and volunteers will continue to liaise with the police to ensure people can safely enjoy the city’s open spaces.
“We hope voluntary groups and organisations will be able to support them in monitoring those areas,” Councillor Metcalfe added.
As previously reported, other measures for the City Council to balance its books include a new £25 per year fee to collect green garden waste recycling bins, stop subsidising the Walk and Ride service, changes to CCTV staffing arrangements and cuts to the Lincoln Drill Hall grant.
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Nominations are open for schools and education settings to be recognised in the 2022 Lincolnshire Education Excellence Awards.
The event is organised by Stonebow Media, publishers of The Lincolnite, to celebrate the best school and teachers in Greater Lincolnshire.
The headline sponsors making the awards possible are Lincoln College Group.
Twelve categories are now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is June 3, with a judging lunch scheduled for June 7.
Nominations are open from parents, carers, friends, families or education settings themselves, so if you know someone who deserving of winning now is the time to vote!
The awards ceremony will be held at the Engine Shed on July 7.
It’s been a week since the controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher was installed in Grantham’s St Peter’s Hill.
The £300,000 bronze monument immediately caused a stir and debate from both supporters and opponents of the first female Prime Minister of the UK.
Within hours of its 7am installation last Sunday, it had already been egged by a man later revealed to be 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, a deputy director at the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.
Mr Webster’s mother-in-law recently described his actions as “childish”.
Quoted in the MailOnline she said: “Margaret Thatcher lasted a long time in power. She was a trailblazer as the first woman prime minister and she had such energy, even though I know she slept very little.
“I’m very surprised to hear about all of this [egg throwing]. I’m going to have to call my daughter. I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy would be the sort of person to do this. It seems very childish to me – he has a responsible job.”
There have been reports of other antisocial behaviour taking place including people urinating up the statue, but investigations into these are yet to be confirmed by officials.
Away from the statue itself, others took to social media to react to the new monument.
Twitterer @BolsoverBeast thought Mr Webster’s actions should be expanded as a way to… get more people involved?
I think it would be a good idea to put Thatcher’s statue on a low loader and tow it slowly around the country so that we all have a chance to throw something at it. pic.twitter.com/uftMqr0LgR
— Chloe Schlosberg (@ChloeSchlosberg) May 19, 2022
Some called back to the fate of other statues
@Irritatedllama called back to the fate of slave trader Edward Colston who was thrown into the Bristol Harby in June 2020.
It's absolutely disgraceful that people are throwing eggs at the Margaret Thatcher statue in Grantham! We need to deploy a taskforce to give it jolly good wash!#Granthampic.twitter.com/RKftKUls4u
It wasn’t long before a parody account of the statue was set up on Twitter – nor before “she” was interacting with other parody accounts.
It was awful. I could see almost all of Grantham
— That Statue of Thatcher (@thatcher_statue) May 18, 2022
A… positive view?
There were supporters of the statue, however, Darren Grimes from GBNews was one of the few popular posts calling on people not to “give in to threats of petty vandalism”. He later posted the statue should be in parliament – where it was previously rejected from.
I honestly think Margaret Thatcher would have found this first round of petty vandalism of her statue to be utterly hilarious.
The statue looks absolutely glorious.
Almost a decade on from her passing, she’s still winding them up!
Some, like @Jonnyhibberd were more measured in their response.
I don't see a problem with a Thatcher statue and I also don't see a problem with people throwing eggs at it. Thatcher is an important part of our history, and so is what a lot of people thought about her.
— Jonathan Hibberd 🇺🇦 (@Jonnyhibberd) May 18, 2022
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