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Please read Carefully
Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of policy of West Lindsey District Council. The views are purely those of the Author. While every effort is made to keep the content up to date Councillor Cotton does not accept any balme for information which has changed or altered and which as a result does not enable those using the site to access that information which they seek.
Neither does Councillor David Cotton accept any responsibility for any result of information used from this site being used for incorrect purposes or leading to personal loss or injury.

Contact Me

Councillor David Cotton
42 Meadow Rise
Saxilby
Lincoln
LN1 2HW

01522 702634
07944 669166

david.cotton500@ntlworld.com

Contacting the Council You can contact the District Council by writing, phoning or using the web site

WLDC, The Guildhall, Marshall's Yard, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, DN21 2NA

Tel: 01427 676676 Fax: 01427 675170

Web: http://www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/

Blog Information

Here you can find information on:- (click the link and then click back or scroll down)

Site Disclaimer
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2008/08/disclaimer-nothing-published-here.html

Contact me
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/contact-me.html

Council Service Record
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/council-service-record.html

Location of Saxilby Ward with maps
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/location.html

Council Surgeries and other appointments
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/council-surgeries-in-ward-and.html

Parish Councils in the Ward
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/parish-councils-in-ward.html

Recycling Information
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/recycling-information.html

Flooding
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/06/flooding.html

What happens to my recycling?
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-happens-to-my-recycling.html

Recycling Tetra Packs
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/recycling-tetra-packs.html

Concessionary Travel 2008
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2008/01/consessionary-travel.html

Election 2008
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2007/05/election-2008.html

Annual Council 2008
http://councillordavidcotton.blogspot.com/2004/05/annual-council-2008.html

Council Service Record

I was first elected to West Lindsey District Council in May 2000. For two years I was just a "back bench" councillor and then in the civic year 2002-2003 I was vice chairman of planning. In the civic year 2003-2004 I was Chairman of the Community Committee. In 2004 for two years again I was a back bench Councillor. In the civic year 2006-2007 I chaired the Environmental and Licencing Committee, Was also Chair of the Joint Staff Consultative Committee, Chair of Strategic Waste Management working group(until Dec 2006) and Member Champion for Generic Equalities.
In the civic year 2007-2008 I am chairing the new Neighbourhoods and Health Committee.
This is part of the new Council structure and is a challenging task for the coming year.
Re-elected in 2008, but with the change of control I am without a policy committee chair.
July 2008 re-elected to chair the Joint Staff Consultative Committee.
August 2008 Elected as Group Leader for the Liberal Democrats and thus leader of the Opposition. This is a difficult task I am sure and I hope one I am worthy of.
October 5th 2009 resigned as Group Leader of the Liberal Democrats
To learn more about West Lindsey District Council its members services and on line services visit http://www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/

Location

Saxilby Ward with over view map for location of West Lindsey in Lincolnshire

Click on the map for a larger view

Council Surgeries in the Ward and appointments

Along with my Colleague, District Councillor Mrs. Jackie Brockway, and the County Councillor for Saxilby and Nettleham, Councillor Ray Sellars, I hold a regular Surgery.
The Surgery is held each month in the Village Hall at Saxilby the same Saturday as the Monthly Market. We can be found in the foyer area and try to be there each month from 09:00 to 11:00. Occaisionally other commitments prevent one of us being there but we do our best. In addition to the surgeries I am available at all other times either to visit you or for you to visit me. If an appointment is required for help and advice, to complain or praise, either in person or over the phone then contact me at the address and numbers above

Parish Councils in the Ward

The two Parish Councils in the Saxilby Ward (all other settlements have Parish Meetings) at Saxilby and Burton each have Websites of their own you can link to them at the following links

Saxilby
http://parishes.lincolnshire.gov.uk/SaxilbywithIngleby/















Burton
http://www.burton-by-lincoln.info/

Recycling Information

Please See later information on updates to recycling and waste management systems

As a Councillor one of the things people ask me about more than anything is recycling. This is usually out of a genuine want to be able to recycle properly. We have all got to recycle what we can where we can. In Lincolnshire it is estimated that by 2030 there will be 230,000 tonnes of waste which can neither be sent to land fill or recycled. For every tonne of waste which is over the quotas allowed under the European rules then we will be fined. These fines will undoubtedly be passed on to you and me. We need to tackle packaging as well at source as no one makes rubbish we all buy it.


Reproduced here is the main part of WLDC's recycling information to help you. This is an evolving process and changes will happen over time as to what can be recycled.

Click the picture for a larger view


Click the picture for a larger view

















STOP PRESS
Following some reorganisation in 2008 there are now many more items that can be put in the blue bins and less needs to be put into the black bins. Every household in the District had a recycling wheel delivered in the spring of 2008. This should be used to dial the material you wish to recycle in order to know where to recycle it. Should you lose the wheel then a replacement can be obtained from the Council either by phoning 01427 676676 or writing to the Guildhall at ,
WLDC The Guildhall Marshall's Yard Gainsborough Lincolnshire DN21 2NA.

Triple Bin System and Green Waste
In September/October 2009 the Council rolled out a triple bin system to most of the district. (there are some areas/properties where it is not possible to have wheeled bins and some where green bins are not necessary) This system consists of a black bin for risidual waste, a blue bin for recycling items and a green bin to each household for garen waste which can be composted.
Now the black bin is only to be collected once a fortnight rather than weekly. All households should have recieved a calendar showing which bin(s) are collected on which days. Some areas will have seen their collection days changed. Generally the system (October 2009) seems to be working well but there have been some teething problems. If you have not got your green bin, for which there is not now a direct charge to you, or your collections days have got mixed up and you are having difficulty or you have lost your calendar and information pack. In the first place call the Guildhall on 01427676676. If your problem is not osorted to your satisfaction please call me and I'll do what I can.
Please remember large branches and other large items of garden waste may not be suitable for the green bin and should either be taken to a civic amenities site such as Great Northern Terrace or Whisby or alternatively you can request a bulky waste collection from West Lindsey on the above number.

Flooding

During periods of wet weather the District Council is limited to what help it can give.

The best course of action is to contact the fire brigade. Non emergency numbers will follow.

However the fire brigade will only assist where water is actually in the property and not where it is only in the garden.

Further advice may be able to be given by calling the Flood Help Line, number also to follow. Where water is running off the highway then this is a County Council Highway problem and they need to be contacted.

Lincolnshire County Council 01522 552222

Lincolnshire Fire Brigade non emergency number 01522 582222 for emergencies phone 999

Flood Line number 0845 9881188

What Happens to My Recycling?

(Please note this information may change in the future)

Constantly I am asked by people about recycling and what, where and how we recycle and why we cannot recycle more.
To begin with this is amazing when you think how far we have come in such a short period of time. The green sections of society have been there a long while but the ordinary population would not have had the willingness nor the inclination to recycle ten years ago or to talk about it in such wide and glowing terms. We cannot give you enough recycling it seems.

Yet we have also to have an end user for everything we collect for recycling or else it is nothing more than so much rubbish that we have to get rid of. Plastics are the most difficult items to deal with. Plastic is all plastic, but that generalisation is dangerous as there are in effect many, many sub-groups and types of plastic to deal with and while all are recyclable some are only able to be recycled by specialist firms or be used in other ways such as energy from waste. Currently West Lindsey takes plastic which is numbered as 1 or 2. This we can get recycled. Usually numbers 3 and 4 are plastics which have either been recycled previously or are blow moulded and so their molecules are stretched and pulled in all directions. If you recycle them by conventional means all you end up with is a sticky mess. To prove the point were you to get a kettle of boiling water, and I don’t really think you ought to do it for safety sake, and pour the water on a Ski Yoghurt pot it would disintegrate into a sticky disc of plastic from which the pot was blow or vacuum moulded.
Plastics with a number 5 are often specialist plastics with polymers in them and more difficult to recycle. Those plastics with a recycling symbol and no number on should, unfortunately be put into the black bin.

I am also asked why it is that WLDC stopped taking tin foil and aerosols which we had on the list at first but which now are not acceptable, though if they are put into the blue bin will be removed at the recycling facility. The reason behind these was down to European and World legislation on recycling. The tin foil is, even if it is washed, invariably contaminated with food residue. This is not removed in the smelting process and will remain to contaminate what ever the recycled tin or aluminium is used for second time around. You don’t want to fly to Barcelona in an aircraft with aluminium in it held together by last week’s steak and kidney pie. Aluminium and tin cans are easier to deal with as they are usually for liquids and can be washed out completely clean. Aerosols are a real difficult problem. Thankfully most of the CFC propelled cans are now a thing of the past and many aerosols are powered instead by butane. You see on the can to avoid naked flame or that the can is flammable and should not be punctured or heated even when empty.
Aerosols going through the recycling process can, and do, explode. As the first stage of most recycling including WLDC’s is picking off a conveyor by human means we don’t like to take their arms off with exploding aerosols, it means a lot of paperwork if nothing else. So that is why we cannot take the tinfoil and aerosols any more. Hopefully if aerosols are, in the future, powered by inert gases or propellants then we can reconsider and reclaim the valuable metals of the cans.

People have also lately been interested to know what happens to their recycling and if it gets sent to China or India, in effect passing out problem on to someone else. It doesn’t. WLDC did an audit trail of recycling and it is all recycled and used in the British Isles.
We work with a firm recycling in the U.K. What do they do with it, well the metals get separated, ferrous metal with an over-band magnet and aluminium cans are electrically charged and taken off by a second magnet.
This material is usually put through again.
Plastic is put through a trammel and goes off to be turned into plastic bottles or nylon thread which makes fleece jackets and so on. So the milk carton you had last week you might be wearing next week. Glass is separated and crushed, though bottle necks and bottoms where glass is thickest were a problem. This is then not turned into glass again but back into aggregate which is used in the construction industry meaning that sand does not have to be quarried in the countryside leaving scars in the landscape. Very few companies can turn glass back to glass though there is a possibility that the green glass from WLDC may go to Portugal in the near future to be used in making wine bottles.
Brown cardboard is recycled into more cardboard boxes. That is what happens to everything from your blue bin. The newspapers put out separately go to the same place and are sorted from their carrier bags. The bags are sent to be recycled. The paper is further sorted and baled and goes to make more paper either toilet or kitchen rolls or newsprint.

Recycling Tetra Packs

Recently West lindsey has been able to introduce recycling of Tetra Packs. These are the packs which orange juice, other fruit juice and milk comes in. They look like they are made of cardboard, but they are a lot more complex than that and have a whole set of materials that go to make up one pack. Usually there is the paper outer which has the design printed on it, then there is a cardboard inner, then next a thin layer of tinfoil and then lastly a layer of thin polythene or plastic sheet to keep the liquid away from the other materials. Most of the material is to add strength to the carton and they were originally made as easy to stack items whereas bottles for liquids were no so easy to stack.
At the moment we are asking people not to put these in to their blue bin but to take them to a designated site details of which are on the WLDC Web-site which is hyper linked from this one.
The packs will go back to Tetra for them to deal with and recycle.

Consessionary Travel

From the 1st April 2008 West Lindsey District Council will sign up to the national scheme for concessionary travel for the over 60's. Up until that point travellers in West Lindsey and across the County of Lincolnshire could travel at any time. This was because the seven districts of Lincolnshire subsidised the travel to allow unlimited free travel at any time. The national Scheme doesn't allow this and the ability to "bolt on" extra parts to the services is not being allowed by the governement .

To continue in the same way as before the District Council would have to have a seperate scheme at fairly substantial cost and that cost would not be allowed to be found from the concessionary travel budget given by the government to run the national scheme. So the total cost would have to fall totally on the council tax. I think however, that the ability to travel anywhwere in the country for free outweighs the fact that no free travel is being allowed before 09:30 in the morning.

We understand that government is looking at this and may change to allow unlimited free travel in the fulness of time.

Election 2008

Election Thanks
It was Harold Wilson, in a time when politicians were real politicians, who famously said that a week was a long time in politics. Well then two months must be a life time!
The last time I wrote there was an uncertain future hanging over West Lindsey and me in particular. The elections were some two months away and we didn’t know what would happen.
Well not so long after that we had the results of the nominations and Saxilby had two Candidates coming forward for election Mr. Roger Pilgrim and myself. So we both campaigned for your votes across the whole of the Saxilby Ward, and we must remember that Saxilby Ward is not just Saxilby but also the other villages and hamlets. Elections have been won and lost by ignoring the smaller centres of population.
May the 1st seemed to come all too quickly. I am sure Roger had the same thoughts as me: have I done enough? Will enough people vote for me? What will the turnout be? All this, and a million other thoughts, all going through a candidates mind, right up until the time when at the count a clear win becomes obvious. (I am glad we were not in Nettleham with I think five recounts and only nine votes between the winner and second place.)
Then the result and we won again, third election. I want to thank firstly Roger Pilgrim for coming forward to stand and for the contest. I also want to thank all those who helped me in the election in what ever way all have had letters, but most of all I want to thank you the electorate for firstly, those that did, turning out to vote or having a postal vote, and then especially to those who voted for me. For those who didn’t well I will continue, as I always have to serve everyone in the ward to the best of my ability and hopefully for the best endeavours of the Ward. Sadly as all too often the real winner in the elections this time not only here but generally, was voter apathy. Nothing annoys me more than those who say they don’t bother to vote. My father, and many like him, fought and lost a lot of good mates and some of the best years of their lives for everyone to have the right to vote. If we didn’t have the vote many would be protesting in the streets to be given that right. No vote means no voice and no right to complain either. I know there was no Labour candidate Saxilby, indeed in West Lindsey, but if the Labour voters stayed at home that can only account for a percentage of those who didn’t vote.

Annual Council 2008

As many of you will know, the control of the District Council has changed hands from Liberal Democrat to Conservative. In my view the electorate do not elect a particular party to control the council, most people I suspect vote in their own wards for the candidate they feel they want. It is only an accumulation of seats that then allows one group or other to out vote the other group at the council that gives control. We weren’t elected to control the council and now neither were the Conservatives. But that might all change, of which more in a moment.
I congratulate them on their win and their Leader on his return to leading the council. That did mean for me personally that I am no longer sitting in the chair of the Neighbourhoods and Health Committee now renamed Community and Waste Management. Also we saw at the annual council the Development Control renamed yet again to be the Planning Committee, while regeneration an Organisation and Resources stay as they were and the two Scrutiny Committees go back in to one.
Also at the Annual Council there is the review of the constitution of West Lindsey, which can only be done at that meeting. There are no elections in West Lindsey in 2009 and so the next scheduled elections would be 2010 when one third of the council will be up for election.