TWO women from Harlow who are preparing to take on a 10-day charity trek are hosting a fundraising race night to help them reach their £10,000 target.

 

Lorna Crump (32) of Collins Meadow and Lisa Tiffin (30) of Ladyshot have signed up to go to Peru and walk the Inca Trail in aid of St Margaret’s Hospital breast cancer unit in Epping.

 

They decided to undertake the arduous trek after their friend’s mother passed away from breast cancer a couple of years ago.

 

The race night is just the latest fundraising event in a series that the pair, who used to work together, have been running to help reach their huge target.

 

“Neither of us have ever done anything like this before,” said Lorna, “but were really keen to get involved with the charity trek after seeing the good work the hospital did for our friend’s mum when she was fighting breast cancer.

 

“The race night is the latest event we are holding to help us reach our fundraising target, so we are hoping as many people as possible will come along for a really fun night supporting this fantastic cause.”

 

Lorna and Lisa will have to walk for at least 10 hours each day, carrying heavy backpacks in temperatures reaching up to 30 degrees Celsius to complete the trek, which will begin in July.

 

They will also have to contend with the high altitudes and thin Oxygen in the Peruvian mountains, while braving temperatures as low as minus five degrees whilst sleeping in tents at night.

 

“It will no doubt be a huge challenge for us and we will have to do a lot of training beforehand,” said Lorna. “But we are both really looking forward to the experience.

 

“The hardest bit will be reaching our £10,000 fundraising target but if it helps other families going through the trauma of breast cancer then all our hard work will be worthwhile.”

 

The race night is taking place at Harlow Greyhound Stadium on Friday, January 13 from 7pm. Tickets cost £10 and can be purchased by calling Lorna on 07825 833365.

PLANS to fit hundreds of council homes in Harlow with solar panels have been scrapped after the Government pulled funding for the project.

The initiative was originally launched with the council’s backing in July when it was announced that panels would be fitted to 1,200 homes across the town.

The costs of installation and maintenance over the 25-year life of the programme were to be met by Kier Harlow, which planned to recoup its outlay through the Government’s ‘Feed in Tariff’ scheme.

Now, the project has been stopped in its tracks after ministers announced plans to cut back the Feed in Tariff payments by 50 per cent.

Council leader Andrew Johnson said the “unforeseen” funding reduction had given the council no choice but to call a halt the programme.

“Following the Government’s sudden proposed changes to subsidies, we have had to scale back the programme to 280 homes,” he said.

“We share our tenants’ disappointment and I hope the Government would consider allowing existing schemes to continue.

“In the meantime, the council and Kier Harlow are examining other ways in which we can help residents reduce their energy bills.”

Harlow MP Robert Halfon said he had already raised the issue with of continuing the scheme with energy minister Gregory Barker, with the hope of securing additional funding to see the project through to completion.

He said: “As winter approaches we urgently need to help families and pensioners with the soaring cost of heating bills.

“I have met personally with the energy minister about this, urging the Government to finance these solar panels for our town. He is looking at this now.

“In the meantime there will be other measures to help, like the Green Deal, where Harlow households will be able to insulate their home for free.”

However, Labour group leader Mark Wilkinson said the Government had “badly let down” residents who had opted in to the scheme.

“A lot of residents were looking forward to cheaper utility bills which they will no longer receive,” he said.

“I would hope Mr Halfon will do all he can to turn this decision around and fight for the people of this town because his government has badly let down residents

HARLOW MP Robert Halfon has attacked the BBC, criticising how little say licence fee payers are given over how the organisation is run.

 

The Tory MP has likened the company to a “feudal monarchy” in the way it deals with the public. In a Private Members Bill read out in the House of Commons earlier this week, Mr Halfon called for the “democratisation” of the BBC.

 

The Bill in question would, in principal, put greater control of the BBC into the hands of the public, who could then vote on the BBC’s strategic direction making, its programming and even the salaries paid to its senior employees.

 

The Bill would also allow the licence payer to elect people in key positions, both in the BBC Trust and on its Executive Board, where decisions about budgeting, programming and operational management are made.

 These measures, according to Mr Halfon, would go a long way to bringing accountability to a company that, in his blog in November, he called a “kleptocracy, indifferent to the public who pay for it.”

 

In the same November blog, Mr Halfon had urged people not to brand him a ‘BBC Basher’, and said that he “loves the BBC…it is a great British institution.”

 

However, Mr. Halfon continues to say that “at the moment, the licence fee is taxation without representation. We do not tolerate that in our politics, and there is no reason why we should tolerate it in our public media.”

 

Pointing to other recent changes in the public sector, such as allowing the electorate to sack MPs and the signing of e-petitions, Mr Halfon says the BBC must avoid falling behind the trend.

 

“In our public institutions, we are moving away from mainframe democracy to an open-source democracy; the BBC is clearly behind the curve, and must change.”

 

 

A HARLOW nursing home has been accused of neglect and abuse of its residents, after an investigation by the BBC.

 

The Partridge Care Centre was at the centre of a police inquiry after three people were taken to hospital with “diabetes related problems” in August last year.

 

At the time Essex Police had dropped the investigation, saying there was no evidence of “any relevant criminal offences,” despite the deaths of two women.

 

The home’s owner Rushcliffe Care Limited acknowledged there had been problems in the past, but claimed it had taken steps to make sure residents’ “health and well-being are paramount”.

 

However, documents leaked to the BBC have proven that there were serious problems at the home long before the police investigation.

 

A former employee of the home, Mr. Graham Flack, said he had witnessed abuse and neglect of residents during his time there

 

“There was an incident where a certain member of staff was sitting on a resident, who was quite challenging… I would say restraining someone like you see on telly via the police,” he said.

 

“At the end of the day no-one deserves to be held or pushed in any form or manner. It was not nice, not nice.”

 

Partridge Care Centre is a residential nursing home specialising in looking after people with a range of neurological conditions.

 

The centre has rooms for 117 residents, although at the moment it is less than half full, and presently employs about 120 staff.

 

It is run by Rushcliffe Care, which also owns 23 other homes.

 

Mrs Eileen Jarvis, a Partridge resident, suffered from dementia and required specialist care.

 

She moved into the home in February 2011, with instructions that she should not be left alone because she was likely to fall.

 

According to a letter from the centre’s manager to the family, Mrs Jarvis was left unattended during a shift change.

 

She got up, fell and broke her hip. It was two hours before staff at the home called the emergency services.

 

Mrs Jarvis’s daughter, Lesley Minchin, said she had got to the home at the same time as the paramedics.

 

“She was screaming out in pain when I arrived there and they were trying to ask her where the pain was,” Mrs Minchin said.

 

“She said she didn’t know but was hurting. When they touched her leg, she just screamed out.”

 

Mrs Minchin claimed many of the problems at the home were caused by a lack of employees.

 

“The staff were very, very good. There just wasn’t enough of them,” she said.

 

A series of inspections at Partridge Care Centre have been carried out by the Care Quality Commission since May.

 

The health watchdog’s most recent report, published in December, said it only had minor concerns over staffing levels.

 

“Overall we found that there were sufficient numbers of staff available in the home, however there was a lack of effective leadership and deployment due to the large numbers of agency staff working there.”

 

The Partridge Care Home failed in four of the five basic standards during this inspection, including concerns about whether residents were safe in the home and whether they are receiving appropriate treatment.

 

The BBC investigation also discovered that, during a surprise visit to the home by two managers in May 2011, several members of staff were found asleep while on duty, a serious disciplinary offence.

 

The managers found one resident lying on an unmade bed that was smeared with faeces. Another was found sitting on the floor and had soiled themselves.

 

Other residents were found wandering around on their own, yet more were found in bed fully clothed and the building itself was said to have smelt of urine.

 

An internal audit carried out by staff at the centre in July also found that most of the residents’ rooms were dirty.

 

Of the 21 homes run by Rushcliffe Care Limited, eight of them are currently failing at least one of the basic standards expected by the CQC, despite the company posting a £1.6m profit in the past year.

 

The company has since issued a statement, describing the failures at the Harlow care home as “a series of unfortunate locally mismanaged events.”

 

“We are unable to comment on individual unsubstantiated allegations, which have been made, but we… take all complaints and allegations seriously and when brought to our attention they are dealt with promptly and fairly.”

 

Essex County Council has suspended the placement of residents at the home after the hospital referrals related to diabetes in August.

 

In a statement, Ann Naylor, cabinet member for adult health, said: “The formal suspension of placements at Partridge Care Centre will remain in place, in consultation with Rushcliffe Care management, until such time that we are fully satisfied that sustainable improvements in the wellbeing and care of residents have been achieved.”

THE woman who hopes to become Harlow’s next Labour MP has hit out at the Government, accusing them of not doing enough to tackle unemployment among Harlow’s youth.

 

Prospective parliamentary candidate Suzy Stride, who works for a London youth charity set up to help young people find work, accused the Government of being “out of touch” with the challenges they face.

 

New figures from the Office of National Statistics show that roughly 715 of Harlow’s young people are currently claiming jobseekers allowance, while the number of long-term claimants has tripled over the past year.

 

“Young people need the right training to get back into work, but this out of touch Government doesn’t seem to understand that,” said Ms Stride.

 

“Teachers and youth workers in Harlow need the right funding in order to carry out this crucial work, but with continued cuts in youth services such as Connexions, young people and their families continue to be hit hard.”

 

Turning on the coalition, Ms. Stride has urged Westminster to abandon its “failing” economic policy and adopt Labour’s five-point plan for economic growth.

 “Young people in Harlow are at risk of becoming part of a lost generation because the Tory-led Government won’t abandon a plan that isn’t working.”

 

Tory MP for Harlow Robert Halfon has responded to Ms. Stride’s accusations.

“Labour left us with a legacy of 2.5m unemployed and nearly one million young unemployed. Despite this, the number of apprenticeships in Harlow has almost doubled in the last year: from 450 under Labour to 780 today.

 

“Although the economy is very difficult and slowing down across Europe, Harlow is better off than elsewhere. Our town’s youth unemployment is lower than both the East of England and the UK average.

 

“But I am not complacent about this; it is a serious problem. That is why I welcome the fact there are now 482 job vacancies at the Harlow Job Centre which is encouraging.

 

“I am also working hard to persuade the Government to open a new high-tech apprentice school in Harlow which would give our young people jobs and opportunities for the future, and help to put our town on the map.”

SCOTLAND has taken steps towards leaving the United Kingdom, after the Scottish Parliament called for a referendum on becoming an independent nation.

If successful the referendum, proposed by Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond, would break off ties with the rest of the United Kingdom that have been in place for almost 300 years.

Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party, promised his electorate a referendum on independence by 2010 in his 2007 election manifesto. 

Having won that election, the SNP published a white paper entitled ‘Choosing Scotland’s Future,’ which highlighted numerous options for the future of Scotland, including the possibility of independence.

After a second election victory last year, Salmond stated that a referendum would be held “in the second half of the parliament,” likely in 2014.

Earlier this month, David Cameron clashed with Salmond over his proposal, with other politicians questioning whether the Scottish Parliament has the mandate to institute such a radical change. 

The UK government has claimed that the mandate, written into the Act of the Union 1707, has never been devolved to the Scottish Parliament and still rests with Westminster.

Prime Minister Cameron has indicated that although the UK Parliament would be willing to devolve the power to hold a binding referendum, they strongly disagree with the SNP over its timing and composition.

In response, Salmond hit back by asserting that the Scottish Parliament already has the right to implement a binding referendum, without needing to receive any further powers from Westminster.

Now, Prime Minister Cameron and Alex Salmond have agreed to a meeting, and the coming weeks could see a decision on whether Scotland can vote on its independence or not. 

Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, welcomed the move saying that it represented “real progress”.

She added: “This is a welcome change of view from the Westminster government. When Alex Salmond first proposed a meeting with the PM and deputy PM the initial reaction was to decline it. The fact is they have reflected on that and changed their minds.”

Mr Salmond has claimed that David Cameron has turned down six invitations to meet and discuss the referendum since last summer.

However, a statement issued by Downing Street said: “The prime minister and the deputy prime minister have made it clear they are happy to meet Alex Salmond and arrangements will be made for that in the coming days.”

During the talks, both leaders are sure to consider recent opinion polls, which have revealed that support for a breaking of the Union is stronger among English voters than it is in Scotland.

An ICM survey, taken by the Sunday Telegraph, found that 43 per cent of English voters are in favour of Scotland’s bid to become independent, with only 32 per cent wanting the Scots to remain as part of the UK.

By comparison, only 40 per cent of Scottish voters supported the idea of independence while 43 per cent want to retain the Union. A similar poll taken by The Mail on Sunday put support for independence among Scottish voters at just 26 per cent, compared to 29 per cent in England.

The same poll also suggests that English voters are less worried about Scotland abandoning links with the United Kingdom than the Scottish are.

The main worry among Scottish voters seems to be that cutting their ties with England, Wales and Ulster could leave their country isolated and in financial difficulty.

Opinion polls indicate that four in ten Scots fear independence will leave them worse off financially, while fewer than one in four believe that they will gain from the split.

The damage that seems to have been done to Scottish enthusiasm for a referendum on Independence could well have come in the past year, caused by the weakened state of the Euro.

79 per cent of Scots do not want to join the euro, while 49 per cent don’t even want to join the EU.

According to opinion polls, only 32 per cent of Scots would be in favour of joining the EU if they were to leave the UK.

Scottish voters have been more vocal in the fact that they do not want the English to be allowed to vote on whether or not the referendum is held, while English voters have proven to be keen to have a say in the matter.

However, Scottish Secretary Michael Moore dismissed the findings, claiming there was no demand from English voters to be given a say in the Union’s future.

With the leaders meeting drawing closer, the possibility of a referendum going ahead has led some ministers to fear an ‘upsurge in English nationalism,’ spurred on by the demands of the Scots.

A study by the IPPR think-tank found four out of five voters in England believe Scots MPs should be banned from voting on England-only matters, such as health, at Westminster, and ministers will soon launch an inquiry into the so-called ‘West Lothian Question’ about the voting rights of Scottish MPs in the wake of devolution.