We are a community led organisation that was set up to represent the residents of the whole of the East Marsh area. We hold monthly meetings where matters of mutual concern can be raised with and discussed with your Ward Councillors as well as with representatives from Humberside Police, Shoreline Housing Partnership and other partner organisations. 

If however you have a personal issue that is affecting you or the area in which you live you will after the business side of the meeting finishes have the opportunity to discuss these matters with the representatives of the above organisations.

Residents who attend the meeting are also invited to discuss and then make decisions on how both the Ward Councillors Funding of £20,000 and the Fairshare funding Youth Fund of £10,000 is allocated.  

Our meetings are very focused with generally a main agenda item such as for example recently the regeneration of the area especially at the moment Guildford Street and the Anti Social Behaviour around Rutland Street have been discussed. This enables full and frank discussion of the issues and paves the way for Action Plans to be created, acted upon by agencies and individuals working in the area and the results of those actions are reported back to future meetings of the group. 

At the moment the groups membership is drawn mainly from the Freeman Street side of the East Marsh but by targeted leafleting we intend to build our membership to hopefully include residents from around the Grant Thorold Park and Park Street areas.

East Marsh Involve is your Community Forum so why not come along and find out how you can pay your part in making the East Marsh a better place to live. 

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 25 November starting at 6pm at the Grimsby Neighbourhood Centre on the corner of Wellington Street & Weelsby Street. 

However, in the spirit of democracy perhaps he should have let the public decide. The 64-year-old has received strong support from the public since the show started, but the judges have been critical of his dancing. And, this is where the problem appears to have started in my opinion; it was simply a case of the public disliking the comments of judges. They phoned in their thousands to support our ‘Honest John’, but at the same time they were showing their displeasure at the judge’s comments.  

Perhaps, he should now consider turning his energy to a new political role, and instead of fighting for telephone votes he should seek his votes through the ballot box. How about it, John Sergeant MP? 

He was speaking at a Youth Parliament event, and he was right to warn of the problem of debt; however as society we are very poor of trying to overcome the problems of debt. He said, our education system is very good at saddling students with debt - but rotten at educating them out of debt. 

Mr. Clegg pointed out that personal debt has spiralled in recent years, having risen by £1 trillion in total since Labour came to power.

The Liberal Democrats solutions to the problem of personal debt involve greater education about finances at all levels; a programme that Mr. Clegg called ‘financial literacy’ and a campaign by the BBC to give people access to independent financial advice.

Mr. Clegg said: “One of the reasons why the economy’s in such a state at the moment is because of all this debt. It is our young who will inherit this legacy of debt. We’ve been addicted to debt, and now we’re having to go cold turkey.  

Personal finance is enormously complicated - we can’t just imagine people will muddle through and magically understand APRs and SVRs and IVAs.”

    Commenting on today’s annual report from Ofsted on the state of education and children’s services in England, which reveals that authorities are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse, Liberal Democrat Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, David Laws said: “This report makes some deeply concerning criticisms of child protection services.

David Laws went on to say: “Some of the issues being raised may have been relevant in the Baby P case. Ed Balls must explain why action on these matters has not already been taken, given that Ofsted is repeating earlier criticisms.

“It is now all too clear that the lessons of the Victoria Climbie case have not been learned. There should be a full public inquiry into the Baby P case, not the superficial two week review the Government has commissioned.“

Commenting on warnings in the report that a third of schools are not giving pupils a good education, David Laws said: “Every child should have access to a good school. It’s unacceptable that over a million children are being taught in schools which do not meet this standard.

“Ed Balls needs to explain why 11 years of Labour Government has left one in three schools failing to provide a good education.

“It is clear that the Government’s approach of endless initiatives and micro-management from Whitehall has failed.”

Nick Clegg went on to say: “This is a damning condemnation of what was an unjustified invasion which we now know to have flouted international law.

“This makes the case for a full public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Government’s decision to invade Iraq unavoidable.”

      Criminals caught with knives are escaping with fines as little as a £1, it has emerged today.

        And the alarming fact is that only around a dozen offenders are jailed each year despite thousands being caught with a blade, following government promises to cut down on knife crime – the menace that has swept the country. 

So far this year 28 teenagers have died violently in London alone, 22 of them killed with a knife.

 But figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show one in ten people caught with a knife are fined. 

On occasion they have been told to pay as little as £1 although the average penalty in 2006, the most recent statistics, was £57 for those under 16, £123 for 16 to 18-year-olds and £153 for adults. 

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said: “The Government claims to be tough on knife crime while at the same time dishing out penalties to knife carriers of less than twenty quid. Judges must have discretion, but these penalties are ridiculously lenient when you can get four years in jail for possessing a knife. 

“If we are to tackle knife crime, a strong message must be sent to those who carry knives. These pitiful fines do not do that. 

“Ministerial posturing on penalties is pointless if people feel they can carry knives and get away with a slap on the wrist. 

“The best way to tackle knife crime is to ensure that more people are caught carrying knives through intelligence led stop and search, hot-spot policing and firm but fair penalties.”

Firstly, the British Airline Pilots Association, which represents most of the country’s commercial pilots, said the Government’s “early warning system should be flashing” over its opposition to plans to force aviation workers to be the first Britons to carry ID cards.

There general secretary, said his members resented being treated as guinea pigs and added: “It may come to an industrial dispute.

The Government however is determined to fast-track ID cards to all airport staff due to the importance of high security in their workplaces.

A further development shows that less than 30 percent of the UK public wants to enrol for ID cards at private-sector retailers, despite the home secretary’s promotion of such locations.

Only 25 percent of more than 2,000 people questioned for the government’s Central Office of Information would consider having their fingerprints, photo and signature recorded for an ID card in a supermarket, according to research commissioned by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS). This increased to just 26 percent for a petrol station, 28 percent for a department store and 29 percent for a local shop.

People responded more positively towards post offices, which would be considered by 53 percent, local authorities (63 percent) and banks (66 percent). But the preferred locations for ID-card enrolment were passport offices and police stations, with results of 84 percent and 85 percent respectively.

Despite the findings, however, two weeks ago home secretary Jacqui Smith indicated her intention to press ahead with high-street enrolment. “Enrolment should be able to happen at the convenience of the customer, on the high street, at the nearest post   office, or at the local shopping centre,” she said.

   Liberal Democrats Home Affairs Spokesperson, Tom Brake said: “Signing up for an ID card isn’t like buying a lottery ticket. It’s clear ministers are desperate to find any means to get people to sign up for an ID card. This is just their latest half-baked attempt.” 

      Nick Clegg

      Nick also said “After months of wandering aimlessly on economic policy David Cameron has finally performed a full U-turn.” 

      “Today’s announcement is economic madness. No-one can predict the length and depth of this recession so making promises for two years time is foolish. 

“What is clear is that they have no solutions for today’s problems - that’s why they can only make pie in the sky promises for the future.” 

Outlining how Liberal Democrat policy would help ordinary people on low and middle incomes, Nick said; “If we want to help our economy now, we must immediately cut taxes for those on low and middle incomes and pay for it by closing tax loopholes exploited by the very wealthy. 

“If we are also to borrow to help kick-start the economy this must only be for one off capital projects that will benefit our country, not only today, but also in the future. We must not simply borrow to plough money into unsustainable spending or tax cuts.”

In front pf the Treasury select committee of MPs, senior executives from Northern Rock said they were working on an industry-wide solution to help customers at risk of losing their home through new “mortgage rescue packages”.

Gary Hoffman, the new chief executive, admitted some customers were in such difficulty that they handed back the keys to their homes without discussion with the lender. One third of all the homes it had repossessed were “voluntary”, said Hoffman. However, I just wonder how much help and assistance they receive before they get to this point – possible some rather curt letters demanding that they pay up all the arrears within the next seven days.

Hoffman, who was hired from Barclays on a massive salary of £700,000 for a state run bank, said: “Everyone of these I will regret.”

The bank’s repossession rate of 0.56% of all loans is running at three times the industry average.

Northern Rock had taken possession of 4,201 homes by the end of September, up from 3,710 at the end of June. Most of these homes were repossessed in the past 18 months.

He joined trading standards officers in Grimsby town centre yesterday to offer advice on how to avoid falling foul of scams.

A stall was set up in Freshney Place, packed full of dodgy goods – including toys with a dangerously high lead content, Christmas lights with a risk of electrocution and fake football shirts.

After Del Boy had reeled in the shoppers, staff were on hand to offer advice.

Councillor Steve Beasant, portfolio holder for communities and neighbourhoods, said: “If you buy a fake, you are going to get a fake Christmas. It is worth paying a little bit more and knowing everything is as it should be. I have with me today a photograph of my two grandchildren, and I am not going to ruin their Christmas by buying them a ‘dodgy deal’; if I am little out of pocket by paying little extra it will be well worth it.

“With the credit crunch, this is going to be a hard Christmas for everyone, but the message is not to compromise. Every year, we all look for a good deal and you can get some good deals, but it no good getting ‘ripped off’!”

And Del Boy urged customers not to “be a plonker”.

He said: “You could buy bad toys, dodgy fags and fake football tops, but all they will do is make you ill or you will have wasted your money.”

The trading standards officers also urged customers to make sure they were aware of their rights when picking up their Christmas gifts.

North East Lincolnshire Council’s Trading Standards manager Andy Foster said: “Our message is to have a great Christmas, but to do it sensibly.

“We have displayed a lot of things that we have seized already, including Christmas tree lights that overheat and start fires and the usual fake clothes and perfume.

“We want to offer advice and tips and help people if they have a problem.”