Donal OHanlon

Below was the press statement received from the Council:

Bury Council is continuing to hold negotiations to bring about a high quality regeneration project for the Longfield Centre in Prestwich.

As the site’s main landowner, the council has been having discussions since last summer with Hollins Murray Group, the site’s long-term leaseholder, and with Terrace Hill, who HMG brought in as developer.

 Councillor Tony Isherwood, executive member for environment and economy, said: “These talks are ongoing and confidential, and it would not be appropriate to go into too much detail at this time.

 “However, following media speculation, it is fair to say that the plans so far put forward have fallen short of our ambitions. This is why I called a private meeting with Prestwich councillors on Thursday (12 Jan) to bring them up to speed with how matters were progressing.”

 Cllr Isherwood added: “We believe that local residents and their representatives want the best deal possible for Prestwich, and that the principles outlined in the Love Prestwich Village strategy are still relevant and important. These principles encompass the need for a variety of shops, community facilities and better access.

 “The current economic recession is not sufficient reason to rush into a redevelopment that falls substantially short of achieving those outcomes. If necessary, we are prepared to wait until things improve and those outcomes can be delivered.

 “We will continue to work with the developers to bring forward a proposal that will meet the expectations of residents and visitors to Prestwich.”

I asked that in future Councillors be informed of PR before they are issued.

I agree with the comments form Cllr Isherwood, as do all Prestwich Councillors – we will not be cornered by big developers or supermarkets who would potentially destroy the community infrastructure of Prestwich. We need  consideration of what Prestwich has, but more importantly what we could have if a development was brought to the table that respected much more of the “Love Prestwich” strategy.

Nobody is against redevelopment – we all recognise that the Longfield Shopping Centre is outdated, looks tired, and is in need of a modern replacement that will be suitable for the next 30 years. In fact, all your Councillors want what is best for the people of Prestwich to maintain & increase it’s vibrancy. Perhaps our differences lie in what each considers is acceptable deviation from the Love Prestwich Strategy, but that’s the elephant in the room, and we will cross that bridge when we need to (if that’s not mixing metaphors too much?!?).

I have been contacted by a few people about this, and at present all I can say is that your comments are being taken on board and asked within Council, but because of “commercial sensitivity” we can’t make the answers public just yet. We will do so at the first opportunity.

I’ve recently been speaking to Six Town Housing about what they’re doing for the residents of Prestwich. I get loads of magazines from different groups, and they always explain projects that they’re working on – it just never seems to be in Prestwich!

Rainsough Estate:

Following the failure to redevelop the shops a couple of years back, we need to seek another venue or facility on the estate so that people don’t have to go into Prestwich Centre or up to Butterstile Children’s Centre. We’re now working on some ideas…

Also, last year I put forward Kersal Road as a road in need of some kind attention, especially the open land by the playground and the border of the golf course. I’m glad to be able to tell you that we were successful, and Groundwork Trust will be carrying out some improvement works soon.

Guerilla Gardening:

We have lots of sites where communal gardens for growing food produce could be undertaken. We need to get community groups together to start it, and build up the facilities. I will link with “Incredible Edibles” and others to try to understand how we can do this. In some cases the Groups are too informal to be effectively organised at present, but that just takes one committed person to take control…

Section 106 Town & Country Planning Act Money:

At the last Full Council I put forward a motion to ensure that decisions about how to spend money raised from big developments in Prestwich is decided by the Township Forums, and thus is publically discussed & accountable to scrutiny. Labour amended this to say that the Forums would be consulted, but as with most Labour issues, they don’t have to accept our advice, and the decisions will be taken by Councillors from Radcliffe & Bury who are on the Executive (in the same way they will consult with us on what to do with the Longfield site; they will consult with us about closing the tip; consult with us about which Police Station desks to close; consult with us about which Elderly People’s Housing or Sheltered Housing schemes to close; the way they consulted about which School to try & close) - do you see a pattern emerging?

“s.106 Money” as it is known, is intended to be spent within a mile of the development. Bury usually spends it on play facilities or public art, but it can be used for a much wider variety of purposes. I will be consulting with colleagues around the Country to see what others use theirs for, and continue the fight to wrestle it away from central control – something your Labour-run Council are very keen to maintain.

Just so you know, all 3 Labour Councillors from Prestwich (Gill Campbell, Alan Quinn & Noel Bayley) voted to prevent local people deciding how money raised from Prestwich is spent, ensuring central control is maintained. Is that the kind of thing you want your Local Councillor to do? In their correspondence with you have they mentioned such “successes” in preventing greater local public accountability?…. thought not!

Housing Matters:

What is the quality of social housing in  the area? How does it compare with other areas? What are the repeat problems for residents? What are Six Town Housing doing to address these problems? What would help improve the areas that we have social housing in Prestwich? – these were some of the questions I put to the new Neighbourhood Team for Prestwich, and they will be looking into them & giving me a clear set of answers & ways to overcome the problems (I hope!) More on this to follow over the next few months…

Hope your weekend was great, and you’re raring to go for the week ahead!

Hi All,
I received that following email from our Library service, and thought I ought to share it with you in case anyone wanted more information:

Have you been watching the BBC Stargazing programmes this week, from Jodrell Bank? They’ve been fascinating. The library service has some wonderful resources available in the areas of astronomy.

Books

can be found on the online catalogue by searching here – http://library.bury.gov.uk/search/d

Astronomy/Science magazines

- Astronomy Now (this month’s has a feature on how our moon was created as discussed on Monday night’s Stargazing programme)

- BBC Focus
- New Scientist

Websites

A good selection of links can be found via the Stargazing site here – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mlr20

Observatories

Jodrell Bank is marvellous – http://www.jodrellbank.net/ – but did you know there’s also a small observatory to the north east of Bury, in Todmorden? http://www.astronomycentre.org.uk/

Regards

 Travelling down to London on the 06.35 meant an early start. I normally don’t feel like a decent breakfast before 06.30, so picked up a delicious bacon bagel at the station, washed down with a coffee.

Read the paper (the “i”) and noted a couple of stories that reverberate:

John Lewis Britain – Cleggy wants us all to become share owners in the businesses we work for. I had that deal with HSBC, but wasn’t allowed to sell my shares when I wanted to. Whilst the bank shares aren’t a good example as they more than halved, they did allow “participation” and ownership by staff. However, in principal it is a good idea, and I would say that it gave me a better sense of pride than salary or company image alone could do. Go for it, Nick! I agree with Nick.

Sutton Trust Report on private education – that poor kids should get places at private fee-paying schools, based upon merit and not parent wealth. Laudible idea, but simply not that practical in the real world. Most private school owners don’t make a mint, and do it for the love of teaching (and I’ve seen plenty of them as my previous job included surveying them). They need the cash of rich parents who can pay for small class sizes to keep going. If there’s a method that can be found to provide more bursaries for poorer families, then it should be introduced more widely.

The Ecoomy: It seems that every day I read about another high street retailer potentially going to the wall – La Senza recently, now Peacocks is on the brink. The economic woes of the High Street are fairly & squarely laid at the door of Gordon Brown – remember “No more boom & bust”?! The fact that we make very little for ourselves any more is a key driver to the lack of cash being spent in the shops. The lack of a diverse economy (such as found in the relatively booming Germany, only 20 years after taking on the bankrupt East German economy) shows how wrong we were to rely upon The City and Retailing as our saviours.

When there is a downturn in one sector, there does not need to be one in an un-related one. However, when a whole region depends upon a particular trade (e.g. car manufacture in the West Midlands) then everybody pays the price. Unfortunately, what happens is that businesses see slightly better margins in a particular area, and focus all their resources there, instead of spreading their risk over various areas, products, business models etc. “Variety is the Spice of Life”; “Everything in moderation”; and other such sayings really are the truth – we should apply them to every facet of our lives, and see how they improve!

Our previous Labour Government (remember, Ivan Lewis in the Treasury Dept. everyone?), voted in by the great British public, swallowed the lies and boasts that were spread about London banks paying for everything – well we can now see that the reverse is actually true – the people of Britain bailed out the “Banks too big to fail” and still own big parts of RBS!

Current Reading: I feel I should share some of my current reading, there’s some fascinating stuff that is really moving: Vasily Grossman’s “The Road” is a collection of moving short stories & essays, letters and other writing that display this Ukrainian’s growth & skill in his chosen art-form. Having just read his first-hand account of Treblinka, the “hidden” death camp, it becomes obvious how people can become obsessed with trying to find and prosecute the maniacs who operated such places. It also helps me to understand how such a mind-set comes about – that feeling of superiority and invincibility that blinded the Germans to the actions of the monsters within their ranks. My brother lives in a beautiful part of Germany, and I have seen for myself how nationalism can warp the mind of people who blame all their woes on “interlopers”, rather than accepting that bad stuff happens even to good people!

I’m also reading Spike Milligan’s trilogy “Hitler, My part is his Downfall” which is a very funny & irreverent recollection of his time in National Service.

“An English Journey” by JB Priestley sits by my bed and I pick it up from time to time to recall what parts of the Country were like prior to WWII. Not everything can be seen through rose-tinted spectacles.

 There are six or seven other books that I pick up from time to time, so I can read them slowly and fully absorb them. It makes a pleasant change from Council Agendas, reports & minutes! I always keep a couple of church books in the car, in case I go past an interesting one that I want to see & understand more of (England’s thousand best; A Basic Church Dictionary (ABCD!); Pevsner etc.) It also gives me something to do if I get in a motorway jam with nothing else to do. Now back to the Lofstedt review, for some more light reading!

The cheeky swines have sent me an email, now I’m on their mailing list – my comments are in bold:
Happy New Year! Welcome to Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority’s Member newsletter. It was a significant 2011 for GMWDA, as our recycling and composting rate increased to 37.7% and landfill diversion is at 50%. More of our facilities were completed to deal with the 1.1 million tonnes of waste in Greater Manchester. Good news!

The technology used to sort and treat Greater Manchester’s rubbish and recycling is having a positive impact on the environment by making better use of valuable materials, by reducing Co2 emissions and by generating green electricity. But what is the cost of all this new technology? Gross expenditure by the Waste Authority rose from £80M in 2010/1 to £96M in 2011/2! The levy rose from £47.75 to £53.65 each (12%)!! So we pay more to recycle our own waste more – what on earth are they doing with our money?

As you read on, you will see that our latest Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) under the contract was completed in October. We are continuing to dispel the myth of the ‘Tip’ and impress residents with an easier way to recycle. Except for the people of Prestwich & Shaw, who have lost their recycling centres (is it coincidental that both were big LibDem voting areas?)

We issued the fourth edition of ‘I Love Recycling’ on December the 8th, giving Greater Manchester a taste of what we are doing, to help reduce waste and improve recycling rates. It is definitely worth a read! (I hope it’s only available in IT form, otherwise it’s more paper to be mulched!)

Our fourth education centre is now open in Bredbury, providing more fantastic educational opportunities to help schools and communities in Greater Manchester see the value of waste and to recycle right. So they close facilities in the north that aid recycling, and open education units in the south – nice!

As we head towards 2012 and the third year of the Contract, we are focusing our strength on ways to ensure waste is always seen as an important resource. Our focus is on preventing waste arisings and continuing to reach a 50% recycling rate and 75% diversion from landfill by 2015. Our ambitious yet achievable target is zero waste to landfill.

Harnessing the combined initiatives we have undertaken in the 3Rs- Reduce, Re-use and Recycle in 2011, steers us closer to a greener future in Greater Manchester. These are indeed exciting, yet challenging times and we take pride in our work, which influences the North West, and also on a national level. All very laudible!

The interaction between GMWDA and the nine districts of Greater Manchester and its 2.3 million residents is vital if we are to continue with our ambition of zero waste to landfill. We are achieving great things and we hope that you will be able to join us in 2012 with communicating the important message of the 3Rs across Greater Manchester.
Give me the recycling centre back and I will! If our binmen can’t even collect the wheelie bins, what hope is there of this?!
Remember your feedback is welcome and very useful. Please take the time to fill in the short survey below regarding the e:newsletter.

Best Wishes,

Councillor Neil Swannick
Chair of GMWDA

Cllr Swannick is supposedly an expert on waste, I wish him well, but (in a non-malicious way) hope he loses his Chairmanship to someone else! I know he has tough decisions to make, I just don’t think he makes the right choices.

Fire Officers have contacted me about the cuts planned to fire cover in Bury. I’ve been waiting for detailed answers to queries raised, and it’s now arrived:

The video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/GMFRSVideoChannel

The easy-to-read leaflet for your borough can be viewed here: http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/media/153754/bury.pdf

The full Corporate Plan can be viewed here: http://www.manchesterfire.gov.uk/about_us/policies_and_publications/corpplan_2012_2015.aspx

Online survey can be completed here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/corporateplan2012_2015

Take a look and feel free to respond – I will! The consultation is open only until 23/1/2012 – nice of them to give us plenty of time with the info!!!

Quick – I can smell burning! I get the head torch on and rush round. Whilst there are big piles of detritus, nothing is alight and all looks secure. It must be my neighbours burning all their Christmas cardboard in a garden fire pit since the Council failed to collect it!

Grey bin collected 3.1.12
Bown Bin collected 10.1.12
Green Bin not collected
“2 out of 3 ain’t bad”, said Meatloaf; “2 out of 3 ain’t good enough”, says I!

This was typed over a week ago, the response was in last week’s Guide. I note the Advertiser still only ask Labour Councillors for quotes on things that we have raised or proposed (buying the Tip site back & ru-using it)!

I got a call from the Reporter for one of the local papers today, and we had a reasonable chat about my comments. To be fair, he wasn’t present at the Council Meeting and I agreed that it wasn’t his style to blank a specific political party. However, because he wasn’t present, and others were, I still felt that both the local papers had been remiss in not reporting what was an important debate (about how we spend money raised from major planning decisions in Prestwich).

I suggested that it should have been reported by the press that the LibDems put forward a perfectly reasonable proposal that Local Toownship Forums should decide how this money was spent, and that Labour refused this, by putting forward an amendment that allowed us to be “consulted” but not “decide”.

The reporter agreed that they would now run a story on the matter, for which I’m grateful, and perhaps I’ll be a bit less critical of local papers in future. I didn’t ask him for any favours or a positive spin from our side – that is his prerogative and the duty of a free press is to report matters as they see them (think “Arab Spring”) – I just hope they put the Labour Council Leader & his Executive Members under serious scrutiny so that the public can see how they spin the yarn that they are “democratic” whilst failing to empower local people with the ability to take legitimate and simple decisions that ONLY affect their area.

As I said in a previous post, we asked for the powers to spend money when the Local Area Boards were abolished by Labour and replaced by “Area Partnerships” but the Executive Member at the time (Gill Campbell, now a Labour Councillor in Holyrood Ward of Prestwich) refused. No good reason could be given, but clearly Labour Bury Central HQ wanted to control every tiny detail of spending (and what a great job they made of it – selling the Lowry painting; failing to replace Radcliffe Riverside School; trying to close other schools such as Prestwich Arts College etc.!) I assume that they took this route under the advice of MP Ivan Lewis, because that’s how his political masters (Bliar & Brown respectively) handled matters (again – what a wonderful job they did!) The Labour Council Leader has worked for Lewis, as did his predecessor, so it’s likely this is where the ideas were formulated.

When the Area Partnerships were replaced by “Township Forums” we also asked, and we have asked several times in between. Labour (and the Tories who followed them) have steadfastly refused to disseminate ANY power to the Townships – proving that they can’t be trusted with power, and certainly not with OUR MONEY!!!

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out, so for now I’ll still be buying both the Guide & Bury Times, and will get a copy of the Advertiser on my travels.

(Phew! typed quick so I could do in my lunch!)