Donal OHanlon

Next Sunday Incredible Edibles are holding an “open day” at Phillip’s Park showcasing their work, from 12-4pm – pop down & try the produce!

Next week is my first Planning Control Committee. I cant’ attend due to 2 prior engagements (I wasn’t expecting to go onto Planning, but we lost our Cllr on it, so there you go!)

The Love Prestwich Strategy planning consent is on the agenda, the developers want to extend it for 5 years, presumably because developers have little money to start building at present? My view (and I’ve put it in writing to the Council) is that we should only give them 3 years, so they get a chivvy-on. Why not go along and give your views (only one person can speak for and one against, remember! Get ourselves organised!!!)

There’s a plan to put a house in the garden of a house on Prestwich Park Road South, with the main entrance from the unadopted Shrewsbury Road. The Council to my knowledge have not consulted the people who live at the opposite end of that road, where another plan is being devised for 5 houses to be contructed. Eagles Nest Wood is home to bats and wildlife – do you want to say something about these plans?

I note the Yesoidey Hatorah Jewish school opposite the Shell garage in Sedgley has asked to extend their buildings, including a play area on a roof. I’ve suggested a site visit is appropriate for that, to determine potential nuisance, and for the Cllrs to demand the school sort out the parking arrangements before they do anything else there!

If you want to comment on any of these or others, contact me or the Council asap, you haven’t got long!

Now I’m off to a school governors’ EGM to discuss the replacement Head at St Monica’s – should be fun!

Sandra Walmsley presented a 35-page document (was this longer than the budget document?!?) that explained how little was going to change in local representation under Labour. No extra cash; no local decision-making powers; even the way OUR cash is spent by Council Officers may not be discussed at these “Forums”! So what is the point? I suspect there is no point – just another way to keep well-paid Council Dept Managers in a job writing papers that say nothing, do nothing, and offer nothing new. The only thing that they do is wind-up people committed to spreading democracy to the people!

Yesterday was the first Full Council meeting of the year, held in the afternoon at 2pm before the Mayor-making ceremony.

Mike Connolly, the Leader of the Council blathered on about what a great job he & his team had done last year, and how, despite having to make major cutbacks, the Council still managed to put £1M into the bank by saving more  money than it needed to. They claimed responsibility for things we put into our budget amendments, but don’t they always! The cheeky bleeder even said “Who could forget…we introduced free car parking in Prestwich”! Well actually Mikey – you forgot it in your speech the year before – you even forgot it in your budget amendment and we all had to write it in ourselves – it shows what you think of the people of Prestwich!

So one has to ask – how much of this money-saving is down to your elected Councillors in the Executive, and how much is down to Dept Managers? Without casting too many aspersions, you only need to look at the people in the Executive to realise the vast majority of the work was done by the paid officials!

Further, if we could do so much and still make savings, how much money have those departments been wasting in previous years? (Or put it another way – if someone offered you a £200 saving to renew your household insurance when they heard you were going to take the business from them, you’d be entitled to ask why they couldn’t have offered that last year!) 

Topping off the most self-congratulatory and grating performance of bluster and nauseating caciquism, the great edgit then virtually demanded an apology from the outgoing Mayor, because she ridiculed a Labour Councillor for being rude. Connolly certainly went beyond the bounds of his realm as “Leader” in this, and if I were her I’d have slapped him down with the ceremonial mace, let alone a sharp rebuke!

Tim Pickstone asked why the Area Forum/Township Talking Shops proposal was so crass and weak (i.e. exactly the same drivel that Cllr Gill Campbell came up with 5 years ago when she last did anything anybody noticed for the Council) and they had no answer. Clearly, the Labour Group couldn’t bear to divest any power from the “Executive” to the people, there’s a chance we/you might show them how to really spend money wisely!

What else happened? Oh yeah, the new Tory leader on the Council, Iain Gartside said some pertinent stuff about the blank piece of paper that was presented by Labour (& passed only by Labour Cllrs) as a “budget” in February. He promised 3 commitments – let’s see if the Tories can stick to them?

1. Tories would always take best actions for Bury (i.e. not just for Tories in Bury)
2. They’d commit to listening to the views of staff
3. They’d support Govt initiatives in Bury, where Bury gets more dosh as a result

Whilst not exactly mind-blowing, it was more than we got from Labour.

Roy Walker, one of the elder statesmen in the Chamber, wisely asked why Bury Council only have 1 Cllr on the board that sets out the way the Council will take over Health matters (with a £300M budget), and over a dozen on the committee to scrutinize the decisions? Surely it makes more sense (to a person with any sense) to spend more time getting the management right and less time sorting problems afterwards? Again, Connolly blathered and waffled, and everybody turned their hearing aids off or put wool in their ears (because listening to him for more than 5 mins makes you want to do that!)

One final point: Connolly only once mentioned, “reductions in resources” in reference to the forthcoming years. To anyone that doesn’t know “Blarney”, that is a euphemism for “redundancies & cutbacks”. So, if you ever see him in your department, huddling with the boss and you hear those words, it may be time to sharpen your interview skills and get your thinking cap on!

(Click picture to play video)

It is shameful that, despite all the promise on a four or five year old’s first day at school, or the passion of their teachers, you can all too often plot that child’s path just by asking how much their parents earn.

The £2.5billion Pupil Premium was one of the four pledges on the front page of our manifesto.  And now, with Liberal Democrats in government, schools are using the money for things like breakfast clubs; homework clubs; or to provide one-to-one-tuition. These are the sort of experiences many middle class children take for granted but a poorer child might rarely enjoy.

Yesterday I visited a fantastic primary school to see how they are spending their Pupil Premium, highlight our new Summer Schools to ease the transition from primary to secondary, and to set out our plans to reward teachers and hold schools to account.

The Pupil Premium shows that, in tough times, we are implementing Liberal Democrat values and prioritising help for those pupils who need it most.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

PS Click here to find out how much money your local school will receive from the Liberal Democrats’ Pupil Premium.

This week, Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat minister at the Department of Health) has launched a national £4 million lung cancer awareness campaign. The campaign, the first of its kind, will use TV, radio and press adverts, and advertising on pharmacist bags and inside GP surgeries, to raise awareness of the disease.

One of its aims is to persuade anyone who has had a cough for more than three weeks to see their doctor.

You can find more information about coughing and lung cancer at the Department of Health website, here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/05/coughing-could-be-a-sign-of-lung-cancer-2/

With 33,000 new cases diagnosed each year, lung cancer is a blight on the lives of far too many of our families and an early diagnosis can make all the difference. Please take the opportunity of the Be Clear on Cancer campaign to find out more about prevention and diagnosis, and to visit your local doctor if you’ve had a persistent cough – it is always better to be safe than sorry!

http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/tag/be-clear-on-cancer/

Last night was a pretty awful night at the Council elections. Again!

Three previously unknown Labour activists took the 3 LibDem seats we were contesting in Prestwich. Councillors Vic & Mary D’Albert both lost, whilst Ann Garner was standing down and Steve Wright stood in her place and was defeated.

The Tories also lost a bunch of seats on the Council, including the Tory Leader, Roger Brown.

Whilst there’s a little bit of shock in me, if I’m honest with myself we were clearly undone by voter apathy (turnout was a paltry 31%, amongst the lowest ever) and the national political scene where the coalition government are unpopular with the electorate for making the cuts that they needed to do, to keep us from going to the IMF for handouts, is reducing everybody’s standard of living.

Parliametentary politicians will say “business as usual” because they are still in a job, whilst the everyday activists will get disillusioned (like the rest of the electorate!) and slowly drift away from the mainstream parties. The only ones that will be left will be Union Reps and early retirees from the public sector, looking to top up their income ’til their full final salary-related pension cheques start landing on the doorstep. Then we will head down the austerity route of Greece and other nations who’ve stuck their heads in the sand. Oh, and there will be some tree-huggers and the usual few isolationist nutters…

Local politics tends to attract a weird bunch that perhaps you wouldn’t normally see together – the one thing you actually seem to see very little of are “normal working people” who want to improve the lot of Joe Public, without a single issue spurring them on. One night when there’s bugger all on the telly, pop into the Council and ask to go into one of the Council meetings and you may see what I mean…

I don’t have much against this, but the prevalence of people who the electorate do not associate as being “like them” perhaps is another element of what is turning them off in their droves.

Anyway – time to get some work done soon (wrote this at 7am when the feelings are still raw) but publishing a bit later to re-read a few times.

One final point: Congratulations to the victors, I hope that the faith that the few voters that turned out is something you can live up to.

Essential maintenance work is to be carried out on the telephone system next Saturday morning at 9.00 which will likely result in interruptions to service between 9.00 and 12.00. All necessary measures will be taken to keep any interruption to a minimum.

Where? Chesham Woods, Bury
When? 8.20pm Wed 25th April
I love bats, but can’t attend – go along and listen to Jerry Sorfleet, he has the voice & knowledge we all want!

Official reports have confirmed that no Liberal Democrat-run council in England has increased council tax for their residents. This is unlike both other major parties, many of which are increasing council tax by up to 3.5% this year.

Commenting on Labour and Conservative councils’ record on Council Tax, Liberal Democrat Party President, Tim Farron said:

“While Labour and the Tories fight over how many of their councils raised Council Tax, it’s clear that with the Liberal Democrats your money is safest: no Liberal Democrat-run council in England has raised Council Tax.

“Ordinary working families are struggling already with paying bills, without their councils increasing the burden.

“The choice in next month’s elections is clear: vote Liberal Democrat for financially responsible councils that create jobs. Vote Labour and the Tories for waste, mismanagement and tax rises.”

As well as freezing council tax across the country, Liberal Democrat councils are protecting front-line services, fighting to keep libraries and Sure Start centres open. This is in addition to the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in government, which after the Budget include a £130 income tax cut for all working families, the largest-ever rise in the basic state pension, an increase in child tax credits for the poorest families, and an increase in the Lib Dem Pupil Premium to £600 for every pupil receiving Free School Meals.

At every level of government, the Liberal Democrats are cutting taxes for low- and middle-earners and better targeting help to those that need it the most. It is a record of financial responsibility of which we can be proud.