Donal OHanlon

Last night was Planning Committee again.

There were few significantly controversial decisions to be made, but I asked for a site visit to a Children’s Educational Unit in Moorside, as there were plenty of questions that could be answered by a site visit.

This was granted after a vote by Councillors, but one of the more vociferous Councillors was against the idea, on the grounds that there was sufficient information provided already. The fact that the Councillor used to represent the ward concerned means that his knowledge of the area is much greater than many of the rest of us!

I was also told that this delay may mean that the Children’s Service may not be able to get the work done. If a private developer (rather than the Council) tried to use this argument to convince Councillors of the validity of their argument, we would usually tell them to “hop-it!” to say the least. Lack of time for development is not a reason to pass anything without proper scrutiny, and on Planning we are “semi-judicial”, meaning that we cannot be swayed by political considerations. This is the second time that Children’s Services appear to have taken such decisions to the wire, and I’ll therefore be referring these matters to the appropriate Scrutiny Committee, to see if it’s being run properly.

(The previous one was the Children’s Centre at Butterstile School within my Ward). Other political parties are trying to make some capital of the decision to delay a decision at Planning, where I also asked Councillors to consider a site visit, to understand the issues around the decision. I then left the room, as I have an “Interest” in the decision, as a Governor of Butterstile School. The Councillors chose to make a site visit, because the decision seemed to be rushed without suitable consultation.

A mobile phone mast was granted permission for development on Whittaker Lane in Prestwich, despite concerns expressed by residents relating to excessive development of the street scene: There is another one about 15-20m further down the pavement, with a bus stop in between. I raised the excessive development concerns, as well as explaining to Councillors that proposals had recently been put forward to develop the area for revised parking arrangements, which may require the digging-up of services on the pavement. Cllr. Steve Wright spoke about the concerns many local residents have, as did a softly-spoken resident. However, this was just a slight alteration to a proposal that had already been granted permission, so it was always going to be unlikely that it waould get rejected, and it didn’t.

Tonight is Full Council, where we consider the Budget for next Year. It’ll go on for 3 hours, Labour will probably bawl about all sorts of rubbish, the Tories will say how prudent they’ve been, despite getting a terrible settlement from Central Govt., and we’ll actually ask some questions about services that really matter to Joe Public.
If we don’t agree a budget, we all get barred from office, and maybe even sent down - so that is unlikely to happen!
This is the point where we see if Labour are any form of real opposition or whether they’ve STILL not got over being the party in power. I suspect the latter - I wonder if I could get odds at a bookies on it?
I’m asking questions about park services. This is important to Prestwich as we have Irwell Valley; Prestwich & Mere Cloughs; St Mary’s Park & Flower gardens in our Ward boundary. I want to see the parks flourish, and despite “Bury in Bloom” we seem to have seen precious little of that down here!
If you want to know more, or support us, come along to the town hall in Bury tonight. It’s a bit like Punch & Judy but without the cricket bat!

Donal