Donal OHanlon

Out on the trail, chasing those votes & convincing floating voters.

Lots of minor issues noticed & reported, with some positives in the pipeline, and some partially completed.

Seen the M60 J17 roundabout - they’ve put red paint on surface to aid drivers with poor lane discipline! Hurrah!!! I’ve been campaigning for this for over a year!

My other Work has also been hectic - major project due for completion & issuing to colleagues.

Also went to osteopath to get some minor treatment - feel great now!

Coroporate Risk Management in the Council is now developing nicely - I’ve asked a few things to b addressed & hope to have answers shortly on that….

I’ve been ref’ing recetly too, but no cup finals this year for me, because I was so busy with other stuff that I forgot to let the secretary know of my availablity (oops!)

Sad news on recent deaths - Gordon Sharkey (former Freeman of the Borough & Labour Cllr. that I sat next to in the Chamber last year); Charles Cross (also Freeman of the Borough & Town Clerk of Prestwich in 1974, when subsumed into Bury Metropolitan Borough. Charles was a resident of Prestwich, and in his day was the Country’s leading light on local Govt. law, highways, public health & related subjects. No wonder Prestwich was so lovely as I grew up in the 70’s!

Warren Flood, a former Labour Cllr & party activist has also died suddenly, recently. I didn’t know him well, but I believe he did some good work in his days as a Cllr., and I did meet him on polling day in the last couple of elections. He seemed like a nice chap, and I wish the families & friends of all the departed my sincere condolences. 

The St Mary’s Focus Team heard back form a local resident last night who was very pleased to discover that a missing bollard had been replaced, after intervention from our election candidate Mary D’Albert.

We heard last week that the bollard had been removed from the edge of Prestwich Clough during recent fencing works, and the people involved had not replaced it. This had led to illegal motorbiking activity in the area, because the bollard which had been installed to stop it had now been removed. Mary and the team got onto it and now the bollard is back.

During canvassing last night, we picked up a bit more casework too, so this morning our election candidate Mary has been chasing that up as well. One elderly lady was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to manage bringing her blue bin down her drive way, so we have asked that a refuse collector assists her with this, similar to the arrangement already in place for her grey bin. The lady was delighted to see local Lib Dems again, because we got the street light outside her house fixed a few weeks ago after a call to the team.

We have also heard from the Friends of St Mary’s Park, who contacted the team to talk about plans for a flower bed in the park. The group is one of a number of small community interest groups that Mary D’Albert and the team regularly attend and try to help. The Friends of the park have the plants, but not the time to plant them, so we are trying to work with the Council to get the flower bed planted by the time of the next Prestwich Clough Day, which will be in a few weeks. Lots of local people were delighted to hear that the future of this excellent community event has been secured for at least the next two years thanks to a grant of over £2,000 from the Lib Dem controlled Prestwich Local Area Partnership.

Prestwich Lib Dems will be back out on the campaign trail tonight, and we look forward to meeting more local people. If you see us, do stop and say hello, and let us know if we can help with anything.

Liberal Democrats have announced a full team of candidates to contest the elections for Bury Council on Thursday 1 May 2008. One third of the seats on the Council are up for election, with one councillor to be elected in each of the 17 wards.

Two Councillors are seeking re-election - Vic D’Albert in Holyrood and Ann Garner in Sedgley.

Liberal Democrat candidates are:
Ramsbottom, Tottington and North Manor
Ramsbottom - Janet Turner
Tottington - David Foss
North Manor - Ewan Arthur
Bury West
Elton - Robert Sloss
Church - Tamsin Thomson
Bury East
Moorside - Nissa Finney
East - Emma Davison
Redvales - Paul Jenkins
Radcliffe
Radcliffe North - Lynne Molloy
Radcliffe West - Joanne O’Hanlon
Radcliffe East - Mike Halsall
Whitefield and Unsworth
Unsworth - Theo Tzymcyca
Besses - Julie Baum
Pilkington Park - Wayne Burrows
Prestwich
Holyrood - Vic D’Albert
St Mary’s - Mary D’Albert
Sedgley - Ann Garner

This week kicks off the local election campaign.

As always, it will be a long dirty fight with Labour in Prestwich, whilst the Tories will be present in parts.

However, that’s not paramount in my mind this morning - I have lots of work to attend to, and then I have a health regime to get stuck into.

 (Above written on Monday)

I have to improve my back & posture so went to an osteopath today - feels miles better already!

Also got some emails off about the work done in the last few weeks, in time for the next Focus leaflets. I’ve been chasing all sorts of stuff as usual, but as the Council seems to spend most of the available cash in the last few weeks of the Council year. And it’s difficult to shout about them because Officers are not allowed to say anything which may give an advantage to any Councillor or prospective Cllr!

 Anyway - enjoy the lack of posts, because I’ll be busy from now on!

Donal

Hi,

 I’ve had some blog responses back recently, but haven’t posted them because I’m not quite sure how! (It is not because they’re negative - although some are) I’ll try to arrange a tutorial with a colleague soon, and post them for you.

Checking my messages on the ‘phone, I note that the reason for the 13-months delay in improving the roadworks to junction 17 of the M60, is the following:

• I asked for improvement work at the PLAP (then called Area Board) in January 2007
• The Officer took this request & engineers investigated
• In September 2007(!!!!), an order was placed to do the work
• Because the juction is with a motorway roundabout, the slip roads need closing, and thus it has to be done through the Highways Agency, who get Contractors to do it on their behalf. The Contractors have not found a suitable date that works with the Highways Agency yet!
• I’m now trying to get the Highways Agency to explain their delay!

I noted that a few calls from local papers had occurred recently, but because of work commitments, I was not able to respond in time for their deadlines.

Several planning & other personal issues have been dealt with for constituents, but confidentiality means I can’t put them on a blog!

Time for some real work now…

How very annoying!

I just wrote a post, and published it, but it’s disappeared into the ether!  so here’s the short version:

Last night I asked a question about Town Centre cleanliness, and suggested that the Leisure Services teams display a cleaning rota for town centres & toilets. It was agreed that this was a good idea, and will be considered for adoption theoughout town centres, so the public can see when areas were last cleaned, when they’re due for cleaning next, and who to contact if a place needs interim cleaning. Brilliantly simple, really!

Other questions asked, boring speeches made, very little of substance, but Derek Bowden’s NINE written questions must have beaten a record! He’s either very worried about his Besses seat that has not been seriously attacked by an opposing party for eons, or he’s making a play to be party leader of the Labour party (or both!)

Donal

Just wishing you all a Happy Easter.

My Easter Sunday was very pleasant, doing an Easter Egg hunt around Simister after going to Church. This was followed by a delicious dinner at my mother-in-law’s.

I spent a fair amount of time reading, too. Mostly newspaper & magazine articles, to see what the pre-prepared word on the street was. I have a particular dislike of newspapers, most of which have (barely) hidden agendas, with affiliation to one bunch of politicians or other. Why can they not have sections colour-coded, so that lies are in one section, facts in another, and columnists opinions in another?

Anyway - hope your Easter was good.

Donal

Sounds like a clip from Big Brother!

Sometimes I feel we’re in that bloody house - have you looked up recently to see how many cameras watch your every move? And how much safer does this really make you feel? Would you feel safer with more coppers around, as a visible, tangible presence?

I was down in London on Thursday, and as I entered the tube there were 2 cops with machine guns & sniffer dogs (thank heavens I had time for a shower in the morning!) and everywhere I went people seemed suspcious of everyone else. It dos not help that the day before I was subjected to a mandatory anti-terrorism video at work, and people ask for ID as permission to scatch your (sic) nose!

Somebody asked me for a photocopy of my passport for (my) safety purposes last week - I felt like saying “How about you hold onto my nuts, to make sure I return for them?!?!”, but in fact I declined the offer, saying that I have a copy in safekeeping already! Sometimes I am a little too polite!

I notice Ivan has a spot in The Guide this week. Not content with trying to usurp a legitimate process, he has to “big up” the (planned & existing)
improvements in Prestwich, as if he could care less, and as if he had anything to do with it. Let’s face it - he got nowhere being chummy with Tony, and he’s been kicked into Gordon’s long grass. He has no real input into the changes in Prestwich, because he only has 1 Labour Councillor in Prestwich (and she’s standing down this year - scared of the backlash from her foolhardy schools review, perhaps?)

He set up his Renewal Commission to try to kickstart something that the LibDems Councillors had already been motoring with for some time.

The whole population is rather fed up with spin, Ivan, and yet you are only latching onto the wave that passed these shores just after the Iraq invasion. Oops!

Still, don’t worry about it - I’m sure your increased taxes on beer, fuel, and other neceesities required to get away from the Scottish/English leaders of your party are bound to turn the voters onto your message this May!!!

Donal

Today is Good Friday - the day we remember Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice, his life for the sins of the world.

To most in the secular world, it’s a day off work before a nice spring weekend.

It’s a beautiful day out there, if a little windy, and it’s going to sleet or even snow later today.

The news reports have a mix of strange stories (Cameron breaks the highway code on his pushbike; Ghurkas aren’t allowed to stay in Britain, but peadophiles are returned here from Oz). The Ghurka issue is an outrage! If the people who have fought for us aren’t allowed to stay in Britain, who is entitled to?

Cameron’s cycling is a mostly banal, but it does point two things out to me: He only cycles when the cameras are about; cyclists should obey the code in the same way pedestrians should - for their own safety! If bus & car drivers ignored the code in the same way, how would pedestrians like it?

A major topic for me was the Easter egg packaging row. I abhor the over-filling of eggs, with silver foil & boxes. Apart from it being a massive waste, it is also deceptive. I had my photo taken with Jo Swinson at the Spring Conference to highlight this matter - she’s one of our MP’s trying to do something about it. There was a big article in The Independent about it yesterday.

Classroom size is also on the agenda again. It seems simple to me, if you have a classroom that is too big for one qualified teacher to handle, then the quality of the teaching will suffer. Whilst classroom assistants are valuable, they must be less beneficial to children than qualified teachers, otherwise they’d be paid the same, surely?

If you get less attention from the teacher, then you progress less quickly. It is the same theory as explained in Cheers (the TV show from the 80’s) about the benefits of drinking, comparing the killing off of brain cells to the herd of buffalo moving at the speed of the slowest herd member. Kill off the slow ones, and the herd moves more quickly! (Strange analogy, but there is a point!)

Right, time for another brew, some cereal & toast, then getting out & washing the windows (ditched the window cleaners when they put the charge up to £15 p/c/m for one wash! They were good, but not that good!!)

Donal