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

Last night  I attended the Town Centre Regeneration Meeting hosted by Urbed. Cllr Vic D’Albert (Chair of the local Area Partnership) welcomed everyone, and then David Rudlan (from Urbed, the Council’s appointed consultants) began the round-table “visioning” exercises for the people present, of whom there appeared to be about 130.

It was fantastic to see so many people so animated, active, and working together to come up with a viable future for Prestwich Town Centre!

Urbed provided a Consultant for each table, to keep us all focussed, and by ‘eck, did we need it! Our table was brilliant, made up of a real mix of ages, backgrounds and experiences. Some remembered the past fondly, some wanted us to be like a new European city, some wanted a mix, and all wanted the heritage buildings to be more focal points.

I get to have my say in this town quite a lot, so I deliberately kept in the background a bit, letting everyone else get their say. It was fascinating and heartening to see so many being so passionate about our home town, or the place we work. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, I had to leave at 7pm to go to a Tenants & Residents meeting in Rainsough, primarily about the development of the shops on Chapel Rd. The Council had undertaken a study to find out what the residents wanted the units to be used for. The survey came back strongly in favour of shops, but about half the people present on the night either wanted the shops to be bricked up, or knocked down completely!

The Chairman was left in a difficult position, as people started shouting without waiting for the Chair to invite them to speak, and then when he tried to get the meeting progressed, he was accused of being rude.

When asked about the leaflets going around, I was not given an opportunity to explain that Salford Councillor, Peter Connor, had shamefully used his position for political benefit: When Labour had 3 Councillors in St Mary’s, none of them had contacted Salford Councillors to work with them on improving Rainsough estate. Richard Baum, a newly elected LibDem in Prestwich contacted Mr Connor (should that be “con-er”?) in 2007, to find out what the position was about the shops, and whether we (Bury & Salford Councils)could jointly develop them for the residents’ benefit. Mr Connor then refused to take any more of Richard’s calls, and would not return  calls. He contacted Maggie Gibb, the last remaining Labour Councillor in Prestwich, and went on a photo shoot to show his commitment to the cause! Shame on both their heads!

Back to the TRA Meeting:

The Chair closed the meeting in some disarray, and explained that the next meeting was for the election of Officers to the TRA, and he would not be standing for re-election. This is a shame, because the TRA needs a strong character as Chair to keep control in the meetings, but hopefully they’ll elect a worthy successor.

I returned to the Urbed workshop about 8.15, just as some tables were finishing. My table were still working away, but it seemed that an impasse had occured on the “new or old” question. A mild consensus was agreed, but none of the participants seemed too happy with the final results.

After the event, a couple of the chaps from the table told me about some “Linux” software, that enables input from all sources on an “open access” platform. They explained how it could work on this project, and were interested in showing it to Council Officers to get it moving - sounds good to me! One of them already works with the Council IT bosses on telephony equipment, so it may be easier to get it trialled.

I’m all for “open Government”, and as I implied in the paper last week, I trust the people of Prestwich to come up with great ideas, and firmly welcome all input. Let’s “Go For It”, as was so famously said by that post-punk band, SLF.

Onwards and upwards….

Donal

Wednesday - write reports for work, finish expenses and get stuck into a large project that’s been going on for ages.

In the afternoon I went into the office (after seein a constituent about a housing issue during lunch) to send some of my stuff via internal post, and got caught up in a meeting about an important client - bang goes my 4pm School Governors’ meeting! Arghhh! I hate it when that happens! Still, later that evening I managed to play five-a-side for the first time in 2 weeks with only a dead-leg, so it seems my back has recovered.

Busy week going on - more later…..

Donal

Shrewsbury House has been boarded up!

The safety work on the lights at St Ann’s Rd/Bury New Rd has begun!

Focus leaflets were delivered by me today in places I never really realised could be delivered so quickly - the weather may have had something to do with it.

I also managed to do some real work (it pays the bills, you know!) and got my expenses done, which is always a result! Now for the taxman, and more expenses!

Donal

This week has been fairly quiet, as I was working away & had to miss the PLAP meeting on Tuesday.
Sometimes it’s nice to get away from the day-to-day grind of local politics, as most of it is involved in getting minor changes & improvements, that take up loads of time to do.
There is very little on the “large” scale that appears to make a big difference to people’s lives, but local Cllrs. need to keep in mind that the continual process of change does give a political slant to the work that we do. We just need to remember that we do things in a “Liberal” and “Democratic” way, whilst the other two parties are autocratic, and think that they know best.
A good example is the way we ask the public to get involved in issues, unlike Labour & the Tories:

• We welcome input, such as the comments book in the library for changes to the “Retreat” water feature that I insisted upon last year
• The letter in this week’s “Guide” asks for input from the public, rahter than us beleiving we know best on the Regeneration of Prestwich
• That’s why we as a national party asked for a full “In or Out” referendum on Europe, rather than the minor tinkering that Labour are happy with, to weasel out of fulfilling their election promises (again!)

Other work: 

I promised to do some follow-up work on a school Governor’s issue, but the information wasn’t available from the school, so I’ll have to push that one onto next weeks’ workload.

I’ve been talking to residents about planning permission for businesses in residential houses, and the potential sprawl & change of use, and the problems this will bring. This will probably go to Committee - should be fun!

I got some good news about the garages on Shrewsbury Rd that we’ve been campaigning about. Kids were hanging about, setting fires and causing a general nuisance, and I can confirm that following our campaign, the Council asked the owners to tidy the site, and they’ve now bricked them up. I even got an email from a local resident thanking me in case it was us who had ensured this was done - of course it was us - Labour & Tories don’t actually get things done!!!

I went to Spring Conference in Liverpool on Fri/Sat. I did some training & attended a debate or two, but was pretty disappointed in general with the venue (the acoustics & heating) of the new waterfront conference hall in Liverpool, although it looks great!

I was also disappointed by the conference in general. Political parties tend to attract some strange people, and they all come out of the woodwork for big events like this, especially for a new Leader’s inaugral speeches. As such, I met a few people that many would consider “weird”, and also a lot of people who seemed to be single-issue activists.

It baffled and amused me that we had stalls for Christians; Humanists; CAMRA (drinkers) and the like, but there was not even a faint whiff of sports activities that get people working as teams! Anyone who’s ever bee on a training course knows that physical exercise, combined with teamwork, combined with brain activity is a sure-fire way to get people to enjoy the learning activities they are actually there for?! There was nobody even promoting “Sport England” or anything like it. So much for the Olympics bringing sport to the regions - and this is Europe’s “capital of culture”!!!!

I’m not even bothering with the last day of conference, Nick Clegg’s speech on Friday night was enough for me, thanks!

Ah well, I’m going to make some bacon butties now, then wash cars, visit family & maybe take a walk in the Clough or Heaton Park whilst the weather holds out. Then I’ll go leafleting and get back to the coal-face that is a Councillor’s regular toil! Have a nice day y’all!!!

Donal

Tuesday night’s meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) was the final meeting of the municipal year, and contained some great news for local organisations to whom we were able to award thousands of pounds in grants.

The LAP controls a number of grant funds and can allocate them to local groups throughout the year. Already this year for instance, we have allocated £10,000 to the Rainsough community centre, with more to follow for Children’s Centre outreach both there and in Carr Clough.

On Tuesday following awards were made:

- Prestwich Carnival were awarded £2,125, which will ensure the continuation of this excellent community-wide event for the next two years. This money was awarded from the Kickstart Community Initiative fund, which is to benefit the entire community.

- The Prestwich Clough Centenary group also received £2,125 so that the Clough Day which has taken place for the last two years can continue for the next two as well. This too is a wonderful Prestwich event, and we are proud to provide the money to keep it going. This money also came from the Kickstart Community Initiative fund.

- £1,500 was given for the provision of a sensory garden for disabled children at Butterstile. This money came from the Kickstart fund, which is for small projects.

- Heaton Park School applied for money for fencing around the school, which will be an asset to the local community and which we were happy to provide £5,000 towards. This grant was made from the Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund, which is for capital schemes benefitting the local environment.

- The Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund was also the source of money for the Downham Tenants and Residents Association, for whom the LAP has given £500 towards the cost of creating a “wildlife corner” for communal use on land that is currently an eyesore.

- And the Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund has been made available for refurbishment of the Parksway ginnel in Sedgley ward, where £1,000 will be used for essential security work.

- A ball zone will be created at Parrenthorn school, with £5,000 coming from the Community Development fund for projects in the community.

- In addition, a further £5,000 has been made available from this fund for a new under 5’s play area in Polefield.

Altogether there was over £22,000 of money invested by the LAP into much needed community projects. This is a massive investment, and we have secured major projects like the carnival and much-needed play facilities, as well as smaller things like the Downham wildlife corner.

St Mary’s in particular will benefit from the Clough day which takes place in the ward, and the Butterstile sensory garden, on top of Rainsough money which has already come this year.

All in all a very good night for Prestwich.

After Audit on Tuesday night, there followed some case work on Wednesday lunch, with planning consent & untidy land etc. The Planning enforcement officers in Bury have become so good at their jobs, that in the 2 years since they were employed (we have 2, I think) they now have a completely full workload, and are finding it difficult to take on new jobs.

Wednesday was a game of five-a-side against an Insurance Company, which despite having no substitute we still managed to win! The down side was that I awoke on Thursday morning with a very tender back - not pleasant I assure you!

Thursday night was a Governor’s meeting at St Monica’s, which was enlightening. I learnt about an extension plan, and checked how the junction improvements at their corner were affecting them. There were also some questions about exactly what Bury Council were charging them for on certain issues - a little more casework I suspect.

Weekend beckons, with lots of leaflet preparation, street letters, deliveries and drop-offs to our deliverers. If my back continues to trouble, I’ll probably have to give the leafleting a miss, but we’ll see…..

This morning’s earthquake woke us about 1am. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to apprehend the massive intruders who’d clearly knocked my door down!

I then checked everywhere else, and couldn’t find them, but observed that decorations had fallen off the mantelpiece, and a bit of plaster dust was noted on the carpet, whereupon the missus explained it’d been an earthquake, and she could see all the neighbours lights going on one by one.

Back to sleep then - there’s nothing I can do about those! (Doubtless I’ll get a few calls later today, asking,” Can you do summat about them earthquakes in Prestwich - you’re our Councillor, aren’t you?”) Ah well…..

I took the weekend off from LibDem & Councillor activities, spending some R&R time with family & friends in Palma, Mallorca.

It’s a very pleasant city, with a fairly nice cathedral as it’s centrepiece.

I’m not sure that I managed to recharge the batteries properly though, being a little indulgent in the European nightlife meant that I didn’t get to sleep ’til late in the morning some nights!

When I returned I came home to lots of emails, phone messages and post, some of which was boring, some silly, some very important and a ridiculous letter from a Mr Lee, of “new Labour”. He purports a “LibDem/Tory administration”, when clearly there are only 8 of us and 21 in the Council from Labour, with 24 Tories. I shall state clearly, “there is no such alliance”. Nearly one year later, your tired Labour team simply can’t get over the fact that after 21 years trying to run Bury Council, the electorate said, “Enough - you’re selling off our heritage because you can’t balance the books!” - think of the Lowry painting!

New Labour, if you can achieve nothing with nearly half the Councillors (by sitting on your hand when it comes to voting on the most important night of the municipal year) then I’m sure the electorate will continue to strip you of Councillors over the forthcoming years.

If you’d rather see vulnerable elderly people wandering the streets; “At risk” children being prevented from getting the services they desperately need, and Council finances being ruined, then sure, vote for “New Labour”. What’s so new about Labour anyway? You have the same tired old tripe from spin doctor after spin doctor, with nothing new to offer the nation after nearly 11 years in power.

Certainly, as a Council-tax payer in Prestwich, I’m at least 15% worse off than I was when they came to power. It’s time for a change, for invigorating new ideas, and only the LibDems have something to offer there!

Last night I participated in “Audit Scrutiny”, where we review the work of the Council’s financial control arrangements. One of the most important phrases was included in the external Auditor’s review of “Accounts & Statement on Internal Control” - the Authority needs to continue to closely monitor budget performance and implement necessary corrective action to mitigate the use of further reserves.

Taken in conjunction with the Director of Finance’s comments - it is accepted that there are hot spots that need to be addressed relating primarily to Learning Disability services, Leisure services and land charge income -   we can see that “new Labour’s” ideas of slashing existing funding to such services, tied in with spending the Council’s reserves, is plainly stupid and imprudent. And there weren’t many Labour councillors there to study the details - we got more questions from Tories than Labour, and they’re in control! Not very effective Opposition, I must say.

Labour wanted rid of Prestwich Arts College, so they could build a new school in their former electoral heartland of Radcliffe, whilst Prestwich was full and very few pupils put Radcliffe as their first choice.

Labour in Bury have no idea whether they’re for Congestion Charging or not, we can tell you exactly where we stand - firmly against further such tax and spend nonsense.

This Labour government have presided over illegal wars costing billions on the premise of “Wapons of Mass Destruction”. The most effective WMD’s I can think of are Tony & Gordon’s mis-management of Britain’s affairs! They’ve destroyed a lot more than Saddam ever could!

Ah well, I’m now off to work, and will later be working upon a solution to Highfield Rd parking with Officers, followed by a little leafleting and some case-work for constituents.

 More soon…..

• Tesco have put in a proposal for an11m high wind turbine
• HMG (owners of shops in Longfield) have put in proposals for knocking down the Longfield, replacing with supermarket an hundreds of flats/apartments
• Tesco have put in for a Tesco “Metro” in the corner of Bury Old Rd & Heywood Rd

Maybe you want to comment on these ideas?

My only view is that it seems rather premature for the first two, when the regeneration study will show what the people of Prestwich want/need, so why put them in now?

And why have Tesco bothered to ask for planning permission anyway? They didn’t bother to ask when they needed additional storage space for chiller units, which they foolishly & dangerously put on their petrol forecourt!!!!

Donal