What’s been happening?

Tories elected a very nice man to Mayor - Peter Ashworth. I hope he has a very pleasant year, and uses it wisely.

Annual Council was a fairly tame affair, after which we had a meeting about Prestwich’s priorities for the forthcoming year.

Thursday 15th led me to St Mary’s primary School for photo opportunities with a cycling training event - we’re trying to get kids to get more exercise, and learn to cycle safely from an early age. Then it was the Local Area Partnership meeting, where Urbed presented their initial findings on the Town Centre Redevelopment Study.

Many were disappointed at the lack of innovation & social/leisure facilities, but these are only very early drafts, and include the realism of potential developers’ “wish-lists” too. There is much more discussion to be had, and the initial plans are up on display in the Library now, for people to view & comment upon - have your say now, before it is too late!

On Friday I attended a very interesting seminar on “Business Continuity” for work, but there was some very useful stuff for Council to learn also. I then got to see GMP’s Horse Unit, and a display by the dog handlers & armed response unit - at last something nice!

Saturday 17th was a thankyou party for leafleters & helpers, which was very pleasant. I should’ve been ref’ing on Sunday, but the game was scrubbed, so I had a bit of a free day!

This week I’ve had Planning Control; St Monica’s & Butterstile Governors’ meetings; a meeting with the Fire Service & the inaugral St Mary’s Conservation “Management Team”. The choice was between St Monica’s & the Conservation meeting, nd I felt it was more important to go to the latter, but because I didn’t get back from Consett until 6.50pm, I didn’t have time to forward my apologies to the Governors.

I’ve also had to think about mentoring Mary in her first few weeks & months, and also think about the local “Development Framework” that’s been issued.

Fairly busy then! I’ll let you know what happened at the meetings next time….

What does?

1. Hairs in my food
2. My cat catching squirrels all the time
3. The Tories in Bury being such control-freaks that they’ve even rearranged the mayoral ceremony so we/Labour don’t vote down their agenda tomorrow
4. The amount of self-interest & egotism in ALL politics and most politicians
5. The amount we spend on “defence” in Iraq, but we don’t have enough for proper flood defence at home
6. The fact that most things in the UK get ignored first time; done wrong second time; and re-done almost correctly at the third attempt!
7. Most people’s ignorance of their own governance arrangements & democratic forums

Distant Lands:

 I am appalled at the situation in China, and also the recent cyclone damage in Burma. The difference of attitude of the news agencies to such similar terrible natural events, and the relationship of the respective governments is surely no coincidence?

We/the US don’t like Burma’s “junta” - so they must be handling things badly. China is a very powerful nation, due to hold the Olympics this year, and they appear to be doing everything possible to save lives. Hmmmmm!

Local Stuff: 

On a local note, the planning “Local Development Framework” is now at stage 2. Bury Council are setting out their plans for development for the forthcoming few years, so your views are important - READ IT & COMMENT ON IT NOW! I will!!!

There is significant change to local parkland going on at the moment. Did you see the proposals from the Forestry Commission for Irwell Valley? It was on display at the local Clough Day - why weren’t you there? It was brilliant! Come along next year and show that WE ALL LOVE PRESTWICH!

Getting into the groove of this free thinking stuff now!

In days of yore, and on programs like “Last of the Summer Wine” you always see residents sweeping gutters outside t’house. What about Neighbourhood Watch groups organising occasional sweep-ups for an hour on a particular day? (rather than the TRA mass clean-ups we occasionally help with).

What about blood donors coming to council premises to do lunch-time collections from staff (will I be accused of squeezing the life-blood from our employees?!?)

I’ve been speaking to the Fire Brigade about talks on Fire Safety to the business community, given their recently revised (and confusing) strategy on commercial/industrial  fire alarms that connect to central stations. Hope to have that one up & running shortly…

What about a specific software system for managing health & safety within the Council? one that will highlight outstanding actions, so that work like un-finished pavements etc. get addressed without being left half-dug forever (yes - I’ve reported the one at the bottom of Sandy Lane!)

What about prizes for staff who provide innovations that save the Council money? We could base the prize by categories of amount saved per annum. We could include local schools or community groups in competitions, or widen it to the whole Borough?

How about insisting that all new building developments are not accepted without travel planning provision in place, for example with segregation of pedestrians & cycle routes away from roads, as you often see  in western Europe?

What about a Council website with a plan of the Borough, highlighting all public rights of way, bridleways, proposed developments etc. (I asked for this one a year ago!) You could put a search icon onto it, so you could plan your round route, a bit like walkjogrun.net?

Why not have Borough guides, with walks/day trips on the history & architecture of the Borough, assisted by heritage societies and highlighted to sports & social groups?

Blimey! I’m worn out now, with all this thinking….better go for a lie down!

Donal

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

Reported various issues raised with me(or requested further detail), this week:

Sherbourne Street lights are out and the road is uneven due to nearby works on former Tulle Court; Youth nuisance on Shrewsbury Rd; Planning situations on Warwick St, St Mary’s Rd.

A planning proposal has come in for the Longfield from the current owners of the buildings. This is strange, as I undestood that they’d been told by Officers about the Regeneration study, and thus should hold back until that’s complete.

However, it needs to be given due consideration, and I’m confident that Officers are working diligently on it as I type.

On the subject of Regeneration, we’ve asked Council to supply a small questionnaire or flyer into every Prestwich Council Tax demand, but this has been rejected, and I’m awaiting an answer as to why. It must be the most cost-effective way to ask all residents of Prestwich if they have an opinion? The Consultants have only budgeted for 5000 residents to be contacted, but there are more like 15000 residents living nearby who really should be contacted. We WILL find a way, I assure you of that.

Tonight is the Town Centre Regeneration meeting, which reports to Prestwich LAP on the review & study currently being undertaken by Urbed. Should be quite interesting, with a number of important issues coming to light, and it’ll require a firm grip on debates from me (as Chair) to ensure that we get through the whole agenda. We’re considering the following main issues tonight:

1. The progress of the Urbed study
2. The Consultation Event
3. Suggestions from a group known as the Regeneration Commission
4. Traffic/Planning Issues for Highfield Rd & Whittaker Lane

More to follow…

So, the political shenanigans season has started early this time!

Politicians are sticking oars into oily black seas, where no such oars should be placed! Time to put them back into areas where no such wooden object should be placed!!!

No details this week - let’s see what materializes (maybe you can decipher it at a later stage!)

I`ve been blogging for a couple of weeks now, and recognise from cryptic conversations about paint drying and grass growing that it’s a bit weak on the sensational side. I could be nasty, and that would be fun, but I’m sure that the blog would get pulled farily quickly. Maybe I’ll try it in a couple of weeks!

This blog is being written on a Swiss computer, so the letters are not all in the same place, and nor are the punctuations (apologies in advance! - see if zou can guess what letters/punctuation are different+). Iäm back in the morning to complete mz constituencz ward duties.

This week we had full Council, and the Leader, Cllr. Bob Bibbz (known to manz as Bib Bobbz for his tendencz to get things muddled) managed to have a go at me for asking him what the hell has happened to accountabilitz, when the Council doesnät even know where it left the benches it places around the borough for Pensioners to rest their wearz bones upon after a hard morningäs shopping+

Bob is obviouslz becoming more confident, and certainlz managed to keep the rather war-wearz Labour group well in control.

Bob didnät reallz know what question I was asking, and so tried to cover everz base with “how it was everz Councilloräs dutz to contribute to the well-being of the Borough+” for mz preliminarz question, but he tried weasling his waz out of the supplementarz question with some bland response and having a personal dig.

Labour were biyarre. Gasillions of questions about anzthing thez could think of, with no rhzme or reason connecting them. Mostlz it was a whinge-athon, whilst trzing to score minor political points from the various Councillors thez have up for re-election this zear (Cllr. Boden asked 6 - practicallz unheard of from the whole Council, let alone one Cllr+++)

What did I do?

I asked about Gtr Manchester Wasteäs attitude to Prestwich tip and the Forestrz Commissionäs approach to manage it. Peter Ashworth, the jovial Torz Cllr on the Waste Authoritz Board gave a good answer, but it did not correspond with the info. I had, so I asked him to check the facts and confirm in writing. Iäll chase that over the weekend in writing. Itäs important as it forms a vital wildlife corridor, as well as integral to the LIVIA urban park project being managed bz Manchester & Salford Councils (who are woeful at keeping us informed+).

I also asked a question about Gtr Manchester Fire & Rescueäs commitment to Fire Sprinklers. Kent F&R actuallz have a grant szstem to contribute towards sprinklers, zet we donät even insist upon them in schools zet!! The Brigade fullz favour sprinklers, and criticise Labour Govt. for failing to grasp the nettle with recent legisaltive changes. It would be great to see Wales & Scotland take the lead, and show England how our sillz Govt. szstem does not benefit the people of the land, onlz the politicians (think NHS & education in Scotland, for example!)

The one thing that I reflected upon this week is that I have been keeping mz elevction promise of using mz mouth in proportion to mz ears. I listen more, and talk less, which makes people occasionallz listen when I have something to saz (whatever tzpewriter or computer I use+) If onlz all politicians would follow suit!+

This is not the onlz precendent I have set of late. I hear that the FA are now considering a rule Iäve been applzing since I became a referee 6 zears ago. This is that Captains can speak to me on the pitch, all others will go in the book or off, if thez speak to me. If thez swear (at anzthing or anzone other than their own stupiditz) then thez at least go into the book. If thez swear at me, itäs straight off+. I didnät think it was revolutionarz then, but when I hear Hansen & Co. on MOTD, thez think itäs the best thing since sliced bread!+) (How manz times can he saz “Time and time again” on one program?)

Talking of which, itäs big match at the weekend. Will thez be silent for the 50th anniversarz of Munich? ……Come down to Hough End and see!!! (or are zou a couch fan, watching two slightlz more expensive teams at the weekend???)

Treesà

Vale Drive - land ownership is being determined, before thez consider whether the Council can prune the trees.

Lowther Close - same situation as above.

Longfiled Cleaningà

Richard asked questions of the Leader, Cllr Dot Gunther answered on his behalf, with no real answers being given. I know that from questions Iäve asked of Officers, thez want to wait until after the wall is engraved, and I said “bugger off”. It needs to be done Zesterdaz, not in a couple of monthsä time+. See Richardäs link from the left side, to read more. I will press harder at the TCR next week.

Roadsà

Butterstile Lane was repaired (well done) and Sandz Lane has been noted but not zet done. Iäll chase this again over weekend.

Hilton Lane junction with Burz New Road (BNR) is to be raised (AGAIN++++) at TCR next week.

If zou have anz further road issues, give me a call and Iäll raise them to the top as much as I can.

Traffic Crossingsà

St Annes Rd is still not top prioritz, see Richardäs recent post about this. Weäve both been chasing Council officers frequentlz about the dangerous crossing/lights on BNR. Should be started in the next couple of months though+

At Council I took the opportunitz to tell the top guz responsible about the sunken crossing opposite the Knowslez pub in Burz, just outside the bus station and probablz used bz hundreds of Council staff each daz. Thereäs a massive puddle where it should be raised, so visuallz impaored people know there is a crossing bz the raised bobbles on the pavement. Itäs in Burz not Prestwich, so letäs see how long it takes them to fix it - a bit of an experiment?

Planning

A resident has requested change of use for part of a dwellnig into an office. Iäve asked for more info. as I neeed to understand all the matters before representing a constituent one waz or another. Iäm on Planning Committee which is semi-judicial, so I have to be verz clear about not making mz mind up without all available facts. Possiblz more to follow….

OK - did zou guess the different kezboard bits?

• y is z and z is y
• à is where ‘ should be
• + is an !
• _ is actually where ? should be, but I thought that was too hard
• ç is where £ should be, but I didn’t use that

See zou soon (on a normal kezboard, perhaps_+++)

Donal

Tonight was the quasi-judicial “Planning” Committee. This means we don’t act like party political people, but responsible members of the Community!

There was not too much controversial stuff on the list tonight, but it was heartening at the end to see that our Enforcement Officers have been out working very hard to make sure people (and businesses) only do what is agreed by Planning Officers & Councillors.

The Planning Committee is made up of a real mix of people, and it’s nice to see a couple of younger Councillors getting onto it this year. When I started in 2006, it was the one thing I really wanted to be involved with, and I found most of the Councillors were “relatively” old. This concerned me, I was worried that they would all hark on about “good old days” etc., but in most cases I needn’t have worried - most are fairly progressive.

It’s one of the few Council meetings that the public turn up to. This makes it more lively, and I enjoy it because I feel knowledgeable about most areas of the borough, but when areas that I don’t know about come up, and I learn about them!

When I got home I watched Shameless on C4. I think it’s brilliantly written, about a family of “scallies” on a housing estate in Manchester. The father’s a drunk, the mother is unsure of her sexual preference, the wild kids range from 7 to early 20’s, and the pub is often the centre of the attention.

One of the actresses went to St Monica’s, where I’m a Governor and where I went to school (although back then it was called St Peter’s). It’s good to hear talented locals doing well!

Ok, enough for tonight, I have work, holidays, running and a gazillion other things to think about before sleeping.

Donal

Hi there!

Today I got help in working through my lack of understanding, and am now able to post simple messages on the website. Stick with me, and see the development as I learn more and more.

One of my New Year Resolutions was to get my website going, so here’s this year’s first post.

The most important news at the moment is the Town Centre Regeneration.

Prestwich is currently going through a Consultation exercise, to help us work out what the next generation Prestwich Town Centre should be like.

The Council set aside money a couple of years back to pay for outside specialist consultants to help in the process, but because the regenerations of Bury & Radcliffe town centres had started, there was insufficient resources to manage a third renewal strategy at the same time.

Now the Consultants have started the process, and want to hear the views of those who live in, use, or would like to use Prestwich.

There should soon be a weblink from the Council website directly through to “Urbed” consultants, and they’ll be keeping a “blog” to keep everyone informed. I hope to be able to link directly from here too.

There will be several ways to get your voice heard, and we’re just going through the process of working out the best methods to achieve the widest consultation possible.

My role in this is three-fold:
1. As a ward Councillor for St Mary’s Ward, Prestwich Town Centre lies in the heart of my ward. I want to help make the revitalisation of Prestwich a reality, and will do all I can to turn a great opportunity into reality.
2. As a representative of the people in my ward (even if you didn’t vote for me!)

3. As Chair of the Town Centre Regeneration (TCR) Working Group, I can help shape the consultation process, and ensure that the voice of the people is not just heard, but enacted.

How does it work?

The TCR was set up as a sub-committee of the Prestwich Local Area Partnership (known as the PLAP, and formerly the Local Area Board) to help bring about the revitalisation of Prestwich.

The TCR reports to the PLAP, and the PLAP reports to the Council. Within reason & legal limits, the Council should enact motions brought to it by the PLAP, as advised by the TCR.

The TCR is made up of Councillors, Council Officers, and interested parties such as representatives of business & residents.
Because it’s impractical to include everybody who would have a direct interest in the changing face of Prestwich, it’s necessary for others to feed into the process by other means - via Councillors; via the Council; directly with the Consultants;email; letters; phone etc. to ensure that opinions are heard.

It doesn’t matter if you’re 12 or 102 years old, we will try to find a suitable way for your voice to be heard (and of course, listened to!)

So if you want more shops; better sports facilities; cleaner streets; safer roads or anything else, keep your eyes peeled now, because the next nine months could be the ones that shape Prestwich for the next few decades!

Enough from me for now - if you have any comments please respond and I’ll try to get back to you in a reasonable time. However, remember that I am new to this, and I don’t spend every waking hour sitting in front of a computer awaiting correspondence! Have a little patience with me?

Regards,

Donal