Richard Baum

Last night the Planning Control Committee of Bury MBC decided to withhold its decision on the planned Butterstile Children’s Centre, and make a visit to the site on December 18th. It was a tight call, with a 5-5 split vote decided by the Chair’s casting vote. I’m glad the vote went the way it did because I think a number of the people voting against a site visit did so on the grounds of proper committee procedure rather than common sense. The fact that the question wasn’t raised at the proper time during the meeting shouldn’t be a good enough reason to stop local people having a fair hearing.

I think this is probably the most sensible decision for local people. We all want a Children’s Centre for the ward, but School Grove is a traffic and parking nightmare already, and a new Children’s Centre, no matter how well planned or small or anything else, will only make the situation worse.

Now local people will have the chance to show to Councillors on the Planning Committee exactly what we in the ward already know to be true - that the School Grove situation is an accident waiting to happen.

The final outcome of the application may be swayed more by the positives of a Children’s Centre than by the negatives of the traffic problems, but at least local people will have been granted the proper say that they’ve been denied so far.

Rick