Richard Baum

Wednesday night saw was the last “full council” meeting for the municipal year. The main event this time was a debate on the future of schools in the Borough, but that had to wait until the hors d’oeuvre was over, in the form of questions to the Executive.

Rules recently introduced by the Tory Executive mean that the only way to make sure a question gets put to the Executive publicly is to submit it so far in advance that nobody else has got a question in yet. So that’s what I did. Hence the slightly farcical situation of grilling the Executive member for Environmental Services about snow grit provision on a balmy spring evening. But the answer I got was a good one – Bury Council didn’t run out of grit back in March, and in fact had enough spare to flog some to its neighbours. So that’s good news.

I also asked about a couple of missing bins in the ward. But again I was thwarted by these mad rules because in the time elapsed between me submitting the question and getting it answered the bins had been replaced!

My final question was about Metrolink’s ongoing refusal to allow bikes on trams. This seems odd given that we should surely be trying to encourage people out of their cars in any practical way. Whilst I can understand forbidding them in rush hour when the trams are packed, there’s no reason I can think of to ban them off peak when the trams are empty. Unfortunately a policy that was made in 2002 stops bike riders from wheeling their cycles onto the trams, and at present it seems that the GMPTA (Passenger Transport Authority) and Stagecoach (who run the trams) don’t want to change anything.

There were other questions from Lib Dems, including on security around the Oasis concerts in June (from Cllr Ann garner), and a question from Cllr Steve Wright about Bury FC sponsorship. He asked, quite sensibly I thought, whether our sponsorship of the club’s shirts might take the form of an advert for a local charity or Council-run attraction, rather than just the Council logo. Unfortunately the Leader took this as criticism of the decision to sponsor the team at all, and retreated to his default position of huffing and puffing his way through an accusatory fog of indignation. It always amuses me when he completely misses the point. It worries me too, particularly when it happens as often as it does.

There was also a question on graffiti from our group leader Cllr Tim Pickstone. The Executive Member for Environment claimed that the Council’s policy of cleaning their own property and relying on houeholders and utility companies to clean up their property was good enough. It clearly isn’t, at least not in Prestwich. Utility companies aren’t cleaning their property, and neither are the Council, as evidenced when I spent lots of the Sunday before last cleaning it for them. So we have offered the Executive Member the chance to come to Prestwich and see the issues for herself.

Hopefully she will.

Rick