The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg MP, has released a message for the new year, which I have uploaded. You can read it by clicking on this link:

nick-clegg-new-year-message.pdf

I think it’s a great motivator for Lib Dems, and hopefully gives a flavour of the key things we will be pushing for in 2008 both to supporters and those who don’t support us at present. The themes are clear, the outlook positive, and determination obvious. It sets us up very nicely for what I hope will be a successful year ahead. 

Rick

As 2007 comes to an end and we reflect on a year that saw lots happen in St Mary’s, what do you think should happen in the ward in 2008? We are here to serve you, so what would you like to see us do with you in the new year to make St Mary’s a better place?

Of course we’d all like every pot-hole filled, every piece of litter removed immediately (or, better still, not ever dropped) and crime to fall so much that the word gets removed from the dictionary. But none of these things can entirely happen, because they just can’t. No group of people can create a perfect place. But we can move towards it slowly, bit by bit, and I think that’s what I want us to try and achieve in 2008. What do you think? What would you like to see done? How might you be able to help? Please let me know.

The coming year is one of great opportunity for St Mary’s and Prestwich. We should have a Children’s Centre for the start of the new academic year, which will be a great leap forward. If Labour’s Salford City Council match our promise of funding, we’ll have an outreach centre in Rainsough as well, which I think will be one of the best bits of news for the community there in years. Regardless of this though, Rainsough will definitely have a new 16-18 youth facility, and I hope similar projects will take shape in Sedgley and Holyrood wards too to help our less well-off communities.

The redevelopment of our Village centre will really kick off in 2008, with fuller consultation and some real ideas on how Prestwich can improve in the future. New business is already flooding into the area. I hope 2008 will see this continue so that we fill the Radius units and see new and exciting shops throughout the Village.

Politically, May 1st will see the Lib Dems have the chance to make it nine out of nine Councillors in Prestwich. It will be a tough campaign I’m sure, but I know that local people value our record of year-round action and service, and I hope you’ll trust us again with your votes.

But the most important thing for 2008 is that we listen to you and act on what you want. What are your priorities? Are you happy with how your streets are cleaned? What about waste collection? Street lighting? Crime? Do you have ideas on how to make things better? Ways you could help? Or suggestions on how we could work more effectively?

Please tell us. That’s what we’re here for. And together we can make things better, I’m sure of it.

This year I am proud to say that everyone who has rung or emailed me about a Council matter has received a call or email back within a day or two. Every single person. For some of them I haven’t been able to solve their problems, but we’ve tried together and often times it works.

If I make my new year’s resolution to continue to do this - to carry on working with you to improve things, can you make your resolution to work with me as well? Make it your resolution to think about how you can contribute to the community. About how you can work with us to improve Prestwich. About how we can make this area better together.

And if you do, and we work together, I promise you that Prestwich will be a better place.

Happy new year, and all the very best for 2008.

Rick

2007 rolls to a close with alarming speed. It cannot, cannot, CAN NOT be a year since the last new year’s eve. And yet calendars and most leading scientists agree that it is. A bit like global warming - depressingly real despite me not wanting it to be.

And 2008 is upon us. Two thousand and eight. Ludicrously futuristic. We should all be armed with laser guns and be travelling around hyper-cities in the sky in our flying cars by now.

But of course it’ll all be much the same, and in about nine months I’ll be used to 2008, only for it to change to 2009 and fill me once again with the dreadful sense of foreboding that time is marching unstoppably on towards a year when I genuinely am a grown up, and from which no amount of backwards time counting can help me escape.

I thought once that I was the only one who counts backwards to escape the hideous reality of stuff creeping up on me. I used to do it with school holidays, starting gleefully with the knowledge that I’d had three days and still had eleven days left, then getting increasingly reliant on calculations such as “I’ve had 80% but that still leaves 20% which is actually more time left than a normal weekend, hooray!” And then even on the last day, clinging to hours and counting them down. “Think how much I did between 2pm and 4pm. And I’ve got til 8pm til I need to go to bed! Plenty of time…”

Now I do the same with time off work as well. All this week, in the quieter moments, I’ve been doing mental arithmetic to time precisely how much enjoyment I’ve got left in comparison to how much has gone, trying desperately to convince myself that the sneering nastiness of my 7am alarm call on Wednesday is still a long way off. Now, I am realising, it just isn’t. One more sleep and it’ll be tomorrow. And no amount of backwards time counting will get me out of it.

I do it with my age as well. I was born in 1981, which is very handy because I can say to myself that I’ve only actually lived through one entire decade, and therefore simply cannot be a grown up. The whole 1980s can be written off as nothing more than a long run-up to the start of my life. How could I have been expected to achieve as much as my 1979 friends? They’ve had a whole decade more than me! They were there when the 80s started, so they should’ve made something of it! Me? I just had the 90’s, and look what I did! By the time they ended I was at university and everything! The 79ers? They weren’t even at secondary school after their first full decade!

I think it might just be the stupidest thing I’ve ever written, but being born in 1981 really does give me some comfort. I won’t hit thirty until 2011. Not only is this actually three years off, but it is in an entirely new decade and therefore seems even further off. 2011 is so far in the distance that it just can’t actually ever arrive. 2011? Ah, we’ll all be dead by then. It’s miles away. Tomorrow, my 1979 friends are going to be 30 next year. Next year.

And every time they approach a milestone, it will be there looming on their horizon for years in advance. There’s no new decade to cast the illusion that it’s far away. I don’t know what the marital problem was that caused a four year delay from my parents getting hitched to having me. But whatever it was, I am grateful. Unless it’s hereditary…

My album of the year (for I am quite the music critic…) was John Mayer’s “Continuum.” It has a song on it called “Stop this train” which contains these lyrics.

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?

Don’t know how else to say it
Don’t want to see my parents go
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

I don’t like quoting song lyrics, because they make me cringe. I have done so here not because I think they’re life affirming, but because I just need to explain my relief that I’m not the only one who’d like to sit time down over a nice dinner and see what kind of arrangement we can come to about slowing things down a bit. I’d probably burn his vegetables just to illustrate my point.

The song carries on to explain that it is both impossible and unwise to get off the train. But I’m not too keen on that bit, since it doesn’t allow me to wallow in my own opinions.

But just to hear that someone else is as ludicrously self-absorbed as I am, who contemplates time itself coming to heel at his command, and yet still has enough gumption to make a record, is an enormous relief.

And it is surely no coincidence that John Mayer turned 30 this year…

Happy New Year all.

Rick

December saw the conclusion of a few things - not just the year! Nick Clegg was elected Lib Dem leader and promises much positive change for our party which I hope we can translate into a positive difference on the ground. The Butterstile Children’s Centre was given the final go-ahead after a long but necessary planning process. And the Retreat fountain was finally replaced with a granite version. We kissed the fencing goodbye and switched on the new fountain at the same time as the Prestwich Christmas lights on December 10th.

Thankfully congestion charging reached the end of the line in Bury as well. A Lib Dem proposal rejecting congestion charging and calling on the Council to reject the TIF (Transport Innovation Fund) bid if it came with charging was adopted as Council policy. A triumph for us and, I hope for local people, thousands of whom are opposed to the charging proposals.

Smaller ward matters continue to occupy us - we tried to deal with knotweed on Gardner Road and just this week have asked for the few remaining gaps in blue bin provision to be plugged. And the public bins need a bit of emptying every now and again, and the litter on the streets gets cleaned but soon replaced. 

As the year draws to a close I think there’s a lot we can look back on with pride together. Lib Dems don’t do things for people, we do things with people, and we’ve done a lot with the communities of St Mary’s this year. Personally it’s been great to be elected and become more able to work with local people to improve things all round. And for the party, we’ve gone from six local Councillors to eight, with more hopefully to come.

I can look back on Tulle Court, the Retreat, Rainsough, the Children’s Centre, and the littler things like litter clean ups and fixed street-lights, with the satisfaction that we’re doing some good. It doesn’t always work, and I don’t think things will ever be perfect. There’s always litter - it’s about how we work to make sure its quickly removed. There’s always holes in the road - it’s about how we work with residents and the Council to fix as many as we can.

But I do think we’re getting somewhere. I think we’re working better together and I hope we continue to do so in 2008.

Rick

In November we turned our attentions to remembering the sacrifice of those who have given their lives for the country. I was humbled and privileged to take part in the Remembrance Day parade and lay a wreath at the war memorial to remember the fallen.

Occasions like that remind me of the duty we all have to do right by the community, and I am lucky to have the chance to make a difference. We started trying to do just that with the beginnings of the Philips Park consultation, as plans were announced to redevelop this unsung but delightful part of our ward.

We had a fight on our hands to remove a troublesome container selling fireworks from the street opposite St Mary’s Park, and I have made contacts with the police and fire service to make sure that we don’t see a repeat of the same problems next year.

We started looking forward to 2008 with the announcement that hard-working local campaigner Mary D’Albert has been chosen as the candidate to fight St Mary’s for the Lib Dem Focus Team in May. Mary has been involved with the issues for many years already, and has immediately thrown herself in at the deep end.

I represented local people at the Planning Committee to ensure that the Butterstile Children’s Centre decision was not made without adequate and full consultation. This resulted in a site visit by the committee, and gave residents further opportunity to put their views across regarding parking and traffic. I also met with fellow ward Councillors and officers of the Council who made it absolutely clear that the project would be completed on time if approved after the site visit.

The party leadership hustings came to town., and I was lucky enough to get to meet both candidates for BBC1’s “The Politics Show”. I voted for Nick Clegg as a result, and he won!

Rick

The long-running battle to save a patch of Heaton Park from development came to a successful conclusion during October, when the decision was made to redevelop the existing site of my old school King David and not relocate to a new site in the park. The Lib Dems had led calls for the move to be scrapped, and we joined local campaigners in their joy that the decision had gone our way. Another victory for hard-fighting local people.

Here in St Mary’s, I got the Council to prioritise the removal of pigeon droppings from the precinct, and sort out troublesome litter across the ward in a clean0up blitz demanded at the Local Area Partnership. We started a “20’s Plenty” campaign to reduce speeds on Gardner Road, and I came second in the “I’m a Councillor… Get Me Out Of Here!” competition, answering questions from young people from all over Bury.

Gordron Brown pulled out of an election, robbing us of the chance to show our true feelings at how he’s handling our country. And Labour locally were doing more or less the same, with Salford Labour still refusing to give local people what they wanted in Rainsough by not attending the Developing Communities Working Group or committing funding to the Chapel Road shops improvement project.

The Lib Dems lost a leader when Ming Campbell resigned, and the battle to replace him commenced with Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg starting a nationwide tour drumming up support to take the party forward.

At Council, I made my first big speech, proposing a free bus travel plan for young people which we Lib Dems say would give public transport a real boost. And St Mary’s welcomed lots of new businesses to the area, like Croma and Ready 2 Run. This is a sure sign that the coming redevelopment of the Village is already attracting new life to the area.

Rick

September started well, as we ensured a new paper recycling bin for Tesco to make recycling a bit easier there for local people. I also made sure a street light was replaced outside the house of a vulnerable elderly lady who had been scared since her’s had broken.

And this blog was, bizarrely, shortlisted for “Best Blog from an Elected Representative” at the Lib Dem Blog of the Year awards (it didn’t win, which restored my faith in human nature).

Sadly, successes didn’t last throughout the month. Our plans to let local people have more of a say at Planning Committee by giving any Councillor the chance to speak on their behalf were rejected by the Conservatives. And, more disturbingly, there were a number of incidents of violent crime in the Village. We started work immediately with residents and the police to crack down on the perpetrators, who have since been brought to justice.

A hole appeared on Bury New Road near to Prestwich Park Road South, and was fixed after I intervened on behalf of local people and got United Utilities to do something sharpish. And there was great news from Metrolink, which finished the renovations more or less on time and left us with a much smoother and quieter ride.

The people of Sherbourne Court held a very successful clean up day. I joined in and helped pick up litter across the site, together with my ward colleague Cllr Maggie Gibb (Lab). I also met Cllr Peter Conner, the Labour Member of Salford MBC in charge of housing, in person at his office to discuss Rainsough and the vacant shops. Despite making this move I have yet to see anything in terms of support or money from Salford, which is probably my biggest disappointment of the year. If our moves can result in Salford committing the money, it will be a triumph and a major advancement for local people. As it is, we are falling short at the moment.

Cllr O’Hanlon and I carried out a residents survey across the ward, gathering the opinions of hundreds of local people, and getting a drenching in the process from the heavy rain! And the month ended with my old car finally giving up the ghost and dying at Watford Gap services. Which was deeply unpleasant!

Rick

My August saw a trip to Mull and a relaxing break. But not before working on a number of issues in the ward that didn’t take a summer holiday!

Residents on Butterstile Laneformed a homewatch scheme after problems with nuisance crime and litter, and I was pleased to support it at residents’ meetings with the police.  Although Council was supposedly in recess, the issue of Radcliffe Riverside High Schoolmeant that we were recalled for an emergency meeting. And the Lib Dems released new transport policies which promised a carbon neutral Britain by 2050.

Lib Dems were called into action to make safe the Jewish cemetery on Bury New Road after its wall was knocked down accidentally during construction work. We liaised with the Council and the builders to make it safe.

As the Metrolink renovations drew to a close, Lib Dems demanded fairer treatment of residents who didn’t want overnight working. And we got it!

My first 100 days as a Councillor had seen a lot of smaller bits of casework as well. A troublesome pub had been closed down (since reopened as the Luna Caribbean restaurant), traffic lights had been replaced on Chester Street, and we had supported and attended the first meeting of the Sherbourne Court Tenants and Residents Association, to name just three.

Rick

In July I left Prestwich briefly to help with the Ealing Southall by-election campaign. A successful result saw the Lib Dems push Labour hard and limit the Tories to a paltry few votes to scrape home third.

Back on Council duty I attended my first meeting of the Bury Council Youth Cabinet, listening to the priorities of some of the excellent children of the Borough giving up their free time to help out. I was amazed at their passion and ideas, and I still am.

Here in Prestwich, we heard of plans from the Cricket, Tennis and Bowling Clubto renovate their club-house and provide a great new sporting facility for the area. And we joined the campaign to get the funding needed to do it. I also started a campaign to end the crazy cross-authority loophole that means our local older people have to get off buses and wait at the border on the way to Burnley! We got publicity in the papers and I asked questions at the PTA and Council. And now the government are ending this madness, which is great news for everyone!

The community of Rainsough received a mighty boost with the formation of a new and revitalised Tenants and Residents Association, which we have supported and attended since its inception. Their top priorities were identified as some more youth provision, and that something be done with the shops on Chapel Road. In the next few months, local Lib Dems would open talks with Salford Council over the shops and get Bury Council to commit £20,000 to their refurbishment, and provide a grant of £10,000 for a 16-18 youth facility in the community centre.

Celebrations in Rainsough continued with a wonderful community BBQ fin day organised by the TRA. And we carried on our work to get every house in Bury a Blue Bin, by working with local people to identify areas not covered by the scheme and pressing the Council to fulfill their promise.

Rick

The sun was shining (on occasion) as I began my first month as your local Councillor. It was a steep learning curve as I attended my first ever Overview and Scrutiny meeting as the Lib Dem spokesman on Performance and Resources. I also attended my first Local Area Partnership.

The Lib Dem group was strong in its opposition to congestion charging, launching the burysaysno website and sticking to our position on this matter throughout. We’ve been clear - why should Manchester pay for public transport AGAIN through congestion charging when we should have first rate public transport already? Why is a scheme silly enough to charge people for driving from Prestwich to Whitefield being given serious consideration? And how can we look people in the eye and say we represent them when we’re charging the poorest a fiver a day to get to work?

June also saw the annual Prestwich Carnival, which was a roaring success. Sadly not all aspects of culture in Bury were as successful, and Prestwich Lib Dems led calls for local creative industries to be given support as they were threatened with eviction from premises in Bury. The campaign was a success and a number of businesses were saved.

We had a new Prime Minister in Gordon Brown, and I was appointed to the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority. It was all change for the nation…

Rick

Put simply, May 3rd was the greatest night of my life. To have received the votes of so many local people - their trust and hopes as well as their votes, was the most humbling thing I’ve ever experienced and gave me more opportunities to help the community. I have been grateful ever since and I will remain so. I hope the work I’ve done since builds on the work I did to get elected, and I hope I have lived (and will continue to live) up to your high expectations.

The election result saw me receive 1,424 votes to Cllr Keith Grime (Lab)’s 1,102 and the Steve Morris (Con)’s 789. I was duly elected your Councillor, and the Lib Dems also won in Sedgley (Steve Wright) and Holyrood (Wilf Davison). It was a fantastic night.

But it was only the start of the work. The election results meant that the Conservatives were the largest party and took control of Bury for the first time in 21 years. I was inducted onto the Council and took my place on the committees and other bodies to which I was now appointed.

Tony Blair resigned, obviously in protest at my victory, but the issues in the ward continued regardless. Construction began at Tulle Court and I liaised with residents and the construction company to make sure that fencing was adequate and noise and traffic kept to a minimum for local people. We ran “street surgeries” on Gardner Road, Agecroft Road and Lowther Road, and the story broke that the government had been thinking about congestion charging for Manchester…

I ran the Great Manchester Run and raised hundreds of pounds for the George House Trust. And my blog made it into the New Statesman! Exciting times!

Rick

April saw the election campaign reach fever pitch. We were canvassing every night, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to meet hundreds of local people. It’s only the lucky few of us who get the chance to meet so many great people, and I was truly humbled at the support I was getting from complete strangers pleased with what we were trying to do.

APril was Passover for Jewish residents, and we welcomed the Council’s move to increase waste collections in certain areas at this time to cope with the increased demand.

There was more good news when the Council confirmed that our request to make the St Ann’s Road / Bury New Road junction safer had been granted.

I was joined on the canvass trail by Chris Davies MEP, who joined me in meeting some residents in Rainsough. And as the closure of Metrolink loomed, I kept up the pressure on GMPTE to provide more information and assurances to local people that replacement buses would be appropriate to the needs of both travellers and residents.

I was involved in a planning application for parking restrictions on St Mary’s Roadand consulted with local people through a residents letter. Voting in the elections actually began, with postal ballots sent off in the weeks before polling day. And I began my countdown to the most important day of my life by reminding the people of St Mary’s of the contrast between years of Labour neglect and what I hoped would be a bright future with the Lib Dems.

Rick

March for me began very much as I imagine it did for most normal 26 year olds - with a bunch of earnest middle aged people in a conference centre in Harrogate.

I went to the Lib Dem Spring Conference and was very impressed not only with Nick Clegg’s interns but also with the great debates and fabulous training opportunities available. I will be going to the Spring Conference in 2008 too, in Liverpool.

In the ward, March saw the height of the lamp-post vandalism craze which cost the Council tens of thousands of pounds. Thugs from outside the area were pulling down lampposts, not only wasting vast sums of public money in the process, but also putting their own lives and those of local people at risk. They were idiots of the first order, and were apprehended after joint work between residents groups and the police. And I thank them for catching these vandals.

This month was also the annual chance for your local Councillors to decide which local roads get repaired. Only enough money is available to repair 20% of the most needy streets, so it was a very tough decision to make. But the Lib Dem controlled Area Board picked Spring Vale  and Lowther Road in our ward for repairs. I have seen them many times since, and they are looking good. It’s just a shame that the money can’t be found for everywhere else.

Nationally, David Cameron tried to out-green the Lib Dems, and failed. My favourite commentator Charlie Brooker gave him the lashing he thoroughly deserved and the Lib Dems referred people to the Green Tax Switch proposals which have been our policy for some time.

March was personally exciting for me as the candidates for the 2007 Local Elections were announced. I was chosen to fight St Mary’s, and Steve Wright was chosen to fight Sedgley and Cllr Wilf Davison to defend Holyrood. The election campaign began to hot up, and the three candidates assembled teams of helpers to spread the word across Prestwich. It even included stepping boldly into the 21st century with Facebook groups for the campaign!

Back in the ward I took action to clean up West Road, and Lib Dems took a petition to The Mayor calling for action on Hilton Lane / Scholes Lane.

And throughout Prestwich Lib Dem action continued for the good of the community. We vigorously opposed plans to reduce the number of police in Prestwich, and successfully campaigned for traffic calming measures on Bland Road which have not only increased safety but reduced the growing carjacking menace in that area.

The Council’s budget saw Lib Dems add an amendment calling for evey house in the Borough to receive a blue recycling bin. A major step forward for recycling in the Borough, thanks to the Lib Dems.

I visited Heathlands, one of the stars of the St Mary’s crown, to see some members of the local Jewish community and find out their views on local issues. And we successfully worked with the police to up patrols and improve safety in an alley way on Prestwich Hills.

And somebody submitted my election nomination papers… There was no turning back.

Rick

February is the month of romantic Valentine’s day, of my girlfriend’s birthday (so, a double hit to my wallet then…), and significant amounts of leafleting.

Sadly for Bury Council, the love of the nation wasn’t focused upon it during this month, as figures from the government showed that only just over half of the residents of the Borough were satisfied with the way things were being run. Such opinions came back to haunt the ruling Labour group three months later when election results confirmed the general unhappiness.

Prestwich’s ugly “Retreat” fountain was the subject of much debate again, as the news broke that plans for demolition would have to be put on hold because of threatened legal action from the artist. Local Lib Dems had long campaigned for the wall to be replaced with more greenery and more seats, but this legal news meant that our plans to give local people what they wanted had hit the buffers. But we started the campaign there and then to get something done at least.

The Tulle Courtdevelopment reached Planning Committee, and plans were approved to replace four of the five derelict blocks of flats with new homes for families in the area. A number of local people opposed the developments, and Lib Dems tried to put their case at Planning. As a result of our joint efforts, a number of concessions were made by the developers.

And this month residents of Highfield Roadcontacted me for the first time about the troubles they’ve been having with traffic and parking since the Radius development and M&S opened. We are still working with the Council to try and sort this one out. My colleague Cllr Donal O’Hanlon has asked questions at Council and worked tirelessly with local people and the Highways and Traffic people at the Council to get this sorted. I have raised it at Local Area Partnership and we continue to demand resident’s only parking for local people. We will continue the pressure and hopefully resolve this in 2008.

Rick

This year has been one of great success and, I hope you’ll agree, tireless action from Liberal Democrats for the people of this ward. I have become a Councillor during the year, and your local Focus team have worked on many issues and tried our best to work with the community to make this ward a better place. I have decided to take a look back over some of the issues the community has been involved with over the past twelve months. And I’ll start, as is customary, with January.

January saw the start of a number of issues which would stay with us throughout the year. The first weeks of 2007 saw news of a potential “rat-run” being built through the new Tulle Court development, linking Church Lanewith Church Drive. I attended residents’ meetings to find out local opinion, and sent out a street letter to local people saying that we would join them in fighting this proposal. And we won. In the end, the rat-run plan was shelved.

This was also the month when news began to filter through that the Metrolink line would be closed throughout the Summer for renovations. I wrote to the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive and asked that they communicate with local people as soon as possible to ensure that alternative plans could be made to get to work. The communications campaign was brought forward, and the renovations have, I think, exceeded people’s expectations in terms of improvements and the management of the project.

We all had a power cut overnight on January 8th. I was impacted as much as everyone else, and got a bit too well acquainted with some work colleagues using the showers there after mine wouldn’t work at home! I contacted United Utilities and tried to keep local people informed as power was restored.

Nationally, the Lib Dems launched our “Five Steps to a Safer Britain” campaign. It was led by Nick Clegg, then our Home Affairs spokesman. I had a good year but I think his has been better!

And there were preliminary discussions about another couple of projects which would be in the news locally for much of the year. At Butterstile School, where I’m a governor, there was a special meeting to talk about the planned Children’s Centre. And I was called by a local lady concerned about the Scholes Lane / Hilton Lane junction. This issue is one we worked on throughout the year, and continue to put pressure on the Council on even now.

Rick

Despite being about to move house, the thought of venturing into town and joining the eighteen billion other people thronging Market Street in search of a deal still doesn’t appeal.

I should really be taking advantage. As well as purchasing the house itself, we need pretty much everything necessary to fill it, and now is probably the best time to snap up a bargain. I need just about every item of furniture for every room. We have relied on Tamsin’s parents hand-me-downs for about as long as we can stomach it. The sofas are so old that Joseph slept on the long one in that stable.

And yet I always find it a bit suspicious that I can walk into DFS and bag a sofa for £200 that cost £1,400 on Christmas Eve. That sounds less like a bargain and more like a misprint. Why would anyone ever buy a sofa at full price? And why do DFS go so mad so quickly? They are doing to sofas what Nick Clegg so stridently doesn’t want to do with nuclear disarmament - showing all our cards at once! Why not go down from £1,400 to, say, £1,000? Someone would buy it, even if they knew it’d come down some more. Anyone pathologically insane enough to be out shopping at 6am on Boxing Day will buy anything at all with a price crossed out with a big black marker. Anything. At. All. Stick a day-old donner kebab in front of them, cross out £2.50 and put £1.99 and they’d snap it up like a Faberge Egg for a fiver. I saw them on the news last night. Running into Primark at the crack of dawn. The sad fact is that I really do believe they’d sprint straight past a bus load of burning schoolchildren just to be the first to buy a knitted purple cardigan at 70% off.

My reluctance to dive into sales mayhem is only partly to do with fear of crowds and the people in them. It’s also because I am very risk averse when it comes to anything to do with the buying and selling of property, and of course anything I buy for the house is inextricably linked to me having to buy the house itself.

One of the main reasons I am not trundling around town like a retail lemming is because I’m still convinced that something will go wrong with this house purchase of our’s. Nationwide seem reluctant to issue us with a mortgage offer despite being in possession of our passports and wage-slips for enough time to fraudulently create six dozen versions of me. My solicitor has gone AWOL, and the sellers are twitchier than a bird-spotting convention tripping over a dodo nest.

I am convinced that if I buy a sofa, or a dining room table, or four wardrobes, I’ll have nowhere to put them when the whole thing falls through.

I have of course already accumulated a lifetime’s worth of needless guff over the past couple of days, under the guise of “Christmas presents.”

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad that, genuinely, I want for very little in this life. It is harder to suggest to loved ones what they should get me than it is to get stuff for them. I wish they’d leave me alone sometimes, I really do.

This, combined with a troublesome impatience which prevents me from waiting for anything and forces me to buy everything I want immediately, has made this Christmas even more difficult than normal for those buying me stuff. And as a result I have received some presents that were really lovely, and others that only social convention prevents me from throwing in the bin without even bothering to look at.

I received a great box set of biographies of every 20th century Prime Minister. That was fab, if a little odd that Bonar Law’s is thicker than Churchill’s. Tam and I got a lovely mirror for the new house (should it ever come). I’d say they were the two highlights. My mum got me everything Jeremy Clarkson has ever committed to paper in his life, which probably means that this blog is going to get even more inappropriate than it is now. And I got the Borat book, which was probably the most offensive thing ever published before I wrote the phrase “burning schoolchildren” above.

One of Tamsin’s gifts to me was a t-shirt with Animal from The Muppets on it, which prompted a friend of mine to comment “She is either calling you an animal, or a muppet.”

I also received a uniquely useless “Plug-in USB illuminated aquarium,” which I will be recycling as a birthday present come the spring. And I got a puzzle which I am utterly incapable of doing. I tried, I really did. But it fell apart in my hands and I just don’t have the necessary brain power to do it back up again.

I do have to go into town later, for the football. I may well venture towards the shops, if only to gawp at the bag-laden masses and try desperately not to become one of them. It’s going to be hard, I know it. I saw a Les Dawson DVD for a fiver on December 22nd in HMV. It’s probably on for a quid now, and it would be a crime not to get involved.

Whatever you’re doing today, I hope it’s fun!

Rick 

I’m back from Christmas excess now, although with eight tons of chocolate and thirty bags of crisps in the house I don’t think the excess itself will stop with my return.

I read a blog post by a fellow Lib Dem Councillor, James Barber, today. It was about the digital switchover and the money we all have to pay for new equipment. James calls it a regressive tax and I have to say that I share some of his concerns. We are being forced by the government to pay for set top boxes or new TVs (or Sky) whether we want to or not. Now there is the odd town in the country where analogue TV just won’t work any more. By 2012 it won’t work anywhere.

I am as much in favour of progress as the next guy, don’t get me wrong. It’s not digital TV itself that I object to (although most of it is rubbish. But then, even digital TVs have “off” switches). Apparently it’s a leap forward in picture quality, not that I can tell the difference. And by flogging the analogue frequencies we’ll make lots of money for the treasury. Great.

What I object to is another example of the government’s casual disregard of the people of this country, and their interference in our lives without giving us a say.

I was never asked whether I wanted digital TV. The government saw the opportunity to flog off the analogue signals, and away they went. Were we asked? Was there a consultation? Were we given the chance to have our say and point out the potential flaws? No.

And now some people are getting into difficulties. The “regressive tax” argument is fading away for set top boxes themselves. They’re just a tenner now from Tesco. But even with the boxes, if come 2012 millions still don’t have them then it’ll be a big problem which may fall to Councils to pay for if the government won’t.

And there are other problems - my VCR won’t work in these new digital times. That’s a new one, which has been publicised a lot recently. It’s a bit better for DVD players (only “some” won’t work), but why the hell are government making my VCR and DVD players obsolete?? Where can I get my refund?

Where can I get my new TV with the second SCART socket to plug in both the set top box and the new digital recorder? I have a perfectly good TV thanks, so are you going to pay for it Mr Brown? It isn’t very environmentally friendly is it? Chucking out these good TVs?

I am OK. I can afford Sky and I’m going to get a shiny new TV. But the elderly and those on lower incomes may have a problem. And we should have thought about this before we started.

Digital has lots of potential, and we should embrace it. But yet again the government has missed the opportunity to sign up everyone by rushing things, not talking to us, and leaving us all feeling a bit dizzy with the pace of a change lots don’t actually want.

Rick 

Let’s be honest - My Fair Lady is on later, so I’m probably not going to have time to blog.

So let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. I hope tomorrow is a happy day for you all.

I am spending the day partly with my family, and partly with some friends. I hope everyone has an enjoyable time.

Rick

The Council’s normal opening times are 8.45 am until 5 pm, Monday to Friday.

Over the Christmas and New Year period the majority of Bury Council’s offices and the Customer Contact helpline will be closed on 24, 25, 26 December and 1 January.

The Customer Contact Team will operate as follows.

– Monday 24 December Closed
– Tuesday 25 December Closed
– Wednesday 26 December Closed 

– Thursday 27 December Open
– Friday 28 December Open
– Monday 31 December Closed
– Tuesday 1 January
Normal business will start again on Wednesday 2 January

As always Bury Council Emergency number is Tel: 253 6606

Other useful numbers over Christmas include:

Greater Manchester Police 872 5050
Prestwich Police 856 4532
North Manchester Hospital 795 4567
NHS Direct 0845 4647

And if there is an urgent matter for which I can be of assistance, please get in touch using the details on the right of this page.

Rick

Tuesday night was the Planning Committee’s final decision on the Children’s Centre for our ward at Butterstile School, and I welcome the Planning Committee’s decision to approve planning permission for the Centre. It is great news for the ward and will allow our children and their families to benefit from this new facility.

However, the conduct of the Council in this matter has been less than the standard I expect, and unfortunately some residents, particularly on School Grove, rightly feel let down.

Because of delays caused by errors in the design and consultation stage, overseen by the Labour-controlled Council pre-May and not speedily rectified by the Tory-controlled Council post-May, residents weren’t properly consulted, and the design had to be radically changed. Seemingly nobody at the Council new that building on a hill might cost a bit more money, or that people near to the development might want their say.

Now time is of the essence if the project is to be completed, because by the time the Council got round to designing something workable and consulting properly on it, months had gone on. As a result, considerations such as parking and traffic access on School Grove haven’t been given the consideration they warrant.

I would like to assure residents that I will continue to press for improvements to traffic and parking here, as I did at Planning Committee some weeks ago when this decision was discussed. Interestingly, Labour Councillors were nowhere to be seen supporting residents.

I stood up for residents then and secured a site visit by Planning not because I was opposed to the Children’s Centre (which I am not), or opposed to it being sited at Butterstile (which I am not either, if it’s done right), but because the residents of this ward affected by a development deserve to have their case justly heard. And now I think they have been. The Committee didn’t side with them, but that’s their decision and as long as it was failry made, I’m OK with it. We need to move on now and try to get parking and traffic controls in different ways - working with the school, the users of the new Centre, and the Council itself.

But worryingly, despite the progress with Planning, the much-needed outreach centre at Rainsough is still under threat. Despite me initiating discussions with Labour-run Salford Council and also securing £20,000 from Bury MBC for this project, Salford have so far failed to commit the rest of the money needed to complete this project in Rainsough. They have gone to the press with their colleagues in Bury and said how wonderful it would be, but they seem reluctant to back up their headline-grabs with any kind of financial contribution. If this outreach centre fails to happen it will be a travesty for local people, and I urge as many residents as possible to make their feelings known towards Salford Labour who appear to have ignored my constructive work in favour of doing nothing for Rainsough again. Even if the money comes, it will only be as a result of our continuing prodding, and a small financial gesture coming at the end of many years of neglect.

I hope it comes, and I hope we can all share in the happy opening of an Outreach Centre. It’s up to Salford Labour to join us now and share our work with Rainsough. Will they?

Rick

I reckon the postings might be a bit sporadic over the next ten days. My usual routine of blogging at lunchtime will have to be postponed because I am on Christmas holidays from work and thus “lunchtime” becomes a fluid concept that can take place any time between 10am and 6pm, and in any place.

So apologies.

Today I am very tired - last night was a pre-Christmas get-together for my former work colleagues and I, which resulted in an early-hours arrival back in bed, and a fitful night’s sleep. Today has been one of those days seen through a fog of grey haze and a mind operating about one and a half seconds slower than the rest of the world.

Unfortunately I began it by writing a letter to the editor of the Prestwich Advertiser, which probably wasn’t wise given the fact that I may well still have been under the influence of last evening’s small glass of festive sherry. I have recently checked my sent items though, and have discovered the letter to be both profanity-free and reasonably cogent. Which is a relief. I was clearly better than I felt.

Prior to the festivities last night, I had contacted the Council’s Environmental Services people for a bit of last-gasp casework before the holidays, after a resident of Church Lane contacted me to tell me she’d still not received her blue recycling bin. It’s now 9 months since a promise was made to give everyone a bin by the summer. It’s December 23rd, and it’s not summer any more, so I have asked that this matter be rectified ASAP. Apparently the resident has been given the run-around for weeks, and it isn’t good enough.

I also asked for a couple of local bins (the dog waste bin on Prestwich Clough and the general waste bin at the Clifton Road / Gardner Roadjunction) to be emptied, since they’re overflowing and clearly haven’t been emptied for a while. The one on Clifton/Gardner is a pain for me personally, since the alternative dumping ground for Prestwich’s kebab wrappers is my front garden and those of my neighbours on the road. And the dog waste bin needs to be in a sanitary condition at this time of year in particular with children and families enjoying the Clough more than usual.

Tonight I am settling down for the Top Gear night on BBC2, and then heading to bed for some well-needed rest. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, a fact that is inconceivable given that it’s only five minutes ago that it was last Christmas. We’ll see what the day brings…

Rick

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that there is now the facility to comment on what you read here on this blog. Under the title to each posting there is a little “comment” button for you to press and leave your views on what I have to say.

Please do get in touch, it’d be lovely to hear from you!

Rick

Christmas is nearly upon us, and resultantly every minute spent in work as opposed to gallivanting around town wearing Santa hats seems to take fifteen times as long as normal.

Still, there’s time for casework, and there have been a few successes and a frustration with ward work in the last couple of days:

The Prestwich Pensioner’s Club approached me with a query about their Council Tax liability the other day. They will have a more peaceful Christmas after I liaised with the Council’s finance staff to ensure that they were granted the necessary exemptions that they are entitled to as a charitable organisation. The Club is a very important social activity for our older people, and as numbers dwindle and the membership gets older, it is important that we are there to help with any issues that they have. I am glad to have been able to help.

On Sunday I was delivering on Hollyedge Drive when I was approached by a resident concerned at the state of the ginnel between that road and Beckley Avenue. I contacted the Council on Monday morning asking for it to be cleaned, and it now has been. So hopefully residents can see the difference. These ginnels can sometimes be a magnet for litter and anti-social behaviour. We can tackle them both, but the easier one is to deal with the litter and show everyone that we care about these pathways.

Unfortunately, my efforts to get one of the streetlights on Clifton Road fixed have stalled for the moment. The light was damaged in a road accident a few days back. United Utilities are working with the Council to fix it, but whereas I originally thought it would be a simple job, it turns out that cabling has been badly damaged. Resultantly United Utilities will be unable to do the work until the new year. I have asked that the work be given priority, because of several vulnerable residents in the area, and the Council assure me that as soon as the cables are mended, the bulb will be replaced and we’ll be back up and running.

Better news for residents of Church Drive who have brought overhanging trees to my attention. There was originally some confusion over the location, and the council pruned back another set of trees (thanks anyway!)! But now we have pinpointed the problem – the trees themselves are on private land occupied by a business, so the Council can’t prune them immediately. Instead, at my asking the Council have written to the business asking them to prune them back within 28 days or else face the prospect of enforcement action. So hopefully that will illicit a positive response!

So, even as Christmas nears, your local Lib Dem Focus team are working hard in the ward for you. If you have an issue you’d like us to deal with, please get in touch. My contact details are at the top right of the page.

Rick  

I am concerned that Nick Clegg is watching me.

Last night as I was walking through Manchester on the way to the City game (Awful match. Defeat. Cold. Unpleasant) I passed a bank of TV screens in the foyer of an office building, and there he was staring back at me from the BBC News 24 studio. Nine versions of his face, speaking in unison from a massive three-screen by three-screen TV display.

Why do these TV arrangements exist, I wonder? Why invest in nine screens in a big square, only to have the same, regular sized picture beamed out nine times? I want a massive Nick Clegg nine times his normal size, or else you may as well just have a single TV set. Is it just big companies showing off?

I don’t know… One of life’s great mysteries.

So there he was last night. Then on the way home I had the radio on, and he was there again, being interviewed. This morning I stumbled downstairs at 7am, cursing the both the invention of work and our boiler which has no setting between “off” and “boiling point of granite,” and there he was again. On Breakfast News. I set about my Coco Pops and made my way upstairs. In the time it took me to have a shower and brush my teeth (11 minutes, honed to a fine art) Nick Clegg had moved from Breakfast News to Five Live and was waiting for me there. Everywhere I turned. There he was. The world’s first Liberal stalker.

His voice was becoming inextricably linked to my conscious life. I hadn’t been awake without him talking at me for the better part of twelve hours. I’ve been complaining about no media exposure for the party for ages, and here we have the new leader turning up on every audible and visible plain in Britain. Great stuff!

The Five Live interview must have been a nightmare. The aim was to get Nick’s views on a range of issues. So this wasn’t a typical interview on a single topic, but instead a quick-fire round of jabs on every topic under the sun, shot his way by the tag team duo of Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogerty. What did Nick think about the nationality of the England manager? Oh, that’s nice, what about the right of return for Palestinians? Hmm, good. Private education? Our role in Europe? Quick! Quick!

An impossible interview – impossible to prepare for because nobody can know enough about everything to be able to give cogent answers. And impossible to give reasoned responses to because after one question it was on to the next topic.

It was, I felt, less about getting to know Nick then a chance to trip him up. It’s no wonder politicians deal in spin and sound-bites when they’re given ten seconds to answer a question about an ages-old conflict having been in the job for 15 hours. You can’t cure the Middle-East in thirty words or less.

We have 24 hour news channels these days, giving us more time than ever to discuss the issues that matter in a sensible way. And yet instead of having detail and reason, we have the same fifteen minutes of all-the-news-in-the-world repeated 96 times a day. So the need to get an instant, five second solution seems all the more urgent. It’s like the big TV ensemble in the office foyer again. All that effort into producing something capable of giving a big picture, but it’s just the same little picture repeated over and over again. Why bother? If you’re not going to use it to its full potential, all you’re doing is creating a manic whirling flash-fest that leaves the viewer feeling a bit dazed.

It’s great that Nick Clegg has been on the TV and radio so often that it’s like he’s stalking me, but it’s a shame that he is forced to repeat the same superficial answers over and over rather than take the time to expound his vision. Hopefully that time will come. Not just for Nick, but David Cameron and Gordon Brown as well. People aren’t stupid. They can concentrate longer than the end of one sentence. So why not give us all the chance to hear what politicians really think, rather than going to the sport at twenty past the hour?

Rick

Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has set out his priorities in a message to Bury residents:

“I am greatly honoured to have been chosen by my fellow party members to be the new Leader of the Liberal Democrats. Throughout Bury, Liberal Democrats are already working hard to reach out to local people and listen to their concerns. In my leadership I will be taking that spirit nationwide, moving beyond Party Politics and making liberalism connect with the millions of people who share our values.

Labour and the Conservatives have failed Britain’s families. I will lead my party to change politics, and change Britain, for the better. Only the Liberal Democrats are committed to giving the people of Bury a greater say in the decisions that affect our lives, by shifting power away from Westminster and back to local communities.

I will fight for a fair deal for Britain’s families, campaign tirelessly to cut crime and improve our NHS so it delivers the care people need.”

Nick Clegg is going to be a great leader. Labour and the Conservatives share so many policies, the time has come for a politician who will speak up for people and local communities.

Rick

Congratulations to our new leader Nick Clegg. His victory sets the party up well for the next few years, and we have a dynamic, committed and passionate young leader who I have no doubt will take the party onwards in the future.

The campaign was fought with honour and dignity by both Nick and Chris Huhne, and the margin of victory (just 511 votes out of 40,000 cast) shows I think just how strong both candidates were. I hope that Nick can find a big job for Chris Huhne in his shadow cabinet team, and that Chris plays a major supporting role within our party in the coming years.

I had the honour of meeting both Nick and Chris in person a few weeks ago, and I came out in favour of Nick Clegg then. Whilst both men persuaded me that they grasped the agenda and had big ideas for the future, it was Nick Clegg whose charisma and passion won the day for me then. Now his job will be to win the hearts and minds of the people of the UK in the same way.

I think our party has done as well as it could have done in the campaign. Competitions between people from the same party are always fraught with dangers – highlighting internal divisions and concentrating on what divides not what unites. But we have shown that we are not a party split by massive ideological entrenchments. We aren’t the Tories with their European divisions. We aren’t Labour with public sector reform strife. We are a united party where it counts.

The criticisms meted out during the campaign that both candidates were so similar on policy both missed the truth and missed the point. There are differences, of course there are. No two people in the world think the same about everything, let alone two people as intelligent and experienced in these things as Nick and Chris. There weren’t many differences, but why would there be in two leading lights from the same party? It shouldn’t matter. What should matter is the quality of debate and ideas. Crucially, where these differences existed, both sides had merits they were argued out rationally. Now we have a new leader to take these issues forward.

I am pleased Nick Clegg won. I’d have been happy with Chris Huhne as well, but I publicly backed Nick Clegg and it’s nice when I make the popular choice! In fact, the margin of vistory was so tight that it might’ve been my endorsement that did it!

I doubt it though. His campaign had reason enough to win without relying on me, thank God. The campaign has been a success, but the real work starts today if his leadership is to be as successful.

Rick

Today is the 2007 version of the Lib Dem X-Factor Final, as we announce yet again who will lead our party into the Christmas period. Hopefully whoever wins will last longer than Steve Brookstein / Michelle McManus / Sir Menzies Campbell.

And the good thing is, I know that the winner will do just that. The days of internal strife and back-biting over the leadership will come to an end at half past two this afternoon when we finally find out who’s at the helm for the foreseeable future.

I thought I’d get in early with my post-result commentary. In fact, this post-result commentary is probably unique in that it’s being written and posted before the result is known. But given that every other blogger in the land, as well as the real media and commentators more skilled than I am will be talking about it all afternoon, I thought I’d write mine now and watch it get trampled on by the professionals later on.

I have backed Nick Clegg on this blog, having been lucky enough to meet both candidates face to face a few weeks back for The Politics Show on BBC1. I don’t know if he’ll win, but regardless we will have an extremely capable leader come mid-afternoon. I was hugely impressed by both candidates’ grasp not only of the issues and the principles that define us as Lib Dems, but also of the need to articulate these important and radical principles well to a public used to spin and name-calling.

Whoever wins will face a huge challenge. A buoyant Conservative Party, picking up votes for no apparent reason at all, and a Labour Party strong enough to have won three elections on the bounce with thumping majorities, seemingly able to poll reasonably despite lurching from calamity to calamity (one can only assume this may be due to misplacing poll data somewhere…). A political world mired in scandal, voters turned off, and an electoral system designed to keep us out. Our new leader will have to make our distinctive voice heard somewhere in all that.

Such challenges have faced his predecessors, and they have handled them well. Building up the third party in a two-party system seems like a thankless task, but we now have more MPs than ever before in modern times; we’ve got a commanding presence in the European Parliament and a great deal to contribute on a European level for the good of the UK; and we continue to make fabulous strides in local government. We run Liverpool and Newcastle, we are nearly there in other cities, and our innovative and radical policies are changing towns, counties and districts across the land. And even where our numbers are small, our influence can be felt, as was proved here in Bury last week when we as the smallest party on the Council created Council policy on congestion charging which could have ramifications across the region.

And there are so many opportunities to take for Mr Clegg or Mr Huhne. The great debates of our times hinge on liberal principles – civil liberties and the fight against terrorism; privacy and the desire to use and share and keep our information; how to tackle crime effectively; whether and how to use the market to make our public services better; the fundamental relationship between government and the people.

We have a huge deal to say as Liberal Democrats on all of these issues. We aren’t the party of spin and bluster, but of radical and new ways to address these problems. Our new leader has to find a way of making our vital contribution heard. Our party organisation needs to modernise and change. Our relationship with the media and with our members and grass roots level needs serious work if we are to challenge the Tories and Labour. Because where they have entrenched generations of voters, we have hardy bands of leafleters. And where we win, they copy us and regain their advantage!

But if he can make these changes, I am sure we will notice the change. If he can find the distinctive voice, rally the troops, get our message out there and heard, it will triumph, I’m sure.

Whoever the new leader is, I hope we all stand shoulder to shoulder with him in making this happen. We need to make the country listen to what we have to say, and when they do, we can go from strength to strength.

Rick

Today the Bury Council Planning Control Committee are visiting School Grove to see for themselves the traffic and congestion issues brought to their attention by residents opposed to the Butterstile Children’s Centre.

Whilst I am firmly of the view that our ward needs a Children’s Centre, I also know how important it is for the Council to listen to the views of residents, and for all of us to have confidence that due process is followed. At least now, if it goes against them, they can’t say that their views weren’t heard at all.

The Committee will come to their fair and impartial view as to whether the residents’ concerns are enough to warrant restrictions or amendments to the planning application. And I will let you know what their view is.

Rick 

The weekend was busy, fun and productive. Just how I like it. Saturday was fun, watching City pound Bolton into submission in the second half, after I expertly predicted to my companion that I doubted we’d score again, only to see us score three times. I also survived the Christmas markets, emerging with a couple of presents and some bruises.

Sunday was the business end of the weekend. In the morning I met a man who lives in one of the Farm Hill Cottages, who is concerned about fly-tipping. This has been a problem before, which we solved briefly by increasing police patrols and catching a couple of the main offenders. There is a taxi driver who enjoys heading down there for an after-hours drink (of Kirov vodka) and who like to chuck his empty bottles out of the window. There are dozens down there now, together with so much discarded furniture it’s as if someone is planning to move in. So I have this morning asked the police to step up their patrols again and they have promised to do so. It worked last time, so hopefully it’ll work again.

After that, I did a spot of leafleting on Agecroft Road, before attending the Christmas carol concert in aid of Henshaw’s Society for blind people at St Mary’s Church. As well as the congregation singing carols, there was excellent entertainment provided by the St Mary’s Primary School choir, the Swinton Wind Band, and an a-capella group called the Crystal Chords. The children were marvellous and all the entertainment was first-rate. I must single the Chords out for particular praise – I thought they were absolutely marvellous. A beautiful sound. There were readings from the Lib Dems’ own Cllr Vic D’Albert, and from the special celebrity gust John Henshaw (him off the Post Office adverts and John Prescott from that diary programme. You know the one…) which were both very entertaining too. I love a spot of carol-ing. Not really appropriate for a good Jewish boy like myself. But what you gonna do?

And the day was rounded off by the leafleters thank-you party, where we gave a grateful vote of thanks to the people who help us deliver Focuses throughout the year. There was enough food and drink to sink a battleship, with Cllr Tim Pickstone providing a chilli which was delicious, and Cllr Ann Garner providing an equally tasty meat and potato pie. I felt quite inadequate with my store-bought canapés and multii-pack of Budweiser. But thankfully I am used to feeling inadequate, so nothing was really new about that.

Christmas is coming now… And I am excited!

Rick

Greater Manchester’s Yellow School Bus services are reducing congestion, improving pupil behaviour and boosting school attendance, according to the latest report heard by transport bosses.
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA), on which I sit and represent Bury MBC, now funds the services to 22 schools, providing safe and reliable journeys for more than 2000 pupils.
Councillors heard that the Yellow School Buses have made a major impact on the school run, taking more than 265,000 car-miles off the road this school year.

And antisocial behaviour on school buses has reduced by 75% at schools that have the yellow buses. Schools have also praised the services for improving attendance records.
One Yellow School Bus currently runs to Bury Church school and the scheme has proved a hit with pupils and parents.
My Lib Dem colleague Cllr Andrew Garner is the Bury spokesperson for GMPTA. He  said: “Yellow School Buses are a safe and reliable way of getting pupils to and from school. We already know from anecdotal evidence that they are popular, but this report really highlights the benefits of the service.
The services are really helping to tackle local congestion caused by the school run, as well as offering a safe travelling environment for pupils. I’m sure other road users appreciate the services too as they take so many cars off the road each morning and afternoon. We have bid for government funding to buy more Yellow School Buses and reports like this really illustrate what a strong case there is for expanding the service.”
Pupils using Yellow School Bus services have to sign up to a code of conduct, use the same seatbelt-equipped seats every day and have regular drivers to help build a good working relationship.
All Yellow School Bus drivers have undergone an extensive training programme run by GMPTE, which includes training in customer care, first aid, disability awareness, health and safety issues and conflict avoidance.Two more vehicles are due to be introduced at schools in Wigan early in the new year, taking the number of Yellow School Buses in Greater Manchester to 36, running to 22 schools. Yellow buses are something I and the Bury Lib Dems give our full support to, and have publicly backed in Council. We will continue to press for more of these buses, funded in the proper way.
To find out more about Yellow School Buses and for a full list of services visit www.yellowschoolbus.info

The weekend ahead sees lots of Focus delivery, as well as other things to keep me busy. No chance of a Christmas wind-down, not with half a Sedgley and a whole St Mary’s leaflet to deliver before the end of the year.

However, we are taking time out on Sunday to say a big “thank you” to our leafleters with a pre-Christmas party and celebration of all the hard work they have done for the Councillors and the party in the last twelve months. I wouldn’t have been elected without their help in delivering our leaflets, and they thoroughly deserve our thanks. And the copious amounts of mince pies we’re going to chuck their way on Sunday night.

Also on Sunday I am attending a carol concert in aid of Henshaws Society for Blind People. The concert will take place at St Mary’s Church from 2-4pm, with performances from Crystal Chords - Greater Manchester’s Female Barbershop Harmony, St Mary’s Primary School Choir and Swinton Wind Band. There will also be traditional carols, mine pies and mulled wine.  

On Saturday I am going to stand in the arctic winds of Eastlands for two hours watching Manchester City labour to a frankly unbelievable ninth consecutive home win in what is sure to be an awful game of football against Bolton.

And after that I have to venture once more into the unforgiving retail apocalypse that is the Christmas markets, to finish off the Christmas shopping. No matter how many gifts I buy, and how smug I feel on the way home, I remember soon afterwards that there is some random acquaintance for whom I have not yet purchased the compulsory gift. 

Have good weekends all. 

Rick

I have been following up the issue of knotweed in the ward for a little while, after earlier reports that we’d got rid of it in Gardner Road turned out to be some way short of the truth.

The Council had told me that, as a result of me following up resident concerns over the issue, they had removed the pesky weed from behind houses on Gardner Road a couple of months ago. I went down to have a look, and the plants had indeed been removed. Unfortunately it was only the visible bits that had been removed, rather than the offending and virtually unstoppable roots, which had been left to continue burrowing over anything and everything in their path.

My thanks to the residents who pointed this out to me after we raised the issue in a previous edition of St Mary’s Focus.

So I followed the issue up again, and this time requested that the Council officers do what they can to use the specialist techniques needed to actually get rid of the problem once and for all. And today I have received assurances that a firm called Nomix Enviro Ltd have been approached to deal with this knotweed problem. They will remove the visible elements for now and dispose of them in the appropriate way and in the spring when the weed grows again, they will begin a spray treatment which may have to last up to three years to dispose of the problem.

So, whilst it wasn’t done right first time round, I hope that the correct process to deal with this problem will begin very soon.

Rick

It is a rare and unpleasant day when I am forced to confirm to my mother (who lives up the road and who sees me several times a week) that I have not become a father. And yet that is what I am forced to do now.

Last night at Council, Cllr Bernie Vincent offered me his congratulations on the birth of my daughter.

“That’s nice,” I thought “if a little odd, given that she’s yet to be born or, I hope, conceived.”

I queried the nature of the congratulations, just to be sure. Apparently Richard Baum has recently become a dad, and has boomed out his pleasure from the pages of the Jewish Telegraph, for the entire local community to see.

“Hmm…” I said “That really isn’t me.”

So, to answer the age old question of “who’s the daddy?” let me say loud and clear that whilst it is Richard Baum, it’s not me.

Unfortunately for us both, it is clear that Richard Baum and I are crippled with the same socially challenging name. And unfortunately for me on this occasion, I am slightly better known. Resultantly I have received some odd congratulations today. The best was a letter I received from the Honorary Secretary of Heathlands Village, the Jewish old people’s community in my ward, who offered me mazeltov on the birth of my darling daughter.

It was a lovely letter, and I have written back telling him as much. But, alas, it was completely wasted on me.

I don’t know what’s more worrying - that lots of people think I now have a child when I don’t, or that the community thinks I’ve got a child but barely anyone’s bothered to wish me well.

So Mum, when you read this, take comfort in the knowledge that you aren’t a Grandma yet, and rest easy that you’ll be the fourth to know when you are (after me, the mother and the kid).

And, to the real Richard Baum, congratulations. I wish you and young Isabella Mya all the happiness in the world.

Rick

So the final full Council meeting of 2007 is over. The press were out in force for the congestion charge debate, and I can only apologise to them for the two hours of knockabout political gaming that went on before the main event.

Questions from the public gallery boomed out from the world’s single loudest microphone, puncturing the eardrums of many during the opening minutes, with a contest going on between Manchester Against Road Tolls (MART) and planted Bury Labour supporters as to who could ask the most obtuse questions to the Leader. I would say that, perhaps for the first time this year in any contest, Bury Labour won.

Of particular note to St Mary’s was the question from one Labour activist concerning the Butterstile Children’s Centre and suggesting that I have put the scheme in jeopardy by giving voice to resident’s concerns at the Council’s Planning Committee.

Once again they have missed the vital point - that Council officers have assured Councillors that if planning permission is granted at the pre-Christmas meeting then the building can still be completed on time. It will be tight, sure. But perfectly possible. And we will see it done.

I don’t like having a go at other parties and other Councillors on this blog or anywhere else. I genuinely believe that we’re all in it for the right reasons and got into this to try and do some good. But there are times when stuff goes on and I start to doubt people’s motives. This is one of those times.

The situation with the Children’s Centre wouldn’t be anywhere near this tight if it weren’t for the numerous mistakes made in the design and consultation phases by Council officers, the early parts of which were presided over by Labour’s Cllr Maggie Gibb in her capacity as Executive Member until May this year. The same Cllr Gibb who was in the same room as me when we were told on November 30^th that the planning delay wouldn’t mean the end of the scheme, but appears to have been distracted by something and missed this key point. The same Cllr Gibb who has been elected by the people of St Mary’s to represent their views to Council, but is dead against me doing the same at Planning. The same Cllr Gibb who allows her local activists to plant questions and write letters to the papers that do nothing but propagate lies and spread anxiety.

I do hope that the same momentary distraction which afflicted Cllr Gibb on November 30^th didn’t return during questions to the Executive last night, when I asked about outreach facilities from the Butterstile Children’s Centre to Rainsough. These are crucial, and heavily dependent on cooperation between Bury MBC and Salford City Council, who own the building where we hope these facilities will go.

I began a dialogue with Salford some time ago when I went to see Cllr Peter Connor, the Labour Executive Member for Housing in Salford. Nothing had been done for 15 years under his watch or that of Bury Labour, so I thought I’d build some bridges. Unfortunately Cllr Connor preferred talking to the press than to me, hence the smiling picture of him and Cllr Gibb in Rainsough some weeks later proclaiming a bright future thanks to Labour.

It’s nice when I can do a favour for Labour once in a while.

Unfortunately the promised bright future requires work. Work which I wanted us to do together, but which now I am barred from because Labour don’t like talking to us. Possibly because they think local people’s lives are all part of a big game of some kind.

So I asked the Leader of the Council last night what work has been ongoing between Bury MBC and Salford CC. There wasn’t much forthcoming on the detail, so I asked to be kept informed. What is clear though, is that if the Rainsough thing doesn’t happen, the blame lies absolutely with Labour. We started the ball rolling, we cajoled Bury into playing along, and now it’s stalled because going to the press to win votes is an easier option than working together with us horrible Liberal Democrats.

If it does happen, the people of Rainsough will be delighted, and so will I because I nudged Labour into action after 15 desparate years. But if it doesn’t, they should be ashamed.

I will keep you updated.

Rick

Here is the speech I made proposing the congestion charge amendment at the meeting of Bury Council last night. There were a few last minute amendments made in the chamber, and I said a bit afterwards too to close the debate, but this is more or less it:

“Mr Mayor, in proposing this amendment I would like to tell Council  about an experience I had at Watford Gap service station on the M1  in early October.  

I was driving to an engagement party when my car began making the  types of spluttering noises one would normally associate with the early days of steam.   

I pulled into the service station and waited, with nothing but a  Ginster’s Pasty for company. The AA man came, and despite him  being a very nice man he was no use at all, and I had to scrap my car  and get a new one.   

The only good thing to come out of the whole mess was that I got a  refund on my tax disc, which still had more or less a whole year to  run.   

And Council will be delighted to hear that, should we all end up  paying a congestion charge each and every day to travel into Greater  Manchester’s District Centres, should our cars have the same  troubles, we too will be entitled to such a refund.  

Because this congestion charge isn’t replacing my tax disc.

It isn’t  replacing fuel duty. In fact it isn’t replacing anything.  

It’s an extra charge which will force poor people out of their cars.  

Simple as that.  

It limits choice. It is hugely regressive. And it is a damning indictment of the nannying, money-grabbing worst side of our government.   

We shouldn’t be bidding for anything which signs us up to it. 

Mr Mayor, this country is in dire need of public transport investment.  

We have been promised an integrated transport system for decades.  

We don’t have one yet.  

In Greater Manchester we have a Metrolink system so dirty, dangerous and unreliable that half the time I may as well ride to  work on a wing and a prayer as on a tram. It’d be cheaper, that’s for sure.  

We have buses that serve some communities well, and others not at all.

An 85 year old lady in my ward has to walk a mile and a half to  get a bus because the route past her house doesn’t make enough  money to continue. That’s just not on in my book. 

The north of our Borough is woefully served. Woefully served Mr  Mayor.  

This is unacceptable after ten years and more of a government which claims to champion public transport.  

We need investment in our public transport system, and we need it  now.  

Never has it been more important to get people out of their cars.  

For the sake of pollution, for the sake of congestion, and for the sake of our communities, we need people using sustainable public transport. People using a first rate public transport system. 

And people should pay for it, Mr Mayor. There’s no such thing as a  free lunch. And God knows there’s no such thing as a free Pasty at Watford Gap. 

But People do pay for it. You pay for it Mr Mayor, so do I, and so  does everybody up there in the public gallery. Whether we use it or not.  

Through the taxes we pay every time we get paid, every time we purchase anything, and every time we fill our cars and tax our cars and buy our cars. 

This government now wants us to pay for it again though. Through congestion charging. 

“You’ll get the transport you need,” they say “but only if you pay upto a fiver a day to drive into Manchester. We won’t pay for it ourselves.  We think other things are more important.” 

Well Mr Mayor, I don’t think that’s right.  And I’d like to know the opinions of the people in this room, in this Borough and in Greater Manchester.  

And we should get them to tell us by holding a county wide referendum of every household. 

I don’t think the government’s attitude is right because it’s an additional tax. Because it’s an unfair tax, and because it’s an unwise tax. 

It’s an additional tax because it replaces nothing.  

We’ll still be paying £1 a litre at the pumps.  

We’ll still be paying hundreds to tax our cars.  

And now we’ll be forced to pay a fiver to drive where we want. 

It’s an unfair tax because poor people will suffer the most.  

If I earned ten thousand pounds a week, a fiver a day isn’t going to stop me doing anything.

But if I earned ten thousand pounds a year, it might stop me doing everything.  

Mr Mayor, poorer people have poorer choices, and this deprives them  of yet another.  

And it’s an unwise tax.  

Unwise because it is presented under the guise of being good for the  environment and good for the economy.  I think it’s neither.

It’ll just create bitterness, and bad feeling towards good causes.  

Businesses won’t like it because Greater Manchester will be a big city with a big tax.

Workers won’t want to move here,  and businesses will want to leave. 

And people won’t like leaving their cars at home because they’re being dragged wallet-first towards public transport, not shown the  light through world class public transport. 

That’s not the way to benefit the environment or the economy. 

We should say no to the congestion charge Mr Mayor. 

No to this government forcing poor people to pay to get to work.  

No to being tracked by cameras.  

No to tags in our cars.  

No to public transport investment on the never never.  

No to the TIF bid if this is what it means. 

This TIF bid isn’t about a Transport Innovation Fund.  It’s about a Transport Injustice Fund. 

It is simply unjust to ask poor people to pay hundreds of pounds extra every year to drive into work when there is simply not a suitable alternative. 

We should not stand for such injustice. 

How can we be entrusted to serve the people if we consign the poorest to paying more to get what is rightfully their’s?  

Innovative governments persuade by example, convince by  investment, and win arguments by building a brighter future.  

Simple taxation is not innovation. 

Mr Mayor I know what rejecting congestion charging may mean.  

It may mean saying goodbye to the investment in public transport that  we need.  

But it shouldn’t mean that.  

It should send a message.

A message to government that we will not stand for their bullying.  

That we have been elected by local people to stand up for what they want – a quality public transport system paid for through the taxes we have already paid, sustained through more users and leading to  improvements all round. 

We shouldn’t take no for an answer from government.  They owe it to the people of this Borough and this county to give us  what we need.  

We need to send them a message that we want quality public transport corridors in Bury.

That we want the north of this Borough to be properly served.  

And that we want Bury to be part of a region with a world class public  transport system. 

Let’s send them that message Mr Mayor, by rejecting congestion charging, listening to the views of every house in Greater  Manchester, and then telling the government loud and clear what it is  that the people want. 

Mr Mayor, I have pleasure in proposing this amendment.” 

My colleague, and the leader of the Lib Dem Group on Bury Council, Cllr Tim Pickstone, seconded the amendment,  giving the Council two examples where major public transport investment was made without the need for a congestion charge (Crossrail in London and the Edinburgh Tram System). He also noted how the decision that Bury were making might actually shape the future by enabling the people of Greater Manchester to have their say in a public referendum.

Rick

This is the Liberal Democrat amendment to the Congestion Charge motion that Bury Council voted on last night.

“TRANSPORT INNOVATION FUND (TIF) BID
Amendment Proposed by the Lib Dem Group
Cllrs Baum, D’Albert, Davision, A J Garner, A S Garner, O’Hanlon,
Pickstone and S D Wright

This Council believes that major investment in public transport
infrastructure is urgently needed in Greater Manchester for significant
environmental and economic reasons, but rejects the attempts of the
Labour Government to force congestion charging on Greater Manchester to
receive the public transport investment we need.
This Council is against the TIF Bid if Congestion Charges are included in
the final offer from Government.
This Council will continue to promote a scheme that includes further
investment in transport corridors in Bury – in particular transport corridors
to the north of Bury town centre.

This council requires that public support for the initiative is confirmed
through a Greater Manchester wide consultative referendum on congestion
charging.”

The amendment was proposed by me, seconded by Lib Dem Council Group Leader Cllr Tim Pickstone, and voted for by the Liberal Democrat Group supported by the Conservative Group. The Labour Group abstained, and the amendment passed to become Council policy.

Rick