A happy new year to all the readers of the blog, and to everyone else in the ward, in Bury and, what the hell, the entire world.

2008 has seen lots of action from the Lib Dem Councillors in St Mary’s. There’s been really big stuff like the plans for the regeneration of Prestwich and the big improvements that are going to come courtesy of the new Prestwich plan. We’ve also seen the creation of exciting plans for Drinkwater Park in conjunction with the Forestry Commission, which will start to come to fruition this year. And of course we led the fight locally to oppose the Congestion Charge, making sure that Bury Council opposed it, calling for the referendum and campaigning hard for the eventual “no” vote.

The centre of Prestwich Village received a deep clean in the spring, getting rid of the grime that had blighted the area. We also finally got the Radius fountainworking, even though legal technicalities stopped us getting it reomved! And it’s been great to see the new arrivals like Croma, Ego, and Costa Coffee fill the new retail units in the Radius building. THey’re great arrivals for the area. 

We’ve been working hard in tough financial conditions to get improvements locally. There have been several road repairs this year such as Spring Vale and Barnhill Road, and we’ve finally got rid of the silly second set of traffic lights at the junction of Bury New Road and St Ann’s Road. Where we’ve seen street lights not working, we’ve got them fixed, and where there’ve been litter hotspots like Sandy Lane we’ve got them tidied up. In fact, in the budget this year the Lib Dems successfully amended Tory proposals and increased street cleaning provision by £300,000.

Locally we’ve supported tenants and residents associations for Rainsough, and Sherbourne Court / Warwick Street. We’ve helped local residents on St Ann’s Road take on the Council and protect their gardens. And we’ve been the only effective opposition to the Tories in Bury, supporting the staff and gaining key concessions over Job Evaluation, whilst pressing in Council for more government funding for Bury, and the protection of our local post offices.

The party in Bury has gone from strength to strength. Lib Dems in Bury have now got more Councillors than ever before, are challenging in more areas than ever before, and won more votes than ever before in May’s elections. The local party has held many exciting and popular events this year, and has worked with a wider range of people and community groups than ever before. And personally of course, my election as parliamentary candidate for Bury North in November was a great honour. As someone born and raised in Bury, it is great to see such local improvements for the town and the party.

2009 promises much. I hope we can live up to it, and I hope that the year is a success for the ward, the borough, and everyone in it.

Happy new year.

Rick

A big thank you today to the good people at United Utilities, who sent me a water bill last week, then came to read my meter two days later. This splendid bit of common sense resulted in them having to send me another bill, which wiped out the £145 credit heaped onto me in the first one and imposed a £297 debit in its place. All of which I doubtless accrued in the past three weeks since discovering how to turn the power setting on the shower onto full blast. I have spent much of the intervening time testing it out.

So that little bit of thievery from UU has darkened my mood today, as has an unavoidable and deeply unpleasant excursion to the Trafford Centre. I managed to park only six or seven miles from the front door, and joined the 140,000,000,000 other people swarming around there looking for a sales bargain. I didn’t find one, but did spend lots of unnecessary pounds on things which I fleetingly thought would make me happy but which I now know will simply add greater depth to the spiritual black hole which yawns like a gaping chasm at my very core. It was never a banker that I might find salvation in HMV.

So my Christmas holidays meander to a depressing close. Work on monday is about as appealing as sticking my arm in a threshing machine. I have a great job, don’t get me wrong. I just like not doing it. There is still new year’s eve to look forward to of course, but I always find that an evening specifically given over to the forced contemplation of the passing of another year during which dreams remain unaccomplished is hardly a cause for smiles all round. It’s the one festival of the year which I just don’t get. We’re a bit older (which is bad) and here’s the undeniable proof; drinks are thrice the price they normally are (which is bad); it’s colder than a naked hike through the Arctic tundra outside (which is bad); and the taxi home will charge a thousand pounds before we’ve moved an inch (which is bad). And yet people are still waving their arms in the air at midnight like maniacs. Crazy stuff.

I am spending the evening this year in the company of a child who is 7 weeks old, so whilst its mother and my girlfriend whoop at midnight, letting off party-poppers and wearing glasses which spell out “2009″ in glitter, I can seek solace with someone who doesn’t have the foggiest idea what the concept of a new year is.

Until and beyond then though, there are ward and Council matters to attend to. I’m sure that the cold snap that we’re now in the midst of will see the gritters out protecting the roads. If you’ve got a grit bin at the end of your street, make sure it’s topped up, and if it isn’t then let the Council (and/or me) know to get it fixed. And don’t forget that even in this quiet time of year over the holidays, I and the other local Lib Dem councillors in St Mary’s would be glad to assist with any problems or issues you have. Please do just get in touch. Particularly if it’s five to midnight on new year’s eve, as dealing with a call as the clock strikes twelve will give me the perfect opportunity to avoid contemplating time’s unstoppable march towards something which I imagine involves fire and brimstone.

Rick

I was in Asda earlier. I went to buy some storage boxes for the loft, in which to put things like old newspapers and letters and the ephemera which makes up my life and is thus interesting to me and nobody else in the world. These boxed up artefacts are entirely pointless and not worth saving in the least, and yet I cannot bear to be parted from them. I suspect this is because I am an egomaniac, but I live in hope that my sentimentality is shared by others. Maybe there is more than just me in the world who puts cinema ticket stubs in a little box in the loft with the thought that maybe their grandchildren might find it interesting in sixty years to hear how grandma and grandpa went to see Captain Corelli’s Mandolin for their first date.

I was served at the checkout by a woman who looked like all she’d got for Christmas was burgled. She grunted at me and basically treated me as if I’d been the one doing the burgling, which annoyed me a bit given that this is supposedly the season of goodwill to all men, even if it’s now the fag end of the season when people just look at their watches a bit and wonder how long it is until they can sing auld lang syne and take the decorations down.

So I texted a friend to complain about this arsey treatment, and was quite rightly rebuked by her for being a completely thoughtless buffoon. No wonder this checkout lady was a bit grumpy, I was told. She has to go to work when 95% of the rest of the country is having a great time nowhere near work, messing about buying storage boxes!

My friend was right, of course. I’d be grumpy too. 

And that got me thinking that her job sat snugly on a cushioned chair in a suburban Asda is probably at the good end of the many, many, people who are working right now and have had to work over Christmas keeping Prestwich and the rest of the country functioning and safe over Christmas.

So, to the policemen and paramedics, to the soldiers here and everywhere, to the guys in the gritting lorries and manning the emergency phone lines, please excuse my incredibly thoughtless text from before. I was an idiot.

To the firemen and women, to the train drivers and the people in the call centres, thanks a lot for doing what the rest of us aren’t doing, and for giving up your Christmas fun for us.

To the doctors and nurses, the people working on Council services and in the NHS, I forgot you and I suppose that lots of other people did too. That was wrong of us.

To the volunteers helping the needy, you’ve got one up on me.

To everyone who worked and continues to work over the holidays, like the people working in Asda serving the likes of me another box of mince pies, you deserve a happy Christmas whenever you get the chance to celebrate it properly. So Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, and I hope that next time round you get to spend it how you want to.

Rick

As 2008 meanders to a close like injury time in a turgid mid-table goalless draw, it has dawned on me that 2009 will be here next Thursday.

My immediate thought is that this is a deeply troubling fact. For one thing, when I was young, the year 2009 seemed so comically far off that it may as well have been the year 5009. We’d all by scuttling about in flying cars and I’d be served my drink of choice by compliant (and incredibly beautiful) robots. Two thousand and nine you say? Do me a favour… Neeeeeever gonna happen! It’s miiiiiiiiiiiiiiles away!

And yet here it is. Alarmingly. Next Thursday. I am still here. I am not so young. And there are no beautiful robots.

Still, all is not lost, because I have virtually no serious reason to complain in my life, which puts me in the top 0.0001% of the world’s population, I imagine. And robots or not, I am grateful for that. Which is why I want to make the most of the next year. And now there is the chance to give some thought to 2009 and what we’d like to achieve in the ward when the year is all shiny and new again. 

I intend to take some time out with my ward colleagues in the next couple of weeks to think about what we might want to do in the next twelve months, and I’d be delighted to hear your ideas. I was elected to serve, and whilst I was also elected to lead and I have my own ideas, I’d quite like to make sure that they’re roughly in the same ball park as everyone else’s. Not least because rioting in the streets is no good for either of us…

2009 promises to be an exciting year for Prestwich, particularly with the redevelopment of the village centre moving forward. Since there are no local elections to distract us, we can use the entire twelve months to concentrate on our priorities for making Prestwich better.

But we won’t be able to do that properly without talking to local people and finding out what they want too. So please drop me a line if you’ve got any burning issues you think need tackling in St Mary’s in 2009. It’d be great to hear from you. 

Rick

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas / Chanukah / opportunity to take advantage of the Godly and simply eat mince pies for no reason. I certainly did, as I presume did the good people at Wordpress who have ensured that the blog has been down and completely inaccessible to me and the world since Christmas Eve. So sorry for the lack of updates. It ain’t my fault, guv. 

Santa was as generous as ever, finding room in his sleigh for all manner of little gifts marked “FAO Cllr Richard Baum,” including several DVDs, a worrying array of books that there’s simply no chance I’ll get through before we all do this again next year, and most excitingly of all a TELESCOPE that I can look at the stars through. I mean the celestial bodies of course, not that fit one off Holby City, although if the opportunity arose to peer at her through a lens capable of fabulous levels of magnification, I may indulge. But only cos it’s Christmas.

The dazzling array of prezzies was confirmation, were it needed, that I have been good this year, and thus puts pay once and for all to any rumours to the contrary circulating in opposition leaflets distributed throughout the ward in these last twelve months.

I was delighted that the presents I bought also went down very well. Tamsin was all giddy about the books I got her, as well as the “Snuggle Bottle” which she had been banging on about all year. It’s some kind of hot water bottle which men stare at blankly whilst women shriek as if it’s a unicorn dancing the rhumba with Lord Lucan. It seemed to do the trick, although apparently was stolen by her sister soon afterwards.

Mac, the three-legged cat with whom we share our lives, was also not fogotten by Santa or his elves. He was given a rustly tunnel to run about in, and some toy mice infused with cat nip. As promised on the box, they did indeed send him to the heights of ecstasy, and I was worried for the stability of the tree at one point when he became hugely over-excited at the prospect of playing with the mice in the tunnel on Christmas morning. 

I have eaten my own body-weight in outrageously unhealthy food, and my body is almost audibly shrieking for the detox-cum-diet-cum-exercise regime which I will start in the new year and finish shortly thereafter. I don’t know whether “five a day” extends to packets of crisps, but if so then I am a picture of health.

Unfortunately there seems no immediate sign of an end to the slovenly behaviour, as I remain off work for a week and have just spent three dozen completely unnecessary pounds in the HMV sale on DVDs which can only be watched whilst munching chocolate or crisps according to an actual statute of parliament.

My efforts to keep on top of my Council emails have also been thwarted over the last couple of days. I took Christmas Day itself off, as I hope did anyone thinking of emailing me, but since then I’ve not been able to log on due to what I can only assume is post-Christmas server malfunction. The people at the Microsoft Email Exchange are obviously at the same Bahamian beach resort as the people at Wordpress, downing cocktails and lazing about rather than allowing me to do what I like. So if anyone has emailed, that’s why I’ve not responded. It couldn’t have been that urgent, because the only person to have rung me in all this time is my mother.

Which, whilst I love her dearly, is fairly depressing. I hear that stuffing ones-self with food is a good comforter, so I am going to head downstairs and eat something I shouldn’t.

Rick

Well, Christmas is nearly upon us, and I proved it over the weekend by eating dinner wearing a hat fashioned to look like a turkey. Not that any real turkey would have quite so large a smile on its face right now of course, faced with imminent death, but I like to think that my choice of evening wear was a step in the right direction towards festive frivolity. It had a head and bulgy eyes, And its legs were dangling round my ears. Not as pleasant as when that normally happens, I must say.

I was away at Tamsin’s at the time, but have now put away the “hilarious” head wear and returned to spend Christmas here in Prestwich, looking after Mac, the three-legged cat who owns our house without actually appearing on any mortgage deeds. He has been in the wars recently, and is on antibiotics after a fight left his claws damaged and his temperament on the wild side of manic. The vet said it was probably with another cat, but by the looks of him it was with an armoured personnel carrier.

He is also sneezing quite a lot, which is disturbing since he manages to make a louder noise than I do (and that’s saying something). And he’s quite bitey at the moment. I don’t yet have a centre-piece for the Christmas meal, and if he doesn’t watch it, he might become it.

There’s not much to report from the ward at the moment, since the Council and everything in it has slowed down for a winter break. Council buildings are closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but essential services will be provided and the Council can be contacted in emergencies if required (as can I, preferably not during The Royle Family).

It’s not all quiet though - I did get some good news today about Sherbourne Court, where a tenant has been living in conditions which would probably have stirred Victorian philanthropists to tears and action, but which the Customer Relations team at Six Town Housing shrug their shoulders at. There’s a new born baby in a flat riddled with damp and home to enough species of fungus to get the BBC Natural History Unit to commission a six part series, and now finally, after some increasingly shouty conversations between me and Six Town Housing we have got the family upgraded. The newborn and his mother will be be out of there and into better accommodation before you can say “oddly reminiscent of a twenty first century Jesus-in-the-stable-type story.” 

If anything important crops up over the holidays, you will be the first to hear about it (after the Council, me, the other Councillors, anyone reading this before you, the press and probably at least one of my parents) on here. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a happy Christmas. If I’m bored I may blog before and say it again. If not, there it is. Hope Santa is generous to you all, ho ho ho…

Rick

I finish work today for a fortnight, which is hugely exciting as it represents not only the longest break of my year, but also the opportunity to look forward to a seemingly infinite period of stress-free existence stretching ahead of me like a glorious golden road.

 

Unfortunately I am acutely aware that the next 16 days will disappear in quadruple-quick time, and I’ll be sat here mournfully staring at my computer screen within what seems like seconds, pondering the next few months before Easter comes to save me.

 

Council business has also more or less shuddered to a halt the last couple of days. I have sent and received lots of Christmas greetings from the officers of the Council who I annoy throughout the year with requests for help and service. It is nice to contact them without asking for something.

 

Blogging won’t stop whilst I’m off, but it may slow down a little bit as I use my fingers for eating and unwrapping things rather than for typing. And I realise how lucky I am to have this time off. I know that there are a lot of people performing vital services and working in jobs all over the place who don’t have much, if any, time off over Christmas. So I’m grateful and won’t be stopping entirely!

 

Rick

On his first anniversary as leader, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg will today set out plans to put Britain on a Green Road out of the Recession, creating jobs and leaving a legacy that will save energy, put money back into people’s pockets and fight climate change. The plans will cost £12.5bn, which would be paid for by scrapping the proposed VAT cut. The vast majority of that money will be spent immediately, making a real impact on the economy and people’s lives right away.

Green Road out of the Recession proposals include:

 

- A five-year programme to insulate every school and hospital, with 20% completed in the first year.

- Funding insulation and energy efficiency for a million homes, with a £1,000 subsidy for a million more 

- Building 40,000 extra zero-carbon social houses 

- Buying 700 new train carriages 

- Reopening old railway lines and stations, opening new ones, electrifying the Great Western and Midland mainlines and beginning the Liverpool light rail network 

- Installing energy and money saving smart meters in every home within five years 

 

I heard Nick Clegg on Five Live this morning being interviewed, and I have to say that his passion for these plans and for the Liberal Democrat way of tackling the current economic problems we’re in was great to hear.

 

Rick

Last night I proposed the Liberal Democrat motion to Council criticising the government’s decision to award Bury Council a less-than-inflation grant settlement. This means less money for the Council to spend on vital services. Below is the speech I made to propose the motion.

 

It may read like a long critique of the government, but I think it’s justified. Labour’s priorities are wrong, and their reliance on councils to provide more for less has gone on too long and is no longer working.

 

I was accused after speaking of plugging my own Bury North parliamentary campaign. I didn’t mention it once, and I thank both the other two parties for mentioning it in their response. It was just the type of publicity I like to see. Having said that, I don’t shy away from my view that I’d make a better MP than either the current Labour one who’s stood by and watched this settlement without a word, or the Tory candidate whose days of public service to Bury so far stands at zero and counting.

 

I was slightly disappointed that the Dickens-reference gag two thirds of the way down didn’t get a laugh. I suppose I was on a hiding to nothing trying to amend the highest profile and best received political joke of the year and make it fit a speech to Bury Council. But I tried. And failed. Still, the Ivan Lewis text message line went down a storm. I won’t be so high-brow next time.

 

Here’s the speech…

 

“Thank you Mr Mayor.

We are living in extraordinary economic times.

But whilst the economy might be in turmoil, the services needed by the people of Bury stay the same.

And unfortunately, the paltry grant increase given to us by the government last year, has stayed the same as well.

We shouldn’t stand by whilst Bury loses out.

There have been several uncalled-for criticisms of the Labour government tonight.

This one is absolutely merited, and I’ll have to suspend my Christmas jollity for about the next eight minutes and twenty

seconds.

Members on all sides of the chamber know how badly we fare.

Twelve months ago Cllr Connelly said “Bury has never been in a favourable position following budget settlements, and this

year is no different.”

Well, a year on he could say the same thing, and he’d be just as right.

This is year two of a three year settlement which marked the worst deal offered to Councils by government in a decade.

This despite Local Authorities meeting every efficiency target rightly asked of them.

Local Government has generated £5bn of savings in four years, including another billion pounds this year.

But Bury Council will now be forced to find more efficiencies on top of the ones we’ve made before.

There’s not much more fat to trim Mr Mayor.

There’s only so efficient a service can get, before it stops getting more efficient, and starts just getting worse.

Some things are getting worse. It’s a fact.

Just ask the people of my ward driving down roads that look like the surface of the moon.

Ask the people who like to pay their bills in cash at Prestwich library, but won’t be able to from next year.

Ask the pensioners of this Borough fearful of where they might live in their old age.

Because when we get rid of cleaning gangs as the Tories did last year, or close libraries like Labour did before, they aren’t efficiencies, they’re cuts.

So let us be absolutely clear.

The Labour government’s failure to provide this Council with enough grant leads directly to cuts in services for the people of Bury.

At 2.59% Bury’s settlement is well below the rate of inflation, again.

I know that inflation is volatile at the moment Mr Mayor, but it’s not been at 2.59% since June 2006.

And so whilst the government give us less, the cost of providing our services is more.

Bury has again not only done worse than inflation, but worse than our neighbours in AGMA.

This settlement will widen the gap between what we can do, and what other Councils can do.

Mr Mayor, do the people of Bury not deserve the same opportunities as the people of Oldham, or the same services as the people of Stockport?

The Labour government seem to think so.

The Labour government think it’s fine for the unfair Council tax to increase by a third in five years, and see millions cut from the budget at the same time.

£5.5m cut here this year Mr Mayor, who knows how much next year?

Our Labour MPs don’t have a word to say on it.

If it’s efficiencies the government is looking for, I look at Messrs Lewis and Chaytor and it’s not hard to identify two efficiencies they can quite easily make!

They sit in the House of Commons not as government apologists but as representatives of our Borough.

Ivan Lewis has said nothing on the subject.

No words, no text messages, nothing.

Our man in Mozambique has been silent.

Yet there is an article on his website accusing the Council of treating local people like second class citizens, and of being financially incompetent.

Well, with the economy collapsing around our ears on his watch, and with his government failing to provide us with money whilst my residents fall down holes in the road, he might want to revise his opinions.

David Chaytor is even worse.

On his website sits a press release trumpeting the settlement, but not a single word on how Bury loses out to pay for his government’s priorities elsewhere.

Mr Chaytor has shown that he doesn’t, and let’s be clear that the Conservative alternatives are just as bad.

Under the Tories, central Government support to Local Authorities fell by 7 per cent in the last four years of the last Conservative government.

And with Mr Cameron’s plans to cut spending even more, the situation would get worse still.

Mr Mayor, I know that painting parties as bad guys like I’ve just done doesn’t tell the whole story.

They don’t do it on purpose, and let us give credit where it’s due.

Labour increased funding to Councils at above inflation rates for ten years.

They should be praised for that.

But the facts remain that this extra funding came at a time of economic growth, and at a time when a responsible and prudent government should have been planning for the lean years.

Now that the growth has stopped though, so has the investment.

Councils are again scraping around for money desperately needed for vital services, but the government’s priorities are all wrong.

The government still plans to spend ten thousand million pounds on ID cards.

This week of all weeks, when the TIF package has been so overwhelmingly rejected by local people, it has become evidently clear that what the government want doesn’t reflect what local people want.

 

Mr Mayor, Labour have become the Woolworths of the political world. Once so appealing to so many, now with muddled

priorities, failing to adapt to what people want and need, and doomed to a failure which saddens many.

They’re already holding a huge closing down sale.

Sadly it’s our future they’re selling with massive debt and ineffective dawdling, whilst we have to make do and mend in Bury.

Gordon Brown went from Stalin to Mr Bean.

Now he’s gone from Mr Bean to Mr Bumble, firm in his deluded convictions whilst we here in Bury are forced to ask for more.

I know Mr Mayor that the settlement formula is based on complicated calculations.

Asking for more may seem a simple way to look at a complex problem.

It’s not the only way but it’s the right way.

Because it is wrong to penalise the people in need in East Bury or Rainsough in my ward where deprivation and reduced life chances are as large a blight as anywhere in the country.

It’s insulting to Bury that this is seen as fair.

And to accept it as Bury Councillors is a dereliction of our collective duty.

The Conservatives here in Bury have noticed the problems we’re in, but have yet to come up with a solution.

Amongst the bluster, blame and blinkered nastiness of his budget speech in the spring, Cllr Redstone said that he’d deal with cuts and unfair settlements.

He said he’d carry out a root and branch investigation into how best to manage and deliver the services that we as a Council provide.

Members can be assured, he said, that when the time is right, the results of this work will be brought before us.

I’m sure those results are coming, but so’s Christmas, and there’s a big tree outside to prove it.

We’re still waiting.

So here is his get out clause.

Here is our invitation to him and everyone else here tonight to move forward with a common goal of ending cuts and lowering Council Tax bills, by telling government to give us a fair deal.

I don’t like that Labour don’t give us enough.

I equally dislike that the Tory response is empty promises and grand plans that never emerge.

The people of Bury deserve more.

Why should we do nothing when the people who elected us want more?

Why should we accept what government tell us when the people of Bury have rejected Labour time and again at recent local

elections?

Why should we let our MPs put their interests before our interests?

The answer is that we should not.

We should lobby government for more, not just because it is the right way to spend our taxes, but because it is our duty as

representatives for Bury to get the best.

We should strive to protect the streets, parks and schools of our home town, not just because we’re proud of what Bury can offer its people, but because we want to leave them for our children, and they’re being taken from us.

And so tonight we should say that we don’t want to be second best any more.

We don’t want to have to stand up and make cuts at the budget.

We don’t want to fall further behind.

Instead we want a settlement that treats local people not as victims of the Borough’s affluence but as citizens of one great country, entitled to the same services as everybody else.

Mr Mayor, it is my pleasure to propose this motion.”

Rick

Last night’s meeting of full Council was the last one of the calendar year, but before we adjourned for mince pies with the Mayor, there was some serious business to attend to. Much of the proceedings did slip into jollity rather easier than the rest of the year though, particularly during one worrying question about public toilets, the hugely enthusiastic response to which was so riddled with words which tickled my inner-child that I was in grave danger of losing it completely, crying with laughter in my seat. And I was far from the only one. It really wasn’t on, to be honest, and this morning I am faintly ashamed (in a wry smile kind of a way) that it had me and others literally doubled over giggling.

 

Anyway, first up last night, as ever, was public question time. It was dominated by the secondary schools review and the obviously-brewing campaign to ensure a high quality Radcliffe secondary school in Radcliffe. And it was great to see the Head Boy of Radcliffe Riverside in the audience. I hope he wasn’t put off Council forever by the political bluster (and the sight of half a dozen members getting hysterical about public toilets).

 

The entire debacle over Radcliffe Riverside school has been rumbling on since before I was elected to the Council. I must confess that its complexities escape me, and there are people within the Bury Lib Dems who are schools experts and who have a much better grasp of it than I have. But what I do know is that having the future of a school, and a town’s secondary education provision, dangling in the air for years is not fair to children or to their parents. But at the same time, neither is the creation of a campaign to “save” a school not threatened with closure. The Executive Member for Children, and the Leader himself, have not helped the situation by sending out mixed signals, changing their story and then retracting what they’ve said. We need clarity now for the sake of Radcliffe, and quick progress on sorting this out.

 

After the public had had their questions barely answered, it was time for questions to the Leader from us Councillors. The situation these days borders on the farcical at times. The Conservative-imposed time limit of 30 minutes means that out of 22 questions posed in advance, only 7 could be heard. It was particularly galling as my question was number 8 on the list. I am therefore denied not only the chance for it and the answer to be heard in public, but also of the opportunity to ask a supplementary question.

 

The question asked what the Council’s customer service standards are for responding to members of the public who contact them, and how frequently these are met. I know the answer to the first part already – that the Council should respond within 2 days to correspondence, and send a full answer within ten. I also know that anecdotal evidence I have, as well as a bit of monitoring of my own contacts with the Council, have shown that this standard is met less than half the time. But sadly we’ll never have this figure aired in a meeting (although when I get a written answer, I’ll air it on here!), nor will I get to ask anyone what they’re going to do about it. There’s nothing more frustrating than contacting a large organisation and being ignored, and yet it’s something Bury Council excels at. We need to sort it out.

 

There were three debates at Council. The first was on the Sustainable Communities Act, which has the potential to give enormous freedoms to Councils to innovate and develop policy locally. It is a great step in the direction of local autonomy and devolution of power, and I welcome much of it. The Council voted as one to accept a slightly amended motion which will see the Local Area Partnerships talk about the priorities which we’ll seek to use the Act to bring about next year.

 

There was also a debate on the Bury Times move proposal (see below), where Council unanimously agreed to voice our deep concerns about the plans.

 

And we Lib Dems proposed a motion about the local government settlement, which I proposed and the speech on which you can read above.

 

The settlement is the amount of grant given to the Council by government, which has fallen in real terms yet again this year. Only about 25% of council funding comes from Council Tax. Most of the rest comes in the form of the settlement grant, which Labour has reduced in real terms once more. Not only do Bury do worse than inflation, but also worse than many of our neighbours and also many similar councils. It means we have to cut services or put up taxes, and this is something local Lib Dems oppose bitterly. Our condemnation of the government last night was echoed on all sides, and the motion passed unanimously.

 

And then, at 22.15, it all stopped. And that’s that for 2008.

 

Rick

I recently learned of the plans by Newsquest, who own and run the Bury Times and the Prestwich & Whitefield Guide, to move their Bury operations to Bolton as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

I think this move will be hugely detrimental to Bury and to Prestwich, and it’s one I fundamentally oppose. The value of a local newspaper to a community is enormous, helping bring people together, inform, and hold people like local Councillors to account. The Bury Times is a local community institution, a “friend of the family” according to its own strap-line. Plans to move its operations to the next town, and to cut journalists in Bury, are just wrong.

The holding company cite financial pressures, but a look at their accounts show that last year their profits ran into the many millions of pounds, and had doubled since the year before.

Council last night unanimously voted to express our deep regret and anger at the decision to move to Bolton. It will be a big blow for a town that deserves a high quality local paper produced by journalists working in this town.

Please use your voice to tell Newsquest how much we value a Bury-based BT and P&W Guide. Contact the newspaper and tell them you want the Bury Times to stay.

Rick

Last night was the special meeting of the Resource and Performance Scrutiny Commission, to consider the Executive’s plans for Job Evaluation and Equal Pay.

This has been an epic story of incompetence and the tragic mistreatment of staff. And it ended last night with the disappointing verdict from Scrutiny that the Executive’s plans will be passed without comment.

The five Conservatives all voted for this proposal, and the two Liberal Democrats and two Labour councillors voted against.

The evening itself just re-hashed the same arguments on all sides. It’s clear that nobody has moved an inch (me included) in this whole sorry saga. The Tory Executive blame Labour and the Unions for agreeing to an unworkable scheme. Labour blame the Tories for being intransigent even in the face of the reality of massive pay losses. The Unions blame a lack of meaningful negotiation. And all the time, amidst all the blame, the staff are still losing a fortune.

I have said all along that there is no one cause. I stand by that. All sides could have done better, and I include my own in that. That we in opposition in Bury didn’t see this coming is a great shame and a failure.

But our failures are not as great as those of the Executive and of the Bury Conservatives, who have been so unmoved in the face of great staff hardship, and who once again hurried through proposals that haven’t been properly negotiated or considered by all sides. I appreciate that there are deadlines involved, but it is better to spend time and money getting things right, than to proceed in haste and damage staff morale beyond repair.

Last night was the first time that the Leader and the Executive Member had answered public questions on the subject. That the Leader came was to his credit, but he should have been answering questions like these months ago, and going away to revise the scheme then. Last night was too little, too late. The public question time session saw an admission from the Leader that the process wasn’t fair. His reassurances to the contrary all this time did little to reassure staff. Why he couldn’t be honest with them all along and act as a supportive Leader is a mystery to me.

Following public question time and statements from all side, the meeting went into closed session where we all said the same things again. There wasn’t a “full review” as scrutiny wanted and the Tories claim, because a final decision has to be made by January 6th to enable the contract change letters to go out in time to give 90 days notice before March 31st.

So it’s all over. Staff still lose silly sums of money, morale still hits the floor. In my view a crazy law, badly thought through nationally and badly implemented locally. The government is wrong not to provide funding, and the Bury Tories are wrong to proceed with such a flawed interpretation of the national scheme.

Rick

When the babies due to be born in 1981 were queuing up in heaven for coordination skills, I was obviously distracted by God’s beard or something, because they’d run out by the time I got to the front. As a result I have always been pretty hopeless at anything that requires someone to be “good with their hands.” With the possible exception of one-fingered typing.

And so it was last night that I headed to my Mum’s to have her wrap my Christmas presents for me. It’s not that I can’t do it myself, so much as I can’t do it myself without the resulting mess looking like I’ve wrapped the present whilst high on something, and with malice rather than love.

I had to get in early with the present wrapping because for the next two nights I am busy with council meetings. Tonight it is a special meeting of the Resource and Performance Scrutiny commission, where the agenda will be dominated by an item on Job Evaluation and Equal Pay. A decision on this was made by the Council’s Executive committee last week, and the Scrutiny commission has now “called it in” for scrutiny. And the Leader of the Council will be there to answer questions on it.

I have lots of questions, but unfortunately the public won’t have the chance to join in the discussion because the report has been made exempt from press and public scrutiny. This is a shame, as the Equal Pay issue affects thousands of staff, and is damaging morale enormously with the knock on effect on services.

I hope that tonight will give us the chance to get to the bottom of many worrying parts of this issue, such as the subjective moderation process, the appeals which have been startlingly successful, and the commitment to preserve the current pay bill come what may. All of these point to the fact that this process might have been handled better and with more compassion to staff who are being made to suffer through no fault of their own. It is a fair point to say that the Council had no choice but to implement a review, for reasons that I still think are silly, but the way that the review happens is fully within our control and we need to make sure it has been done right.

Scrutiny should not be party-political, and I am going into the meeting tonight without a party political axe to grind. I only hope that the members of the panel from the other groups feel the same. It would be a great shame, not to mention a complete neglect of our duty to the staff, if the Executive’s decision went unchallenged and not properly scrutinised for party political purposes.

We’ll see how it goes tonight, and I hope I can report success tomorrow, and perhaps some more hope for staff.

Rick

The weekend just gone saw a host of Christmas parties. Work’s was on Friday, followed by a gathering of former work colleagues on Saturday. I had enjoyed a lot of merriment and not a lot of sleep by Sunday, but still had the main event to come - the Bury Liberal Democrat Christmas party which was last night. There was a great turnout and it was lovely to mix with faces old and new at the home of my fellow ward Councillor Mary D’Albert (and her husband, the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Bury South, Vic D’Albert).

The trifle was four parts alcohol to one part anything else, which certainly oiled the wheels of conversation amongst the guests, and the Christmas tree in the lounge was so large that I will bet good money that it is home to at least one or two species of mammal.

The week ahead sees the conclusion of Council business for the year, but there are still one or two important meetings before we can all neck some mulled wine in celebration. In particular this week, there’s Scrutiny tomorrow night, which I’d forgotten all about and made plans to go and see the Kings of Leon. Sadly these plans have now had to be shelved as I will be asking lots of questions of the Leader of the Council, who has agreed to join us at last to discuss the issue of job evaluation and so-called equal pay. The leader will doubtless not be joining me in a rendition of the big Kings of Leon hit of the year, Sex on Fire, which is a disappointment. I may though see if we can get involved in some kind of Christmas sing song should the meeting not turn out to be a pre-arranged politically-motivated stitch-up, which it’s looking very much as though it might.

If Scrutiny doesn’t do for me, the final full Council meeting of the year may well do. There are two motions on the agenda, which is double the fun of regular meetings. But writing more about them now will mean I have nothing to tempt people back here tomorrow, and I like to play hard to get. So you’ll have to wait.

Rick

After ten months of living in my house, the other day I finally worked out how to properly work the shower.

I had been stood underneath a luke warm trickle every day since January, and after hundreds of these disappointing moistenings, I discovered on Monday that the bit that protrudes from the side of the dial isn’t just there for show. It is actually the key to a secret world of heat and pressure that I never knew existed. And frankly, dear blog, it is little shy of a revelation. It is a miracle that I have left my soaking hot wonderland at all, let alone managed to be on time for work every day this week. My only regret is that I didn’t know how to get the best out of it for so long, and wasted all that time getting dripped on and shivering.

Which all goes to show, in a fashion which is not laboured or contrived in the least, that experience at doing something doesn’t always bring immediate success. Which is something that could perhaps be borne in mind by the people running Bury’s Licensing Panel. Last night I was at a meeting of that Panel, where a dozen Councillors with a combined weight of experience of about 100 years, made such a mess of proceedings that I was faintly ashamed to be one of them.

The way the Panel works is that we take questions from the public, followed by reports, followed by the main event which is the hearings on License applications or suspensions/revocations. People who’ve been naughty in their distant past come for us to decide if they’re safe enough to be granted a license, and people who’ve been naughty in their recent past come for us to decide if they’ve been naughty enough to have their license taken away. That’s how it should work.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way, because every agenda item is squeezed into a tight time slot regardless of what it is. Hence last night there was a protracted (but necessarily so) discussion on the merits of a particular type of cab, which was down for ten minutes but lasted 45, and an extremely lengthy hearing involving witnesses and conflicting evidence about alleged misconduct, which had been given 15 minutes but lasted 90. The statements in the hearing alone took ten minutes to read.

It’s just silly, and could be so easily solved. 

Last night we had five application to hear. The applicants turned up at their allotted time, but we had to send four home after waiting hours because it was 10 o’clock before we’d finished with the first one.

There’s a two step solution, and this is it :

Firstly, the reports should be received after the applications have been dealt with. There’s no point, and little in the way of kindness or public service, in ending a meeting with business still to attend to when that business is people’s livelihoods. We should deal with the important stuff first, and leave the reports and updates until the end. If any reports are deemed particularly urgent, the Chair should be notified and he should chair the meeting with that in mind. And if there are such urgent reports, for God’s sake let’s deal with them efficiently rather than reading them out verbatim which wastes hour upon hour. As far as I’m aware, none of the Councillors on Licensing are illiterate, and we’re all sent the papers in advance, so let’s skip reading them out and just give our views. 

And secondly, the officers should use their noggin a bit more and not give fifteen minutes over to a case that’s more complex than the Brinks-Mat bullion robbery. That’s what happened last night, and it was ridiculous. The officers should know how complex a case is (roughly), and allocate time accordingly. Some of the cases we get are, frankly, open and shut ones. As far as I’m concerned, a man with a caution for swearing in 1984 who’s lived as a monk since and now wants to drive a private hire car can have a license. It doesn’t need 15 minutes of debate. At the same time, serious alleged misconduct with witnesses and all sorts might need an hour or more, and should be given the appropriate time.

We have a job to do as Councillors, to make sure that only fit and proper people end up with licenses. I might be a bit flippant in this post buit it’s a job that I take very seriously. We can’t make these kinds of important decisions in the middle of the night, and we can’t expect applicants to put on a good show when we keep them waiting for three hours. The Chair should limit discussion to the relevant points, and the officers should assist him in planning the meeting better.

If there needs to be more meetings to see everyone, then so be it, let’s have them. We can’t carry on like this, or else there’ll be a backlog of applications, people’s lives will be on hold, and more importantly potentially dangerous incidents won’t get dealt with efficiently.

Rick

Today’s congestion charge result was a staggering rejection of the TIF proposals. That voters in all ten districts rejected the proposals, and by such an overwhelming margin, is a vindication of the “No” campaign’s argument that these proposals were simply unfair, unwise, and not the right way to tackle congestion.

Across every one of Greater Manchester’s ten districts the result was a clear “no.” Turnout was very high compared to most non-general elections – 53.2% overall and no less than 45% anywhere. 78.8% of those who cast their vote said “no.”

I am glad, of course, that I share my stance on this issue with so many local people, and that perhaps my work on the Council has turned one or two people towards my point of view. But whilst the right decision has been made, I don’t think this is a time for celebration. Greater Manchester has said “no” to TIF, but in doing so has rejected the government’s offer of public transport investment, and the proposals to reduce congestion.

Both problems remain, but I know from the conversations I’ve had with voters all over Bury in the last few months that Mancunians are as determined as ever to get rid of them both.

This vote is a call for the government to come up with a proper, fair system of public transport investment. We may have said no to the TIF offer, but Manchester still wants and needs a public transport system fit for the twenty-first century. We just don’t want an ill-thought out congestion charge system introduced to pay for it.

The architects of the TIF bid did a grand job trying to conform to government rules. But the rules are wrong.

At a public meeting a fortnight ago in Bury, Roger Jones, the former Chair of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (the people behind the TIF bid) spoke in support of the bid. I served on the GMPTA with former Cllr Jones, and I don’t think there is anyone in Manchester more committed to public transport than him. To have to admit, as he did in Bury, that the city’s public transport only merits 5 out of 10, is a damning indictment of the government’s failure to properly invest. That we as a city had to beg for money that is rightfully our’s, and only get it on the condition that we impose a punitive tax on motorists, was never right, and I am glad that it has been rejected.

Manchester now needs to do two things.

First it should take this vote as the clearest possible sign that a massive, one-size-fits-all congestion charge scheme is not the answer to the problem of congestion. Incentives to get drivers off the road should be much fairer, based on income and/or engine size to address pollution as well as congestion. The size of the scheme was too large, the method of collection too cumbersome. Charging should be one of many options to reduce congestion, not the only option. What was lacking in the TIF proposals was anything practical to do with altering working patterns, or dealing with hotspot areas specifically.

TIF promised innovation, and delivered none, which is why it was rejected.

The second thing we should do now is redouble our efforts, through Councils, the PTA and direct lobbying of our MPs, to get the government to give us the transport system we deserve. Mancunians want it, I’m sure. This was a rejection of charging, not public transport. The government’s offer of investment has been rejected, not because we don’t want the money but because the conditions imposed were too great and unwarranted.

We have engaged a great number of people in a debate on public transport. More people voted in the referendum than vote in most local elections. People are talking about buses and trains more than ever before. It is clear that they want a better system for them to run in, and now is the time we can capitalise on that goodwill and go out and get the improvements we need.

Today isn’t about jubilation that we’ve said no to TIF. It shouldn’t be about celebration, it should be about determination. Determination to learn the lessons of the vast amounts of money spent on a bid that was always unpopular. Determination to come up with a better proposal next time round. And determination to get the public transport system Manchester needs to improve pollution, reduce congestion, and keep the city ahead of its rivals.

Rick

If you want to post your ballot off in the Greater Manchester Congestion Charge referendum, then TODAY is the last chance you can do it. The papers have to arrive at the returning officer by tomorrow.

If you want to be absolutely sure, or can’t get to a post box today, there is still time to hand deliver your ballot as well, and this can be done tomorrow if you want, between 7am and 10pm. The delivery drop off points are at the main town halls in each of the Boroughs (Bury Town Hall on Knowsley Street, for instance).

Regular readers will know that I voted “no” in the referendum. I am very much for a properly funded, greatly extended, safe, reliable and clean public transport system for Manchester. But I think that the government should be too, which is why they shouldn’t be asking us to pay for it again through a congestion tax, and should be paying for it themselves. I also think that we need less cars on the road, but that this scheme just isn’t the right way to do it.

Here’s a quick run-down of the reasons why I voted “no,” and why I am asking others to do the same:

1) We’ve paid for excellent public transport already through our taxes. The government want to spend that money on ID cards and wars, and have us pay again for buses and trains, with decades spent paying interest on a loan of our own taxpayers’ money! I don’t think that’s right.

2) The proposed scheme will do nothing to reduce fares for most people. It’s true that people on minimum wage will see some small reductions in fares at peak times only, but nobody else will benefit from seeing a reduction in fares. Fares on buses, remember, have doubled in real terms in the last 20 years, and the Metrolink is crazily expensive. We need a better scheme which deals head on with greedy companies putting profits first.

3) Buses won’t be re-regulated. Private companies will still be able to cut unprofitable routes, run hundreds of buses down money-making main roads, clogging them up in the process, and we won’t be able to do anything about it. I want a scheme that stops this. The TIF proposals don’t.

4) The scheme doesn’t do anything to help the M60, which is the most congested and most polluting road in the area. In fact, because it is right on the outside edge of the charging zone, it is likely that more people will use it to avoid the charge!

5) The scheme is unfair to poorer motorists who will receive no congestion charge discount. A Premiership footballer on £100,000 a week will pay the same as a nurse earning £20,000 a year. That’s just not fair.

6) The scheme doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to deal with the pollution caused by gas-guzzling vehicles. In London the most polluting cars pay much more and the cleanest pay nothing. That won’t be the case in Manchester.

7) The charging system is incredibly expensive and very intrusive. The “tag and beacon” scheme which will monitor all of our movements across the charging points means that our journeys can be monitored. And we have to pay for the tags! And the cameras to record people without tags are hugely costly to buy and run. About 30p from every £1 paid in the charge will go no administering it. That’s not right.

8] Manchester’s proposed zone is going to be the largest in the world. It’ll be seven times the size of London’s! I think this is completely unnecessary and will cause people to think twice about moving here, working here and investing here.

9) People living in Bury are going to be particularly poorly served by the proposed improvements. We get a few new buses, sure, but there’s not enough money to extend the Metrolink northwards, and do we really want to impose a £1,200 per year congestion tax to see 17 miles of Metrolink built miles away from the Borough? I don’t.

10) The scheme will see communities split in two. Prestwich and Whitefield will be either side of the charging zone, which means that every peak time journey between our two towns will be subject to the charge. It’s silly. Any parent from Whitefield taking a child to Parrenthorn School or going shopping in Tesco at peak time will pay the charge regardless of whether they go on into town.

So please join me in voting “no.” It will mean the end of this scheme for sure, but it won’t be the end of public transport investment or easing congestion. We need to sit down with government again and come up with a proper scheme that addresses all the problems of congestion and pollution in a much fairer and more innovative way. Don’t succumb to the doom-mongerers and the government bullies. We can do better than this offer, which is why we should vote “no” for it.

Don’t forget to vote.

Rick

Councillors get a silly amount of post, much of it junk.

It was somewhat ironic therefore when I returned from dropping off about a ton of it at the recycling facility at Tesco tonight to discover that the latest mammoth deposit had arrived on my doorstep. The Council gets it specially couriered by someone who delights at turning up at strange times of the night. Tonight was a reasonable 21.00, but sometimes I am woken at 3am by a thud on the doormat and the screeching of tyres. I never see his face. I just hear him leave and see what he’s left. He’s like a deeply unglamorous version of the Man from Milk Tray.

Tonights dispatches from the Town Hall included Christmas cards from the Mayor and his three Mayoresses (he isn’t from Utah, it’s just that he is unmarried and uses several of his friends in rotation. A bit like the Mayoral equivalent of Rafael Benitez at Liverpool…), and another from his Deputy. I added these to the one I received from Chris Davies MEP, which means that I now have three generic printed ones, and only one hand-written genuine one to go with them. Hopefully real people will catch up with, and eventually replace, the cards that have been sent out of duty or a desire to get my vote in something. I am guessing this will happen around about Christmas Eve.

Aside from cards, the parcel also contained the minutes from a meeting I missed a couple of weeks back involving the Friends of St Mary’s Park. I count myself amongst these Friends, but sadly wasn’t able to make the meeting because I had to be at another one at the same time. Interesting developments though, particularly around the bowling greens and the proposed skate park. These two issues are currently not linked, but I would like to see them become linked if possible.

The situation is this: There are two bowling greens in the park. They are rarely, if ever, used, and stand like memorials to a bygone age. They are though immaculately maintained, at not inconsiderable expense. The whole scene is a bit like Wembley used to be before they let the likes of Take That play concerts there - they spend a fortune cutting the grass for one set piece occasion a year. In Wembley’s case it was the FA Cup Final, and in the case of the St Mary’s Park Bowling Greens it is the equally glamorous Prestwich and District Senior Crown Green Shield.

The greens might be great, but there’s no clubhouse, no toilets, no bar, and not much to bring punters in. So they lie dormant and unused.

At the same time, the young people using the Phoenix Youth Centre and generally inhabiting the area would quite like a skate park. Lord alone knows why. I have never seen the fun in hurling on a skateboard off metal railings and onto a concrete floor. But then I was never considered cool at school. Girls were a mystery and I took comfort in food. But that story’s not really for now…

A delegation of these young people made a very impressive presentation to a recent Prestwich Local Area Partnership meeting, expounding the virtues of a facility and making the very good point that they need a safe place to have some fun. 

The presentation was so impressive in fact that if I had my way I would have bolted the door shut and not let any of the usual presenters leave until they’d absorbed the techniques that the young people had in droves, such as brevity and the ability to make a topic interesting enough to avoid me clawing at my own eyes.

The long and short of it is that they want a skate park, but there’s no room and no money.

A metaphorical light bulb has sprung up in a diagonal line about a foot from my head, as I envisage replacing one of the two bowling greens with a skate park. I don’t know if it’s feasible, and of course there’d have to be lots of consultation with residents and others about it. But the minutes of the Friends meeting sound promising. First of all there is concern expressed about the cost of the bowling greens and their lack of usage. And then there is general approval in principal for the construction of a skate park, provided that the materials and safety and noise are sorted out. The favoured spot is in the corner by Bury New Road, but we could kill two birds with one stone if we kept one of the greens but did away with the other and built a skate park next to the Phoenix Centre.

This idea is hardly a stroke of genius on my part. I am sure it’s been thought of before, although perhaps I am the first to spot that the young people and the Friends of the park aren’t far apart on the issue at all.

It’s worth considering, and it’s worth starting to talk about it I think. So I’ll see where we can take it. If people hate the idea, then tell me. But if people like it, tell me too.

Rick

The weekend provided enough time to recover from the whirling fun machine that was Friday night’s civic ball.

In fact, by about 8am on Saturday I was completely over it, and spent the rest of the time trudging round overcrowded and overpriced Christmas markets looking for gifts. Quite when it became acceptable to charge a fiver for a lump of cheese just because its doled out by a twinkly-eyed fat bloke with a German accent is unclear, but apparently it now is, and people are queuing up to spend their money on it.

This week sees a couple of meetings on the agenda to distract me from having to wrap things and think about original things to write in Christmas cards when “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” have already been printed right in the middle of them. Tonight is a meeting of the Bury Lib Dem Executive Committee, where we’ll be talking about local members and campaigns for 2009, and I will be handing over the reins of being party secretary to someone else for the next twelve months.

And on Thursday it’s Licensing, when a new selection of would-be private hire and Hackney carriage drivers will appear before the panel to see if we can grant them a license.

There’s also some ongoing ward-based casework that has been occupying some time these last few days.

A street light has been fixed on Woodward Road after I intervened over the weekend. Apparently the resident concerned had been fobbed off (fibbed off more like…) by the Council for weeks about it, but it’s sorted now. I am more than happy to step in in cases like this, but it’s a shame it has to come to that. These things should just be sorted rather than having to escalate them.

Also, the ongoing saga of the HGVs mistakenly driving down Kingswood Road and Dashwood Road took another predictable turn for the worse over the weekend. This case goes back a while, since foreign lorries destined for Polyflor in Whitefield started being guided there by faulty sat-nav equipment. This has meant gigantic lorries getting stuck down tiny residential streets and trying to do contortionist three-point turns to get out. Obviously articulated lorries aren’t the easiest things to manoeuvre, and so after many broker wing mirrors and toppled fences we got a couple of bollards put in. More are planned, but the problem remains and so now we have once again got in touch with Polyflor to get them to take some action. It’s very annoying, especially to the residents who are woken at all hours by monolithic delivery wagons reversing down their street. Hopefully Polyflor will sort it before we have to go to the papers and shame them in to providing better instructions to their drivers.

I also ate seven mince pies this weekend. But I won’t be talking about that.

Rick

Last night I went to the annual Bury Mayor’s Ball, which sees the great and the good of the Borough, and the likes of me, descend on Prestwich’s Longfield Suite for a pre-Christmas knees-up. It’s also the time that our own Mayor welcomes the other Greater Manchester Mayors to Bury, which is the cue for a dozen Mayoral limousines to turn up en masse, making the car park look as if it’s been temporarily taken over by an outdoor used Jaguar hypermarket.

I have to say that, car-wise, our Mayor comes out looking pretty shoddy. All the other Mayors have their big Jaguar XJs, and one in fact has a fairly unnecessary Lexus, whereas poor old Bury Mayor has a Volvo. A nod in the direction of austerity perhaps, but it hardly conveys civic authority when the first citizen of the Borough tumbles out of the type of car your dad might drive.

Having said that, I once attended a function attended by one particular local Mayor whose driver had pranged the official car on a bollard earlier in the day, and so had to drive the spare one, and turned up outside a very swanky city centre hotel in a navy blue Astra hatchback. He was very close to being moved on until the doorman noticed the flag on the front.

Last night’s meal was better than the one at last year’s ball, in that none of the waiters spilled gravy on me. I had taken the precaution of borrowing someone else’s shirt this time, so that if sauce came raining down on me like an explosion in a Bisto factory once again, as least it would only be my dignity suffering, not my wardrobe. The food itself was typical civic fare – luke warm but made to feel hot by plates that were actually the same temperature as a new-born star. Another 500 turkeys killed in the name of Christmas to feed diners who’d probably, truth be told, prefer chicken. But we’ve all gotta go sometime… 

Last year there was criticism of the musical choice, which catered for the ballroom-dancing generation in droves, but left those born after 1955 with the choice of sitting getting bored, or attempting to quickstep and tumbling over a Mayoral ankle. Even this though was a slight improvement on the year before when the disco saw me dance a little too wildly and end up grazing my buttocks against those of Ivan Lewis MP, in what I suspect was one of the most deeply distressing incidents in either of our lives.

This year the organisers attempted a half-way house, with enough cha-cha-cha-ing to tire out the pre-baby-boomer generation, followed by what was trailled as a “DJ” to cater for people who like to dangle their limbs like a marionette to songs by Take That. I am not familiar enough with the contents of the Trades Descriptions Act to give full comment, but I suspect there may be a clause within it which could well be used to seek a claim against the organisers, because what was actually provided was a man IN a DJ, swaying like a Thunderbird in front of a mixing desk pumping out the Jive Bunny Mega Mix for twenty minutes until I went home.

Still, despite the lack of Kylie or S-Club 7, I emerged thinking that it had been moderately good fun, and a pleasant way to see my Council colleagues without having to worry about amendments or questions to the Leader. And my ward colleague Cllr O’Hanlon won the raffle, although my raffle curse coninued as I walked aways with nothing again despite buying ten tickets.

Next year really has to see some improvement though. I’ve been a few times now, and each time I go there are less people there, and an older crowd than previously. This time I think I was the youngest there by at least a decade and a half, which is a shame given that the Borough has so many fantastic things going on in it involving young people. How about involving the schools in some of the performances? Or inviting the top young achievers to the dinner? Or the youth clubs or other young people’s organisations? We had an Paralympic gold medallist this year, and she’s only young. Where was her invite? It needn’t exclude any of the other groups there, but it would make for a slightly more lively evening, which will probably see that this great charity-raising occasion lasts longer than it looks like lasting at the moment.

It’s either that or we get annual blog posts like this every year. And honestly I’d rather not.

Rick

I don’t like it when people call me a politician. It makes me cringe a bit, to be honest. Not because the business of representing people isn’t something I aspire to continue doing well, or that politics isn’t something people should aspire to get involved in. It’s because the word “politician” has been hijacked to mean something negative, and completely different from what I want to be and from what I genuinely believe that most politicians are.

These days I think, to many people, the word suggests cunning, spin over substance, and the ability to craftily lie one’s way out of bother. I lose track of the amount of times people react to hearing that I’m a Councillor not by asking what difference I make to the community, but by suspecting I’m intent on running the world corruptly and cheating them out of something.

I didn’t get into local politics to do any of this. And my candidature for parliament in Bury North isn’t about that either. It’s about wanting to help the community and put something back. But that’s not what “politician” seems to mean.

The recent survey of standards in public life asked people how they viewed various professions. Politicians came second bottom, beaten only by tabloid journalists. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that tabloid journalists spend lots of their time writing about politicians, and politicians spend lots of their time courting tabloid journalists. Perhaps if they got out of bed with each other the public opinion towards both would improve.

Politicians are viewed by so many people as corrupt, incompetent and greedy. Partly this is because, like every other group of people in the world, some of them are all three. But of course the vast majority aren’t. It’s also partly because when one of these corrupt, greedy, incompetent people is exposed as such, journalists go after him like vultures to a corpse, and every minor indiscretion is magnified a billion times to make it seem as if not only the politician concerned is guilty of a mutant strain of evil, but also that all other politicians are guilty by association too. To hell with his ideas on the future of the country, this guy’s done something a bit silly! Let’s get him!!!

The argument goes that these types of campaigns against politicians are OK because, so say lots of people, since politicians want to impose laws on the rest of us, they themselves should be beyond reproach. But I don’t think this is true. Nobody is beyond reproach, and anyone claiming that they should be is irresponsibly hiking up expectations which will never be met. Of course we should expect everyone, politicians included, to obey laws. But it is just impossible to behave in a way that gives no cause for adverse comment when there are people whose job and/or hobby it is to pick holes in everything you do. Even if those holes have no basis in fact and are not legitimate criticism, if they’re repeated often enough they convince enough people and may as well become fact.

Politically active people themselves are as much to blame as the commentators. People look to us for leadership because that’s what we claim to aspire to, but when leaders consistently make allegations about their opponents, over-hype every minor discretion, and gloss over substantive debate, people start to believe what they’re seeing and hearing. And that’s exactly what we do to each other so often.

And it’s so incredibly depressing that sometimes I wonder how people manage to find the effort to carry on trying to do good and pussy-footing around every issue under the sun for fear that someone might take it the wrong way and distract people from the bigger picture forever.

It happens in Westminster, of course. But it also happens locally. Each side sets itself up to be the answer to every problem, and we paint the opposition as pantomime villains responsible for the problems we say we’ll easily solve. Some are nastier than others about doing it, and some, frankly, go way over the line. I have read major party campaign advice actively encouraging activists to smear all political opponents using information about one particular opponent from the same party. It’s crazy.

It’s a cycle that’s hard to break. I think I’ve been guilty of some of it myself, even though I try my hardest not to. If an opponent says something unduly critical, or misrepresents me, or takes quotes completely out of context (or makes them up), the urge is there to do the same back. Especially in the heat of an election campaign. But how does this treat the public with respect? It doesn’t. And whilst I’m not advocating a utopia where everyone is nice to everyone else, there comes a point when bickering gets in the way of progress, and shouting gets in the way of building respect for civic leaders.

This morning I had a couple of comments waiting on this blog from people. This is a novelty, because this blog isn’t widely read particularly, and I normally get maybe a couple a week from people I don’t know. The IP addresses were the same though, despite the names being different, and they were sent only ten minutes apart. So I guessed they were fake.

A bit more checking revealed lots of comments on previous posts from the same IP address, from people with different names, using email addresses which I have checked and found to be dodgy. I suppose I’ve been pretty naïve not noticing before, but I was saddened to find out that someone dislikes me and what I stand for so much that they would take time out to make me look bad on purpose, without really offering anything positive in exchange. No new ideas or anything, just gratuitous criticism. How can it be that someone gets to that mentality?
I suppose it’s relieving that pretty much every negative comment I’ve ever posted on here has come from the same machine. But even so, it makes me wonder what this serial commenter’s agenda is that required multiple identities, and what he thinks he’s doing positively for the world that is so important that it needs secret aliases. Is it just to annoy me? If so, he wins.

I don’t mind answering anything. I’ll do my best to answer things about the party nationally, and I think it’s my duty to answer things about us locally. But what I object to is that opponents expect honest answers when they can’t put their questions in an honest way. I welcome legitimate criticism. But for it to be legitimate it needs to be made in a legitimate way, not by hiding behind multiple aliases scraping around for things to sneer at.

It is just completely unnecessary and totally unhelpful, not just to me but to the community in general. And if my opponents were being treated the same, I’d say the same about them.

Such tactics really do upset me. I’d admit to feeling unsure about my political future because of them and handing over the reins to someone else full of energy if I didn’t think it would end up in an opposition leaflet sometime under the headline “Lib Dem gives up on local people.” Maybe I’m not cut out for this political lark. If people can’t have honest debates then really, what’s the point in trying?

Politics is a nasty business, and there are times when it should be. Where there are policy differences and big questions with different answers, then sure, ask the hard questions and demand the big answers. I’ll ask my opponents and answer their questions of me.

But so much time is wasted on the personal, the ephemeral, the trifling and irrelevant, that we sometimes lose focus on the things that matter. So much time is spent points-scoring that we forget to think about the important things like the real differences between my set of ideas for Prestwich and the other guy’s set of ideas. And that’s why politicians have a bad name.

We should be about hopes and dreams and real choices on things that matter. We’re about sneers and smears, and that’s whay people think we’re only in it for ourselves. That’s made me sad today.

Rick

Christmas has officially begun in my house.

This evening I have tipped my hat in the direction of Mother Nature by installing a Christmas Tree at the end of the dining room, to twinkle at me annoyingly for the next five weeks, flashing like a permanent beacon of enforced frivolity to remind me that this is Christmas and I must be cheery come what may. And after munching my way through 400g of salted cashew nuts, as I will doubtless do within about two hours on Christmas Day, there won’t be much to be cheery about as my arteries scream. 

The nod in Nature’s direction was pretty vague though, because there’s very little natural about the tree which is folded away and stored in the loft for 11 months of the year. But still, there’s an element of greenery in my otherwise laminate-based dining room for which I will be grateful for at least the next few hours, before fake pine needles start turning up all over the house. I have already had Henry Hoover out twice.

We were tempted to put the tree in the lounge, but unfortunately our house was built in 2002 when the architectural vogue was one of “rabbit hutch chic,” and therefore the builders decided to make all the rooms exactly 0.1% bigger than necessary to house the minimum of furniture. So there’s not really very much room except next to the fireplace, which is probably not the best storage area for something made out of plastic which is almost certainly as toxic as it is hugely flammable.

So now it resides in the dining room, away from prying eyes, and also far enough away to mean that if the fairy lights ignite the baubels, there’ll be an inferno before anyone notices. 

Mac, our three legged cat, is experiencing his first Christmas here with us. This time last year he was having his leg amputated after coming second in a fight with a Volvo XC90, so I am hopeful that this time round he will experience a slightly more tranquil festive season, or at the very least end it with the same number of limbs as he began it with. I have already bought him his present -  a plastic tunnel from Pets at Home for him to run through like a deranged maniac.  

I have also got him some cat-nip mice, which are described so enthusiastically on the packet that I am almost tempted to try one myself in the hope that it will send me into the same state of “euphoric ecstasy” to which it promises to send Mac. I worry slightly that he will become a cat-nip junkie, and start robbing us to buy stuff from dealer cats on the corner. So I may have to ration his portions even at this festive time. He only has three quarters the desirable number of limbs, and so his propensity to OD may be higher than normal.

Tinsel has been installed up the bannisters, and the first of our Christmas cards has arrived. I get about 9 each year, of which about 7 are from far flung corners of the Lib Dem party and from people I have barely met. I am saved by Tamsin though, who is a teacher, and so gets about 14,000 from pupils past and present. She is also quite popular generally, and so the friends we have made who would doubtless have forgotten me if I didn’t cling onto her like a limpit, are forced to summon up a vague recollection that she has a boyfriend, and add my name in as an afterthought to her card. I am thus made to look popular, at least until anyone reads the cards to discover that I am only actually mentioned in every twelfth one.

Trees, tinsel and cards are all well and good mind, but it’s still work in the morning, and so I have to go to bed. Early morning alarm calls are no more festive than ever, even now.

Rick

Another sign of the regeneration of Prestwich this week, with the opening of the new Ego restaurant next door to Croma in the Radius building. It’s a Meditteranean place, and has been joined by the new branch of Costa Coffee as a pre-Christmas boost to the local area. Take a look at the website at www.egorestaurants.com

I welcome the two new arrivals to the Village. I have already popped into Costa for a slice of delicious-but-probably-incredibly-bad-for-me chocolate cake, and hope to be out in Ego before too long too.

These new high-quality businesses are great for the area, and although the Lonfield Centre has seen better days, hopefully full scale regeneration is around the corner, and these new arrivals will mark the start of a real renaissance for the local area.

Rick

The Government’s plans for new laws will do little to help hard-pressed families in Bury.
The plans were outlined in the Queen’s Speech but I was disappointed that the Government’s announcements will do very little to help people in Bury cope with the recession.

The measures given in the Queen’s Speech are not enough to help people with the real problems we are now facing as Britain enters what might be a deep and long recession.

We need legislation to change the way energy tariffs work to make sure people get the cheapest prices for their essential fuel and power and changes to taxes to put money back in people’s pockets.

Instead we’re getting tinkering round the edges, and tiny measures dressed up as big solutions. They aren’t.

With the massive discounts on offer in the shops at the moment, the short term trimming of VAT will make little difference and what we need is income tax cuts targeted at low earners and paid for through closing loopholes. Residents of Bury who are worried by the economic situation will find little comfort in this programme.

We need action to force the banks to lend money on fair terms to small businesses and families – and make it quite clear that if the banks cannot be made to act, the government will lend directly itself.

The Government wasted the opportunity to help people in last week’s Pre-Budget Report and now with the Queen’s Speech they are wasting it again.

Rick

After Santa Claus’s visit to Prestwich yesterday, Frosty the Snowman has come to town today. This means that Prestwich bins may not be collected today, and that lots of schools have been closed.

The following statement has been released by the Council:

“Bury Council’s Environment and Development Services department gritted the roads between7pm and 11pm last night. Council officers assessed the conditions at 11pm last night and there were no problems reported. Bury Council has signed up to receive detailed meteorological information from the Met Office. This system allows us to receive up to date and detailed weather forecasts and this has helped us respond to the current weather problems.

Staff were called out at 3pm to begin gritting during the night. Heavy and sudden snow fell between 5pm and 6pm The build up of traffic then began to affect the gritting operation and conditions led to significant congestion on most roads. Motorists are advised to take care when driving due to the conditions. The gritters continue to work across the borough, but in some cases their progress has been hampered by rush hour traffic. The council has also deployed hand gritting teams to areas known to be problematic.

The refuse collection service has been stood down as we do not wish to add more traffic to the roads in their current state as well as risk them getting stuck too. The bin collections for today are suspended this morning but may resume later today, we will catch up with collections as soon as possible, residents have been advised to leave their bins out for collection.

The council are intending deliver all meals on wheels services today, however people are being advised to expect some delays to the service. We have been able to redeploy some drivers onto this task as the Adult Day Care Service has not been able to operate today.

Bury Council can also confirm that the following schools are closed today:
Guardian Angels,
Christ Church Walshaw,
All Saints,
St. Paul’s,
Chesham
Heaton Park,
Chantlers,
Our Lady of Lourdes,
St.Josephs Ramsbottom,
Holcombe Brook,
St.Andrew’s Ramsbottom,
Cams Lane,
St.Peter’s,
St.Maries,
Woodhey,
Tottington High,
St.Gabriels,
Broad Oak,
Bury Church.
Hollymount,
East Ward,
Radcliffe Riverside East & West campus.”

I suspect that they mean “am” and not “pm,” but that’s what the statement says… So, Santa Claus one day, Jack Frost and Frosty the Snowman the next… The Council are unwilling to comment on rumours that the Easter Bunny will be making an appearence in Radcliffe town centre tomorrow, or that Elvis has been seen swinging his hips in Ramsbottom.

Rick

Last night’s Christmas Lights switch on in Prestwich was a success. I joined the Mayor of Bury, Cllr Peter Ashworth, the Mayoress, the Chair of Prestwich Local Area Partnership, Cllr Vic D’Albert and Santa Claus himself at the switch-on, which illuminated our festive tree in the Longfield Centre.

It ain’t Vegas, but it’s a nice festive spectacle, and I bet it looks lovely this morning in the snow. Which may well have fused the lights.

Thanks to the many local people who turned out to give support to the occasion in the freezing cold. And also to the performers, several of whom were dancing in the types of clothes that were downright dangerous in sub-zero conditions! It’s always nice to see the Besses o’ th’ Barn Band as well, who played early on the evening.

I hope everyone enjoyed the fun, and gets the chance to come down and see the tree, and the new Ego restaurant and Costa Coffee which have opened nearby to give the centre of Prestwich a Christmas boost!

Rick

I have voted “no” in the congestion charging referendum, and people across greater Manchester have until December 11th to return their postal ballots.

I have heard reports that some lucky people in Prestwich have received duplicate ballots, which doesn’t bode well for the voracity of the poll. If it becomes anything more than a few isolated incidents, I will write more about that.

I have written several reasons now to explain my “no” vote. Here’s another – the fact that we’re currently at the mercy of private bus companies, and this proposal will do nothing to address that.

Anyone serious about public transport will tell you two things. First, that the majority of public transport journeys are made on the bus. And second, that since deregulation 20-odd years ago, local Councils have almost no say on which routes are provided, and which fares are set.

Recent legislation points in the right direction, but local people and their councils are still at the mercy of private bus companies who concentrate on profitable routes, and either cancel or ask for vast subsidies for routes that don’t make any money. That’s why here in Prestwich there are six 135s an hour down Bury Old Road into town, and only a sporadic service elsewhere.

Private bus companies also set fares which guarantee little but a steady profit. Buses remain dirty, overcrowded, and in many cases quite old, and yet fares have more than doubled in real terms since deregulation. It’s a scandal, and the very least that we could expect from a congestion charge is an end to this type of thing.

But we won’t get it. All the investment in public transport that we will get by introducing the charge (investment which, remember, we should be getting anyway without having to introduce the charge) will not do a single thing to end deregulation. We should have full re-regulation (something the Lib Dems locally have long been campaigning for), but we won’t even get partial re-regulation.

But companies will not be able to be forced to do a single thing they don’t want to do. Buses on unprofitable routes, through housing estates, to hospitals, to doctors surgeries and so on, will still run infrequently if at all. Fares will still go up because profit will still come first. Any “promises” made by the “yes” lobby are entirely dependent on the goodwill of private companies who are unlikely to budge if history or the current economic climate are anything to go by.

We all want better buses. People rely on them more than any other form of public transport. But the way to get them is through reregulation and an emphasis on local control. We aren’t getting that here, and instead of wasting time, effort and money lumbering Manchester with a congestion charge, we should be campaigning for a reregulated bus system giving people what they need at a fair price.

Rick

Don’t forget the Christmas lights switch-on in Prestwich tonight!

The event will take place at the Longfield Centre between 4pm and 6pm. It will be hosted by DJ Dave K and there will be music from at least three from the list I have in front of me here that includes the Besses of the Barn Band, Kylie tribute act Natalie McGrath, the Rolling Stones, and Middleton Pop star Academy of Performing Arts.

Paralympic Gold Medal Winner Zoe Robinson and the Mayor of Bury, Councillor Peter Ashworth will actually do the switching on at just before 6pm, joined by Santa Claus himself. Zoe won the gold medal in Beijing for Boccia, which is a precision ball-tossing sport with its roots in the 16th century!

I must say i do feel a little guilty about monopolising Santa’s time of late. Not only will I see him tonight, but I also saw him at Manchester Fort on Saturday, and at Chill Factor on Thursday (£6.50 a time to go into his grotto there. He’s obviously feeling the economic pressure too…). But he has been good enough to stick around til tonight, and you can see him in person at the Longfield Centre at teatime.

There’s also going to be a children’s funfair and food and drink for sale. So come on down!

Rick