Tory-run councils have been advised to delay major commercial and housing developments until the Conservatives get into power. (Source - www.planningresource.co.uk

Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman has apparently written to Conservative local authorities to set out more clearly the practicalities of her party’s intention to scrap regional planning structure and to give local councils more freedom to break regional guidelines like “greenbelt”.

We will be asking Conservative-run Bury Council that this instruction from Party HQ won’t be affecting the redevelopment of Prestwich village centre…The Tories might think that they’re going to win the next general election, but they haven’t won anything yet. Planning applications need to be heard on their merits according to the law, and not delayed unnecessarily by the Conservatives.

Prestwich has waited long enough under decades of neglect. We’re nearly there with a proposal for redevelopment now, so let’s make sure it isn’t delayed by Tory dogma if people are happy with it.

Rick

Great news for the residents of St Ann’s Road this week, with the news that two parts of public Footpath number 47 have been officially closed. The bits of the path run across people’s gardens, and it’s silly that the situation has been allowed to rumble on unresolved for so long.

I am now far too well versed in the process of closing public footpaths than I ever wanted to be, and it’s pretty staggering how hard it is to get them closed. I suppose this is a good thing given that most of them lead people through nice green areas from one lovely place to another. This one though led people over garden fences and washing lines, and it’s about time something was done. So well done to the residents for keeping the pressure on the Council, and well done to them for finally sorting it after years of dithering around.

Rick

The redevelopment of Prestwich town centre moved a step closer today after an application for outline planning permission to redevelop the Longfield Centre was received by Bury Council.

Every new construction in Bury needs planning permission, whether it’s an extension to your house or the massive redevelopment of a shopping centre. This is the latter. It includes knocking down much of what’s in the Longfield Centre now, and replacing it with a large new food retailer, non-food retailers, a restaurant, a new library, offices, 36 flats, a 70 bed hotel, and a new entrance area for the Longfield Suite.

If the plans get the go-ahead there’ll be 384 new care parking spaces, and works to the roads including an extension to Rectory Lane.

Follow this link and enter reference number 51465. On the subsequent results page, click on the underlined number again to find the detailed reports. 

Let me know what you think.

Rick

I think the Leader of the Council may have been misquoted in relation to the ongoing St Ann’s Road / Ruskin Road gardens issue. Either that or he’s completely misled local residents and is now back-tracking wildly…

The Advertiser last week reported that Cllr Bibby (the Conservative Councillor who is Leader of Bury Council) had acknowledged that the sums of money being demanded from residents were pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the Council’s budget. The paper reported that he acknowledged that the issue should be resolved, and promised to meet the relevant parties as soon as possible to put an end to the problem.

Naturally I was delighted, as were the residents. So I informed Cllr Bibby of my availability, and reiterated our belief that the residents should be charged a peppercorn rent.

Unfortunately Cllr Bibby now wants to do something quite different to what was reported in the paper. I have asked a couple of times now for a meeting, as well as thanking him for backing us up on the issue of the cash. But Cllr Bibby tells me that he is simply “looking into” the issue. He’s not been willing to set a meeting date, and will come back to me with what he calls a “final solution” of his own. I am slightly scared by his choice of phrase there, but aside from that, either The Advertiser has wildly misquoted The Leader, or he has yet again ducked an issue after having gone to the press to appear like the knight in shining armour.

I feel sorry for the residents, who may have had their hopes dashed. And I appeal to Cllr Bibby to do as he seems to have promised in the paper, and meet with the residents to clear this distressing situation up once and for all.

Rick

Today I’ve been chasing up a couple of things. The missing street signs on Butterstile Lane and Carr Avenue remain AWOL. I was told six weeks ago that it would take ten weeks to replace them. I refuse to believe this, since it would take me less time to enrol on and complete a metalwork course and make the damn things myself. So I have been prodding the Highways Department about that today.

In addition, I noticed this morning that the sign at the end of my own road can no longer be read since it has been overcome by nasty-looking thorned weeds. So I asked them to sort that out too, whilst they’re in the area. I’d do it myself but there are nettles and I am delicate…

Later on this week there’s the next meeting of the St Mary’s Conservation Area working group. I am looking forward to finding out the latest plans for this important local area.

One of the issues involved for anyone living in the area is around buildings and planning, which reminded ne today to chase up the planning application for the site of the former Park Hotel on Lowther Road. This site has been derelict for a few years since the pub was knocked down, and now there has been an application received for some flats. I think that opinion may be divided on this one – we don’t want a building site, but not many people like flats, especially if they’re overly tall. So I am talking to a resident with concerns, and would be happy to hear any others. We need to make sure that whatever happens, the development minimises its impact on the surrounding homes – i.e. enough car parking spaces, retention of privacy and light for existing residents, and a commitment to actually build something rather than keep the land vacant for years.

I’ll put any updates on here as they arrive.

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 

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

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

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

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

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

Rick

Tonight it’s Planning, at 7pm in the Town Hall. The main issue from a St Mary’s ward point of view is the Butterstile Children’s Centre proposal. Whatever the decision, lessons have to be learned about consultation and planning timescales.

There hasn’t been adequate consultation, and relationships between Butterstile School, local residents and the Council may well be at an all time low.

We’re either going to get a Children’s Centre that’s deeply unpopular with local people, or no Children’s Centre at all. One outcome would be bad for residents of School Grove, the other terrible for the ward as a whole.

And now the time has passed so that the sensible solution, a Children’s Centre in Rainsough where there is the greatest need for both renovated buildings and children’s facilities, almost certainly can’t come to pass.

What a shame, caused by the government’s crazy timescales, the Council’s inadequate consultation, and a failure to work with our neighbour Authority to get the best for local people.

I will let you know how it goes.

Rick

Local people will have their chance to put their case to the Planning committee over the proposed Children’s Centre at Butterstile School next Tuesday, and I have been asked to speak on their behalf.

This is a repeated item on the agenda because last time a lot of residents were unaware of their right to make representations, and so didn’t. Now the Council has consulted more widely and I can give across the views of local people very concerned about the increases in traffic on School Grove, and the increased danger to school children caused because of it.

I think everyone is united in their desire for a Children’s Centre in St Mary’s ward. I think the planning process has been seriously flawed, and now time is running out to get the money committed without us risking losing it. I am still of the view that a better site for the entire thing would’ve been in Rainsough, and we need to make sure that at the very least a substantial outreach centre is sited there, preferably in the shops at Chapel Road. But we are where we are, and whilst I’ll continue to push for this, if it has to be at the school then we nee to mitigate the potential problems with things like residents-only parking, no stopping in the turning-zone on School Grove, and enforcement.

These are the types of things I’ll be asking for on Tuesday. And remember that the meeting is public so you can come along as well.

Rick