Last night was a meeting of the Bury Lib Dem Council Group, which I endured with a banging headache and throughout which I was nuzzled by Cllr D’Albert’s dog. It was deeply unpleasant.

I am still a bit ill, and last night had a fitful sleep interspersed with coughing fits and groaning. There was a time this morning when I was going to take the day off work, but I thought that if I was well enough to stagger to the bathroom without collapsing in a heap, I was well enough to go into the office and infect my colleagues with whatever nasty bug is currently wreaking havoc with my head.

When I got home from the meeting last night, I received a call from a gentleman from “MART” which is Manchester Against Road Tolls and which is campaigning against the proposed congestion charge. He wanted me to use my influence of the Passenger Transport Authority to press for a Greater Manchester-wide referendum on the issue.

I told him that I am no longer a member of the PTA and so I couldn’t influence them at all, but that Bury Lib Dems have called for a GM-wide referendum publicly before and that we remain opposed to the charge. The new PTS members from Bury are both Conservatives and I hope that they continue Bury’s opposition to the charge whilst representing Bury on the PTA.

I also told him that MART could do itself and the rest of us a big favour by stopping linking congestion charging with the possibility of an elected Mayor for Bury. A particularly maverick member of their group has been shouting loudly about how voting for an elected Mayor in Bury would sound a death-knell for congestion charging. Not only is that plainly false, but MART risk damaging their own anti-charge campaign by espousing such blatant falsehoods.

Also this morning I received a call from a Rochdale Councillor who visited St Mary’s Park at the weekend and found it devoid of unlocked toilets. I must confess that I don’t know whether he toilets are normally locked, or whether this was a one-off, but either way it’s a bit much to try and make St Mary’s Park a destination for visitors without providing a single toilet. I have asked for an explanation from the Council, but frankly my head is far to achey to deal with bladder problems today, so if I get a response I will wait until tomorrow to open it.

Rick

Another deeply malicious article in the Advertiser this week on the elected Mayor.

Voters in Bury will be asked on July 3rd if they want to have an Elected Mayor running the Council. The referendum has been called because 10,000 or so signatures were collected, allegedly in favour of a Mayor, but in reality in opposition to congestion charging. Those behind the petition have linked the two issues without a single fact to back them up, and are continuing their catalogue of lies in the run-up to a vote which could forever damage the relationship between Bury and its local leaders.

The article “Vote to veto the toll tax” in today’s paper is hugely misleading, and potential voters should be very wary of the claims made within it from both the author and pro-Mayor campaigner Geoffrey Berg.

Mr Berg is right that this congestion charging is a massive issue. But the Mayoral referendum will make absolutely no difference to it at all, and voters should be made aware of what will and won’t change if they vote for a Mayor.

The article says “if Bury votes for an elected mayor who is opposed to the congestion charge in the July 3 referendum, the borough could become exempt from the charge.” But this is simply not true. The two issues are absolutely un-connected. It is as simple as that.

At present Bury Council has made it very clear that it opposes congestion charging. When the issue comes to a final vote at the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA), the Leader of the Council will vote against the charge. Replacing him with a Mayor can do no more than bring exactly the same result. The only difference will be that it will be the Mayor voting against the charge, not the Leader. The vote will carry exactly the same weight.

And remember of course that there is no guarantee that an elected Mayor would vote “no” at all. An elected Mayor won’t be bound by the will of the Council, and if we elect a maverick then he can vote how he wants and we’re stuck with him for four years. Putting that much power in the hands of one person is dangerous. Add to that the cost of a Mayor (£100,000 for the referendum, same again for the election, another £100,000 annual salary and maybe another £75,000 salary for his deputy), and over four years we’re looking at nearly £1m taken out of front line services like caring for the vulnerable and cleaning the streets.

I have personally led the fight against congestion charging in Council. In council, I proposed the amendment opposing the charge, and this opposition was adopted as Council policy. I remain stridently opposed to the planned charge. But I will be voting “No” to a Mayor in the referendum because I see absolutely no connection between the two issues. I urge my fellow voters not to fall for Mr Berg’s lies. A Mayor would be bad news for Bury. So would congestion charging. So we should reject a Mayor once and for all, and pull together to oppose this charge.

Rick

Some time ago I began a battle with the DVLA after they mistakenly sent me a fine for not taxing a car that I’d sold and told them about. They didn’t bother updating their records, despite me telling them twice, and so when it wasn’t taxed, they fined me. This annoyed me greatly, not least because the only way to appeal the fine was time-consuming and annoying, and didn’t allow me any option but to use the post and a long form.

So I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the facts on these fines. I got no response, and so after a month I sent a reminder letter and copied the Information Commissioner in for good measure. A stream of profusely apologetic letters followed from the DVLA, but still no information. Today, two days after the second deadline passed, some information has finally arrived. And it makes grim reading for anyone interested in fairness.

In 2007 the DVLA sent out 1,227,047 letters like mine - late licence penalty notices or LLPs. One of them was to me, and it was wrong. My LLP charged me £40, rising to £80 if I didn’t pay within 28 days. I wondered how many others were falsely charged, so I asked how many of the letters were appealed against, and how many appeals were successful.

Bizarrely, the DVLA keep no records of this. They do not therefore have any idea how many people there are, like me, who find themselves aggrieved at being fined for doing nothing wrong. Incredibly, the DVLA also keep no record of how many cases they take to court, or how many of these result in acquittals. I asked them for the numbers, and they just don’t have them. They’re sending out penalty notices with no idea if the people receiving them are really guilty, and well over one million citizens are being sent penalty notices whilst the issuing authority has no idea how many of the people they’re fining has a legitimate problem with the fine.

The DVLA claim that, since people pay the fines, that must mean that they were justly handed out. This is rubbish.

For starters, the appeals process excludes the opportunity to talk to a human being, and involves a lengthy written form. There is also a financial dis-incentive to appeal, because the fine doubles after 28 days regardless of the reason for the delay. So people may well pay just to save a bit of money and make the problem go away. If challenging the machine is this difficult, why bother?

Secondly, the premise that people are paying the fines is wrong. The DVLA tell me that £28.3m was recovered using LLPs in 2007/8. A simple sum shows that if all 1.2m people fined paid the minimum £40, they’d have collected £49m. So at least 525,000 of the people they fined haven’t paid for one reason or another. That’s over 40%. Could it be because, like with my case, the recipient complained and was let off? It might be. I don’t think it was because they were all just penalty-dodgers - The DVLA tell me that there were only 15,000 successful convictions all of last year.

The DVLA should be keeping a record of challenges to its fines through the appeal process it allows. At the very least it should have a vague idea how many people legally challenge them in court and win. Otherwise how does it know the effectiveness of the system? At the moment it can tell me neither of these things.

The DVLA issues fines, but can’t tell me how many are appealed, how many appeals are successful, or how many court cases it brings result in acquittals. And so the faceless bureaucracy assumes it is right, demands our money, and to hell with the consequences. The DVLA could be swindling the British tax payer out of millions of pounds. And nobody there is keeping the records.

Rick 

I am at war with Manchester Airport.

Not literally, obviously. Because they’d win, what with their access to radar and aeroplanes. Not to mention duty free booze for the victory party afterwards.

But I am having a strongly-worded dispute with them all the same. And it concerns the fact that their recent security improvements are having a direct financial impact on regular people coming to pick up their relatives. And more importantly, those regular people now include me, as I found out a few weeks back.

I arrived to pick Tam up off a flight, and discovered that I could no longer drive up outside the terminal and wait. This is understandable given the attraction of airport curb-sides to people with bombs in their boots. But no free alternative provision has been made by the airport, and so the ludicrous situation arises whereby I drove into the car park and then had to pay to get out, despite being in there for less than a minute.

In fact, had I not had my credit card on me to pay at the exit barrier, I would have had to spend five times longer in there, parking up, and walking to a pay machine and back. And the only reason I would have had to stay was because I needed to pay for a stay I wouldn’t have had to make without the need to pay in the first place. Which makes my brain hurt a bit.

I wrote to the airport in the hope that their brains would hurt too. And they obviously did, because it was only today that I received a reply, six weeks later. They claim to have reduced the cost of very short stays. This may be true, but they haven’t reduced it to nothing, which is what it was before.

It is not impossible to implement a system which makes, say, the first ten minutes free. This would allow people who are simply coming to pick up a passenger the ability to find their loved one, load a suitcase, and get out, and to do this without incurring a charge. This type of system operates in lots of car parks in the city centre, where if you have a sudden change of heart or are struggling to find a space, you can leave without paying. But the airport haven’t done this. Nor have they given me an  answer yet as to why not. And so I have asked them again today.

I fully appreciate the need for tougher security. It’s a shame, but it’s needed. And I also appreciate the efforts airports go to to protect our safety, and the difficult job they must have doing it. But there is no need that I can see to penalise people in this way. If I park at an airport for half an hour, charge me. If I have to enter the car park for thirty seconds because if I don’t then the only alternative sees her wheeling her suitcase all the way home herself, then I think I should get in and out for free. 

Rick

Last night’s Prestwich LAP contained one gigantic disappointment - the list of roads identified as most in need of repair, and the frankly laughable amount of money given over to repair them.

As in previous years, the top dozen roads are identified. These, remember, are the least well-maintained roads, the ones with most pot-holes, cracks, loose paving stones and all the other hazards and unpleasantness that makes driving or walking down them dangerous.

The total estimated cost to repair all twelve is £596,000. The total budget allocated to fix Prestwich roads this year is just £108,000. That’s only 18% of the money needed to fix even the twelve most needy! That figure of £596,000 doesn’t even consider the 13th worst road, let alone the 14th, or the 114th, or the countless other roads with holes and cracks.

We have less than one fifth of the money necessary to repair our dozen neediest roads, and this is a disgrace.

Six of the dozen roads have been held back from previous years because of funding problem. One of them, Fairway in Sedgley, will cost by itself nearly £50,000 more than the entire budget allocated for roads. In St Mary’s, Sunny Drive and Barnhill Drive have been identified as needing work, but if both of these schemes get the go-ahead, this will account for nearly half of the entire available budget.

This is a matter which Liberal Democrats will certainly be taking up at Council level, to try and convince the Council to provide more funding for roads which are verging on the dangerous. The costs of compensation for trips and falls must surely point to the dire need for investment. But at the moment the people of Prestwich are very badly done to when the cost of replacing the pavement alone on Parrenthorn Road in Holyrood is more than the whole budget for roads and pavements for the whole of Prestwich.

The decision on which roads get repaired will be made by the Town Centre Regeneration Group, which is a sub-group of the LAP. I will make representations to this group on behalf of residents, but unfortunately this grossly inappropriate funding means that many local people will be left sorely disappointed by a Conservative council failing to prioritise roads in a budget already cut to shreds by a Labour government.

Rick

Last night’s full Council meeting was, in large parts, the usual depressing slanging match between Councillors who really should know better. Watching grown men (and women) making snide remarks and childish comments  across a room, when there are people with real problems in the Borough, is not pleasant.

I raised the issue of the Butterstile Children’s Centre, and was pleased to hear from the Executive Member for Children’s Services that it will be up and running on time at the start of next academic year. Also, the outreach facilities to Rainsough and Carr Clough will also be available, which is great news. It’s taken a while to get where we are, but it will still be finished in time, and after the right processes have been followed for all local people. The Children’s Centre will be a great asset for the ward, and really have a positive impact on families locally.

A couple of people raised the issue of the toilets at Bury interchange last night. I raised it again this morning at the meeting of the Transport Network Committee of Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority. The toilets are, it turns out, the responsibility of the Council, and they really do need sorting out because they’re in quite a state. Not the right welcome to the Borough for people arriving by bus or Metrolink.

That is assuming, of course, that the Metrolink gets them here at all. I spoke once more about Metrolink this morning. I am still deeply dissatisfied with this system, supposedly the flagship public transport system for Manchester. It is still, in my opinion, far too expensive, dirty, unsafe and unreliable. On Friday I stood waiting for a very long time at Bowker Vale, a station so decrepit that it looks nigh-on abandoned, and was genuinely scared by some of the anti-social behaviour by some people who treat the network like their own uncontrolled playground. I have raised the issue many times, and in other parts of the network there are efforts to improve both the condition and the safety of stations. The Prestwich section seems not to benefit, and although improved ticket machines and CCTV are in the pipeline, they aren’t coming quickly enough.

This may have been my last ever Transport Network Committee, because I may not serve on GMPTA again next year after the elections. But I am glad I raised the issue, and will do so again given the chance.

Rick

People in Bury are being given the chance to raise public transport issues face-to-face with the managers responsible for running their services next week.
Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) is hosting a Transport Operator Surgery at Bury Travel Shop on Saturday 29 March between 11am and 1pm. Representatives from First Manchester and Stagecoach Metrolink will be attending, along with officers from GMPTA and GMPTE. The event is the first of four to be held in Bury this year.

I am one of the two Bury Councillors on the GMPTA, and we want to hear more about people’s public transport experiences and any suggestions for improvements. When we held more formal meetings in Bury we had low attendance, but I’m sure these new surgeries will give us the chance to speak to a much broader range of passengers.

I’d encourage anyone with something to say about local public transport issues to come along on Saturday - and let us know how we can improve the services they use. Four surgeries a year will be held at bus stations, key transport interchanges, and other suitable locations in each of the ten Greater Manchester districts.

GMPTA also holds regular Greater Manchester-wide transport seminars. Its website - www.gmpta.gov.uk - is also being developed to allow online consultations and a dedicated ‘tell us about your local transport issues’ section.

This is the third pice of good news from the PTA for Bury this week, and a great example of the hard work local Lib Dem Councillors are doing on behalf of Bury.

Rick

Last night I attended a meeting of the Developing Communities sub-group of the Prestwich Local Area Partnership. There was lots on the agenda including updates on the progress of the Rainsough shops debate, the children’s centre, and other Prestwich regeneration projects. Of particular note are up-coming action to be taken as regards enforcement of dog fouling and littering. The local Lib Dems are on the war-path at the moment about both of these things, and it’s good to see that the Council are listening. So look out for some action in the coming months.

This morning I attended the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority meeting, where there was a lot of discussion of the roll-out of the new bus passes for the over 60s, and some frankly unfathomable reports on budgets which members around the table nodded sagely at whilst being spoken to by accountants talking soothingly.

On the way back from the meeting, perhaps as God’s gentle way of prodding me towards not giving up on reading complicated financial papers quite so easily, I managed to crash my car twice. Once into a wall whilst exiting the car park, and once into a lamppost whilst reversing into my space at work. They say bad things come in threes, so if you see me driving any time soon, best pull over to be on the safe side.

The Easter weekend kicks off in about four hours which will seem interminably long sat here at my desk. Blogging may or may not be sporadic during the long weekend. Obviously there will be more leafleting than I care for, as election time hurtles towards us. And on top of that, Tamsin goes away to Florida with her family for a fortnight, leaving me to live the life of a bachelor-king. So I may be being fed grapes by a lady somewhere, and have no time for the likes of this.

Probably not though, so I imagine I’ll be back tomorrow

Rick

For the second day running, your Lib Dem representatives on Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) have good news for local public transport users, and this time it’s of particular benefit to the most vulnerable people in the Borough.

A new door-to-door transport service for people with access and mobility difficulties is off to a flying start in Bury. GMPTA extended the popular Ring & Ride service at the end of January when it added nine new minibuses to provide extra trips across the conurbation.

In the first few months, 246 passengers journeys have been made from Bury on the new ‘cross boundary’ service into neighbouring districts. And 2,355 journeys have been made.

Ring & Ride makes a real difference to people who find it difficult to use ordinary public transport to get out and about. It has always been a very popular service for making trips in Bury but we’re always listening to users’ suggestions for improving it. We surveyed passengers and they said they would be prefer to keep on paying a fare rather than travelling for free - so long as we invested in this new cross boundary service.

So I am delighted to see so many people finding it useful. It is clearly giving Ring & Ride users in Bury a lot more choice about where they can travel.

Previously we could only offer local district based services but the new minibuses are allowing us to take people that bit farther afield into neighbouring areas. The investment has clearly been worthwhile and I’m glad to be able to offer such an improved service. I’d encourage anyone who might want to give Ring and Ride a go to call GMPTA and register to use the service.

Passengers must register their details before they travel by calling the Bury depot on 0161 764 1999.

The service currently runs from 9.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday. Journeys can be booked from seven days in advance up to one hour before travelling.

To book a journey on the cross boundary service call 0845 688 3989 (lines open between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday).

Fares are set at £2 for a single journey, and £1 for a single journey for GMPTE concessionary permit holders.

For more information on Ring & Ride visit www.ringandride.info http://www.ringandride.info

Great news for Bury!

Rick

After a year of campaigning for reductions on bus travel rates for children in Bury, the Borough’s young people will be able to save £1 a week on the cost of school travel from next month.

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) is introducing a new £6 weekly ticket for three of the school bus services it provides in the borough. It currently costs 70p for a single child ticket. The Bury members of GMPTA are my fellow Lib Dem Councillor Andrew Garner, and me.

The School Saver ticket will be valid on the 799 service to Derby High and the 797 and 798 to St Monica’s RC High in Prestwich .

The new School Saver ticket could save families in the borough nearly £40 a year on school travel costs. I’m pleased we’ve been able to provide the ticket on three of the school bus services we provide in Bury. Unfortunately, we’re not able to extend the offer to commercial services, and of course we continue to campaign for big reductions and more fairness in children’s school bus travel..

The new School Saver ticket will be on sale from Monday 31 March in newsagents, supermarkets and garages across Bury with the Pay Point sign, as well as from the GMPTE Travelshop in Bury Interchange.

Pupils will be able to buy the School Saver ticket up to three days in advance of its start date and will need a GMPTE Under 16 membership card. The card is free and application forms can be picked up from Travelshops or downloaded from www.gmpte.com/under16

Rick