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

Just a brief post today, since I have been out all day and haven’t had the time to compose a longer one. I am also tired, having stayed up way past my bed time watching the football, and then been kept up even longer by the whooping neighbours and their fireworks / honking car horns. I’d like to think that my disdain is more to do with being above all that than it is to do with jealousy. But it really isn’t.

Anyway, so tonight it’s the inaugural meeting of the St Mary’s Conservation Area Action Working Group, which will get together periodically to discuss ongoing things to do with the local conservation area. We are lucky in this ward to have a lot of natural and man-made beauty. Unfortunately we also have a lot of entirely-man-made ugliness such as the dire Radius flats and various awful bits of Prestwich Village. So we’re trying to stem the tide of horrific-ness, and extend the good stuff where we can. Part of this is making it harder to knock down grand old buildings and replace them with carbuncles, and part of it is to do with not allowing parkland to be concreted over. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees about what’s any good and what’s not, and it is around these blurry edges that much of the discussion will take place, I’m sure. As well as making sure that everything else that’s supposed to happen happens.

Other than that, I have been chasing up missing street signs today - Carr Avenue and Butterstile Lane, to be precise. For some reason people nick them. If it was Penny Lane or Sir Matt Busby Way, I could understand, but the reasons for these thefts are mysterious… Anyway, I discovered today that it takes TEN WEEKS from reporting the sign missing to getting it replaced. Six weeks to get the sign made, and another four to install it. As far as I am aware the signs aren’t made of plutonium, nor are they made in New Zealand. So the reason for the delay is as odd as the theft in the first place… But they’ll get done eventually, and that’s the important thing.

Rick

Occasionally the struggle to get little things achieved in my ward vastly outweighs the small-time reality of what it is I am trying to do. Today’s successful installation of bollards on Kingswood / Dashwood Road is the perfect case in point.

One night about six months ago I noticed the world’s single largest HGV trying to do a three point turn down the residential side-street that is Dashwood Road. This monster truck was, seriously, about thrice the width of the road, resplendent with more bright light bulbs than the Blackpool Illuminations, and almost certainly possessing a horn of such magnitude that a single honk would have de-forested Prestwich Clough.

This was just the latest in a string of trucks getting stuck down that road, having fallen foul of giggling sat-nav machines mischievously mis-directing their hapless drivers on the way to somewhere else. And obviously the local residents were getting mighty fed-up of their cars being de-wing-mirrored , their walls being knocked down, and their sanity sorely tested.

One such Dashwood-dweller asked whether I could sort out a bollard, which would deter the truck drivers from attempting the three-point turns, and have them driving round the block instead.

An easy task you might think, since a bollard costs £200 and the Council’s budget is £250,000,000. Sadly, this would prove not to be the case, and it is only now, half a year and several threats to pay for the blasted thing myself, that we finally have the Richard Baum Bureaucracy Gone Mad Memorial Bollard unveiled to the waiting world.

The delays were unfathomable. Partly because Council officers gave this absolutely no priority (which is understandable when there are major junctions that need completely re-building, but frustrating nonetheless), but mainly I think because the lines of communication between Finance and Highways are as frayed as a tatty old rope bridge. It took more to-ing and fro-ing than it is almost possible to believe to get this done. But get it done we did. And I am proud.

Unfortunately we are only half way there. The symptom has been attacked, but the cause has not. I wrote to the business to whom the trucks are attempting to deliver, advising them that their lorries were being guided by the sat-nav equivalent of “Number 5” from the Short Circuit films. They assured me that they would take care of it, but they clearly haven’t because the drivers still travel ever more irretrievably into suburbia before realising that a 40 foot truck probably shouldn’t be driving down a narrow street of terraced housing in the middle of the night.

So I have asked for the Council to install signs to tell drivers to ignore their Sat Navs. I am told that such signs don’t exist, but I know that they do because I’ve seen them with my own eyes in such exotic locations as Ashton under Lyne.

Their installation will be another nail in the coffin of despair for local people, but will probably take at least another six months to get done, because nothing’s ever simple, and we’re already starting from a fairly unpromising point whereby the Council flat-out denies that the signs even exist!

And of course I await with baited breath the necessary removal of the new bollards when a truck tries to three point turn anyway and gets utterly stuck.

Rick

Last night eh Local Area Partnership heard a presentation on the future of Prestwich Cash Office. A number of local people will have noticed the signs that have been put up at the “Cash Office” at the Library announcing its closure. We have been assured that these have been put up in error and the office is not closing at the present time.

Prestwich Councillors all met with Mike Owen, the Council’s Director of Finance and E-Government on Wednesday, who answered questions on the cash office. The Council does want to review whether the Office is viable nowadays and will be consulting on this over the summer.

We made some very strong points about the benefits of face-to-face human contact - particularly as post offices are closing and some shops are reluctant to run the “Pay-Point” system because of security issues. The Prestwich Local Area Partnership will be receiving a full report and consultation at its July meeting. In the meantime, I will gladly relay the concerns of any local residents regarding the future of this important community asset. 

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 meeting of the Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) was successful on a number of fronts.

First, there were no recorded fatalities despite the meeting taking place in a room hotter than an angry volcano. If I’d have known what the temperature was going to be, I’d have brought along a couple of eggs to fry on the floor rather than waiting until I got home for tea. I would also have probably removed my tie, although I may not have gone quite as far as one member of the panel who decided to leave any semblance of respect at home as well as his formal attire, and come in a t-shirt.

The substance of the meeting was also pleasing as well. The “business” part of the meeting saw reports back from a number of the groups operating in Prestwich to make the community better, and we learned about their successes in the past couple of months. There were also updates from partners including the police (reporting a fall in most types of crime), the NHS (presenting about new GP facilities in Bury, although not in Prestwich), and the fire service.

Then the “Open Forum” gave the chance for lots of local residents to raise issues about the work of the partnerships. Once again there were frustrations raised about street cleaning, and I have now asked for a formal response from the Director of Environmental Services as to why the pavement-sweeping machines aren’t being used properly around here. Also, there were calls for larger bins on the precinct, and more action to be taken on pigeons. I was pleased to report that work to pigeon-proof the Precinct will take place this Sunday after I asked for it to be done some time ago.

Perhaps the main event though was the initial options report from URBED, the design consultancy we have engaged to consider options for the future of Prestwich Town Centre. The options that they put forward are really just their first thoughts, and do lack certain of the elements which they will have in their final form (such as the west of Bury New Road, links to the Clough and full consideration of traffic and parking), but they do give a flavour of some of the types of things that we could consider for the next 5-10 years in Prestwich. There was a full and frank discussion afterwards from amongst the many dozens of local people who came to the meeting, and the options are available for all to view in Prestwich library.

Rick

The first Prestwich Local Area Partnership of the Municipal Year takes place at 6.30pm pm Thursday 15th May 2008 at The Longfield Civic Suite, Prestwich. Come along and see the launch of the “Love Prestwich” anti-litter campaign, which follows on from some of the work local Lib Dem Councillors have been leading on in getting the Council to tackle the “Dickensian filth” which sometimes plagues local streets.

Prestwich LAP will launch its Love Prestwich Litter Campaign for the summer which aims to target Prestwich Village Town Centre to promote respect of the environment to residents and businesses to Love Prestwich and keep it clean. Lots of the problems we have with litter are caused by people dropping it, and we need to create a lot more pride in our local area. So many local people tell me that they lovel Prestwich, so now is the time to show it.

The meeting will also feature URBED, the regeneration specialists who we’ve been working with on plans for the future of the Village centre. Following on from the huge turn out at Prestwich Visioning event in March, URBED will be coming along on Thursday to say what people Love about Prestwich Village and how it might move forward.  They will have some initial options and ideas to put forward of how the future of Prestwich may look in the future, and there’ll be the opportunity to ask questions on what you see. 

There’s so much going on in Prestwich at the moment, and I’m confident that we stand at the start of a hugely exciting time.  This is the perfect opportunity to come and have your say. As well as the URBED proposals and the Love Prestwich campaign, the Open Forum will be at 7.30 for any concerns members of the public may want to raise about anything at all to do with the Council, Police, Fire and Health services, and the local area in general.

It will also give you the chance to meet the newest Lib Dem Councillor in Prestwich, Cllr Mary D’Albert, who will join the LAP for the first time.

Please do come to the meeting and have your say on what’s going on in Prestwich.

Rick 

So, my birthday is over. There’s only one thing more depressing than contemplating a birthday and seeing another year fly by. And that is contemplating the day after a birthday, and realising that it’s a whole year until the next time anyone gives you cake with candles in it and lots of presents. That is essentially where I am today.

However, I am keeping the howling wolves of Time’s unstoppable force from my door by dabbling in some case work.

Now that we’re out canvassing, it means that rather than ring me up to ask for things to be sorted, local people can just stay at home and wait for me to knock on the door.

I have chased up a couple of things this morning on behalf of local residents who I’ve spoken to on the doorstep in the past couple of weeks.

There is an issue in Rainsough at the moment with the new roofs being put on the leased houses. A lot of the privately owned houses in the rows are being affected by the works, although obviously aren’t getting a new roof. So I have been making sure that the construction workers are considerate in removing the debris and keeping the disruption to home-owners to a minimum. It’s great for the tenants to be receiving home improvements, but the people who own their own home mustn’t be inconvenienced if at all possible.

Also today I have been working with the Council to get a patch of Woodward Road cleaned up. Yesterday a resident of that road pointed out the very bizarre green slime that has accumulated, and is creeping down the road due to what I presume is a drainage issue beneath the pavement. I hope it’s that anyway, or else we have been invaded by a strange alien life-form, which I could do without at this election time. In any event, I have been told that the street care inspectors and the cleaning team will head down to take a look at it later, and take whatever action is needed, such as a mechanical clean or engaging Ghostbusters.

I will keep you informed.

And we’re out again somewhere tonight (I don’t do the organising, and am not told where we’re going to canvass until about half an hour before, like it’s a secret gig of some sort at a dank underground nightclub). So there’ll probably be more issues tonight. Assuming the slime doesn’t get us all first.

Rick

Tonight I am back on the campaign trail, and it will be nice to be back and taking the opportunity to meet more local people. I particularly enjoy knocking on the houses of people I met last year, and receiving just as warm a reception now as then.

Afterwards I am meeting a constituent to discuss a school admission issue which I am keen to get to the bottom of. I know how lots of local people get very stressed trying to get their children into good schools, and whilst we all want every school to be as good as the next, it is important that the admissions system is as open and transparent as possible in the meantime. So I am going to find out a bit more about this person’s problem.

Also today I am chasing up a housing issue. Many local people will be aware of the current works in Rainsough and Carr Clough being undertaken to renovate the roofs of the Council houses there. A resident who owns his own home rang me last night to discuss the issue of repairs to a chimney stack that is jointly his and his tenant-neighbour.

So the casework doesn’t stop as the campaign goes on, and of course our St Mary’s candidate Mary D’Albert, and me, and the rest of the Prestwich Lib Dems are more than happy to assist with anything at this time of year.

Rick

I was proud last night to join many other local residents in signing the nomination papers for Mary D’Albert to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for St Mary’s ward in the local elections on May 1^st.

Mary’s long-standing record of hard work and local activism is to be admired, as is her sommittment to the local party and its efforts to make Prestwich and Bury better for local people. I have no doubt that she will be a very capable Councillor working continually for the people of the ward.

Mary has lived in Prestwich for decades, and is not only familiar with the issues that matter locally, but feels them personally because she has been a member of this community for so long. Local candidates are vital for local Councils.

Mary has campaigned hard to protect our local Post Offices, in contrast to our local Labour party who’s own MP voted to close thousands more Post offices just last week, including potentially nine more in Bury. Labour should be ashamed. They can’t claim to be standing up for the community when they tried to close our school a couple of years back, and are trying to close our Post Offices now. We opposed them then, we oppose them now, and Mary D’Albert and the Lib Dems will continue to support local community facilities forever.

Mary D’Albert has campaigned with Liberal Democrats in Bury on many issues – she joined our campaigning to stop Labour proposals to close Prestwich Arts College, for instance. She’s been working with Rainsough residents trying to broker a solution on the shops issue, and she’s been instrumental in working with Lib Dems and the Local Area Partnership to bring tens of thousands of pounds to communities across Prestwich.

In the coming weeks Mary and I will be joining the rest of the Bury Lib Dems in asking you for your votes on May 1^st. We are confident that a local, hard-working candidate is a better bet for Prestwich than Labour’s party hack who has been parachuted in to replace the retiring Labour Councillor who led the failed policy to close our local school.

There’ll be plenty more written here and in leaflets about the election in the coming weeks, but for now let me say again that I am proud to have nominated Mary D’Albert to be the next Liberal Democrat councillor for St Mary’s ward, and to join Donal O’Hanlon and me in leading the renaissance of our area.

Rick