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

I am triple-booked tonight, on what is a busy night for Council and community meetings in Prestwich, and so we have had to re-jig our diaries to make sure that there is Lib Dem representation at all of the events taking place this evening.

The one I’m going to is at the Town Hall, and is the latest meeting of the Performance and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Commission. Tonight’s meeting is a specially arranged one to discuss a decision of the Executive that has been “called in” for extra scrutiny. It relates to the proposed establishment of a new Home Improvements Agency to help with Disabled Facilities Grants and minor adaptations to homes for people with disabilities.

This is a public meeting, and you can come down to it from 18:00 if you like.

However, there are also other things going on tonight which people might be interested in.

The ongoing URBED consultation process on the regeneration of Prestwich reaches another milestone this evening, with a further consultation event, from 17:30 – 20:30 at the Longfield Centre tonight.

As well as that, there is a special meeting of the Rainsough Tenants and Residents Association tonight, at the Scout Hut, to discuss the Chapel Road shops. That’s at 19:00.

Rick

Work has begun to improve the dangerous junction at St Ann’s Road and Bury New Road – home of course to the world’s most redundant and daft set of traffic lights, installed only ten yards from an existing set and presumably designed by lunatics with the sole aim of causing mayhem.

I have been pressing for this for a year, after numerous residents complained, and I was delighted when the Council listened and said that they’d include the repairs in this year’s programme. Hopefully the work will run to schedule and be finished on time, removing the unnecessary and confusing second set of traffic lights, and leaving the junction safer for everyone concerned.

Rick

Just a brief posting about the new St Mary’s Rose, the Labour leaflet, which I read whilst out leafleting in the ward today (this is about the third one they’ve done - there must be an election coming up!).

Having turned their vitriol-fuelled fire up to “furnace” with the last issue, this time they plunge new depths with an outright and massive lie, putting on paper for the first time what they’ve almost said in the past - that Lib Dems in Bury shouldn’t complain to the Council when things go wrong because the Lib Dems and the Tories “are the Council.”

That’s an absolute lie. The people who wrote it know it’s a lie. And if they had any decency they would publicly retract it and let the people of this ward decide the coming election on facts, not falsehoods. They are spreading lies for votes. That’s not what any of us should be doing. It brings the reputation of all of us down.

If this is what the St Mary’s Labour candidate was taught (and was teaching) at Labour campaign school, then there is a sickness at the heart of his party of which he should be utterly ashamed.

Just for the record, once again, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives are not in any coalition, alliance, or anything else. The Conservatives control Bury Council. Lib Dems and Labour have one member of the Executive each, the Conservatives have all the rest. There’s no coalition, no joint policy making, no joint anything. Labour’s leaflet is lying. It’s lying because they want power in Bury, and they are so obsessed with holding on to their last seat in Prestwich that they are stooping to incredibly low depths to do it.

This isn’t political spin. It’s not their take on things as opposed to our take on things. It’s an actual lie. It’s like saying the sky is yellow or the Moon is made of cheese. It’s just not true. Don’t believe it.

I could take a bit of story-fiddling. I could live with them spinning things to suit them. It’s how politics works (although I wish it wasn’t). We all write leaflets promoting ourselves and our achievements, and we all go over the top sometimes. But what St Mary’s Labour are doing is just telling lies in the hope that it wins them votes. It isn’t right.

As it goes, I think the rest of their leaflet is twaddle as well, but that’s pretty much their side of a story against our’s. There are grains of fact in what they say, even if it is skewed virtually beyond recognition and the facts are consumed in rubbish. I can live with that. Let the people decide, fine. I’ll write a better one for us.

But the coalition thing is a downright lie. So don’t be fooled. I would like them to produce a single piece of evidence to back up their claim, and I will gladly speak to anyone who rings me up to speak to me about it, if you aren’t clear. Including St Mary’s Labour, who I know read this blog, and who I take no delight in telling, once again, that they should be ashamed of their continuing actions.

Rick

URBED, the urban regeneration specialists currently undertaking a study into the future of Prestwich, gave a presentation at last night’s Local Area Partnership (LAP).

It was great to see so many members of the public there, and the presentation went down very well. I think URBED and local people want much the same thing - a revitalised retail sector, some relief of the traffic problems, and an improved environment. It was great that URBED presented possible solutions to all of the problems that we face. None of them are insurmountable.

There are some concerns at this early stage, and rightly so. We need to learn lessons from the Radius fiasco - there can’t be another building that looks quite so out of place and dominates the landscape so much. There has to be enough thought given to parking.

But URBED showed last night that we can achieve what Prestwich needs, and if the right things are built in the right way, we can even make Radius look like part of a planned Prestwich, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.

Prestwich has a huge amount going for it: Excellent transport links, proximity to the city and the countryside, a “village” feel and an affluent and vibrant community. It is spoiled at the moment by a lousy town centre, awful traffic, and a local street environment that is neglected. All of these can be solved, and now we all have the chance to have our say through the URBED study.

Exciting times for the area.

Rick

Last night’s meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) was the final meeting of the municipal year, and contained some great news for local organisations to whom we were able to award thousands of pounds in grants.

The LAP controls a number of grant funds and can allocate them to local groups throughout the year. Already this year for instance, we have allocated £10,000 to the Rainsough community centre, with more to follow for Children’s Centre outreach both there and in Carr Clough.

Last night the following awards were made:

- Prestwich Carnival were awarded £2,125, which will ensure the continuation of this excellent community-wide event for the next two years. This money was awarded from the Kickstart Community Initiative fund, which is to benefit the entire community.

- The Prestwich Clough Centenary group also received £2,125 so that the Clough Day which has taken place for the last two years can continue for the next two as well. This too is a wonderful Prestwich event, and we are proud to provide the money to keep it going. This money also came from the Kickstart Community Initiative fund.

- £1,500 was given for the provision of a sensory garden for disabled children at Butterstile. This money came from the Kickstart fund, which is for small projects.

- Heaton Park School applied for money for fencing around the school, which will be an asset to the local community and which we were happy to provide £5,000 towards. This grant was made from the Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund, which is for capital schemes benefitting the local environment.

- The Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund was also the source of money for the Downham Tenants and Residents Association, for whom the LAP has given £500 towards the cost of creating a “wildlife corner” for communal use on land that is currently an eyesore.

- And the Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital fund has been made available for refurbishment of the Parksway ginnel in Sedgley ward, where £1,000 will be used for essential security work.

- A ball zone will be created at Parrenthorn school, with £5,000 coming from the Community Development fund for projects in the community.

- In addition, a further £5,000 has been made available from this fund for a new under 5’s play area in Polefield.

Altogether last night there was over £22,000 of money invested by the LAP into much needed community projects. This is a massive investment, and we have secured major projects like the carnival and much-needed play facilities, as well as smaller things like the Downham wildlife corner.

St Mary’s in particular will benefit from the Clough day which takes place in the ward, and the Butterstile sensory garden, on top of Rainsough money which has already come this year.

All in all a very good night for Prestwich.

Rick

Tonight is the final meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP) of the municipal year. It’s an open meeting, so come along and ask your Councillors some questions!

The meeting takes place at Sedgley Park Primary School, which is on Kings Road / Bishops Road. Incidentally, this was the school my Mum went to, and my grandparents lived right opposite it for 50 years.

None of which is at all relevant to the meeting itself, which starts at 18.30 with the “business” part of the meeting. We’ll hear reports from the LAP Manager on outcomes since last time, including an update on the Prestwich Community Plan. We will also receive reports on current work from the Youth Service Manager, the two LAP sub-groups (on the town centre regeneration and on developing communities), and from our partners in the police and NHS.

Part two of the meeting is the open forum, which begins at 19.30. Members of the public are welcome to raise issues of concern with members of the LAP in an open session. If you have any issues you want to raise about the Council, local NHS, police, fire etc, then come down and ask us. You don’t have to sit through the rest of the meeting if you don’t want, and if you are uncomfortable asking your question out loud then we can arrange for it to be read out on your behalf as well.

After the open forum there will be a presentation from URBED, the consultants appointed to come up with a regeneration strategy for Prestwich centre. They will let us know their key findings to date.

After the end of formal business there will be the chance for you to talk one-to-one with any of us about issues as well.

So do come along and say hello, or tell us about anything we might be able to help you with. It’s what we’re here for after all.

Rick