Last night’s Scrutiny meeting was one of the better ones from the year. We had a good look at four important items, giving our feedback to top officers and Cabinet Members and asking them to take on board the comments of some of us backbench members.

First up was winter maintenance, always a hot topic despite its unbreakable association with snow. As people will probably remember, it was very snowy for several weeks at the end of last year, making for hazardous conditions all over the place.

Obviously the Council can’t grit every street in Bury, but a lot of people expect that level of service even though it would be spectacularly expensive if achievable at all.

So instead they grit the main roads and provide grit bins at various places for people to grit themselves. The problem is that there aren’t enough grit bins to keep people happy, and the ones that do exist get emptied very rapidly when the going gets cold. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that some cheeky people nick all the grit, and some even cheekier people have been known to nick the bins.

Add to that the inherently unpredictable nature of the weather and it’s very hard to get the balance right. Nobody wants us skidding all over the place because there’s not enough grit, and nobody wants the Council spending Sweden’s annual winter maintenance budget to avoid that scenario, only for it to be mild outside.

The Council have learned lessons from the last two cold winters and have increased the number of bins. They are also working collaboratively with other authorities over grit supply and storage, and are improving their communications with residents. It’ll never be perfect, but it looks like it’s improving.

Also discussed last night were changes to the Council’s Blue Badge processes, its new affordable housing strategy, and the staff / Trades Union consultation processes in place to help with the current service redesigns going on. If anyone wants to find out more about these, please let me know. That’s the end of Scrutiny for the year.

My first (and probably only) year chairing the committee started off slowly as we adjusted to a new system of Scrutiny operating under a new system of Council leadership. But I think it got better over the year and we did some good work, particularly at budget time allowing the public to have their say, and regarding the Homelessness Strategy which changed quite a bit after our interventions.

Sometimes it’s frustrating being a Council backbencher, but when it works Scrutiny can help with that. Here’s hoping it keeps improving next year.

Rick

Forget “I love you” and “It’s a boy”, the three words in the English language certain to get the pulse racing like no other are unquestionably “cavity wall insulation.”

With that in mind I today took advantage of the Council’s very generous offer of providing massively discounted insulation for my house, as the people with the strange injecting pump things came round and made sure we’ll have reduced energy bills next winter for the bargain price of just £49.50. I hope other residents took up the Council’s offer of bargain improvements. If you haven’t, contact the Town Hall and see if you still can because it’s a bargain.

Other than that I have been out campaigning today, canvassing and leafleting. It’s now less than a month until the local elections. I am standing again to in St Mary’s to be your Councillor for another four years. There’ll be much more about why I want to be your Councillor, what I’m fighting for and why I think you should vote for me in the next few weeks, so I hope I don’t bore you with that. In the meantime, let me say that if there’s anything you want to discuss about local issues (or national ones) between now and polling day, just call me at home or on my mobile and we can chat things through. It’s an important time and I hope I can speak to as many of you as possible as we move towards May 5th.

Rick

The Liberal Democrat campaign to save Prestwich Tip received a boost last night after Bury Council voted unanimously in support of a Lib Dem motion calling for closure plans to be halted.

The Liberal Democrats have been leading the fight to keep the Tip open since closure plans were announced in the new year. The plans, put forward by the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority, will see four sites close in Greater Manchester, including the popular Clifton Road Tip in Prestwich.

I proposed the motion at the meeting, which called for Council support against the closure, and for refurbishment of the site and access roads. Not only do we want the Tip saved, but the road to it needs to stop resembling the Lunar surface, and the decades-old graffiti could do with a spruce-up too!

The decision to close the Tip is plainly ridiculous and will make it much harder for local people to recycle. Fly-tipping will increase, recycling will go down, and the Council will face more costs as a result. The GMWDA is an Authority which is seeing a big increase in its budget this year, so there really is no excuse for these cuts.

It’s very disappointing that local people are so cut-off from the decision making process on issues which really affect their lives.

The closure plans are subject to a three month consultation period due to end in June. We already have a petition with almost 1,000 names on it, which people can sign at www.loveprestwich.com. I am glad that the Council backs our campaign, and hope that this sends the right message to the GMWDA. In the meantime, our fight for the Tip goes on.

Rick

Another in my series of posts shining a light on the claims made in Labour literature…

The latest Labour leaflet in St Mary’s (which I think is also the first one since the general election – you can tell they want your votes again) states that Lib Dems voted to end weekly bin collections. I know this is a hot topic, so here’s the truth about what happened. To me it’s a frustrating truth about the reality of party politics and local decision making, but it’s the truth all the same, and it exposes the Labour leaflet as a misleading half-truth.

I’ve split the story into two parts. It’s a long one, so apologies for that. The Council’s budget meeting where the decision was made was much longer, believe me!

Part 1: Background

Weekly bin collections are going because the Council’s budget scrapped them to save money.

The Council is run by Conservatives. They are the largest party, but don’t have an overall majority. Thus they need the support of some other Councillors to get things done.

The original budget proposal was a Conservative one, including to scrap weekly bin collections. I doubt they really wanted to scrap weekly bin collections, but the government cuts (made necessary by our gigantic debt and deficit) mean that these types of tough decisions need making.

There are 8 Lib Dems on the Council. We are the third largest party and we don’t run the Town Hall. Our influence on Bury-wide policy like the budget is, thus, limited. What we can do though is try to amend the Conservative budget to get a small number of Lib Dem things done. The Conservatives need to make sure that not everyone else opposes their budget, and we need to get things done locally. Thus Lib Dems worked on an amendment to the budget which suggested lots of the things Prestwich people told us they wanted (Longfield saved, shoppers parking charges scrapped, library kept open, local area grants etc) in the hope that on the night it would win support. We needed to strike a balance between what the Lib Dems would do if in control of the Council, and the fact that there aren’t many of us so we can’t go making lots of demands which we know the others won’t support.

Labour had much the same idea. Their amendment proposed much of what our’s did, plus lots more, although it didn’t mention bins at all. We thought that this made it unaffordable (the Council’s independent Director of Finance agreed) and so we couldn’t support it. Neither could the Conservatives.

Part 2: What happened on the night of the budget.

The Conservatives presented their budget, but before there was a vote there was a call for amendments.

Labour put forward their amendment. It was unaffordable, so didn’t get support, and fell.

We put our amendment forward. It was affordable, everyone voted for it (all three parties) and it passed.

Then this amendment became the budget proposal. There was another vote, this time on the amended overall budget proposal. Labour voted against, Conservatives for, and we abstained. The reason we abstained was because we wanted the amended bit of the budget to pass whilst still registering our lack of support for the overall budget. That’s a bit messy, but we saw it as the only way. Voting against would’ve meant the whole thing falling, including our amendment. We’d have been left with two options – no budget, or the unaffordable Labour budget. We chose the way we did because we thought it was best.

The key thing is that at no stage did Labour propose reversing fortnightly bin collections. At no stage did Lib Dems support fortnightly bin collections. To say that we did is simply untrue, and to suggest that Labour had an alternative is also dishonest.

I invite anyone interested to consult the voting records at the Town Hall and see that everything I have said is true.

What’s more, the Lib Dem amendment was the only one to address the impact of fortnightly collection. Thanks to the Lib Dems, there will be £100k extra in the budget for Passover and Christmas collections and for supersize bins where required.

Labour are misleading people with the cliam that Lib Dems voted for fortnightly bin collections. The truth is complicated, but conclusively different to that version of events. Sadly it doesn’t fit on a leaflet!

Don’t believe what Labour are saying.

Rick

There are only a few more days to try and save Prestwich Tip.

The Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority is consulting on plans to close it, and Friday is decision-day as the GMWDA meets.

Quite why closure is on the cards is a mystery. The GMWDA, a Labour-run organisation, is actually getting a big budget increase this year. But it is planning to close not only the Prestwich recycling centre (on Clifton Road) but also the next nearest one for a lot of local people just over the border in Salford. The nearest one not under threat is in Radcliffe, and I know how little people will want to schlep their old wardrobes and hunks of junk all the way there.

We will be taking our petition down to the meeting on Friday, and it’s great that hundreds and hundreds of local people have signed up. I hope they listen, like the Council did to our Longfield Suite and Library petitions. and if they don’t, I might take the petition down the tip and dump it there for old time’s sake.

If you want to add your name to the list, drop me a line and I will do that. We have til Friday to save the tip. Let’s hope we do it.

Rick

One of the questions which has vexed us all for many years is “Why do Mums go to Iceland?” The people who own the supermarket chain are clearly as baffled as I am, but I bet that most mums don’t go there to spray offensive graffiti onto the walls.

Sadly, one local resident did just that the other day, resisting the urge to enter the shop in Prestwich village to buy frozen goodies, and instead spray-painting some very nasty graffiti. I had it reported to me a couple of days ago, and I got i touch with the Council who tell me that they’ve sorted it today.

There remains some graffiti in the area that they didn’t touch, but this is going too. They got rid of the offensive stuff immediately, but have left the rest until the weekend when they’ll clean it in the earl ymorning so as to avoid getting in the way of pedestrians.

Hopefully before it goes the Police can find the culprits and they can clean it off themselves!

Rick

After last week’s budget and a couple of days to reflect on some notable victories for Prestwich, it was back to the grindstone at the weekend. As I reported on Saturday, leafleting didn’t go exactly to plan as I was collared for accidentally parking in the residents-only parking zone on Highfield Road and fined £35! But that minor setback didn’t deter me (and hopefully filled a tiny proportion of Bury Council’s financial hole in the process!) and I carried on, delivering lots of letters to locals.

This week is all about re-focusing on the campaigns still ongoing locally. With the Longfield Suite reprieved and the parking charges for shopping scrapped, it’s still not time for resting on laurels. The first thing I have done today is get back in touch with the Police about the rise in graffiti which I’ve noticed lately in the town centre. I don’t know if others have noticed it too, but there seems to be a couple of persistent taggers who need to be caught and made to clean up their mess. We normally get them caught eventually, but I don’t envy the Police their job of trying to either catch the perpetrators red-handed or finding them somehow.

In the Longfield Centre I have noticed some initialled graffiti, so hopefully the people responsible for that will be caught more easily. It takes a particularly stupid type of vandal to initial his handiwork.

Aside from that, the main local campaign we’re now fighting is to keep open Prestwich tip after it was revealed the other week that the Clifton Road site has been threatened with closure. It’s the only one of its kind in Prestwich and Whitefield and is one of a number of local facilities facing the axe after proposals put forward by the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority. A similar facility in Salford, the next-nearest to Clifton Road for most local people, will also close.

We need to fight this crazy proposal. We need to be recycling more, and this encourages the reverse. It will make it much harder for local people and I utterly oppose this mad choice of action. The GMWDA, which controls recycling across Greater Manchester, is not seeing its budget cut this year, and is in fact seeing a big increase in funding. This Labour-run county-wide Authority seems to be playing politics yet again, closing facilities when it doesn’t need to.

It is madness, and I urge local people to get involved in our campaign to save it.

Rick

The future of Prestwich’s recycling centre (“Prestwich tip”) at the bottom of Clifton Road is hanging in the balance after the Labour-controlled Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority revealed plans for its closure.

We believe the Clifton Road facility is a vital part of allowing people in Prestwich, Whitefield and other areas to recycle waste in a responsible way. Lib Dems in Prestwich are demanding that it stays open. It is understood that six sites could be ear-marked for closure: Union Road in Bolton, Drinkwater Park (Clifton Road) in Prestwich, Peel Lane in Heywood, Chandos Street in Shaw, Leicester Road in Salford and Black Horse Street in Blackrod.

Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority is a Labour-Party led joint authority made up of nine local authorities in the Greater Manchester area. Although it is funded by Councils who are feeling the pinch, they decide what to do with their money, and they have decided to close a quarter of the recycling facilities in Greater Manchester including our own in Prestwich.

It’s a clumsy way of saving money, and it’ll be counterproductive. It won’t increase recycling rates, and it’ll make it a lot more difficult for local people to do their recycling in a convenient way. Fly-tipping will go up, as will recyclable waste sent to land-fill.

Cutting services should be the last resort. What should come first is paid officers of the GMWDA re-designing their services in consultation with Local Authorities and local people to minimise the impact on the front line. This hasn’t happened, and instead out of nowhere we have a Labour-led organisation responding to the challenge of cuts in the worst possible way. We will all suffer as a result if this happens.

There is a petition we have set up that you can sign to show your opposition to the Prestwich tip closure plans. Visit www.loveprestwich.com/saveprestwichtip and sign.

Rick

Bury Council, in partnership with Mark Group, are promoting an energy improvement programme aimed at owner occupiers and private tenants in St Mary’s ward.

The scheme commences today with introduction letters delivered to households. Authorised installers, Mark Group, will carry out follow up visits to offer a free survey to identify what insulation measures are suitable. Householders who take up measures will receive future appointments for the agreed insulation to be installed.

All Mark Group staff will carry ID which they will present on every visit.

Householders in receipt of certain benefits or are aged over 70 may be eligible for free measures. Bury Council will offer 50% towards the cost of insulation for all other householders meaning that prices will start at just £49.50 for each measure.

Hopefully if you receive a letter and take up the offer of a survey there’ll be some cheap ways of saving money and becoming greener and more energy efficient.

Rick

A few weeks ago it snowed, which was nice. But then is snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed some more until lots of people were mightily fed up with the whole cold, wet, sorry mess. A white Christmas is lovely, but not if you want to walk to the end of the street without sliding around like Torville and Dean after seven pints.

One of the particularly annoying things about the snow is that the gritting capacity of the Council is only large enough to keep major roads clear. If you live an anything smaller than the A56 then it’s difficult. I think this is fine. I don’t think it’s reasonable to spend a fortune on grit trucks capable of doing every cul-de-sac in Bury.

But if we don’t have these grit trucks we should have grit bins instead. These are the things which are placed on side-roads and have grit inside for people to use themselves and grit their own streets.

At least that’s the theory. The reality is that there aren’t enough bins, and crucially that they aren’t full of grit when the snow comes.

When it snowed, the ones that weren’t already empty soon become so, and now I’m getting lots of queries as to when they’ll be refilled. This is reasonable, since the threat of more snow hasn’t gone for the year just yet.

The Council tell me that the re-filling of bins has been scaled down because the weather is currently mild, and that they’ll be refilled when the weather forecasts a cold snap.

This strikes me as a bit mad.

If it was June I could understand. The Council could take its time safe in the knowledge that it probably wouldn’t snow again for months. But it’s January. It may snow again this afternoon. Relying on the weather forecast is OK, but it’s hardly foolproof, and besides, if John Kettley foretells a snow shower, the Council will have to drop everything and run to try and fill up all the bins in time rather than doing it slowly and steadily over time.

If there was a hole in the Town Hall roof, the Council wouldn’t wait for a downpour to fix it, so why wait for snow to fill grit bins?

Grit doesn’t go off. It can be kept in a covered bin for months, even years, and still be useful. It’s not milk. It doesn’t go sour. So why not keep re-filling grit bins across the borough just in case it snows? It makes more sense than leaving the bins empty until the snow starts, when it surely won’t be possible to fill them all up in time.

Next year we should look at more grit bins. This year we should make sure that all the ones we have are full.

Rick