It seems to be a packed agenda for Monday’s meeting. It’s here that we get the best insight as to how the council is working. There’s a few initiatives reaching report stage and a few projects that are beginning to get going.
Agenda
- Greening Trafford Park and Low Carbon Trafford Park Studies
- Leisure Investment – Levelling up Partington Sports Village
- Trafford Moving Refresh
- Walking, Wheeling and Cycling Strategy
- Better Care Fund
- Section 75 Agreement with MFT
- 10 Year Estates Strategy
- Altrincham Town Hall
- Supported Housing Strategy
- BAME Terminolology
- Budget Monitoring
Highlights
Trafford Supported Housing Strategy
This is probably the most important item on the agenda. For the first time, supported housing gets its own strategy rather lost within the wider housing provision.
Trafford’s need in this area is stark.
- Trafford has a greater mortality rate for those aged under 75 years with mental health needs compared to its nine nearest statistical neighbours.
- Hospital admissions connected to self-harm in the most deprived ward of Trafford is
43% higher than the national average
. - The recorded prevalence of depression has increased by 6.4% since 2013/14
Trafford’s mortality rate for those with mental health needs is shocking. Trafford hospitals have the highest ‘length of stay’ rate compared with the rest of Greater Manchester. Lack of suitable accommodation is one driving factor for this.
The vision:
Work collaboratively to provide a range of quality supported housing, and housing related support, to enable those with support needs to live independently in Trafford.
The Strategy contains a breakdown of supported housing need, current provision, future provision, and strategic objectives relating to each of the following need groups:
- Domestic Abuse
- Ex-offenders
- Learning disabilities and Autism
- Mental Health
- Physical and Sensory Disabilities
- Substance Misuse
- Young People
- Complex Needs
It’s easy to see that under-provision in this area triggers excess demand in so many of our services, particularly health and policing.
Greening Trafford Park and Low Carbon Trafford Park Studies
These two studies have been heavily promoted throughout the investigations into the potential for a cleaner – greener Trafford Park. There’s some big ticket items that will require regional and national interventions. However there is smaller stuff that could be progressed quickly, but is really dependent:
- on the Council and agencies grasping the report findings and building it into maintenance and uplift strategies for Trafford Park. Pavements are too narrow, bus stops low quality for example – when the council is working on an area, it should not be looking at how it can be left in a better state
- on a Business Improvement District for Trafford Park – this is a key thrust – Hopefully it will fare better than the Trafford Park Business Neighbourhood which never really took off.
We’ll have to see whether the Executive ‘owns’ this report and commits to key target setting or just welcomes the content. The reports are worthwhile on common energy generation and other matters. I think though that it requires a lot more commitment than provided for in the Executive submission.
Trafford Moving
The vision of Trafford Moving is to enable residents in Trafford to move more every day, by enabling more opportunities for residents to be active and to help people sustain this activity as part of their everyday lives, which will lead to a reduction in health inequalities in Trafford.
That’s a tough nut to crack and the people that need most encouragement are both hard to reach and possibly don’t realise they should increase physical activity. However, there is hope with the report below.
Trafford Walking, Wheeling and Cycling Strategy
The overall goal is that over the next 10 years
- 90% of journeys under 1 mile will be taken by foot or wheels
equipment - 80% of journeys under 5 miles will be taken by foot or wheels
equipment.
That’s an ambitious target that would really go a long way to meeting the Trafford Moving policy at the same time. We’ve seen such a massive improvement since Aidan Williams became the Executive Lead. He’s not yet been in post 12 months but he’s made such a difference.
Watching the Executive
You can watch meetings of the council either live or a recording the next day. I tend to watch later so I can fast forward to get to the bits I’m interested in. The council has a YouTube channel
I love hearing your views