From the Canal to Sevenways

Author: Mike Cordingley

  • Trafford General Hospital Facing Real Threat of Private Ownership

    Today’s Manchester Evening News Story on the Battle to stop Trafford General Hospital being sold to private sector should surely ring alarm bells for all citizens of Trafford. We’ve all seen the shocking lowering of standards and treatment meted out at Winterbourne View, a private run hospital for adults with learning difficulties. The treatment has been described as torture.

    It’s scandalous that private companies are hovering like vultures to take over Trafford General, the birthplace of the NHS. We hear that Circle Healthcare with its Hedge Fund backers are waiting to see whether the moves to have Trafford Healthcare Trust taken over by a neighbouring trust can materialise. The problem is that they would also be taking on Trafford’s £8m debt.

    There is a serious threat that a private company will be the only willing provider. I’m appalled at the deafening silence emanating from Trafford’s Conservative Council. It’s shocking that Park Hospital could be handed over to these City Spivs. We have to stand up for Trafford.

    Labour is leading the campaign to save Trafford General. Councillor Jo Harding is co-ordinating with Kate Green to hold a meeting on 30th June at Urmston Library (although I think this will be too small) to listen to residents and stakeholders.

    Andrew Lansley should be putting a stop to any possiblity that any NHS hospital will be run by private companies. Let’s put a stop to this madness

  • Weekly Update 30th May 2011

    Council gets back in its stride

    Monday
    Executive Meeting of Council

    Top item on agenda was the consultation on home to school transport. Essentially we can anticipate that after the consultation there will be much less support for getting children to schools that are further away. This includes children with special needs and those who are attending religious schools. Pupils on free school meals will be protected.

    At present all children receive a travel pass if their school is more than 3 miles away. This is at an annual cost of £425,000. The proposal is to grant the pass only if the family has no choice for example if their nearest Grammar School is more than 3 miles away. There will not be grant of a pass based on preference even if this a preference for single sex or a particular religious denomination. There will also be tightening of the rules governing transport for Special Educational Needs with yearly reviews.

    We on the Labour side rightly vigoursly opposed the proposed cuts. I recognise that an online poll in the messenger suggests that people are prepared to see this provision reduced but we should not make it easy for Conservatives to make cuts to services. They are choosing to throw money at the cricket club and make cuts to families.

    Although receiving less attention, it could be argued that the other significant item on the agenda had greater long term significance.

    The Core Strategy is Trafford’s plan for development in the borough. It designates areas that are a priority for residential, commercial or preserved as greenspace. It works very much in conjunction with the City Region strategy and as such the various borough’s keepa close eye on their partner authority’s aspirations.

    Monday’s council executive was asked firstly to define the Regional Centre as it exists within Trafford. At regional level this had been defined as Pomona Docks and Trafford Wharfside. These areas are therefore seen as primary economic drivers of the Manchester City Region, ensuring that the Regional Centre continues to provide the main focus for business, retail, leisure, cultural and tourism development in the City Region. In other words they are the places for dynamic high quality developments but where exactly are they? (where do they begin and end?).

    Trafford Wharfside in particular required greater definition. We knew that the Imperial War Museum was ‘Wharfside’ but was the Manchester United ground?

    Well Trafford have designated Manchester United as within that Wharfside area and essentially the ‘regional centre’ pretty much includes that part of Trafford Park from Warren Bruce Road up to Pomona see map .

    So it includes a sizeable portion of Gorse Hill Ward.

    More contentious was the definition of the City Region’s Inner Area as it lay within Trafford. I know this sounds like something from a 1980s BT commercial with Maureen Lipman in it, but it matters whether you’re inner or outer.

    The inner areas should be the focus for residential development in order to secure a significant increase in their population, and to secure the improvement of community facilities and the creation of sustainable communities. The emphasis will be on providing a good range of quality housing, The Inner Areas have enormous potential, which, if left untapped, will limit the ability of the Regional Centre to secure investment and generate further growth. Development within the Inner Areas will boost overall economic growth in the City Region, reduce local inequalities (such as worklessness) and deprivation and provide a clear alternative to further decentralisation and the unsustainable commuting patterns associated with it.

    Neither Manchester City Council nor Salford City Council wanted Trafford to include in its Inner Area that part of Trafford Park known as the Trafford Centre Rectangle. That is the area bounded by the M60 however Trafford is keen to include it. So Trafford is submitting that the inner area includes all of what we know as Trafford Park, all of the Gorse Hill and Firswood neighbourhoods together with all of Old Trafford.

    ‘Historically, the Inner Areas have been associated with the allocation of major regeneration funds and have therefore tended to be associated with some of the City Region’s most deprived and under-populated neighbourhoods close to the Regional Centre. In more recent years, however, the role of the City Region’s Inner Areas has been evolving. These areas represent a marriage of need and opportunity – large scale residential development can attract people to locations from which the Regional Centre is easily accessible and can also regenerate local communities’.

    You can see why Salford and Manchester were threatened by the Trafford Centre Rectangle’s inclusion but it’s important that Trafford is included as a generator of economic growth and we can expect to see developers wanting to utilise the areas described as ‘inner’. See map of proposed ‘inner area.

    Tuesday

    Lakes Estate walkabout with officers, Councillor Acton and residents. Main concerns were the state of the road surface on Coniston and Langdale. I’ve raised this repeatedly and as a consequence both are scheduled for this year. I have to say that whilst they may not be the deepest potholes on Coniston it’s clear that it was the thinnest coating of tarmac I’ve ever witnessed on a road or pavement and no wonder that it’s completely disintegrating.

    Annual Council – A largely ceremonial affair with the installation of a new mayor who this year will be Labour’s Jane Baugh. She’ll make an excellent mayor. She chairs the council meeting like she was born to it.

    Wednesday

    Meeting of shadow executive.

    Stretford Community Panel – the panels are changing and we need to prepare for the process by describing the neighbourhood needs.

    Thursday

    Meeting with the doctors at Gorse Hill Medical Centre about their needs for improved facilities

    Evening meeting at St Matthews as a listening event for Kate Green. Good to hear everyone’s views. There was a wide range of differing opinions from those that wanted an end to overseas aid and others who saw as a priority the maintenance of public services. It’s clear that people are being hit hard but and I think there’s a growing competition over priorities. I suspect that the cost of EC membership will be one area that grows in significance to people.

    Friday

    Covered Councillor Walsh’s advice surgery. No visitors.

    Sunday

    Door knocking on the Lakes Estate with Councillor Walsh.

    Tuesday

    Action for Sustainable Living Event at Sevenways Church. We listened to community activists from Moss Side who’d turned their ‘alleys’ into community spaces with neighbourhood planting. The Trafford approach has been that Gating Schemes have been seen seen as a way of keeping crime on the outside but no work has been done to turn the alley into a resource. ‘Here’s your gates and here’s your key’. The trouble is that fly tipping and rubbish have still had to be dealt with. The gates on their own have only made moderate improvements to the space behind gardens. Elsewhere on this website we’ve highlighted the Seedley and Langworthy gating schemes. Now we’re seeing that Moss Side is also getting much better results. It’s time we we made some progress in Trafford. ASL are looking at using the community spirit to enhance the subway area at the Stretford Mall / Chester Road crossroads. It would be great if we could bottle some of that Moss Side imagination and sprinkle a little in this corner of Stretford.

  • Local Trains for Local People and Local Growth

    I was really pleased to see this press release from the Local Government Association.

    Councils back call for greater involvement in railways

    LGA Media Release – 23 May 2011

    Responding to the McNulty report’s call for local authorities to have more involvement in rail franchises, Cllr Peter Box, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board, said:
    “The LGA has consistently campaigned for greater involvement of councils in decisions about the new rail franchises and it is very pleasing to see this sensible and necessary reform recommended by the McNulty report. We hope the Government will now put this recommendation into action.

    “The report recognises that many of the problems with our rail network arise from decisions being taken centrally without the engagement of the passengers, residents and businesses, who will be affected by them most.

    “If we are to have a railway that is fit for the future, we need it to operate more efficiently, we need to target investment to where it is most needed and we need to find new ways of raising that investment. More local accountability, and a stronger role for councils, is crucial to all three.”

    ENDS

    NOTES TO EDITORS
    1 The McNulty report on the future of railways recommends: “greater localism with more involvement in England of local authorities and/or PTEs, with local decision-making brought more closely together with budget responsibility and accountability.”

    2 The independent report was commissioned by the Transport Secretary to examine opportunities to improve the value for money of GB rail for taxpayers, passengers and freight customers. The full report can be found here: Realising the potential for Rail

    We don’t get the local service we need along our railway and that hinders our town centres and employment. The obvious advantage of bringing Trafford into franchise talks is ‘What are you going to provide locally?” question

  • Weekly Update 23rd May 2011

    Planning – don’t you just despair? part two

    Last week I was criticising the craven compliance towards officers and the politically blessed that meant our planning system in this country still owed more to medieval petitions from commoners to the Dukes and Duchesses than it did an objective place shaping mechanism. This week we were dealing with the consequences.

    Lostock

    American puritans might not be able to predict the end of the world but residents, local councillors and the police were unerringly accurate in their criticisms of aspects of the new development in Lostock when it went to planning. And of course they were ignored.

    The police made representations that the proximity of the redeveloped play area to the new Over-55s flats with deck access was problematic. Neighbours complained that their lives would be impacted by the car parks at the rear and expressed little faith in the assurances of an electronically secure system.

    Now with the barrier controls on the car park broken beyond repair (did they ever work!) the car parks have turned into an area not for parking cars but a hide-away for innocent pursuits or otherwise. The official play area is so designed that any activities in the evening are impacting on the homes around it. The police are being pulled into it and resources redirected due problems as much to do with design as criminality.

    Things had reached such a pitch that Councillor Acton and myself arranged for senior officers from the different agencies to come and hear and respond to residents’ complaints. The good news was the support for police, pcsos and community safety officers. There was near-universal support for ASBOs and the Conservatives are making a huge error in abolishing these ASBOs. The Conservatives are the party who are weak on law and order and are seen to be so. Ideally we’d have liked Trafford Housing Trust to have provided someone at director level to the meeting and it does feel that staff are sometimes exposed to criticism that is not their’s to shoulder. Nevertheless, progress was made and I do feel some of the difficulties can be alleviated but we’re still left with a play area too near homes. We can design out football from the play area, we can seal the loose stones that get thrown at windows. But really these problems of proximity were identified at planning stage by everyone but planning officers and Conservative Councillors. The press releases of the time were the usual self-congratulatory pieces of tosh about a much needed development. Yes it was much needed but you still need to get the plans right and our planning authorities failed to in their primary duty.

    Trafford’s Conservative Planners will always counter any criticism of themselves by pointing at the low level of successful appeals. Unfortunately you can only appeal against refusal to grant permission. Lostock residents can’t appeal against the flaws in the design that are blighting their lives and residents around the football stadium will not be able to appeal against the imposition of rock concerts when their kids are doing their exams. The lack of successful appeals is therefore a completely useless measure of the effective place shaping that should be happening since there is no appeal against a rubber stamp.

    Monday

    Labour Group AGM – I was confirmed in my position as shadow for Transformation and Resources and reappointed to Transport for Greater Manchester Committee. I will also serve on Accounts and Audit Committee and continue as Press Officer. Laurence is continuing as our planning spokesperson and Dave as leader. We are in excellent shape and if we can maintain the momentum of the last election there’s a batch of seats that would fall to us. That has to be the aim so it’s a year of serious politics.

    Tuesday

    Went to see City play Stoke. Having been unable to get a ticket for Wembley, I wasn’t going to miss the last match of the season. Campaigning for the local elections had meant I wasn’t able to queue when my loyalty points brought me into contention for a cup final ticket. Absolutely nothing to do with politics I know but these are good times for football in Manchester and I have also to congratulate United on the premiership title. I’m looking forward to the installation of Plaques to commemorate the lives of Duncan Edwards and Tommy Taylor; two of the famous Busby Babes who lived in this locality. The ceremonies are to take place on the 8th July details here. It will be a moving tribute to two of our greatest footballers.

    Friday

    School gates at Victoria Park. Parents are rightly worried about the effects of these horrendus cuts that targetting women and families in particular.

    Monday

    Lostock meeting discussed above.

  • Weekly Update 16th May 2011 (more of a gripe this week)

    Planning – don’t you just despair?

    There’s something about planning committee that just grates with me. Maybe it’s the faux inclusivity and bonhommie, maybe it’s the fake veneer of non-political objectivity. Every cell of the body of every councillor on every planning committee is by definition ‘political’. It’s why we have councillors on the committee; to provide that local say. But at the same time, they’re required to deny the local and maintain the illusion of rigorous quasi judicial impartiality.

    Having spent a year on planning myself, I know that the councillors for the vast majority of cases do genuinely apply an objectivity to the decision making. Sometimes though issues arise where it’s impossible to prise out of the political. Voters would not understand the point of a local councillor who spoke against the interests of those voters in favour of the greater good.

    Sometimes you wonder whether the faux objectivity is worth the effort. Trafford’s Conservative members of the planning committee got themselves tied up in so many knots over the Tesco/Cricket Club development that it seems they’ve subjected to Trafford to years of legal challenge. In first declaring one by one that they were against the Tesco development due to its size, but 30 mins later voting for it when asked to do so by the legal officer, it left the doors wide open to challenge. It’s easy to understand the frustration of Lancashire Cricket Fans (Facebook) but the real culprits are Trafford’s Tories. Had they been transparently objective (as they should have been) throughout the decision making, and been a little less pliable to LCCC’s every whim (rejecting the White City alternative early without a thorough appraisal), the ‘verdict’ would have been far more robust and resistant to challenge. As it was, we ended up with a planning meeting that was nothing short of farcical. In short, Trafford’s Tories dropped their planning committee members right in it and left them with the most impossible of tasks.

    Thursday’s planning meeting was another frustrating affair although for an entirely different reason. The planning committee devoted more time to an advertising hoarding in Urmston upon which there was a complete consensus against granting consent than it did to a major 700 bed hotel near to Old Trafford Stadium that officers were recommending should be allowed to operate except on match days! This is a development of huge strategic importance. but officers have been allowed to impose the most bureaucratic strictures on its operation. International fans will have to transfer to a different hotel on the day of the match and come back by tram or taxi for fear of creating congestion in the car parks.  I am one of the two most pro-cycling councillors in Trafford (I bow only to Cllr Chilton) but there is no way that this hotel requires parking for 97 bicycles as officers were insisting. It’s absolute madness. Where was the discussion in ensuring local employment? A colleague suggested the discussion was getting too in-depth and that was that (I wish he’d similarly brought discussion on the advertising hoarding to an end on the basis they were all in agreement). I absolutely want the hotel development to proceed and I want it to be a success. We need growth, we need jobs. We should not be letting officers impose ludicrous and unworkable conditions at the behest of no one but guidance. It is not enough to say the developers can come back and get things changed. With such an important project, it should be about working with them to make it happen rather than imposing unneccessary obstacles.

    With that I am perhaps more amenable to the pilot scheme to allow Trafford Park businesses to set their own planning guidance announced yesterday than I should be. We shall see. Planning can certainly be improved in Trafford.

    Kitchen Slops

    From next week we’ll be able to put kitchen slops in the green bin. More details are here.

    So what is the position if you live in a flat? I’m afraid this has been announced without prior discussion. We don’t know the position on people in flats, we don’t know whether retaillers have been forewarned to stock up on kitchen caddies or compostible bags. We’re racing to catch up with this announcement

    Meanwhile the council is packing its excess and obsolescent belongings into a skip and is clearing out of the town hall to the Quays. Expect massive confusion  With the best will in the world I think it’s safe to assume things will be lost.

    Apology for this week’s update being a succession of gripes but I think that just about sums it up

  • Kate Green’s Blog

    Kate Green publishes a weekly blog at www.kategreen.org

    Here’s her latest update

    This was the week in parliament when the cracks between the Tories and the LibDems really began to show. Tory gloating following last week’s truly terrible election results for the LibDems has blown apart the love-in between the two parties. Clegg might be trying to reassert his party’s independence, claiming he’s halting the NHS changes and will be standing up to Cameron in future, but it rings pretty hollow. I wouldn’t now like to guess whether the coalition government will go the full 5 years.

    Labour MPs – myself included – have been taking advantage to cause as much upset as possible between the two parties. When David Willets produced his outrageous plans for rich students to buy their way into university, Labour MPs wanted to know what the “fair access” adviser LibDem Simon Hughes thought of the idea. I went into the chamber to ask Willets why he was wasting time and energy on projects for the privileged when the AimHigher programme, which has helped dozens of students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for university in Trafford, will run out of funding in October this year.

    The LibDems were all over the place on the welfare reform bill this week too. Jenny Willott, LibDem MP for Cardiff Central, proposed an amendment to the government plans to cut disability benefits. But when Labour MPs on the committee demanded a vote, amazingly she voted against her own amendment! The LibDems really need to work out whose side they’re on.

    Disability’s been a big issue in Westminster this week . On Wednesday, together with other MPs on the work and pensions select committee, I listened to evidence about the future of Remploy, which provides supported and sheltered employment for disabled people. This is a very difficult and sensitive issue: many disabled people would prefer to work in the mainstream labour market, but there are still around 3,000 workers in Remploy sheltered factories and they’re very worried about the future as the organisation has just announced hundreds of redundancies. With jobs so hard to come by, I don’t think this is the time to be reducing employment support for the most profoundly disabled people – the government’s announced an independent review of Remploy, due to report this summer, and I can’t understand why the redundancies have been announced before the findings from that review are available .

    Wednesday also saw more than 5,000 disabled people, their friends, families and supporters join a demonstration outside parliament to protest about the government’s cuts. I was sorry that the cost of the fares meant it wasn’t possible for Trafford campaigners to attend, but the demonstration was a powerful indication of disabled people’s anger and concern at the government’s actions, and this is an issue I certainly intend to keep working on. I raised a number of issues in relation to support for disabled children in the welfare reform bill committee this week.

    And Wednesday was an exciting day for me for another reason – a night out on the town with the “class of 2010”. It’s just a year since we were all first elected to parliament, and we thought we ought to celebrate – we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone! It has been a privilege to serve as your MP in my first 12 months in parliament, and I very much look forward to continuing to speak out for you in the year ahead.