From the Canal to Sevenways

Author: Mike Cordingley

  • Weekly Update 28th February 2011

    Budget Matters Dominate

    Every February Trafford Council sets the annual budget for the coming year. The Budget council meeting itself is one of the key events on the calendar in terms of set piece speeches. The Government’s cuts agenda has put an even bigger focus on Local Government. Clearly it suited the Conservatives in Government to make the cuts in such a fashion that leaves the wealthy rural areas unscathed, but particularly hits the poorest areas such as Manchester and Salford. The political imperative for Trafford’s Tories has been to portray itself as coping manfully and uncomplainingly with reductions in spending. Whilst Trafford hasn’t had to deal with the catastrophic cuts facing Manchester, we are facing significant loss of funding.

    The national political context for the weeks budget debates has meant that in Trafford, we have Labour Councillors trying to identify the impact of the reductions, Tory Councillors trying to obscure until after the local election; and Liberal Democrats trying to change the subject to bee-keeping. Bless

    At the same time, the Conservatives are pursuing a rebuilding and enlarging of the office accommodation at the Town Hall. How do you argue for a massive enlargement of the Town Hall at the same time as slashing the ‘back-office’?

    The answer is with Great Difficulty. And we heard Councillor Alan Mitchell resort to Keynsian Economic Theory to make the case that this was exactly the right time to invest £30m of borrowed capital in new accommodation whether we needed it or not. He was of course forgetting that the Tory Government had pulled the much more sensible investment in Building Schools for the Future. The cuts across Greater Manchester are going to see lots of public buildings become surplus. We’re going to see the Greater Manchester Combined Authority bringing together increasingly shared services. Its inevitable that councils are going to change rapidly over the next four years. Common sense says that the Town Hall project is no longer a sensible commitment, but for the Tories to pull out now would mean a loss of face. So we will plough on regardless, just as Labour did over the Millenium Dome. I felt Labour was wrong to pursue that project, and the Tories are wrong to be building a new town hall. Hopefully we’ll find a use for all of it eventually, just as they have in Greenwich for the dome.

    Monday

    Attended first of week’s Executive Committees – This one at Altrincham Town Hall.
    Attended Labour Group Meeting

    Tuesday

    Barton Clough Governors. I had to give apologies to ‘Big Society’ workshop at Urmston Library due to the clash with Governors.

    Wednesday

    The Budget Council debate. We argued the case that too much of the budget reduction was essentially an act of faith that contracts could be negotiated down further whilst maintaining the service. The reality is that they’ll hit the most vulnerable in the hope that the majority will not witness the brutality.

    Friday

    Interviews for Trafford’s new Director of Customer Service. Yes they can still recruit directors.

    Inaugural meeting of ‘Transport for Greater Manchester Committee’ (Shadow). The new committee to replace GMITA – at this stage it’s really about getting constitution sorted and terms of reference

    Saturday

    Door Knocking in Urmston. A very good response in one of the more affluent areas of Urmston ward – people are seeing through this Conservative Government’s attacks on public services. The brand is being retoxified.

  • Barton Bio Mass Plant Environmental Permit

    Today is the closing date for representations on the permission to operate. This is a separate process to the planning permission.

    I have emailed the following representation to Antony.Poole@environment-agency.gov.uk;

    Dear Sir,

    I write with reference to the above permit application submitted to you, regarding the development of the Barton Renewable Energy Plant by Peel Energy.  I wish to object to the environmental permit application for the following reasons:

    I believe that such a contentious plant requires a thorough and comprehensive Health Impact Assessment. It is recognised that the site borders an Air Quality Management Area at the M60 with already high levels of NOX and particulates. Additionally there are worryingly high concentrations of respiratory health problems downwind of the site. See http://menmedia.co.uk/salfordadvertiser/news/s/1337388_salford_hotspot_for_deadly_lung_disease

    Residents need assurance that the existing health problems will not be exacerbated and I do not believe we can have that assurance without the thorough assessment.

    The concerns about this plant are real and widespread. I believe that the submission is insufficient to address those concerns at without a Health Impact Assessment, and residents are going to feel that the permission process has been a sham.

    We need to believe that the health implications have been thoroughly assessed down to street level. Too much of the application as it stands considers the emissions as in a vacuum when our air is already polluted and we need to understand how even a small further deterioration will impact on health of residents.

    Please acknowledge receipt of this email.

    Yours faithfully,

    Mike Cordingley
    Councillor for Gorse Hill

    0161 865 9228

    www.gorsehill-labour.co.uk

  • Alternative Vote passnotes no.1

    As the Conservative Councillor for Sale Moor, Nigel Hooley, is actually a Gorse Hill resident, I ought to pay attention to what he says. He’s my constituent after all.  Nigel is not stupid, so he can do a lot better than the arguments he’s presenting on his Sale Moor website.

    Nigel argues that under the Alternative Vote system, a person can ‘finish’ third and still win the seat.

    One of the good things about the Alternative Vote, is that nobody can win until most of the voters want them to win. Nigel’s system allows a candidate to win who most voters don’t want. That candidate could be a BNP thug for whom all but a tiny minority would have preferred anybody but the BNP.  This is because it allows a candidate to win on less than a third of the vote.

    Under AV if no one has more than half the votes, the race is simply not ‘finished’. The person in last place drops out and we recount the votes based on who’s left in the race.

    The alternative vote system simply asks the electorate “Which is the candidate that most of you prefer to be your MP?”

    There are positives and negatives about how we get to resolve that question, but to argue that the winner is somehow cheated out of victory by the person in third place is a nonsense.

    Mike Cordingley

  • Weekly Update 21st February 2011

    Monday

    As part of the selection process for a Director of Customer Service at Trafford Council, I attended the short-listing. Interviews to take place this coming week. A good standard of applicant.

    Tuesday

    Emails and correspondence

    Wednesday

    I went to Lostock Court for their coffee morning. I gave the residents an update on what was going on locally. They were particularly disturbed to hear that ‘Bowlers’ had got its license for dance events. Their were many who remembered how noisy the raves were there 10 years or so ago before it was taken over by Northern Computer Markets. We will have to see how this goes.

    In the evening it was Trafford Housing Trust Board. The most relevant aspect was the promising outlook for the 2nd stage of the Lostock redevelopment.

    I had to give apologies for the Overview and Scrutiny Core Meeting as it clashed with the Board.

    Thursday

    Breakfast meeting at Stretford Police Station to discuss the enforcement of the ‘no alcohol drinking in the street’ on match days. This is affecting the off-license businesses  at ‘Top Point’ (near to Bishops Blaize).  Chief Inspector Roberts explained the philosophy behind the enforcement and whilst it was understandable that takings would be affected, the initiative was making such a positive impact on the behaviour of fans and the general ambience, they were not going to ease off. Feedback from supporters (both home and away) had been positive. I am fully behind the police in this and I’ve seen for myself the improvements that had been engendered.

    Attended Trafford Cycling Forum in the evening. We’re already facing the loss of Trafford’s cycling officer and that’s going to be a big blow in the coming year. It is my view that we are punching significantly below our weight on cycling. Too many of our roads are not safe for cycling and yet cycling is a hugely popular means of transport.

    Friday

    Attended Clyne Court’s community breakfast. I picked up a request to have a room provided for relations to stay which I have passed to Trafford Housing Trust

    Met with Trafford’s Director of Finance in the afternoon to discuss Trafford’s budget.

    Saturday

    Door knocking in Urmston

    Mike Cordingley

  • Big Society – Is there a golden core?

    The Chief Executive of Trafford Housing Trust, Matthew Gardiner has written on his blog of his hopes for the Government’s Big Society programme. Matthew is not someone normally associated with political eulogising, so his words are interesting. He writes;

    if The Big Society is about reversing that trend and giving power back to individuals, as well as providing a fund of resources that communities can access, then I think it is a game changing movement. This way it will produce stronger citizens, more resilient societies, the essential ingredients that you would need to do away with organisations like ours.

    Most of the focus nationally has been on whether The Big Society has been just a cover for cuts. The debate has been about the money. The money is actually a secondary question; because at the heart of ‘The Big Society’ lies a much more fundamental question over the role of people versus state, and we need to tackle that point of principle before we can even begin to look at how the policy is resourced.

    For the past seventy years or so, there’s been a general political consensus that the state should take on an increasing role in allocating resources to communities and individuals. The Conservatives have always advocated delivering greater freedoms to the wealthy, through private health and education, but they have never deviated from the consensus that the state is the amniotic fluid that succours the grateful or ungrateful masses. Whether the state is represented by Government Department, Local Authority, Registered Housing Provider or state sponsored charity like NSPCC is really a matter of detail, the state looks after us from the moment we’re born to our burial in the ground. And as the state has increased its role, it seems to me that neighbourliness and collectivity has decreased. It’s interesting how people describe different facets of the State. It is ‘our’ army, ‘our’ health service, ‘our’ roads, ‘our’ parks but it is never ‘our’ Strategic Partnership, ‘our’ Local Transport Authority, ‘our’ Government Office North West. Much of the state has become distant, objects of contempt or bureaucratic obstacles to our own ability to shape our lives and community. Politicians like to be able to say they did this or they delivered that, but the reality is that no politician as far as I’m aware has ever financed a project, laid a brick, or prescribed medication in their role as a politician. And as the language of politicians and bureaucrats has diminished the role of the citizen (it’s their taxes), the individual has become increasingly disinterested in their community. I believe that Socialism has never been about disenfranchisement or surrogation of our influence to our benign political representatives.

    The Big Society does have an attraction as a concept to me. I do believe it can be viewed as ‘Power to the People’ rather than ‘Power to the State’. It’s telling that no section is more contemptuous of the Big Society than those on the right of the Conservative Party who see the only legitimate lever of power as the amount of money in a persons pocket. I want to see more of that wealth being used for the public good and I want to see the super-rich taxed more, but I want to see communities mobilised into taking more responsibility for their neighbourhood and their neighbour.  Most of all I want communities to be able to take credit for what they have done, and politicians take credit for enabling rather than doing. To me that is socialism and I’m not going to take a partisan position against the concept just because Cameron is for it and the chattering Guardian establishment is against it.

    Mike Cordingley
    (Personal View)

  • Trafford’s Budget 2011/12

    Trafford Council are implementing huge cuts to their budget despite being sheltered from the worst of reductions in Government Funding compared to the most deprived areas like Manchester and Salford. The Conservative draft budget shows savage cuts to all service areas. At the same time, the numbers of directors continues to grow, glossy magazines continue to be distributed and the Town Hall offices are being replaced.

    As the following table shows, nearly £5m is being axed from the Children’s and Young Service Budget and over £6m from Communities and Well Being including nearly £4m being cut from services for older people.

    Table 11:

    Draft 2011/12 Budget

    		 Proposed Budget 2011/12 £000

    Change

    £000
    Children & Young People 27,450 (4,953)
    Communities & Well Being 56,560 (6,241)
    Economic Growth & Prosperity 3,106 (1,055)
    Environment, Transport & Operations* 28,390 (766)
    Transformation & Resources 15,805 (1,983)
    Council-wide 27,592 4,824
    Total All Services 158,903 (10,174)

    What the table doesn’t show is the continued intention to handover £21m to Lancashire Cricket Club, the Conservative Council’s pet-scheme. Children’s centres are expendable whilst an Ashes Test is perceived as vital.

    The cuts will mean front-line staff are sacrificed but the ever increasing number of Directors need new Town Hall accommodation at a revenue cost of £1.4m a year (for the next three decades).

    The Government are asking Councils to look at their senior Directors and explore sharing the senior teams with other Councils. How can we justify such excessive expenditure on the Town Hall if we can’t guarantee we’ll need it more than a few years into the future? The local Tories argue that their grandiose plans will be cheaper than patching up and making do, but the cuts we’re suffering now will continue in a calculated assault into the coming years. Clearly we can’t guarantee what sort of Town Hall is going to be suitable, or the numbers of senior management needing offices in Trafford. The present expansion of the senior management is not sustainable in even the medium team. We’re going to face a time quite soon when there’s so many ‘Generals’, we’ll not have any ‘soldiers’ to man the front-line.