Mike Cordingley – Lostock and Barton Ward (formerly Gorse Hill)
I’m immensely proud of my 15 years as a successful councillor in Gorse Hill Ward. I played a major part in transforming separate parts of the ward, working with residents to improve their environment and taking on vested interests where their activities impacted our communities.
Now that boundary changes have moved me into the new Lostock and Barton ward, I’d be delighted to be chosen to continue that work in its new setting.
With over three decades of campaigning experience and as a Labour Councillor, I am immersed in Labour Politics. I’ve been the Parliamentary Agent for the last four election successes and served in almost all the senior roles of the constituency party.
I am school governor at Lostock High and at a primary school in Old Trafford. I’ve been a volunteer at Lostock Library and I’m currently Secretary of the Co-operative Party. Those co-operative values are at the heart of everything I do.
If selected I will continue to hold advice surgeries and to be accessible to all through all the traditional and main social media channels.
Labour at its best has a party rooted in its community, sharing the ups and downs, being there, living there, and engaging on a daily basis. This is who I am and what drives me.
Boris Johnson is gone. The work of government will become more managerial. There will be less pyrotechnics. There will be less transformative ambition. Levelling up is effectively dead. It will be fascinating to see how Keir Starmer responds.
As it stands, Labour is ahead in the polls. Labour is heading for a majority of 16 and forming the next government. A new prime minister could completely change that landscape. Generally, I think we tend to place too much importance on the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions knockabout, but the first few encounters will set the tone. I would be worried if Keir Starmer continues to emphasise the ‘safe pair of hands’/experienced organisational leader qualities. It is time for him to present his analysis of where we are and how we move forward as a country.
The energy famine western Europe is facing as a consequence of the war in Ukraine is difficult in the medium term. The price impact is going to be the most visible effect and something that puts lives at risk for the poorest. However, the price change is a function of scarcity. So, as well as protecting the most vulnerable and businesses, we’re going to have to try to reduce the demand for gas. I’d like to see Keir Starmer grab the opportunity to talk to the nation. I don’t think now is the time for picking at detail. We’re going to need real leadership. It’s harder for the Leader of the Opposition, but given Boris Johnson rarely took to serious dialogue, and the indications are that Liz Truss prefers to pretend everything is rosy, there’s an opportunity for Keir Starmer. We need to show that Labour gets the serious stuff.
Personal News
I’m on the Panel! This means I’ll be listed as a person available to be nominated and shortlisted for selection to stand as a Labour Candidate in next May’s local elections. So, I’m really hoping I’ll be nominated by the members of the new Lostock and Barton Ward for their shortlist. It will be a few weeks before the timetable is sorted.
Labour Meeting
A motion in favour of Proportional Representation was put to the meeting. Labour is never going to support PR. It is understandable that the most influential voices in the party are MPs and councillors. In England that means those influential people have been elected under First Past the Post system and on the whole it’s never going to be an attractive option to them to change that system. It’s a shame that we’ll never have a proper debate because looking at the bigger picture, invariably in elections there’s a majority to the left of the Conservative Party. It is almost invariably true that the consequence is the Conservative Party forming the Government. The motion was defeated.
We also had a Momentum motion on instructing Labour’s frontbench to attend picket lines. I was one of two members who voted against the motion. Keir Starmer has taken a line and I just think we have to back it. Frustratingly, we weren’t allowed to debate the motion and this key aspect of the motion was not mentioned in the preamble. We really need to have a Conference that presents Labour as ready for Government and not at war with itself but the motion was passed.
Canvassing in Sale
A good response. Concern over crime and anti-social behaviour seemed to be the biggest issue raised with me and I’ve passed to the councillors.
Local News
Bus fares capped at £2. The first step in getting buses back to providing the backbone of our public transport provision.
Application to demolish Event City and prepare the land for Therme Wellness Resort
Alarm raised over canal path deterioration between Kelloggs and Barton Bridge.
Lostock Community Partnership Meeting this Saturday 10am – Legacy of Circle Court exodus.
Improved response from council and police to illegal parking on match days.
Hardly a week passes without a new thread on Facebook or Twitter about the cycle lanes going through Stretford. The main complaint has been the lack of transparency and news about what’s going to happen to them. Will they be made permanent? Will they be taken out? Will the cones be there forever?
There’s been some changes to Trafford’s leadership since the election and Councillor Aidan Williams has been added to the cabinet to take on Climate Change and Transport Strategy.
Councillor Williams took the opportunity of addressing a petition to give a wider update on the A56 last week when Council met at the town hall. The actual petition sought to exploit unused rail space alongside the Stretford Metrolink all the way down to Sale to provide additional cycling capacity. The council leadership agreed to explore the potential of this proposal but highlighted the limited access as an issue that meant it could never offer an alternative to the A56 for short journeys on bikes.
The cycle lanes have been frustrating for drivers and cyclists alike. Now that Councillor Williams is in place, we’re beginning to get coherent messaging. First indication was a tweet that Aidan put out in mid July, a simple tweet that made its way to both the Manchester Evening News and the Messenger.
The update at last Wednesday’s council meeting built on the information given out in the tweet. The council is going to consult on permanent cycling infrastructure in Stretford linking it via the Talbot Road scheme and (Old) Chester Road that gives Stretford continuous segregated cycling to the Manchester border. The design and landscaping within the town centre itself will be wrapped up within the town centre masterplan there.
Personally, I very much welcome this. It’s beginning to join up cycling facilities. We need to see what they come up with at the Talbot Road junction because that’s still dangerous and if the test is a 12 year old being safe, we’re still a long way from that. But hey, this is so much better than what we’ve been used to.
I’m really pleased that we’re getting some transparency now and it sounds like Councillor Williams wants to listen to all interested parties. Clarity is vital. We now know that cycle lanes won’t be installed along Chester Road in Gorse Hill. That will disappoint many, but at least knowing it, means that we can focus getting more crossings of that road. A crossing at Gorse Hill Park gates is an absolute must.
And we still urgently need that pedestrian phase at the Park Road/Derbyshire Lane junction so people can walk to Stretford without having to sprint. If Councillor Williams’s Transport Strategy responsibilities extend to getting people across roads, we’ve got a chance to start seeing some real improvements.
Better maintenance of drains and general upkeep of streets wanted including weed control
– I heard this from quite a few residents. It’s a difficult one but we shouldn’t dismiss it. There was one grid pointed out to me that actually looked as though it had been cleaned. I might be wrong but if we have residents who believe their streets are not being serviced, and it worries them, shouldn’t we be giving better data. They’re paying council tax but we’re giving back information that’s borderline facetious describing the leaf clearance in terms of its weight in elephants. If residents want to know when and how often their grids ought to be cleared and whether that has happened we should be telling them.
I do think there’s a discussion to be had about street upkeep more generally. Cheap black tarmac patching on pavements highlight the fact that the pavements were originally laid to a standard that we’ll never match again. Whilst hopefully we can fund better than we do now, it’s probably unrealistic to think councils will ever realistically have sufficient funds to bring pavements and roads to a standard that people truly aspire to. How did that happen? Looking at it from a lay perspective, it looks to me that we’ve gone backwards even allowing for the increased workload we place on roads and pavements. Are we really using low tech and manual labour to standards lower than we used 100 years ago? Have councils and highway authorities demanded the sufficient improvements in technology and productivity that we’ve seen in almost every other field of work?
We really do need to enforce encroachment of vegetation onto the pavement. We’re denying people the right to move about freely if they’re pushing a pram or using mobility aids. This was raised by a resident in connection with a near neighbour and she’s absolutely right to raise.
I thought it interesting that one resident felt political parties ought to be more capable of working together. It’s polarised. I don’t know how we can change that.
Doorstep conversations are always interesting and provocative. I always come back with more challenges to the way we do things.
We’re in the middle of our selection as Labour candidate. It’s an important choice and the three candidates left standing are of a really high quality.
This is really an open set of five political questions to them as well as one operational question on an issue that has really troubled me.
My Five Political Questions
Economy – Are you up for the epochal reset of the economy that we need? How will you promote creating the green and sustainable economy where a family home does not earn more than the people who live in it?
Europe – Are you up for a closer relationship with the EU? Starmer says no going back, but will you push for single market entry?
Tax – Are you up for shifting the tax emphasis from work and onto wealth. Will you support a Land Value Tax?
Democracy – Will you be prepared to devolve much more to regions? Will you foster democratisation of devolved bodies, including citizens assemblies and for instance greater user representation in health and transport?
Education – Will you never forget the impact in terms of education and socialisation that Covid had on a generation of children and work to create a permanent lifelong learning infrastructure that supports them and wider society?
That troubling Operational Question
Let’s bite the bullet and tackle that operational question. There’s no easy way of broaching the subject. It’s on the issue of racism within the Labour Party. The party actually recognises it needs to do better and certainly has a focus on increasing diversity in its latest recruitment.
My issue is that it’s not just the regional party that needs to do better, our MPs are failing the diversity question in terms of the staffing of their constituency offices.
In terms of a selection, having worked for an MP, even for a short time, does give an advantage. It was notable that more than half the constituency’s longlist had at some time worked for an MP. However, the most important aspect is that these offices ought better reflect the places they serve.
Q. When elected, will you work with neighbouring MPs and trade unions to review current practice in order to diversify recruitment to parliamentary offices to better reflect the diversity within the population?
Got to admit that travelling from the stadium, I’d normally take John Gilbert Way to get to Fraser Place but I can see that this route serves a lot more.
From a purely technical point of view, the plans include Trafford’s first iteration of designed ‘Sparrow’ crossings. The fact that the Sparrow name is being applied here is nice because it came out a conversation local cyclist Sam Tate was having. So, it’s ours and there are worse things to be famous for.
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