Canal27ways

Author: Mike C

  • MFT gets fit for the future

    MFT gets fit for the future

    I’m a member of the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) council of governors. I’m nominated by Trafford Council. Their briefings for governors are always interesting.

    The main item last week was the trust’s review of its five year strategy: Where excellence meets compassion

    I don’t like the title of it, but I do like the content. MFT is held in high regard within the NHS and its easy to see why. MFT’s strategy anticipates much that is in the brand new FIT FOR THE FUTURE – 10 Year Health Plan for England, published in the summer by Wes Streeting. That 10 year national plan for England allows the trust to accelerate and get ready for the changes in NHS structure that are so badly needed.

    Neighbourhood Health Service

    Too often, using the NHS means navigating a complex web of services;  being forced to constantly repeat yourself to professionals who have not talked to each other, or had proper access to your medical records.

    Hospitals have become distanced from many local communities – embedding a model where ‘you come to care’, rather than one where ‘care comes to you’.

    The neighbourhood health service is Labour’s alternative. It will bring care into local communities; convene professionals into patient-centred teams; end fragmentation and abolish the NHS default of ‘one size fits all’ care.

    The neighbourhood health service is a very exciting concept. It brings accountability for whole neighbourhoods rather than just the patients admitted via urgent care or GP referral.

    We saw during the pandemic shocking disparities of health provision within Trafford. Accountability for our more deprived neighbourhoods was non-existent.

    I sense that MFT medical staff are really keen to take this forward. They know for example that offering hospital support to patients remaining at home provides better outcomes at lower cost.

    Apps are becoming mainstream. Wes Streeting sees the NHS app allowing patients to see who is involved in their care, to communicate with professionals directly, draft and view their
    care plans, book and hold appointments and leave feedback. For many people, this will mean they can access all they need from their neighbourhood team. This will include both booking and holding appointments with health professionals through their phone.

    MFT are already well advanced in using the MyMFT App. Being ‘off the shelf’ will be advantage in that it is a platform used by so many health providers.

    Nevertheless, delivering the NHS app functionality will be a substantial piece of work for all trusts so it’s right that the work begins.

    There are many organisational changes incumbent on bringing in a new operating model. We’ll have to keep a close eye on how these develop. The key thing for me that it makes equality of outcome a genuine focus rather than a platitude.

  • August update

    August update

    Most council committees avoid August dates for obvious reasons. However, casework never rests. And it’s an opportunity to trigger some of our own.

    Circle Court

    Circle Court Lostock, Stretford

    L&Q disposed of the empty block in Spring, once they’d rehoused the last residents.

    Residents are understandably contacting us to find out what’s happening to the block. I am trying to engage with the new owners and will update here.

    Lack of upkeep on our streets

    Our streets are in an appalling condition. Lostock and Barton was officially recorded as having its weed-spraying complete in May.

    Derbyshire Lane West

    I have not seen evidence of ANY weed-spraying in the ward, although I’m told by residents there was some.

    It seems to apply from Flixton to Old Trafford. It is deplorable. The fact that I’ve been raising it with those responsible since May doesn’t vindicate me.

    We’ve still got a minimum of just under five years on the Amey contract. There’s clearly a need for changes in political oversight.

    As ward councillor, I can only apologise.

    The intention now is to do a deep clean of the area. You may (I hope) receive letters asking you to keep the street as clear of vehicles as possible ahead of this happening.

    Development Sites

    Apart from Circle Court, we’ve got a number of additional sites in the area that are fenced off either for, or in anticipation of, active development/renovation.

    • Former Funeral Directors Barton Road, Lostock
    • Moss Vale Hotel
    • Therme
    • Surf City on Barton Dock Road – former container base (P&O)
    • Trafford Waters

    I know a lot of our residents would also highlight The Robin Hood pub in Stretford as being of concern to them.

    I’m actively trying to engage with Council Officers and directly with the developers where this is known.

    Parks

    Lostock Park

    I was delighted that yet again Lostock Park was awarded its Green Flag. It’s easy to underestimate what an achievement this is. Big Congratulations to Maureen and the team of volunteers there.

    Kingsway Park

    My colleague Councillors, Jill Axford, Shirley Procter together with our community champion, Mark Tobin, who is selected to be Labour’s candidate for next May have been working on Kingsway Park.

    They’ve been pursuing action to initiate improvements in the park and engagement by the community.

    Lookout for details of a meeting to get going together on bringing in improvement.

    Highway Trees

    I love tree-lined roads. I think they’re something that defines Trafford. However, even I am beginning to back calls in some places for some cutting back. I’ve been particularly engaged with Canterbury Road. And I’m awaiting review.

    These are two very big trees.

    Featured image: Photo by lil artsy from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-orange-pen-1925536/

    All other photos my own

  • Gloomy Outlook for Council Finances

    Gloomy Outlook for Council Finances

    Fierce Winds Conspire, The Dark clouds Do Gather……

    There are times when, a good report with confirmation that you are doing everything that you should do, is the last thing you want to hear. The storm is coming still. 

    We’ve actually had two reports on the council’s sustainability, one following the other. Neither of the two reports provides a route to delivering council services at a level the public aspires to.

    The second of these, our Corporate Peer Challenge, from the Local Government Association is stark reading, but it does little beyond telling us that we’re right to be concerned.

    The earlier report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) is the one that’s providing the action plan that came to Accounts and Audit Committee this week.

    There’s a danger that the issues are seen as temporary problems of liquidity that the government could solve. There’s a sense that we’re a special case and it’s nothing the public should worry about; we just need Government to listen. I worry that we’re internalising problems that we won’t solve without the public owning both the problems and the solutions.

    The public has an expectation that our parks and streets should be maintained to a much better standard than the council even dreams about. They do understand that not enough is being spent on them. They therefore have an expectation that if council tax rises, they will see an improvement. The very fact that we’re unable to meet that expectation is proof that the system is broken.

    I think the latest pronouncements from Government on future local government spending suggests that any hope of special treatment for Trafford has now receded. We’re going to have to deal with this.

    How do we balance the cost of funding statutory provision in child and adult care with delivering our everyday environmental services? Can we corral those everyday services so that they are directly commissioned by communities and not subjected to competing pressures in social care? How does community wealth building thrive in the current environment?

    Ideally, we can work with the combined authority and Mayor Andy Burnham. However, the risk is that the Government’s targeting of funding puts us on a different trajectory to most of our Greater Manchester colleague councils. That risk only emphasises the fact that communities are the only allies still irrevocably facing the coming storm with us.

    We must not fall into myopic thinking that balancing the books will be the only test that the public places on us. More than anything they judge us on the state of their neighbourhood. If we can’t insulate spending on neighbourhoods within the council’s spend, I think we ought to be considering alternative models. It may be time for parish councils and/or area boards to come of age.

    Photo by Eg Civic Ferio from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-under-a-storm-cloud-18608634/

  • Weekly Update

    Weekly Update

    Quite a light week for meetings. Planning committee met on Thursday with a comparatively light agenda, but that was my only obligatory meeting.

    We had our monthly advice surgery on the 5th. Since I won’t be standing for re-election next May (2026), potential replacements are proactively getting involved now, ahead of the selection process. I feel awkward. I want to separate myself from choosing a successor. Candidates to replace me had been invited to come along to the advice surgery. I didn’t know in advance. I was very uncomfortable. It’s an odd position to be in.

    I hasten to underline that this is just for the Labour candidacy. I never take the voters for granted. The Labour candidate will be selected 31st May. I continue to be a Labour Councillor until 7th May 2026.

    In terms of significant casework, I followed up on social media complaints about NHS lists at Revive Dental at Nags Head Circle. NHS patients had been informed they needed to sign up for private provision to remain on a dentist’s roll. We’re seeing this a lot throughout Trafford, but I’ve been asking questions of both Public Health and the Integrated Care Board (NHS).

    I was pleased to see clearance of the bike lanes on Barton Dock Road together with some lovely planting of flowers on the verge.

    That’s what I call a cycle lane!

    They even watered the flowers the following week, so they’ve done a really good job.

    Stretford Town Centre

    I know the town centre is not Lostock and Barton Ward, but many residents here (including myself) consider themselves proud Stretfordians, and we’re passionately interested in how the regeneration of Stretford meets our needs.

    The last vestiges of the Mall close at the end of August. Some businesses, such as Heron and Aldi retain their premises; others will have new premises in the new layout, and others will sadly depart.

    I’m particularly sad to see Uplift go. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Uplift café has personified the spirit of Stretford since before Covid. They’ve kept going, they’ve delivered art, craft, music and energy to the community when it’s been most needed.

    If you’ve not been following the co-owner Georgie’s video’d walks to work each Saturday on Facebook, you really should dip in and watch a few while they’re online.

    The Uplift Collection

    Frustratingly, we still don’t have a firm grasp of the grand design for Stretford. We have themes of longer hours and an increase in the night-time economy. There’s an aspiration for independent retail, but at the same time, there’s an expectation of corporate uniformity in terms of operating hours. I know there’s a tension there for some smaller operators who are being asked to commit to the project.

    Hopefully, we’ll hear exciting news soon about who’s coming. I think those existing traders need to hear it too.

    There’s been good news that Stretford Beach has won an award. It needs café seating and trade, but I like how it might evolve.

  • Creating a Buzz

    Carolyn Mason is a resident in Lostock. She’s working on a project to repopulate wild bees in urban areas.

    Planbees.co.uk supplies small boxes of ‘bloom bombs’ that are filled with UK wildflower seeds which are all especially attractive and useful specifically to wild bees.

    Carolyn is hoping to provide samples of these boxes for free – on request – to the local community and asking in return that they upload a video of the planting and post up on their preferred social media, tagging Planbee in the process.  They can also be bought online for £4 a box.

    She also hopes to provide local schools with bags of wildflower scatter seeds for the same purpose.

    Please contact Carolyn carolynmason.mcr@gmail.com

  • Scrutinised: Highway Spend

    Scrutinised: Highway Spend

    A notable scrutiny meeting took place on the 12th March looking at some of the issues that most exercise residents:

    • How highway interventions such as crossings, yellow lines etc. are prioritised
    • Pothole repairs and pavement maintenance
    • Leaf and Gully Clearance
    • Preventing Accidents

    It was the Scrutiny Committee’s attempt at clarity and transparency in the prioritisation of interventions on a limited budget. I think the scrutiny committee made some progress.

    The video of the meeting is worth watching.

    Link to Youtube Recording

    Summary of Meeting

    Matrix Prioritisation

    There was considerable focus from the committee on why certain projects get to the top of the list and others are held back. The example pursued by the committee was ‘double yellow lines’, something that requires a traffic regulation order (TRO). The presentation included a couple of matrices (shown above), but the officers hadn’t submitted all of them and they promised to follow up by submitting the TRO matrix.

    Even without the relevant matrix I think we can get a picture of how proposals are scored. But then it got slightly more complicated.

    • Sometimes opportunities arose to attach the job to another funding stream (examples included Active Travel and the Sale West and Altrincham Network Infrastructure project (Swani)). This could work both ways, bringing forward some projects but holding back others where a cross benefit project might be ‘anticipated’.
    • Finance – I’m hoping they score cost v benefit in all cases, but the nature of yearly budgeting means it is sometimes only possible to do smaller works

    There followed a degree of interogation on whether other interventions could push a project up to the top of the list, a senior councillor’s intervention or a popular petition heard in council.

    Overall on Traffic Matrices

    Essentially, we’re arguing over crumbs. The allocated budgets are so small that it’s hard to see some worthwhile schemes ever happening. We ought to have transparency regardless of the budget. These decisions are far less complex than officers and lead councillors protest. I don’t have a problem that political imperative might play a part in decisions as long as we can see that it has been applied.

    The public are seeing comparatively vast amounts put into active travel. Whilst that is an entirely separate budget, I think the public want to see objectivity and prudence applied to those schemes too.

    I would like to see all the various matrices and projects published on the council’s website. We’re going to have seek solutions to this growing backlog of work and the more we can be upfront about it, the better.

    Two thirds of our footpaths are functionally impaired

    Footways v Highways

    “Footways are obviously a big priority for us, but we have to first and foremost , go with the safety issue and where we can have the most impact on safety. So, the fast majority goes on the ABC network and not on the U class network.” – Chris Morris

    Generally, this is fair. If it was just four-wheeled motor vehicles, I could argue that damaged urban roads reduce speed and improve safety, but the effect of a pothole on two-wheeled vehicles can have fatal repercussions.

    Nevertheless, our footways are in an unacceptable condition. This is a critical element of our activity supporting infrastructure that’s unusable for a lot of people and it’s getting worse.

    Pothole repairs

    My colleague, Cllr Simon Thomas, raised the quality of pothole repairs. He said he was astounded that we were not sealing the potholes and argued that we should also cutting the hole square for a better fix.

    Cllr Thomas on Potholes

    I’m not sure I understand the response from officers in terms of the specific question, but I do get that the underlying condition of the road is the primary concern of the road engineers since the pothole is only the visible manifestation of a larger condition deterioration. That said, if pothole repairs are disintegrating within a short space of time, we need to know.

    Vision Zero / Road Safety

    Greater Manchester has talked a good talk on reducing serious injury on our roads, but I really haven’t seen proactive responses. I thought the most interesting comment was that Trafford officers described the Vision Zero team as being ‘resourced’ (as Trafford sees when they regularly meet). My take is that we need to see output from ‘Vision Zero.

    Resources:

    Presentations submitted to the Scrutiny Committee

    Presentation PDF
    Traffic Regulation Order Scrutiny Jan 24

    I’ve only skimmed the surface of the information submitted to Scrutiny Committee, but I’ve tried to pick out the key elements that are of concern to residents. It’s well worth watching the whole exchange. By all means add your comments below and I’ll try and respond.