Author: Mike Cordingley

Now the Budget’s through – we have the calm before the cuts bite

An unusually Quiet week

For once, I was able to get to a cup match at City without it clashing with a meeting. The only busy day was Friday which I’ll come on to shortly.

On Thursday with Councillor Walsh, I attended the on site community liaison meeting at the Nash Road Composting Facility. The development is nearing completion and should be coming on stream soon. The facility is designed to take green waste and household slops.

Video of the In-Vessel Composting Process

The impression I get is that it will pong quite bit inside the plant but because they’re keen to keep the heat in, we have to be hopeful that the smells will not travel far. We’re certainly keen to keep the site under scrutiny.

Perhaps just as pertinently, residents might be interested in the affect this plant might have on the disposal of household waste. You’ll see from the video that the process takes in the scraps/slops that we’ve been putting up to now in the grey bins (to go to landfill). My understanding is that this will mean putting the slops from the plates and pans into degradeable plastic bags provided for the purpose. What are the issues associated with this? I think ideally you’d want a bin or caddy to collect a reasonable amount before going to the bin, so does that mean an extra bin in the kitchen? Interestingly, it was clear at a recent neighbourhood forum that residents are getting more confused as to what plastics are recycleable and were looking for more guidance. I think the same will apply to this slop collection. Will bones be included? I can forsee lots of confusion unless there’s clarity.

Friday

All day meeting of Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (Capital Projects Committee followed by separate presentations on Victoria Station renewal and Local Transport Plans

Technically, I’m not yet a member of the successor authority but it made sense to attend the remaining meetings of GMITA before it’s replaced by the new TfGMC of which I’m to be member. Surprisingly Trafford doesn’t have any members on the Capital Projects Committee. We’ve a few capital projects under development in the borough – primarily the Metrolink extension to Manchester Airport which will link Trafford Bar to Chorlton and beyond. Hopefully we’ll one day see a tram to the Trafford Centre but overall the picture is depressing. Until central Government addresses the absolutely shocking imbalance between London and the rest of England for capital investment, we’re not providing the Northern Economy with the basic transport infrastucture that it needs to grow. And I’m not going to shy away from criticising my Labour Government in its failure to deliver the investment that the regions needed. Its ironic that as we approach the 2012 Olympics, we’ve still not got the Metrolink to serve the Commonwealth Games. Bluntly, it feels like the North is a different country compared to London. But let’s be honest, Manchester is not even holding its own against other regional centres as far as transport is concerned. Metrolink is a recognisable success, but we’re never going to reach a position where most Mancunians are within convenient distance of a Metrolink station. We need to fully integrate our transport infrastructure as far as the passenger is concerned. We may have to make do with second hand trams with poor reliability for a bit longer, but its outrageous that we haven’t been able to provide a ticketing system to get from one side of Manchester to the other.

There’s nothing new in what I’m saying about transport here; Labour’s members of the transport authority have been pulling their hair out for years over this and it could be argued that the Congestion Charge was a sign of desparation.

A key component of any improvements to Trafford’s transport will be the Northern Hub improvements. These include building additional lines to allow express trains to overtake the slower commuter services. If these were ever built we’d at last have the opportunity to make optimum use of the railway linking all of Trafford’s northern neighbourhoods. At present Manchester is a problem for all the lines across the north and it would be great to see us progress this. At present we’re hearing positive noises from Government but we’ve had positive noises before. I hope they put as much energy into this as the high-speed rail link. I believe it to be far more important.

Northern Hub Brochure

Final thought: you may notice that network rail are pointing to the fact that 70% of all rail journeys start or finish in London. There was a time when 100% of all rail journeys started or finished in Manchester. If feels like we need to pull our weight again.

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.