Category: Blog

Saturday 17th Nov

Having been reselected to stand again to be councillor, time to put a calling card together for the three of us. Trying to get all four of us (including Kate) onto an envelope sized card together with a message that will serve us until the start of the election is not as easy as it sounds but I think I’ve cracked it (just waiting for it to be printed now). For techies out there I use a programme called Scribus.

Sunday 18th Nov

Having got the leaflet out of the way, I do a bit of work on the GorseTalk Web site.

I know! It’s a bit over the top for a Councillor to have a website but it’s something I want to do. And it has provided me with new skills. Before I was elected in 2007 I’d had no reason to learn html, never mind all the skills that go into a modern responsive website. I am (and there’s no point in hiding it) quite proud of it. I’ve yet to find a better ward Councillor site.

Also take a trip to Gorse Hill to check on a paving stone.

Monday 19th Nov

Meeting I was due to have was cancelled, but soon busy righting the large plant pots in Lostock Park that have been tipped over yet again. I think this behaviour is going to continue. We discuss possible remedies. I think I favour placing the six pots in two groups of three so it’s more difficult to push and rock them over. The other suggestion is really staking or concreting them down. They’re just so top heavy, and rockable, it’s hard to see anything holding them. Something like this, repeatedly happening, always begs questions on the behaviour of modern youth. I”ve hit 60 but I tend to the view that as a teenager we’d have given it a go in pushing these pots over. So I’m not pronouncing that it’s a deterioration in behaviour. They’re just so inviting and very much a test of strength.

I just want them to test their strength in putting them back up. I’m almost at my limit!

Cycled over to Ashton on Mersey for a spot of canvassing in one of our targeted wards. Getting to know Ashton on Mersey a bit better these days. I have a long relationship with the town without regularly visiting it. As a kid I looked out over a playing field at the side of the then ‘new’ motorway. Beyond that was the River Mersey and beyond that, Ashton. There was no bridge, so Ashton was very much out of reach in those days.

Ashton lay on the Cheshire bank of the Mersey. The River Mersey has long been a border river, once the border between Mercia and Northumbria and for a millenium the border of Cheshire. I’ve always been proud to be a Lancastrian and whilst we were cycling on different routes to Cheshire places like Lymm and Manchester Airport as quite young kids, I’ve never lost that attachment to Ashton as the border town that you could see but couldn’t get to.

I’m quite proud to be a ‘Manc’ as well as Lancastrian and the two identities have never been odds with each other. The fact that Lancashire County Cricket Club is head-quartered in our patch of M32, only has meaning in the context of that Lancastrian identity and I think it’s something to keep hold of. Political administrative boundaries come and go, wards are redrawn, combined authorities created and abandoned, even northern powerhouses. But there seems something reassuringly permanent about the old counties even if they have no governance function. It’s probably the solidity of the geographical boundaries that reinforces but it also feels that there’s something important to our identity that is often missed or even dismissed.

I celebrate the fact that people self identify with the historic counties in their addresses whether it be Bolton, Lancs or Sale, Cheshire. I would love to see more more county boundary signs nationally but particularly within Trafford. Some of this is irrational, some might say absurd, but our multiple identities matter and have value, let’s keep those county lines.

British Counties Campaign website

You may have seen media praise for Altrincham’s regeneration recently, such as this article in the online local government journal Local Gov. It’s a worthwhile read. In many ways the Partington transformation has been even more impressive despite its much smaller size.

Altrincham has benefited from a focus on the assets within the town centre and recognition as to the extent of its catchment. Similarly Partington town centre now has an impressive 100% occupancy rate. These two Trafford towns may be polar opposites in affluence but there are similarities in how their town centres function.

The article praises Altrincham’s introduction of narrower carriageways and more street crossings to slow traffic. A thing I love about Partington’s centre is that despite generous car parking, it feels that it’s just as accessible on foot or by bike. Given it’s in the middle of a residential area, that makes perfect business sense. Altrincham needs people to come in via public transport and on foot to sustain its thriving evening leisure economy. As a consequence, I never feel that it’s unexpected to travel in on modes other than the car to shop in these centres. There’s street furniture and connecting pathways/bikeways to avoid the traffic. And whilst it may be that most of the custom to these two towns is reliant on the car, my mental image of them is of people in the street talking to each other.

That last point is important. It’s not just about the variety of retail, you’ve got to get the customer into town in the first place. I suspect that we’re psychologically conditioned to expect to see certain things as we enter a town centre and by quite a young age we know when we’re in a town centre, even if we’ve never been there before. The characteristics we’re so clued into probably include shop fronts and people, movement and bustle.

I am convinced we want to see shop-fronts and people on foot even if we come in by car. It’s psychological confirmation that it’s a town centre we’re in.

Becoming Howard Beale

Three things that made me mad at scrutiny last night

One – The Vision 2031 thing

What is this thing called Vision 2031? When did it become a thing? Why is it cited in every council report? Who is the author of 2031? Where is the 2031 documentation?

The council has never actually adopted Vision 2031, it’s a Trafford Partnership statement. The partnership is Trafford’s equivalent of the House of Lords, its Privy Council or its imperial court. It’s very white, and very Altrincham/Hale.

Whatever the partnership’s role, there’s no Vision 2031 document, just a page in its last annual report, yet it seems to have become a ubiquitous royal seal.

Last night’s first mention was in the ‘Leisure Strategy Update’:

An update on progress so far with the Leisure Strategy as a fundamental pillar of the Vision for 2031 and how it enables greater levels of physical activity. It covers progress on:

• Physical Activity Strategy
• Playing Pitch Strategy
• Leisure Centre Investment
• Trafford Leisure’s Physical Activity Referral Scheme

Normally this would not have been a controversial item but given the council’s capacity to mislead and inflame tensions over a whole series of recent sports related issues, it was never going to be an easy ride.

• Flixton Green Belt – William Wroe Municipal Golf
• George Carnall Sports Centre
• Stretford Sports Centre UA92
• Turn Moss

If you really wanted to undermine Trafford’s ability to support the wellbeing of its citizens, you’d look for the common thread in all these controversies and try to bottle it for reuse.

Two – Trafford can’t do the consultation thing

The Council’s leadership has unerring ability to turn its consultations into a dog’s breakfast

It takes a special sort of talent to attend a consultation event and suggest that people ought to be grateful. It takes a special array of talents to refuse a locality meeting to consider business and community opportunities for Old Trafford/Gorse Hill arising out of the UA92 campus on Talbot Road; and then publicise the chief executive’s presence in Cannes promoting a New Old Trafford.

The odd communication failure might be overlooked, but regardless of whether the thing being consulted upon is universally applauded or indescribably contemptible, Trafford always seems to manage to screw up the consultation in one way or another.

The fact that Vision 2031 talks about co-design and co-production is a joke when you look at the original Stretford Masterplan’s delivery of Edge Lane/Chester Road improvements for walking/cycling. We’ve just received plans for improvements to Davyhulme Road East/Chester Road less than a week before work is to commence. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s highways, social services or education, there really has to be an adherence and a commitment to effective consultation.

Three – Problems with the One Trafford Partnership are bringing the Council into disrepute

Twelve months ago, Scrutiny recommended that the quarterly key performance indicators be reported to the executive along with exceptions. We also recommended that problems the reporting system be rectified as a matter of urgency. Twelve months on and we’ve seen no progress.

• Twelve months ago you could report an overflowing litter bin, but the system would set something like a 21 day clearance target rather the 2 hr target specified in the contract. Today you can’t even report an overflowing litter bin via the Trafford online portal.
• In terms of waste collections, there’s no target for emptying your bin on the correct day but there is a target for emptying bins by noon on the next working day. This means that Gorse Hill’s Friday collection often gets missed, the bins left out and by Monday contaminated. There seems to have been no understanding of how the KPIs work in practice despite waste collection having been outsourced for a number of years
• Similarly, the council has constructed a contract that gives no incentive to Traffic Management Engineers to do very much apart from respond to planning applications. At a time when pretty much every agency is encouraging walking and cycling, there’s nothing in the KPIs to incentivise this. The fact that Moss Road Spar was able to install a parking bay utilising a pedestrian crossing with impunity (photo below) and for it still to be there a year later, just brings on my Howard Beale.

The council will have to implement the changes that were agreed with scrutiny at some point. This cannot go on for ever. Most people I speak to seem to think this will show the One Trafford Partnership as underperforming. I suspect that they’re wrong about underperformance, but right to believe the streets and parks have deteriorated beyond an acceptable level. It’s hard to fail a contract designed out of ideological dogma rather than in meeting the needs of the customer (us).

At that point I think we will all be opening our windows, looking down on our litter strewn streets and yelling at the top of our voices “WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”