Category: Blog

Unsung Hero Awards 2011: Voted champions of Lostock

Advertiser Story

A get-together organised by two teenage boys is more than just a quiz night for its elderly attendees.

It’s a chance to get out of the house and make friends.

Luke Winstanley and Edward Howells have been nominated for the monthly night they organise at Lostock Youth Club.

The boys were nominated by Maureen Reilly, chairwoman of Lostock Partnership, who said: “Many of the older people say that they feel lonely and isolated and Luke and Edward felt that they would like to make a difference.

“They decided to hold a monthly quiz night in the youth centre and applied for a grant to fund this.

“They then publicised the quiz nights and encouraged three younger members to help them at the quizzes. Between them they produced quiz sheets, bought refreshments and prizes and recruited a DJ.

“The quiz nights have really attracted older people and are getting more and more popular.”

Luke, 17, of Mount Drive, Urmston and Edward, 15, of Barton Road, Stretford, also work as youth leaders and encourage other teenagers to undertake voluntary work.

Maureen added: “Both these young men deserve recognition for the excellent voluntary work that they do which is always done with a smile and good nature.”

 

We’re due to debate a motion at Council tonight on HS2. Both Conservatives and Labour have submitted motions in support. We’ll probably remit the Labour motion that I drafted to avoid duplication. I was interested in the Westminster Hall debate that took place this very morning. I think the arguments in favour of HS2 are irrefutable.

Hitachi Rail, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s Manchester Evening News Story on the Battle to stop Trafford General Hospital being sold to private sector should surely ring alarm bells for all citizens of Trafford. We’ve all seen the shocking lowering of standards and treatment meted out at Winterbourne View, a private run hospital for adults with learning difficulties. The treatment has been described as torture.

It’s scandalous that private companies are hovering like vultures to take over Trafford General, the birthplace of the NHS. We hear that Circle Healthcare with its Hedge Fund backers are waiting to see whether the moves to have Trafford Healthcare Trust taken over by a neighbouring trust can materialise. The problem is that they would also be taking on Trafford’s £8m debt.

There is a serious threat that a private company will be the only willing provider. I’m appalled at the deafening silence emanating from Trafford’s Conservative Council. It’s shocking that Park Hospital could be handed over to these City Spivs. We have to stand up for Trafford.

Labour is leading the campaign to save Trafford General. Councillor Jo Harding is co-ordinating with Kate Green to hold a meeting on 30th June at Urmston Library (although I think this will be too small) to listen to residents and stakeholders.

Andrew Lansley should be putting a stop to any possiblity that any NHS hospital will be run by private companies. Let’s put a stop to this madness

Link to Manchester Evening News Item in Photo

I was really pleased to see this press release from the Local Government Association.

Councils back call for greater involvement in railways

LGA Media Release – 23 May 2011

Responding to the McNulty report’s call for local authorities to have more involvement in rail franchises, Cllr Peter Box, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board, said:

“The LGA has consistently campaigned for greater involvement of councils in decisions about the new rail franchises and it is very pleasing to see this sensible and necessary reform recommended by the McNulty report. We hope the Government will now put this recommendation into action.

“The report recognises that many of the problems with our rail network arise from decisions being taken centrally without the engagement of the passengers, residents and businesses, who will be affected by them most.

“If we are to have a railway that is fit for the future, we need it to operate more efficiently, we need to target investment to where it is most needed and we need to find new ways of raising that investment. More local accountability, and a stronger role for councils, is crucial to all three.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS
1 The McNulty report on the future of railways recommends: “greater localism with more involvement in England of local authorities and/or PTEs, with local decision-making brought more closely together with budget responsibility and accountability.

2 The independent report was commissioned by the Transport Secretary to examine opportunities to improve the value for money of GB rail for taxpayers, passengers and freight customers. The full report can be found here: Realising the potential for Rail

Finally,

We are not getting the local service we need along our railway and that hinders our town centres and employment. The obvious advantage of bringing Trafford into franchise talks is the ‘What are you going to provide locally?” question

Kate Green publishes a weekly blog at www.kategreen.org

Here’s her latest update

This was the week in parliament when the cracks between the Tories and the LibDems really began to show. Tory gloating following last week’s truly terrible election results for the LibDems has blown apart the love-in between the two parties. Clegg might be trying to reassert his party’s independence, claiming he’s halting the NHS changes and will be standing up to Cameron in future, but it rings pretty hollow. I wouldn’t now like to guess whether the coalition government will go the full 5 years.

Labour MPs, myself included have been taking advantage to cause as much upset as possible between the two parties. When David Willets produced his outrageous plans for rich students to buy their way into university, Labour MPs wanted to know what the fair access adviser, LibDem Simon Hughes, thought of the idea? I went into the chamber to ask Willets why he was wasting time and energy on projects for the privileged when the Aim Higher programme, which has helped dozens of students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for university in Trafford, will run out of funding in October this year.

The LibDems were all over the place on the welfare reform bill this week too. Jenny Willott, LibDem MP for Cardiff Central, proposed an amendment to the government plans to cut disability benefits. But when Labour MPs on the committee demanded a vote, amazingly she voted against her own amendment! The LibDems really need to work out whose side they’re on.

Disability’s been a big issue in Westminster this week . On Wednesday, together with other MPs on the work and pensions select committee, I listened to evidence about the future of Remploy, which provides supported and sheltered employment for disabled people. This is a very difficult and sensitive issue: many disabled people would prefer to work in the mainstream labour market, but there are still around 3,000 workers in Remploy sheltered factories and they’re very worried about the future as the organisation has just announced hundreds of redundancies. With jobs so hard to come by, I don’t think this is the time to be reducing employment support for the most profoundly disabled people the government’s announced an independent review of Remploy, due to report this summer, and I can’t understand why the redundancies have been announced before the findings from that review are available .

Wednesday also saw more than 5,000 disabled people, their friends, families and supporters join a demonstration outside parliament to protest about the government’s cuts. I was sorry that the cost of the fares meant it wasn’t possible for Trafford campaigners to attend, but the demonstration was a powerful indication of disabled people’s anger and concern at the government’s actions, and this is an issue I certainly intend to keep working on. I raised a number of issues in relation to support for disabled children in the welfare reform bill committee this week.

And Wednesday was an exciting day for me for another reason a night out on the town with the class of 2010. It’s just a year since we were all first elected to parliament, and we thought we ought to celebrate we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone! It has been a privilege to serve as your MP in my first 12 months in parliament, and I very much look forward to continuing to speak out for you in the year ahead.

Firstly, thank you for voting me as your councillor for a second term. I’m chuffed to bits to have got so much support; it’s a huge privilege.

Overall it was an ‘ok’ night in Trafford for Labour without making a massive breakthrough in seats. We just gained the extra seat in Urmston.

Labour’s Broadheath campaign in Altrincham is the one that made everyone sit up and take notice. There we campaigned in a much more community based fashion. It was certainly the most enjoyable campaign and we closed the gap right down to 120 votes.

On the whole though Trafford’s results were very much in line with the national english picture, with the Lib Dem vote collapsing. I’m struggling to see a future for the Lib Dems. Their ability to be all things at once and point in opposing directions at the same time has become a fatal liability.

So, it’s easy to see why the Conservatives are pleased both nationally and locally with these results. The saving grace for Labour is that were we to make the same advance in votes next year, the seats would fall like apples in a gale. But we have to make that advance. Is that through more leaflets, more doorstep conversations or is it a question of waiting for the cuts to bite? I don’t want us to be complacent. We need to be the party for economic growth, and I’m not sure that the Islington set of Guardian writers really get it yet.

On a last note, once again the organisation of the count was frankly embarassing for Trafford, just as it was last year. It’s not fair on the staff, candidates or press that 4 hours after Sunderland is declared, we are just about to begin.

Gorse Hill

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Michael Cordingley*	1,787	67.8	−9.8
	Conservative	Samuel Martin	515	19.5	−3.6
	Green	Philip Leape	198	7.5	−4.2
	Liberal Democrats	Renee Matthews	137	5.2	−2.0
Majority			1,272	48.3
Turnout			2,637	32.9	+4.1