From the Canal to Sevenways

Category: Housing

  • Le Tour de Barton

    Le Tour de Barton

    A trip around the ward to check out what’s happening

    Kellogg’s Closure

    Although the Kellogg’s factory is just outside the ward boundary, the warehouse and loading bays are ours. There’s a perceptible slowing down of activity on the site. It’s rare to encounter an incoming HGV on Park Road now. Landscape maintenance has lost its edge. It’s sad seeing the slowdown. Manufacture might continue for a few more years, but the focus is shifting to what happens next. The land remains allocated for industry in Trafford’s strategic plan. We’ll have to see if that changes. I’ve not heard any discussions. These are quite large parcels of land and there may be more than one solution.

    Barton Dock Road and underpass

    I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a cycleway down Barton Dock Road. It was there when Massey Ferguson was there. It might even go back to the war. Trafford Park has always had a lot of workers travelling by bike. So it’s sad to see parts getting overgrown. I’m going to try to get Amey to attend to it.

    For some reason, the underpass is decked with Red Bull cans, dozens of them. We have had some rough sleeping there in the past. It might be happening again although there was no obvious sign of bedding, just the empty cans. I’ve reported.

    Surf Centre and Therme

    There are no visible signs of life at either of the two proposed water-based projects on Barton Dock Road although, by coincidence, new planning applications have come in both for Therme and the site of the Surf Centre. I suspect the surf centre is only one of many options for that site, but I’d love both Therme and the Surf Centre to happen!

    Link to latest Therme planning application

    Link to latest Surf Centre site application

    Asda Crossing

    There’s been some bad press lately for the company. They’re slipping down the Supermarket popularity charts. Having said that, the Trafford Park store tends to be my supermarket of choice largely because it’s so accessible by bike. I just wish they’d improve their bike parking. If you’re blessed with a segregated cycling route all the way to your front door, make the most of it, get rid of the wheel bender brackets and install some proper stands! Please!

    That crossing outside Asda that links to the Trafford Centre needs to be more responsive to allow the crowds to cross. It’s an incredibly long wait for the lights to change even when the traffic is barely moving. The Bee Network is improving crossings across GM. I’m asking them to look at the Asda crossing.

    Bee Network Publicity 31st August 2024

    Church of All Saints, Barton on Irwell, Barton Swing Aqueduct and their joint Conservation Area

    Note: All the interior photos are from the Greyfriars website

    The church is Trafford’s only Grade 1 listed building north of the River Mersey. We’ve got a small number of Grade 1s in around Dunham Park and Hale, but nothing as highly regarded as this up here.

    Nikolaus Pevsner described the church as (Edward) Pugin’s masterpiece. It sits with Barton Swing Aqueduct (listed class 2 + star) in its own conservation area. You would not know it. The area opposite is a dumping ground for old fridges and mattresses and the swing bridge is looking unloved.

    According to April’s ‘Tablet’, the Greyfriars who are the current custodians of the church are moving on. I want to engage with Trafford’s heritage officers to prioritise this conservation area.

    I also want to visit the church and attend a service there. Definitely on my to-do list.

    Trafford Centre Premier Inn

    An application has been submitted to demolish the former premier inn next to the motorway (not to be confused with the one on Trafford Boulevard). This one has been empty for a few years.

  • AI puts the mystery back into doing the Councillor thing

    AI puts the mystery back into doing the Councillor thing

    As I strolled through the streets of this typical neighbourhood, an inexplicable feeling tugged at the back of my mind. It was as if there were a hushed emptiness lingering in the air, whispering secrets that went unnoticed by most. I couldn’t shake off the sense that there were more vacant houses than usual, their windows peering into an abyss of abandonment. Curiosity drove me to investigate further, and with an insatiable urge, I delved into the realm of statistics. What I discovered both startled and confirmed my suspicions. The data reflected a stark reality, substantiating my intuitive perception: the number of empty houses had indeed risen significantly. The numbers, like silent witnesses, silently echoed the story that my senses had perceived, unravelling a tale of shifting tides and changing landscapes in our community.

    I couldn’t find the words so I asked ChatGPT to ‘write me a paragraph on sensing that there were more empty houses than usual and finding that the statistics were backing me up’. I know it’s not the best-crafted instruction that’s ever been written, but I love what AI came up with. It’s a lot better than noticing on a leaflet-round that it’s the third seemingly long-term empty house that you’ve come across, and then picking up on similar instances on your next round.

    It was the Friends of Carrington Moss people who serendipitously supplied some statistics that pointed to it being much more than a coincidence.

    I don’t want to be drawn into the debate about whether Carrington Moss should be built on, or at least not in this instance. However, I do want to focus on the figures. They’re telling us that the extra homes we’re building are not providing the extra number of households we would expect. This is not due to demolition as we’re using a net additional dwellings figure. It might include some that are in the process of being emptied as is currently happening at Circle Court. I can’t think of anything major in 2021 that would account for Trafford’s figures, but they’re the worst. There’ll be some that have become Airbnb and similar. My instinct says the amount becoming Airbnb is nowhere near these figures but the number of empty homes could be a major factor.

    The council will have figures on empty properties. I am hoping they are equally high. We’ll see, but it seems definitely worth pursuing.

  • It looks like a busy meeting of Trafford’s Executive next Monday

    It looks like a busy meeting of Trafford’s Executive next Monday

    It seems to be a packed agenda for Monday’s meeting. It’s here that we get the best insight as to how the council is working. There’s a few initiatives reaching report stage and a few projects that are beginning to get going.

    Agenda

    • Greening Trafford Park and Low Carbon Trafford Park Studies
    • Leisure Investment – Levelling up Partington Sports Village
    • Trafford Moving Refresh
    • Walking, Wheeling and Cycling Strategy
    • Better Care Fund
    • Section 75 Agreement with MFT
    • 10 Year Estates Strategy
    • Altrincham Town Hall
    • Supported Housing Strategy
    • BAME Terminolology
    • Budget Monitoring

    Highlights

    Trafford Supported Housing Strategy

    This is probably the most important item on the agenda. For the first time, supported housing gets its own strategy rather lost within the wider housing provision.

    Trafford’s need in this area is stark.

    • Trafford has a greater mortality rate for those aged under 75 years with mental health needs compared to its nine nearest statistical neighbours.
    • Hospital admissions connected to self-harm in the most deprived ward of Trafford is
      43% higher than the national average
      .
    • The recorded prevalence of depression has increased by 6.4% since 2013/14

    Trafford’s mortality rate for those with mental health needs is shocking. Trafford hospitals have the highest ‘length of stay’ rate compared with the rest of Greater Manchester. Lack of suitable accommodation is one driving factor for this.

    The vision:

    Work collaboratively to provide a range of quality supported housing, and housing related support, to enable those with support needs to live independently in Trafford.

    The Strategy contains a breakdown of supported housing need, current provision, future provision, and strategic objectives relating to each of the following need groups:

    • Domestic Abuse
    • Ex-offenders
    • Learning disabilities and Autism
    • Mental Health
    • Physical and Sensory Disabilities
    • Substance Misuse
    • Young People
    • Complex Needs

    It’s easy to see that under-provision in this area triggers excess demand in so many of our services, particularly health and policing.

    Greening Trafford Park and Low Carbon Trafford Park Studies

    These two studies have been heavily promoted throughout the investigations into the potential for a cleaner – greener Trafford Park. There’s some big ticket items that will require regional and national interventions. However there is smaller stuff that could be progressed quickly, but is really dependent:

    • on the Council and agencies grasping the report findings and building it into maintenance and uplift strategies for Trafford Park. Pavements are too narrow, bus stops low quality for example – when the council is working on an area, it should not be looking at how it can be left in a better state
    • on a Business Improvement District for Trafford Park – this is a key thrust – Hopefully it will fare better than the Trafford Park Business Neighbourhood which never really took off.

    We’ll have to see whether the Executive ‘owns’ this report and commits to key target setting or just welcomes the content. The reports are worthwhile on common energy generation and other matters. I think though that it requires a lot more commitment than provided for in the Executive submission.

    Trafford Moving

    The vision of Trafford Moving is to enable residents in Trafford to move more every day, by enabling more opportunities for residents to be active and to help people sustain this activity as part of their everyday lives, which will lead to a reduction in health inequalities in Trafford.

    That’s a tough nut to crack and the people that need most encouragement are both hard to reach and possibly don’t realise they should increase physical activity. However, there is hope with the report below.

    Trafford Walking, Wheeling and Cycling Strategy

    The overall goal is that over the next 10 years

    • 90% of journeys under 1 mile will be taken by foot or wheels
      equipment
    • 80% of journeys under 5 miles will be taken by foot or wheels
      equipment.

    That’s an ambitious target that would really go a long way to meeting the Trafford Moving policy at the same time. We’ve seen such a massive improvement since Aidan Williams became the Executive Lead. He’s not yet been in post 12 months but he’s made such a difference.

    Watching the Executive

    You can watch meetings of the council either live or a recording the next day. I tend to watch later so I can fast forward to get to the bits I’m interested in. The council has a YouTube channel

    https://www.youtube.com/@traffordcouncilmeetings8327

  • Canvassing Kingsway Park

    Canvassing Kingsway Park

    Things I heard:

    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.


  • Addressing the broken housing market

    Addressing the broken housing market

    I chaired a good meeting last night looking at social housing within Trafford. It was a meeting I was quite keen to have. I think a lot of us had picked up on a perfect storm affecting people hoping to set up home in Trafford. Inflated house prices, a dysfunctional private rented sector and a social housing sector growing ever more distant from their tenants and the greater community of Trafford are creating real hardships. We’re all too aware of how difficult it is to get good quality accommodation with a landlord committed to ensuring their properties remain decent places to live. High rents mean it’s very difficult to save sufficient deposits. No-fault evictions mean tenants are forced to leave properties at the whim of their landlord in order to put up rents or to sell at inflated prices. The cost of moving at such short notice further erodes any chances to save. It is a broken housing market.

    I wanted the meeting to look at the extent the Council can intervene. Frustratingly, the obvious solution of delivering old-fashioned council houses seems bedevilled with insurmountable obstacles. In order to provide council houses, the Council would have to borrow with the expectation of generating income from rent or sale. Right-to-buy automatic discounts of up to £85,000 make it impossible to recoup the investment. Trafford currently is such a high demand area, we’d never be able to build up sufficient stock to make it viable.

    We know Thatcher aspired to a home-owning democracy. However, inflated house prices partly generated by the private rented sector those over-generous discounts have crushed that aspiration and we have got huge disparities between the ages. We have a problem with few tools at our disposal to alleviate the impact.

    I think there’s a sense in Trafford that nationally, Labour can’t ignore this problem any longer. Labour is the only party that can hope to reset the housing market and it’s blindingly obvious that council housing has to be part of the mix. We need to shout about it more than we are doing. Economically it has a hugely detrimental effect on our cities.

    Meanwhile, we need to call out Housing Associations. They need to deliver on those core values that provide their charitable status. Clearly, the Mayor’s focus to now has been on planning where development can take place. It’s now time to shift the focus onto tenure and tackling exploitative rents.

    A good little meeting (40 mins) but with a real focus on tackling the inequities of housing. We haven’t got all the tools we need but at least we’ve brought it back to the fore of thinking.