Category: Weekly Updates

Nomination in – Campaigning begins

As we enter the election period, council meetings will become less frequent. So it’ll be a time to compare the records of the various parties in Trafford and give a verdict on this Conservative Government. I enjoy elections. Too many  issues affecting our day to day lives are taken by the non elected bureaucrats. Elections are an opportunity to challenge and empower. They  allow residents to make a statement on key issues affecting Trafford:

• Should we be giving away £21m to the cricket club from the sale of land owned in the common good and as a consequence allow a Tesco to be built which by general and judicial agreement, is vastly oversized for the location?
• And perhaps just as pertinently, even if the council sincerely believed the Tescos was appropriate, should it  have allowed itself to be so under the thumb of the cricket club, that any possibility of improvements  to community facilities were never in the frame?
• Shouldn’t the residents of Gorse Hill be right to expect improvements to the increasingly forlorn Stretford Sports Centre to come out of this “sports-led project” at the very least.Isn’t it an insult to suggest that the community will benefit, when all they’re getting as a direct improvement is school-access to the cricket outfield when convenient to the club.Has the cricket club been allowed too much lead in determining all aspects of the project? Did they have a track record of investing wisely and project control when they were one of most affluent clubs, for the council to play such a subservient role?

Trafford Council has an increasingly poor record in its major projects. Consider Urmston Town Centre (major delays and still not complete 5 years behind schedule), Altrincham Town Centre (one U-turn after another), Partington (shops closed  ready for development but no sign of further progress). Compare this record to Labour’s in Trafford – Imperial War Museum (world renown), Sale Waterside (bringing vitality to Sale) not to mention the regeneration projects, school improvements that enhanced Trafford during Labour’s terms of office. The contrast is damning of the Tories in Trafford.  If they can’t look after the underpinning structure of our towns, no amount of tickbox service measurements will ensure future generations a place to be proud of.

Monday (and Friday)

Attendance at days 2 and 3 of a five day training course in Manchester on councillors in the community. The course has come at useful time, giving a perfect opportunity to look at things I’ve done well in my first term of office and others that could be done better. It’s a non-political course and there’s members from the two main parties from Trafford and other boroughs in the region. Monday looked at leadership and empowerment, Friday covered negotiation, small scale projects and organisation.

Tuesday

Nomination papers submitted. And in the evening it was the West area Community Panel of Trafford Housing Trust. Not a great attendance for this meeting at Flixton House but it wasn’t a bad evening. We learned that estate walkabouts are now ‘on demand’ rather than a regular event as they have been up to now. In some ways this is better as we can focus on particular pertinent issues and ensure the right officers are there. We will also need to produce a needs assessment for the various neighbourhoods within West area (which includes most of Lostock, but stretches out to Partington).

Wednesday

The turn of the Stretford Community Panel which includes Gorse Hill and the Stretford parts of the ward. Very similar to previous night’s meeting, although better attended and we received a presentation from   Trafford’s Trading Standards.

iCAN (Consumer Alert Network) is a facility to alert members of the community to variouss scamsthat are taking place. It’s particularly useful in relation to non genuine doorstep callers. Anyone can sign up to it and it’s entirely free. You can choose how you want to be alerted. Text, email or telephone message.

Learn more by clicking  on the iCAN logo. The service is provided by Trafford.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Campaigning in earnest. Knocking on doors and talking to residents. And I went to see City v Sunderland. We’re waiting for delivery of semi final tickets but it’s looking increasingly likely we’re two of the unlucky ones to have them pinched from the post van. Ah well

. ..and for the record I don’t think Rooney should be suspended for swearing into the camera.

Computers!

I can’t believe how much problems I’m having with computers at the moment. I’m hit with a perfect storm of old PC packing up, new PC failing after a week and being returned to manufacturer, Virgin Media revamping their webmail and hiding all my emails; and now the PC is returned from its maker having all the appearance of having been sat on by an elephant. What was a square is now more like a kite. A keen salesman might try to describe it as having a go-faster shape, except it is completely dead – like the parrot.

You don’t realise how much the modern councillor relies on computers until you try living without one or making do with a tiny laptop. Still life goes on, even if I’m struggling to pass on emails and updates to the wider membership (one of my roles). And I’m unable to print anything. Still that’s enough complaining.

Monday

Meeting of Gorse Hill Action Group – They are preparing for the Gorse Hill funday on 1st May. This is a double bank holiday weekend with the Royal Wedding on the Friday. They’ve collared me to be a marshall at the fun day. Glad to help

Apologies to colleagues on the shadow executive as unable to attend the council’s executive that night due to prior-commitment to Gorse Hill. The main item was the funding formula. Government cuts are going to reduce the amount going to schools. It’s an absolutely barmy decision from the government – unless we can encourage growth and creativity we’ll be entering a downward spiral of slowing economy and the debt taking up an ever bigger proportion of a reducing GDP. Schools, universities and colleges should be the last to be cut. The more this Government gets it wrong, the more stubborn Cameron, Osborne and Clegg become.

The damage that these ‘ex-special advisors’ are doing has to raise the question as to whether the public will tolerate this route to Government any longer.

Wednesday

Budget Day – see earlier post

Barton Bio Mass Presentation -Very interesting talk over the existing air quality around the motorway. This to me is the most powerful argument against the proposed incinerator. We’re already subjected to excessive pollution and we should be reducing that before we allow further emissions.

Friday

Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority Meeting

The item taking up most time was the Trans Pennine Trail between Stretford and Stockport. The Didsbury section is having to be diverted over an embankment via steps. As this is a cycling /walking route, this solution is not appropriate. The ‘Love your Bike’ group have proposed an alternative route via the banks of the Mersey and this may be feasible. The Labour councillors rightly called upon the costs of the local path on the original route to be reviewed as the report suggested £800,000 for ramps. None of us were convinced that this was the lowest cost of giving local people an accessible route through Parrs Wood. It’s too easy for costs to inflate unless there’s a will to drive them down.

Of nuclear power, global intervention and the Mayor’s Civic Reception

Monday

It happens to the best of us. A diary malfunction led to me missing Friends of Lostock Park AGM. I originally wasn’t going to be able to make it due to a group meeting, but I failed to put it back in the diary when the group meeting was cancelled. Humble apologies and are required. The Friends of Lostock Park have been hugely successful in sprucing up the park and bringing in much needed enhanced facilities. I’m led to believe that winter has been cruel to the hugely successful skateboard bowl and it’s in need of some tender care, I will progrees with Groundforce Officers.

Like most people I’ve been so shocked and saddened by the events in Japan and Libya. It’s impossible not to be in awa of the nuclear workers fighting the potenential meltdown of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The amount of radiation they’re knowingly subjecting themselves to is a heroic sacrifice. The disaster has led many to re-evaluate the benefits of nuclear power. This is not an easy time to support it. Nevertheless despite all that’s happened, I do still support the use of nuclear energy generation. As a country we have to meet our energy needs and I’m not convinced we can do this without nuclear power stations contributing to that power generation. We should continue to explore Green Energy generation where we can and I’ve never bought into the idea that windfarms despoil our landscape. No doubt the Dutch intelligentsia protested about windmills ruining the views over Holland in the 17th Century. The landscape changes with time and I for one think windfarms enhance the skyline. And I am much more concerned by the emissions from incinerators and coal fired power stations than I am by nuclear power. Clearly building on a seismic fault line is problematic but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that our reliance on coal, gas and oil also puts many workers at risk and probably more so.

I’m far less sanguine over Libya and I’m extremely reluctant to put British servicemen into another conflict. If we do have to play a part, it should only to avert immediate slaughter. I am far from optimistic that our intervention will be of long term benefit. It’s far too easy to believe that we can fix every nation’s problems. Too often we make things worse.

Tuesday

Overview and Scrutiny Core Committee

Just two substantial items on the agenda.

• Update on the Temporary Closure of the Walk-in Centre at Trafford General Hospital
• Trafford Healthcare Trust’s Acquistion Project

The Walk-in centre is a ‘no appointment necessary’ GP practice based at Trafford General Hospital. In December it proved necessary to close the centre due to the accommodation being insufficient to cope with the huge demand. The Chief Executive of Trafford’s Primary Care Trust, Graham Wallis and Medical Director, Dr George Kissen subjected themselves to the committee’s enquiry into how this happened. Clearly this is not the most glorious episode in the trust’s history and to be fair the third party in this story is the Heathcare Trust as the effective landlord of the Walk-in Centre was not called upon to explain the situation.

It was clear that lessons had been learned. I sensed that the lessons I took from the review were different from my colleagues on the committee. It’s clear to me that there is demand for immediate access to a GP and people are prepared sometimes to travel across Trafford to get that access. But nevertheless the nearer one was to the Walk-in Centre, the more likely one was going to use it. There’s two ways of looking at this, either people further away were being denied the service and were reluctantly choosing to put up with pain or worry and wait for an appointment with their own GP rather than travel to Trafford General, or those close to the service were casually choosing to use it. I tend primarily to the first explanation; and that there’s a real need for better access locally. We still haven’t reached a position where access to a GP is easy, convenient and where necessary, immediate. I believe tha fact that those close to Trafford General Hospital were using the Walk-in Centre in such numbers, suggests that as well as ensuring the accommodation is appropriate, we should be committed to getting better access throughout Trafford

The Acquisition Project continues to be a source of unavoidable concern. We know that the three trusts being looked at to effectively take over Trafford are Central Manchester University Hospitals (which runs the MRI), University Hospital of South Manchester (which runs Wythenshawe) and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust (Hope Hospital). We did receive assurance that there’s no question of splitting Trafford Healthcare Trust up so Trafford General goes one way and Altrincham General goes another. Trafford describes it as an ‘As is’ package. It’s not ideal and whilst the Trust has gone to great lengths to keep providers and patient groups involved, we’re definitely into uncertain times. I’m reluctant to enter into any ‘Save our Trust’ campaign at this stage as there would be definite advantages in being part of a bigger entity; better quality recruitment plus economies of scale. But we’re into the unknown and we need to keep a close scrutiny of the progress.

Wednesday

Spent all day at a training course designed at helping councillors in their work with the community. I’ve still got four more units to go through so we’ll see how it goes.

Thursday

Agh!! My computer has died… This is really slowing me down

Friday

Computer problems continue… But attended policy Committee of Greater Manchester Transport Authority. The authority members have been inundated with complaints over Metrolink’s decision to provide a crossing with steps for users of the Trans Pennine Trail. The Trail continues from Merseyside to Hull to provide a long distance recreational cycling route and we place a bridge with steps. We’re expecting a report from Metrolink next week but the issue will prove a test of how accountable or not Metrolink is to the authority and users within Greater Manchester. Interestingly, the development is not subject to planning permission as it is of strategic merit. I’m sure it was never the intention of Government that this meant the needs of residents could be completely ignored for the financial good of ‘the project’. It is one thing to say we need to get these large projects delivered without years of delay, it is another to say that means developers can ignore all other considerations.

In the evening I attended the a civic reception hosted by Ken Weston, Mayor of Trafford. Ken has grown into the role. He’s clearly enjoyed the experience and all credit to him. It looks exhausting. I can also think of a thousand other reasons why you’ll never catch me wanting to be mayor. Each to their own. We’re all different; there’s some that love every minute of being mayor but I’d rather avoid it completely.

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

Capital Project Meeting – Reports

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.

Local Transport Plan Consultation Pages

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.