Community Health Services Update (This follows the decision by Pennine Care Trust to surrender its contract here in Trafford). The previous Tory regime left Trafford with a mess and this is just one of those legacy issues we’re having to get to the bottom of.
Tuesday
Budget Scrutiny looking at Children’s and Adult Services.
Wednesday
Pupil Disciplinary Committee at Lostock
Thursday
Budget Scrutiny looking at risk and ability to deliver services to budget. We were meant to receive our final spending settlement from government but the Brexit mess in parliament meant it was cancelled. Government business is increasingly grinding to a halt. I don’t know the answer – there seems to be an inability in parliament to end its game playing and self preening. Parliament needs a refresh from the speaker downwards.
Issues raised included George Carnall, leaf clearing, potholes and road resurfacing. My sense is that voters are willing to give Trafford Labour more time and appreciate that only Labour is willing to listen.
Sunday
Growing ever more frustrated with parliament and the inability of the parties there to deal with Brexit. The nonsense coming out of mouths on the various front-benches is shocking. Those who pronounce proudly and authoritatively that there’s no parliamentary majority for ‘no deal’ miss the point that ‘no deal’ is not a thing to support, it’s the absence of a thing to support. Brexit will not deliver the Transitional Program beloved of 2nd rate university staff-rooms. If mainstream politics is collapsing in on itself, we all suffer.
Monday
Council Executive, plus various briefings; a really worthwhile day. Looking forward to the arrival of Sara Todd as Trafford’s new chief executive. Hearing only good things about Sara. I believe she has a background in planning but respected across the board.
Tuesday
Debate over Trafford’s civic quarter masterplan continues. Some are missing the point that masterplans are roughly 80% about what should not be built in a place and about 20% in communicating a vision about how what can be built might link together. There are some who argue that that the civic quarter masterplan should be scrapped; perversely because they don’t want any development.
Wednesday
Full council meeting: big item is the Breaking Point motion. The £1.6bn cut to next year’s local government funding must be reversed. Whilst it’s a Labour campaign, only Trafford’s Tories failed to support the motion. The cuts to local government are an act of safe harm. No area of public spending is more important for the general welfare of the country. More cuts to street cleansing, social care, support for families, bins and we’re seeing crime rise, filthy streets, grids that no longer drain. The vitality of the country is fundamentally weakened by this ill-conceived policy. Time to reverse the harm they’ve imposed on us.
Thursday
Caught up on the outcomes of the previous evening’s public meeting in Old Trafford regarding the private car park on Seymour Grove. Lots of constituents have received tickets for legitimate parking to shop at Iceland and Superdrug and then followed up with very aggressive fines.
The two people I’ve been supporting through this had attended and it was good to hear it had gone well.
Invited by my good friend Bernard Sharp to attend the synagogue for their remembrance. Great to see such a large civic turnout for such a poignant event. It’s quite a cycle to Bowdon but thoroughly worthwhile for such a nicely balanced service which started with laments and ended with Happy Birthday.
Sunday 11th November
Civic Remembrance
Really well attended civic remembrance parade at Stretford Cenotaph. I’m always uncomfortable as a councillor on these days; my predecessors were after all, the recruiting sergeants for such a tragic loss of life in the Great War. Young men sent for sacrifice in a war between empires. The Peter Jackson film ‘They shall not grow old” shown in the evening was just so moving and presented real-life footage of the appalling circumstances we placed those boys in. Just awful.
We will remember them.
Monday 12th November
Caught up with emails after a busy few days. We’d had a carpet fitted on the Friday so everything had been squeezed into one room.
Attended the Town Hall in the evening for briefings.
Oh and went to see the gasometers.
Tuesday 13th November
Really informative presentation from the Trafford Assist team. I used to work in Social Security. This would have been called urgent payments, then social fund. What really impressed me today was the extent to which the staff were empowered to look at the cause. We still don’t put enough money into welfare; it’s very much the manifestation of a civilised society but they’re a great team and I was really impressed.
Wednesday 14th November
Distracted by Brexit. What a mess. Seems fitting that this was the week we commemorated the loss of life in the Great War. That was probably the last time we had such a pathetic elite in the centres of Europe. Is there anybody in London or Brussels, Government or Opposition, who realises the enormity of this car crash? Do they not realise that actually people expect their representatives to be working for solutions, not this daytime gameshow disaster piece set on repeat?
Anybody not swearing at the news this week has my absolute respect. I didn’t manage it.
Thursday 15th November
Escape to sanity. Afternoon stint volunteering in Lostock Library and then a really positive meeting of Lostock College Governors.
Friday 16th November
And a delightful meeting at Stretford High meeting Mrs Brindley, the school’s deputy head to tell her about our ambition to have more children walking and cycling to school. It looks like it’s something we can work together on, particularly with the civic quarter being on their doorstep.
Because Stretford High School is so popular, it means the catchment is relatively small. It has a huge proportion of it’s pupils travelling less than a mile. Yet so many of those kids are driven into school. Lindsay pointed out the irony of encouraging a daily mile once they’re in school when the journey into school could be made part of the day. That said, there are reasons why families prefer to drive their kids to school and mostly it’s not the school, so we have to bring other agencies (highways, police, mosques etc) into it. But it seems such an appropriate time to be doing this; and it should be a measure of the success of the civic quarter that more Stretford High School pupils are walking and cycling to school.
Had a week off so shouldn’t be a great deal to report. However it was budget executive which meant I had to break away from decorating for a day to prepare my presentation on Monday night.
The annual Autumn Budget executive is the first publish of a process that begins much earlier to determine income and expenditure for the coming financial year. It’s not an easy task for any of us. Local Government has taken the brunt of austerity since the global meltdown.
In 2010 central Government funded 57% of council’s non-school services. In 2019 61% will come from our domestic council tax and 39% from all other sources including fees.
The actual amount that the council has to spend hasn’t changed hugely since 2010. It was £160m in 2010, and I’m proposing £167m for 2019/20.
The big change is the demand on services. In 2010, we budgeted £52m for Adult Social Care. For next year I’m allocating £61m. Leaving aside adult social care, Trafford’s spending is significantly down on 2010 before we even look at inflation.
So despite the increases in council tax, there’s less money going to the things that people generally associate with councils in their daily lives; street cleaning, parks etc. And that’s a problem!
As a socialist, I want to provide Sure Start and youth services, I want our neighbourhoods to be clean and safe. Theresa May laughingly says austerity is over when we can see with our own eyes that it’s not.
I think it’s clear that whoever is in government, Trafford is unlikely to receive a windfall. We are comparatively affluent as a borough, and many other councils have far greater numbers of people living in absolute poverty. I hope that we do see changes in council tax though. It is out of kilter with the increase in property values in overheated areas.
For the time being though the more pressing task is getting the budget to balance.
Live Issues
Bin at Stretford Marina – not being emptied as it’s not a Trafford bin. Liaising with Bridgewater Canal and its property management arm.
HGVs cutting across residential areas to try to reach Trafford Park. Pressing for improved signage
Speed control on Park Road – pressing for speed camera installation. Speeding out of hand.
Reinstatement of bins at bus stops in Gorse Hill, pressing Amey
Constituent’s enquiry over recycling of tetrapaks
Litter left by footballers on Barton Clough fields – liaise with Urmston Town
Chase the missing urinals from United home games (particularly Rugby)
Civic Quarter Masterplan – engage with residents concerns and support.
Follow up on resident’s call for planning specification on dropped kerbs for buggies and mobility scooters in new development. Stretford Marina cited.
Follow up on resident’s (separate to above) call for improvements to pavements in Lostock area for mobility scooters and buggies. Broken flags and lack of dropped kerbs cited.
Follow up on exterior lighting at Circle Court
Follow up on street lighting issues at Tenax Circle in Trafford Park (may have been attended to)
Trafford Council’s Budget Meeting 2016
The most important council meeting of the year. It’s by far the most unpleasant meeting of the year too.
I don’t need a reminder that we in Labour failed to convince voters we should gain control in Trafford last year, but fail we did; and this, the consequence, a Tory council with free reign to pull whatever its remaining spending choices towards Altrincham and Hale.
Power within the Conservative group is concentrated with the leader, deputy-leader, finance and most of the influence coming from the Hale – Bowdon – Altrincham axis. Hale gets its brand new library whilst Davyhulme loses theirs. Some Conservatives are given the keys to spending, whilst others make do with a Christmas card from Cameron.
That’s the Conservative way.
And the Conservative way is replicated all the way to the top. When it came to the Government helping out councils, it chose a method that benefitted councils who’d suffered the least in the years of austerity. Surrey gets the largest single amount, at £24m, followed by Hampshire (£19m), Hertfordshire (£16m), Essex (£14m), West Sussex (£12m), Kent (£11m), Buckinghamshire (£9m) and Oxfordshire (£9m). You couldn’t make it up. A scheme that rewarded councils for the most billionaire’s mansions within their domains wouldn’t be that dissimilar a list.
Trafford gets the relatively pitiful transitional £0.5m for 2016/17, but it’s still more than any other council in Greater Manchester apart from Stockport. If it feels like Trafford is being patronised by Tories from the Shires, blessed with more moats than foodbanks, it should feel that way.
So the Tories have ripped us over again. We’re left with a budget gap of £22.6m. They’re imposing the Osborne Tax to raise £1.6m. They’re not increasing base council tax even if the Government expects them to. Much of the savings will be invisible to many but grim and confusing to a few. We’ve seen an illustration of this with the home to school transport for young people with special needs attending Brentwood school. The parents and children were protesting last night, as was famous guitarist, Johnny Marr. You can’t make these sorts of savings without hurting people or communities. I think people get this now.
We in the Labour Party have a responsibility to take the battle to the Tories. We need to be winning seats.
Morning meeting in Leyland Lancs for Strategic Scrutiny Network setting agenda for next full meeting. Just up the road from Croston badly hit by floods – puts perspective on some of our issues.
Locality Partnership in the evening. I got a lot of out of meeting and feeling energised.
Wednesday
Meeting at Cricket Club re Youth activities with Laurence Walsh at lunchtime. Full Council meeting in the evening. My least favourite meeting of the month and this one was particularly bad.
Thursday
Scrutiny Task Group in the morning, Library Volunteering in the afternoon and Gorgeous Gorse Hill AGM in the evening. The Gorgeous Gorse Hill meeting was my highlight of the week. The inspiration for new things just keeps coming and their pinterest page is well worth looking at.
Friday
Economic Growth meeting – Trafford is blessed with some really good officers in Economic Growth and it's always a pleasure to sit with them. I'd really like them to take more account of public transport, but I'm afraid that the Conservatives see this as something not for them. I've posted the following quote before, but it's worth repeating:
An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.
Enrique Peñalosa, Former Mayor of Bogata
Saturday
Two sessions of canvassing in Urmston. Reports of Labour's demise are somewhat premature.
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