Tuesday night was the regular meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership. This is the meeting that brings together your local councillors, key partners like the police, fire and NHS and appointed community representatives. The meeting, which took place in Sedgley Park School on King’s Road, was also very well attended by members of the public.

A number of important issues were considered:

Grants

The Local Area Partnership is given some relatively small amounts of money to grant to local groups and projects. As this was the last meeting of the year a large number of grants were considered by the meeting which I’ve listed in a separate posting below. The variety of the bids and projects was really impressive this year - its excellent that the Area Partnership can support so many excellent community initiatives.

Three of the largest grants across the whole of Prestwich were for our area (Holyrood Ward), all relating to addressing the issue of lack of play facilities (see separate posting).

Updates from Partner Organisations

The Partnership received updates from partner organisations like the Police, Fire and NHS. The new Divisional Commander of Bury was also present at the meeting, as were representatives of the local Magistrates.

Issues from Members of the Public

An “open forum” is provided for members of the public to raise issues of concern. There was significant discussion about the major nuisance caused by illegal use of quadbikes - not just in streets but also in the Prestwich Forest Park area. The Partnership and the Police agreed to take these matters forward. Some money is remaining in the budget for this year we agreed that we would look to see if a project on this issue was possible.

It was good to hear some good news from residents of Highfield Road, who continue to suffer from non-residents parking in this narrow street. Further meetings are being held, but some of the simple measures (like moving a sign and talking to business owners) have been having some effect.

Prestwich Village Strategy

The main item at the Area Partnership was a presentation from the planning consultants that the Council have appointed to look at the future of the Prestwich Village area. Your local Lib Dem Councillors have been campaigning for years to this work to happen and its great that it has finally started.

The planners (the company is called “URBED”) gave a fascinating presentation about Prestwich Village, the problems it faces and also the many good things we have in our favour. The area was compared to other simiar “villages in the city” that are a similar distance to Manchester City Centre (Sale, Chorlton, Didsbury) and the company have been looking at how they have dealt with similar issues.

There are some excellent ideas being brought forward which are exciting and challenging.

URBED are holding a number of events over the coming months and a major consultation over the coming months. You can find out more about about the URBED study at their special website . A special consultation workshop - open to all - is on 13 March 2008 - check the website for more details.

Please get in touch if you need to know more about any of the above.

Tim