Last night was the meeting of Bury Council’s Executive Committee. I am one of the two Opposition Party leaders that sits on this Committee. There were a number of interesting issues:

Validation Requirements for Planning Applications

 This sets out an improved scheme so that it is clearer how Planning Applications are dealt with by the Council.

Car Parking Fines  

The Council will now introduce a higher parking fine for “serious” parking offences. These will include:

- Parked or loading/unloading in a restricted street where waiting and loading/unloading restrictions are in force 

- Parked in a residents parking place without clearly displaying a permit

- Parked in a designated disabled person’s parking place without clearly displaying a valid disabled person’s badge

- Stopped on a restricted bus stop/stand

- Stopped in a restricted area outside a school

The new “higher” fine will be £70, instead of £50 for “other” offences. We’ll still get a discount (50% off?) for paying early. Whilst none of us like paying parking fines, I tend to think these higher fines will help discourage some of the worst offences like parking in disabled places or in restricted areas outside schools.

 Phillips Park Restoration Plan

The Council approved a plan to submit a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to renovate Phillips Park. This is very welcome. As I said last night Philips Park is a “hidded jewel” for Prestwich. I understand that the site is the most historially important in Bury and potentially the park will be a major benefit for people in Prestwich and Whitefield.

 I stressed the need to improve access from the Prestwich side. If we are going to get such a large investment in the area, then we need to be able to get to it - and not have to drive all the way round via Whitefield and back over the motorway. I encouraged the development of better parking at the end of Clifton Road, and improved footpaths from the Tescos/TGI Friday’s end of the Village.

 In general a really exciting project - hopefully the Heritage Lottery Fund will think so too! Strangely the Labour Party in Bury refused to support the proposals - you’ll have to ask them why they didn’t want to see such a brilliant project proceed!

Bury Local Development Framework

The Executive Committee received an update report on the future “Local Development Framework” for Bury. This will set out how future development will take place in Bury, and is now the subject of consultation.

A “spread growth” policy “throughout the Borough” is proposed (rather than concentrating on growth in particular places).

Of particular interest to our area (Prestwich) is:

 - encouraging moderate growth in places with good transport infrastructure - this particularly affects Prestwich as we have excellent transport with the Metrolink and major bus routes running through the middle of our community

- encoraging development, including employment in the town centre areas, inlcuding Prestwich - encouraging more employment sites in the south of the Borough, including more employment sites in Prestwich

- protection of the village environments and therefore very limited growth there (this includes Simister village in our area)

- protection of the green infrastructure areas - such as the whole Irwell Valley area in Prestwich (Phillips Park, Clough, Drinkwater Park etc)

- focus on “regeneration” areas which includes the Rainsough area of Prestwich The report is now the subject of public consulation before further considerations are made.

All the papers from the meeting are available on the internet here.  Any questions please ask!

 Tim

Thursday night was the termly meeting of the Governors of Prestwich Arts College (formerly Prestwich High). This is one of the two local schools on which I represent you as a Governor.

There were two particularly interesting issues to report on:

Bury Review of Learning

We had a presenation from Bury’s Assistant Director of Learning about a review that is planned for Bury’s schools about the “future of leaning”. This is of particular interest to Prestwich Arts College because of the horrific experience the school had to go through a couple of years ago with the then Labour administration of Bury’s botched attempts to close two high schools - Prestwich Arts being one of them.

I think its best to withhold judgement on the current review. Certainly the Authority seems clear that the review process needs to focus on “learning” rather than on pupil numbers, and this is very welcome. I do worry that things arn’t going to be so easy when difficult decisions have to be made.

Assertive Mentoring

Prestwich Arts is a hugely exciting school to be involved with. Despite the difficult process when the school was threatened with closure, there are some hugely exciting things going on to continually improve on the levels of achievement of its pupils.

We received a presentation on one such initiative, “active mentoring” for Year 10. This is a new programme which the school is introducing to work closely with every single pupil in the year coming up to the GSCE time on an individual basis. Schools that have tried this individual and tailored approach have had some staggering imrovements in their GCSE scores, and hopefully this will be the result at PAC. I know that a great many staff have put in a significant amount of time and effort into the process for which the school is very grateful.

Tim

Lib Dem’s Secure More Money for Children and Young People, and more money for Parks and Cleaner Streets 

Liberal Democrat Councillors saved services for young people and vulnerable children and secured extra expenditure on much needed environmental services such as parks, cleaner streets and environmental enforcement in Bury Council’s budget for next year.

The Lib Dem proposals, which were agreed and have become part of the budget:

- saved advice services for children and money for youth services across Bury

- saved services for disabled children, the “young carers” service and provision for children who are at risk

- secured new money for our parks and environmental services

- secured new money for a cleaner environment such as street cleaning and enforcement such as dog fouling and fly-tipping

 Cllr Tim Pickstone, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group said:

 “This is a difficult budget again for Bury. We all need to be clear on why these difficult savings once again have to be made. The blame is quite clearly with the Labour Government who, despite many years of pressure, continue to effectively give Bury a “poor deal”.

“Services to young people are already stretched  -  A vibrant youth support service is essential to ensure educational staying on rates and engagement in training or employment, with the subsequent positive impact on reducing anti-social behaviour”

“We are not prepared to put up with an unsafe reduction in support for vulnerable children, and to not see advances in supporting the environment in this borough.”

Cllr Richard Baum, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Resources said

“The people of this Borough want cleaner streets, green space and safe places for their families. And the Liberal Democrat group will ensure that as much as possible is done to give them what they want. Our proposals tonight are to invest in parks in this Borough to ensure that every community has a well-managed place of peace and greenery to enjoy.

Attacking the Labour Party Proposal to cut vital services for a zero Council Tax rise Cllr Pickstone said:

“This proposal is madness. We would all like to have a zero council tax rise, but the Labour Party are proposing to scrap £700,000 on much needed services for disabled people, are proposing to scrap services for young people and vulnerable children, and proposing to run Bury Council into the ground by running reserves down to a dangerous level. This is a disgrace - I am shocked that that Labour Party will stoop so low in a pathetic attempt to gain votes.

“There are two opposition parties in Bury. One, the Lib Dems, have achieved over £1/3 million of expenditure on young people, children and the environment, while Labour have achieved nothing but a cheap gimmick at the expense of vulnerable people.” 

Last night was “Budget Council” for Bury MBC. This is probably the most important meeting each year for a local Council as it is when Councillors set the full budget for the following year.

In a shapshot, here’s what has been agreed:

- a Council Tax rise of 3.4% from 1st April. This is a significantly lower rise than in recent years - which is good.

- A discount for the over 65s of 3.4% off their council tax.

- The ability for people to pay their council tax in 12 installments, not 10 as is the case now.

- More money to pay for pressures on services for disabled people, more money (thanks to the Lib Dems!) for environmental issues like parks, street cleaning and environmental enforcement.

- A “capital programme” over the next three years which includes building the new High School at Radcliffe Riverside, as well as plans to develop Phillips Park Hall in Prestwich.

It was a very difficult year (again) for Bury setting its budget. The amount of money that the Government gives us was yet again less than our neighbours in the rest of Greater Manchester. Its been calculated that since Labour came into Government Bury is 15% worse off than before - and that was from a low starting point. This means that a number of “savings” (cuts) have had to be made - totalling around £5 million.

What did the Liberal Democrats do?

The Liberal Democrats proposed an amendment to the Budget which proposed to reallocate just over £1/3 million of different expenditure than what was being proposed by the Conservative Party administration that runs Bury.

£250,000 to maintain services in a number of important areas for young people and children. This included
- saving proposed cuts to the youth service and schools advice services. We believe that services for young people are an essential, not just for their own sake, but also because they help tackle issues like anti-social behaviour.

- saving proposed cuts to services to vulnerable children including: disabled children, the whole young carers service, the whole service to support parents with mental health needs, and vulnerable children at risk.

£100,000 of new expenditure for our parks, streets and environment

- we proposed £50,000 on environmental issues to help deal with issues such as Street Cleaning and maintaining the “Green Flag” status of our parks. We’ve been promised a Saturday clean of town centre areas which should be excellent

- we proposed £50,000 on environmental enforcement which will tackle issues such as fly-tipping, dog fouling and stray dogs (dog warden service).

The Liberal Democrat Group amendment was accepted (not, it should be noted with any support from the Labour Party…) and became part of the agreed budget.

What did the other Parties do.

I am not easily shocked in politics, but last night the Labour Party amazed me. They proposed different budget which can only be described as “mad”.

The proposed to make wholesale cuts to make way of a cheap “gimmick” of a zero rise in Council tax. No rise in Council tax would be brilliant, but I was amazed about what they were prepared to sacrifice to come up with this cheap gimmick.

Labour proposed to:

- ignore the needs of disabled people in Bury by removing £700,000 of much needed expenditure for people with learning and physical disabilities. This is a disgrace. They should be ashamed of suggesting that disabled people don’t need services from the Council.

- ignore the needs of children and young people by cutting £350,000 of services for young people and vulnerable children. Mostly this was exactly the same list of services saved by the Liberal Democrats. Labour proposed to cut youth services, cut ALL services to young carers, cut services for disabled children and, most worryingly, cut services for vulnerable children at risk. This is a disgrace.

- put the future finances of the council at risk by spending all the “reserves” down to the bare minimum (reserves are needed to cope for emergencies such as spending on flooding, unexpected demand etc) AND ignoring the long standing “equal pay” issue to address women employees who have been paid less than men doing the same job.

I was shocked by how low the Labour Party could stoop. The socialist “founding fathers” of the Labour Party will be turning in their grave to watch their Party abandon people in need.

And the Conservatives…

In the end it was the proposals of the Conservative Party, with the addition of the new expenditure proposed by the Liberal Democrats that won the day which are outlined about.

We didn’t feel able to support all the proposals of the Conservatives - particularly some of the savings around the environment and social services, so abstained on the final vote.

The papers for the Budget are available on the Council’s website here. You can read the speech of the Lib Dem Resources Spokesperson Cllr Richard Baum here. If you have any questions, or comments, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Tim

Last night was the meeting of the Council’s Executive Committee, on which I serve as one of the opposition group leaders.

This was a special meeting of the Executive to receive reports relating to the Council’s budget for next year (2008-2009).

Finance Report for this Year
The Council is expecting to end the year with a relatively small deficit (£233, ooo) in the current financial year. The main area of additional spending is in the adult care services area - some overspending in Physical Disability Services, but mostly a large ovespend in Learning Disability Services. These services are obviously dificult to control expenditure as they are “demand led” (i.e. if a disabled person is in need of a support then the council has to provide it). I know that there are plans in place to address this situation over the coming year.

For the next three items, the Executive Committee received reports, which will now go to the special Budget Council meeting next week where the final decisions will be made:

Housing Revenue Account 2008-2009
This reports set out the level of rent increases and other charges that will affect the 8,000 or so properties that are managed by Six Town Housing.

Capital Budget 2008-2009
This report set out the spending on “capital items” (major investments in infrastructure) during the next year. Almost £100 million is proposed to be invested over the next three years, the bulk of which is funded by external sources (mostly for highways or schools).

Revenue Budget 2008-2009
This report sets out how the Council is proposing to spend money next year. There are a number of important decisions that will be left to the full meeting of the Council next week. These include:

- what savings will need to be made to ensure that expenditure does not exceed income.
- what the increase in Council Tax will be for 2008-2009
- what new expenditure will take place from the “Prioirty Investment Reserve”.

These important decisions will be made at the Special Council meeting next Wednesday (20 February). The Liberal Democrat group plan to move an amendment to the proposals to ensure that more money is spent in a number of important areas for local people.

Finally the meeting considered an urgent report on Corporate Parenting. This set out how the Council will improve its responsibility as “corporate parents” of children in its care.

Copies of the papers for the Executive Committe, which include the budget papers for next week’s Council are available on the Council’s website here.

If you have any questions or comments about this, especially the budget process please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Tim

It’s great to see that the “Climate Change Calendar Competition” which was run by Bury Council together with Bury Friends of the Earth has at last made it onto the web! My council colleague Cllr Ann Garner was heavily involved in the project and I know how important it was in raising the profile of this important issue.

Earlier in the year Bury and FoE ran a poster competition for the young people of Bury with the theme ‘our global future’. Some of the posters from the competition will be used by Bury Council to promote a cleaner, safer, greener Bury. The aim of the competition was to encourage young people to carry out research into climate change and consider solutions to climate change issues.

The winning entries can be downloaded here.

There were two themes to the competition:
(1) ‘our global future and my home’; and
(2) ‘our global future and my town Bury’.

A number of local residents, and the Governors of St Margaret’s CoE Primary, have raised concerns about the visibility (particularly night time visibility) of the “priority restriction” (chicane) near Heywood Roa near Parrenthorn Road.

I have raised this issue with the Traffic Management section of the Local Authority.

It has now been confirmed that the Council are going to install some additional hazard markers on the build outs at the priority restriction which are highly retroreflective to give better visibility at night. Additional white hatch markings on the road are also going to be provided to help guide motorists through the priority restriction. An additional yellow backed retroreflective sign warning motorists to reduce their speed due to the narrowing of the road is to be introduced prior to the restriction for motorists travelling in an easterly direction to give plenty of advanced warning of the priority restriction ahead.

In additional the street lighting department have been approached street lighting to see if they can upgrade the street lighting units around both the priority restrictions on Heywood Road. Apparently United Utilities have not yet provided the electrical connections for the priority restriction signs yet which legally should be illuminated! - but that this will happen soon.

Other discussions around parking near the chicane are also being undertaken.

More news to follow, but just to reassure residents that the issue is in hand.

Tim

Wednesday night was the “full” meeting of Bury Council - this is the main formal meeting of all 51 councillors that happens about six times a year.

Regrettably this meeting was not the best example of local democracy in action. There was almost no agenda - no recommendations of the Executive Committee, no motions to discuss, no Scrutiny Reports to look at. I thought for once we might all get home at a reasonable time, but I was sadly disappointed. Normally the Liberal Democrat group submit five or six questions to the Council administration at each meeting. This time the Labour Party joined us ‘en masse’ and we had almost three hours of questions to the Council Leader, or to the representatives of Joint Authorities (transport, police, waste etc).

(You’ll note that while Lib Dem councillors ask questions all the time - not just at election time!)

I asked a couple of questions:
- a number of residents had raised concerns with me about the bin collection that took place on Saturday 27th December 2007. Some people noticed that the bin collectors seemed to be “in a hurry”, and that less bins were collected. I was told that in fact nearly 50% extra was collected than on a normal day. This sounds OK, but thinking about it perhaps it is still very low given how busy Christmas is for many people, and that we all effectively miss a bin collection.
- I also asked about how Local Area Partnerships are going to be involved in determining their local plans. I think its very important that the plans for our local areas (Prestwich, Whitefield etc) remain distinct and “local”. I was reassured that they will.

A number of my Lib Dem colleagues also asked questions, these included:
- Cllr Richard Baum asked about the long promised “deep clean” of Prestwich Village precinct. Bizarrely the Executive Member for Environment couldn’t really answer him - but she did admit that the last deep clean was in 2003. This is disgraceful and we will be taking this issue up further.
- Cllr Wilf Davison asked a verbal question about the much rumoured move of Bury FC to the Goshen Fields site. The Council reassured Wilf that that Council had not been involved int he discussions at all and that it was a private matter for the club at the present time.

Last thing for the night was the Labour Party once again showing its confusion and hypocracy over the Congestion Charge proposal. A couple of Labour Councillors asked Richard Baum questions on the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) bid to Government as he’s one of the Council’s representative to the Passenger Transport Authority. He put them right, giving the clear answer that its the Labour Government who’s trying to impose an extra congestion tax on people in Greater Manchester, rather than paying for the public transport we need. Details of Richard’s full response is here

Tim

Last night was the termly meeting of St Margaret’s CoE Primary Governors. This is one of the two schools in the ward on which I serve as a Governor.

There were a number of important things to report:

- The school is doing really well. In terms of average point scores, it is the second most achieving primary school in the whole of Bury, a brilliant achievement for our part of Prestwich! As a result the school is very full and there have been some pressures as a result of appeals to school for places.

- A priority for the school has been the development of outdoors play facilities. It was great to learn about a number of things that are already in place or planned. These include an allotment, outdoor classroom and nature and environmental education and clubs.

- Obviously the school has close links with St Margaret’s Church of England and on Palm Sunday this year there will be a procession with a Donkey from the School on Heywood Road down to the Church on Bury Old Road. All welcome to join the procession at any stage during the journey! The Bishop of Manchester will also be visiting the school on 30 April 2008.

- There were some concerns about the “shiccane” as part of the new 20mph zone on Heywood Road as it goes past both St Margaret’s and Parenthorn schools. The Governors broadly welcomed the speed reduction effects of the scheme (which was the original idea), but there are concerns about the shiccane from an accident prevention point of view. I’ve agreed to ask the traffic engineers to come down to the site after school one day and we’ll see how we can resolve the situation.

Tim

The Prestwich and Whitefield Guide is now reporting that the petition submitted on an elected mayor has been accepted and validated and will go ahead later in the year (read full story).  

What this means is that people in Bury will vote, later in the year, whether they want to change to a system where we have a Directly Elected Mayor, instead of the current system. If that’s what people vote for, it means an election would be held for an elected mayor of Bury, presumably next year.

The Liberal Democrats in Bury are OPPOSED to us having and elected mayor. Here’s why:

We believe its fundamentally undemocratic. An elected Mayor has all the “executive” powers of the Council for themselves, and once they are elected they are effectively unaccountable for the next four years until the next election! We don’t believe this is right or sensible. Decisions about local areas should be taken by local people, that’s why we’ve always pushed for greater say for local areas like Prestwich or Ramsbottom. How could one person, sat at Bury Town Hall, possible understand and make decisions for all the different towns and communities that make up Bury MBC?

Secondly, we believe it to be a waste of public money. We currently have 51 councillors in Bury and a ceremonial “Mayor”. If we had an elected Mayor that would be on top of the 51 councillors, and we’d still have to have a ceremonial “chair” of the Council. The average salary for an elected mayor in a principal authority in England is £66,000 - in some of those the Mayor has appointed a Deputy Mayor on about £40,000 as well! Personally I’d rather spend all that money on better council services, or a lower Council Tax.

For the sake of Bury, this mad idea should be confined to the dustbin.

Tim

On Wednesday I was interviewed by the Inspectors as part of Bury Council’s Comprehensive Performance Assessment. This is the inspection undertaken on behalf of Government to determine how the Council is performing. I was interviewed as one of the Opposition Party leaders on the Council.

The inspectors will obviously ask different things to different people, with me as a Councillor they were particularly interested in discussing issues around the council’s decision making process, how we set our priorities and how we involve local people.

Although obviously we’re in opposition in Bury, I had some good things to say about how the Council operates:

- the way that the council reaches out to key partners such as the Police and the Primary Care Trust (PCT), and in particular how these are working at an area level with the Local Area Partnerships. These have only been going for nine months now, but in Prestwich we’re making a great start in the local partners working together to make Prestwich a better place.

- the way that the Council involves all Parties in its strategic decision making process. Opposition parties are involved in the Executive Committee (as “non-portfolio” members) and participate in the annual strategic planning process. In many ways this makes Bury unusual, but I certainly feel its something to be celebrated.

Presumably at some point the Inspectors will report on how Bury Council is doing. I know a lot of Council Officers have put a lot of effort into making sure that the Borough does achieve  - so good luck!

Tim

On Tuesday I attended the meeting of the Council’s “Elected Member Development Group”, this is the group of councillors and council offers who meet to look at how we make sure that our councillors have the right training and support to carry out their work.

There were a few items that were of note:

Councillor Training and Development Plans 

We agreed to develop a system whereby each councillor would look at their own training and development needs, and develop this into a personal development plan. All very sensible, in fact so sensible that the Liberal Democrat group have been doing it for years! At least now everyone’s going to benefit from the system.

 Council Candidates Guide

We looked at a draft guide for people who are interested in standing for the Council. I just made a couple of points - one that its importance to recognise the role that political parties play in people standing for council and how that could be improved, and secondly that we should be promoting the many other ways that people can get involved in their communities - as school governors, area partnerrship boards, youth forums, and in the many voluntary groups and organisations that exist in the Borough.

Future Training Plans

We agreed that the next all-councillor training session in March would be on Interview Panels - councillors regularly have to participate in interview panels for senior appointments, and its obviously important that we know what we are doing! Plans for next year include training on Corporate Parenting, and on planing procedures.

Tim