Prestwich Local Area Partnership is making available Graffiti Cleaning Kits for local businesses that have been affected by the current spate of graffiti in our community. This leaflet is available from our Area Manager Carran O’Grady - contact her at C.O’Grady@bury.gov.uk
The next meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership is at 6.30pm on Thur 2 October 2008 at Sedgley Park School, Kings Road, Prestwich. This is the group that brings together your local Councillors and partners from the police, NHS, voluntary sector and community groups. Members of the public are very welcome to attend.
One of the items for discussion is skateboarding: Prestwich Skateboards and BMX group have set themselves up to campaign for support for a Skateboard and BMX site somewhere in Prestwich. The group made up mainly of teenagers are asking Prestwich LAP to listen to their plans and support them where possible. Chair of Prestwich Local Area Partnership Vic D’Albert said “I went to presentation given by the group recently and I was so impressed with what young people want to do for themselves that I invited them to come along to promote themselves to Prestwich I make a promise not to skate round this issue but offer whatever help we can.”
Other things coming out at Prestwich LAP will be and update on Children’s Services, Youth Services, Health Engagement Strategy etc. and a brand new update on how we are tackling hot spots in Prestwich. And finally hot of the press find out the latest about Prestwich Regeneration Plans and the consultation plans and the big launch in October.
There will also be a special meeting of the Prestwich LAP at 7.00pm Thu 16th October at The Longfield Suite. Please mark your diaries now. This will be to look at the consultation plans for the future of Prestwich Village.
The Forestry Commission is finding out what local people think about the LIVIA Community Woodland in Prestwich. This is a new series of parkland areas in the Irwelll Valley. They are holding a community consultation on Saturday 27th of September to discuss the LIVIA project with local residents and community organisations. The event will be from 1-5pm at The Phoenix Centre St. Mary’s Park, St. Mary’s Rd, Prestwich M25 1GG.
There will be a light lunch, a site visit, afternoon tea and a lively discussion. For more information please call Paul or Charlotte at Pathways on 0161 273 8235.
With Bonfire night approaching, the police, fire, transport, youth and local authority services are each considering how they can ensure that Bonfire night is as safe and enjoyable as possible for everyone.
In order to ensure effective patrolling of the Borough during the Bonfire period, the team at “Bury Safe” (Police, Council etc) hope to put together a comprehensive list of organized events across the Borough, so that resources can be used efficiently.
If you are involved with organising a council run or private Bonfire or firework event or know of any in the immediate vicinity, please send in the details to: k.griffiths@bury.gov.uk. They need to know information including start and finish times, what’s happening (fireworks, bonfire etc) and the expected number of attendees.
Many thanks for your assistance
The Bury Safe Team
Last night was the regular meeting of the Executive Committee. This is the Committee that brings together all nine of the Executive members from the ruling (Conservative) group. Myself and the leader of the Labour group attend as observers.
TIF Bid Referendum
The main item was probably the agreement to proceed with a referendum on the TIF (Transport Innovation Fund) Bid for Greater Manchester (the congestion charge). The ten authorities of Greater Manchester have agreed to hold a referendum across the county. This will be by postal ballot, of everyone on the electoral register. Ballot papers must be returned by 11 December 2008.
All ten authorities have agreed to be bound by the result in their borough - ie if voters in Bury vote “no”, then that is how Bury will vote when it comes to the decision. Decisions in Greater Manchester have to be made with the agreement of at least seven of the ten authorities, so if seven boroughs vote in favour, then its happening.
I clarified that the other nine leaders had all given the same undertaken that our Council Leader had - to be bound by the results of the referendum - apparently they have. I also asked about the money being spent (taxpayers money) on “promoting” the scheme. Apparently around £3 million will be spent by AGMA or the Passenger Transport Authority to promote the scheme. I’m not sure if this is “fair” democracy at its best, but I’m sure the voters will make an intelligent decision.
Pimhole Renwal Area
We also agreed to extend the work on the Pimhole Renewal Area in East Bury for a further five years to 2013. The renewal area project has been improving the area with a mixture of environmental, housing and business improvements.
Corporate Financial Report
The Executive Committee received a report on the Council’s finances. Basically there is an overspend in Adult Services, but this is largely offset by underspends in other areas and through a good performance on the Council’s financial management (e.g. borrowing and investment). I asked about the continuing delays to schemes in the capital programme as some schemes seem to continue to slip into future years. Of particular concern here is the Radcliffe Riverside school project.
Copies of all papers are http://burydem.bury.gov.uk/aksbury/users/public/admin/kab14.pl?operation=SUBMIT&meet=102&cmte=CAB&grpid=public&arc=71. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any queries.
Tim
The full meeting of Bury Council was a couple of weeks ago, and there are couple of answers to questions that might be of interest to people:
I submitted a question on the delay in the consultation on the future of Prestwich Town Centre:
Q Could the Leader outline why there has been a delay to the public consultation on the future of Prestwich Town Centre?
This was the answer from the Leader of the Council:
A Thank You Leader and Cllr Pickstone for your question on the regeneration of Prestwich.
The original timetable for the public consultation once the URBED Draft Findings were known was to be over a 6 week period ending on the 29th August this year. However, unfortunately, the findings of the URBED study has raised some unexpected legal concerns that are currently being looked into by The Councils Legal Department. Without going into too much technical detail the concerns relate to the ways in which The Draft Strategy recommends prioritising and phasing the different development interests and also how The Council may generate the funding necessary to bring about the regeneration priorities identified in the strategy. I have been liaising with council officers recently and they are confident that these legal concerns can be resolved quickly and we are all hopeful that the formal public consultation process can commence as soon as possible.
As Council Pickstone will know there has been a certainly level of informal public consultation already at The Prestwich LAP where representatives from URBED have been present.
Mr Mayor, I would sincerely hope that Cllr Pickstone, the other Prestwich LAP members and all Councillors can appreciate that until these concerns are resolved it would not be responsible of this Council to commence a public consultation in a formal manner.
My colleague Andrew Garner asked a question on the poor finish on the upgraded junction of Sheepfoot Lane and Bury Old Road.
Q. Can the Leader confirm that Bury Council Tax payers have not had to fund the cost of repairing the poor work undertaken by contractors at the Bury Old Rd/Scholes Lane/Sheepfoot Lane junction. Can the Leader also tell us when repairs will take place and whether the events calendar for Heaton Park will be factored into this work. Can the Leader initiate an investigation to find out who was responsible for supervising this project and why it wasn’t done effectively.
And the answer from Cllr Dorothy Gunther
A. The works required at the junction are remedial works only in order to rectify inadequacies in the construction job. As a consequence, no additional payment is required to be made to the Contractor for undertaking the remediation. A date for the completion of the remedial works is being vigorously pursued with the Contractor. A previously agreed date was not adhered to by the Contractor and the events at Heaton Park have been considered when attempting to fix a new date. However, the Department is keen to have the works undertaken as soon as possible and, bearing in mind the events at Heaton Park, the works may have to be undertaken during weekdays rather than being restrained to weekends only.
Recent discussions with the Contractor have led to an agreement that the remedial works are to be completed by no later than 25 September 2008. We are expecting written confirmation of this date within a couple of working days.
The Engineering Division is responsible for controlling the project and the issue is not one of the effectiveness of any supervision but rather one of compliance (or the lack thereof) by the Contractor. Legal Services have been consulted in this respect and their advice is now being followed in an attempt to bring the issue to a satisfactory conclusion.
People will have noticed that the work has now, FINALLY, begun!
Lib Dem’s in Bury are welcoming the concession by Bury Council, to allow for appeals “in person” for staff affected by the current pay and grading review.
Intervention by Bury Liberal Democrats has led to concessions by Tory-run Bury Council, and the news that council staff set to lose money after job evaluation will be allowed to attend their appeals in person.
Prior to the meeting of Full Council on Wednesday 10th September, the Conservative-run Council had been clear that no personal hearings would be granted. However, following a question by Liberal Democrat Cllr Wilf Davison asking for this policy to be reconsidered, the Council’s Chief Executive today (17th September) sent a letter to all staff informing them that personal appeals would now be allowed.
We are pleased that the Conservatives have finally seen sense. Staff should of course be allowed to attend these appeals, where massive chunks of their salary are at stake. We have always been clear that we want a transparent, open process, and we are glad to have convinced the Tories of this.
Cllr Davison said “At the Council meeting, the Labour group chose to display their unhappiness at Job Evaluation by walking out of the meeting. Liberal Democrats stayed to oppose the Conservatives in a sensible way. I asked for the appeals process to be reconsidered, and now it has been. Liberal Democrats will continue to try to make this process as fair as possible, and challenge every instance of unfairness that we see.””
2,500 tenants will soon be receiving a questionnaire from Six Town Housing to find out what they think of housing services and where improvements could be made. Six Town Housing, the council’s at Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), has teamed up with Salford University to carry out the survey. Salford University is acting as an independent consultant for the work and they will be posting out the surveys to residents over the next few weeks.
The tenants who have been randomly selected to take part in the survey will be asked their views on a wide range of issues including repairs to their property, antisocial behaviour in the local area and tenant participation schemes. In order to maximise the number of questionnaire returns, residents who complete the survey will stand the chance of winning £250 worth of shopping vouchers.
The results from this survey will provide Six Town Housing with valuable information to allow Six Town Housing to further develop their services in line with the needs of the local community. The results will also allow Six Town Housing to report nationally regarding customer satisfaction levels across Bury.
As part of the consultation on future options for residential care, a free phone number and email address have been set up to extend opportunities for people to have their voice heard on this important matter.
Tel: 0800 107 9906 (quoting Bury Council)
Email bury@rmltd.net
These facilities, which are being run independently of the council to encourage participation, will be available until mid October 2008.
Whilst many people may want to focus specifically on the options, the Council is also interested in people’s views on related topics such as:
I’ve just come back from nearly a week at the Liberal Democrat’s Party Conference in Bournemouth. This was Nick Clegg’s first major Autumn Conference as Leader, and delegates gave him a brilliant response. Here’s his main speech to conference:
Some important decisions were made by Conference, not least important vision and values paper “Make it Happen”. Other important policy decisions include our new Transport Policy and a response to the current mortgate and financial crisis. You can read more about the Conference proceedings here.
Outside of being a Councillor, my paid job is for the Party, so conference is a busy working period. This included meetings, running training sessions and organising fringe debates on issues such as Renewable Energy, Comunity Transport and fair votes for local government. Here I am adressing the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.
Last night was the regular meeting of Bury Council’s Executive Committee. This is the Committee that brings together all the portfolio holders from the ruling (Conservative) group on the Council. Myself, and the Leader of the Labour Group attend as observers.
Equal Pay
The main issue of debate was the current pay regrading that is being undertaken by the Council. A comprehensive pay review has been undertaken for the vast majority of council employees (some staff, such as teachers are excluded from the review). The draft proposals would mean that a large number of staff would see their pay changed - both up and down. Where staff see their pay decreased then their existing pay is protected for up to three years.
Staff and their trades unions are understandably very concerned about the process, in particular for people who are losing a significant amount of money (in some cases thousands of pounds).
I felt very uneasy in the discussion last night, as some councillors from both the other groups seemed intent on making this issue a party political issue. My feeling, and the feeling of the Liberal Democrat Group, is that all Councillors need to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves, and we will not be using real people’s livelihoods as a “political football”.
My main concerns, which I did raise at the meeting, are that the appeal process that many staff are now going though is a fair and detailed process for everyone. Staff who are concerned that their new pay grade is wrong need to feel confident that there is a fair and thorough appeal process that they can have confidence in. We also want to see measures in place, over the next year and more, to ensure that staff who do lose pay have a number of options for support and looking at their jobs to see if pay can be increased again.
All Councillors have received a large amount of correspondence on this issue, and no doubt it is one that will dominate the Council for a number of months to come.
Joint Area Review Action Plan
The Executive Committee approved an “action plan” for Children’s Services, to implement the findings of the Joint Area Review which was undertook earlier in the year.
6 Town Housing Vision for the Future
The Committee approved a visioning document for 6 Town Housing - the “arms lenght” body who owns and looks after our public sector (”Council”) housing in Bury. I raised a related issue, whether Bury would be responding to the new Government initiative to allow local councils to support people who were facing repossession - a report is to follow.
Planning Guidance - Housing
The Committee approved for consultation a new Supplementary Planning Document. This would mean that Bury would allow for up to 500 houses to be built each year, as opposed to 230 a year now. I asked if this meant an end to the “moratorium” on only building in town centres and regeneration areas - it does, but we were assured that the vast majority of new homes are expected to be in existing urban areas (no change to the “green belt” policy has been made.
Financial issues
A number of reports were received on financial issues including the final figures for last financial year and papers on borrowing and financial procedures. I asked about the underspend last year on street repairs (£160,000) - given that so many streets and pavements are in need of repair - but was assured that this underspend was not on “regular repairs”. Still an issue that needs watching.
Any questions, please ask.
tim
The Local Area Partnerships across Bury, including Prestwich Local Area Partnership, are asking local community groups and voluntary organisations across Bury to submit bids for grants from the LAP fund.
There are a number of grants available and the maximum any one group or organisation can bid for is £3000. The group will be required to complete an application form and provide evidence that the money has been used within six months of the date the grant was awarded.
The funds is split into several programs including: Kickstart grants for new, local groups or activities; Community Development Fund providing one-off grants to support community activities and facilities; Communities for Health Fund, for specific geographic areas across the borough to promote healthier lifestyles; and the Bury Futures Fund for community projects to help residents get employment through work placements, training and volunteering schemes.
For more information about the funding available and to get a copy of the application form please contact the Local Area Partnership Team at Bury Town Hall on 0161 253 6372 or email them at areapartnerships@bury.gov.uk
The Bury Third Sector Development Agency can also provide information about larger grants to help communities and advice on funding applications. For further information please contact 0161 797 1968 or log on to www.b3sda.org.uk
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