Thursday night was the regular meeting of Prestwich’s Local Area Partnership. This brings together your nine local Liberal Democrat councillors, together with representatives of community groups, and partner agencies.

It was a busy meeting,with the highlights as follows:

Skateboarding, BMX and Inline Skaters in Prestwich

A group of young people who’ve been working up proposals for a “skate park” for Prestwich gave a presentation. The group have made great progress in developing the case for a facility, and gone as far as identifying potential locations, costs and design styles. The Area Partnership was very supportive of the proposals and offered to work further with the stakeboarders to develop the initiative.

Children’s Centres and Extended Services Update
Davina Hanley from Children’s Services in Bury gave an update on the progress towards the two children’s centres that are currently being completed in Prestwich (Sedgley Park Primary and Butterstile Primary) and on the range of services that are going to be available from these centres.

Bury PCT - World Class Commissioning

Andrew Rogers, from Bury PCT (Primary Care Trust) gave a presentation on what’s called “World Class Commissioning”. This is where the local NHS identifies core priorities and then ensures that local services are best matched to meet these local health priorities. The seven priorities for Bury were identified as:
Coronary Heart Disease
Stroke
Cancer
Respitatory
Obecity
Alcohol
Mental Health
The PCT wanted to consult with local people before a draft plan is published in the next few weeks.

Prestwich Anti-Litter Campaign
Area Manager Carran O’Grady and PC Andy Wright from the local Police Service gave a presentation on how the authorities are working together to tackle graffiti in the local area. This included working with offenders to clean graffiti off, distribution of graffiti cleaning kits and, in one case, working with a professional graffiti artist to improve a back ginnell. It was really encouraging to see so much being done to tackle the issue.

Phillips Park Restoration
Chris Wilkinson from Bury Council gave a presentation on the bids to restore and improve Phillips Park in Prestwich. A further bid is currently being prepared to the Heritage Lottery Fund following some discussions with the Board on the park’s suitability for funding. The park contains some of the most historial remains in the whole of Bury. We raised a number of concerns about access to the park from Prestwich which were taken on board.

Any questions or more information please ask.

thanks
tim