Cllr Iain Lindley - Salford City Councillor for Walkden South Ward
The Council have launched the budget consultation for 2008/9. As per usual, it is full of loaded questions and Labour will probably ignore the responses anyway, but you can find more information on the Council website.
Representations need to be sent to the Council by Friday 16th November 2007.
Along with every other Greater Manchester Councillor, last week I received a letter from Councillor Neil Swannick about the future of waste disposal across Greater Manchester. Swannick is a Labour Councillor in Manchester, but another of his hats (presumably a flourescent hard-hat) is as the Chairman of the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA). The letter begins:
I wrote to you earlier this year to provide a headline summary of the exciting 25-year waste disposal contract being secured for Greater Manchester.
A friend saw the first line of the letter and burst out laughing. Important and vital as the improved waste disposal contract is, I don’t think I’ll be in any hurry to eavesdrop on the Manchester Labour Party conversations in the City Arms if the waste disposal contract is considered an “exciting” topic!
That said, on a more serious note, waste disposal is a key issue for local government - and becoming increasingly so - and I intend to read the information pack about the new contract in detail.
Today’s edition of the Manchester Evening News has printed the letter I wrote them last week about the closure of maternity services at Hope Hospital:
You can view a scan of the full letter here.
Delivery of the autumn edition of Walkden South Conservative Local Action News has now been completed - all local residents should have received a newsletter. If you are a resident in Walkden South and have not received a copy, please leave a message in the comments or e-mail me on iain@walkdenconservatives.co.uk.
I’ve received four glossy cards from the Marketing Department. Two of them are for Halloween (including a “sorry, no trick or treaters” cards) and two are for Bonfire Night.
The messages on these advertising cards are absolutely right. This time of year brings a whole new dimension to anti-social behaviour, and anything the Council and Police can do to crack down on illegal bonfires, misuse of fireworks and the small minority of people who trick or treat in a threatening and abusive way has my full support.
Unfortunately, here in Walkden the Council are encouraging local residents to go to organised displays that are simply inaccessible. The Council pulled the plug on the Parr Fold Park bonfire back in 2001 and the Halloween event at Blackleach Country Park has been cancelled this year because - and you couldn’t make this up - it is too popular.
The two Council-organised bonfires are in Irlam and Buile Hill. The public transport to either site in the evening is almost non-existent. Very few if any families from Walkden or the wider Worsley area are likely to travel.
I hope that for next year the Council can look to reinstate the bonfire and fireworks display in the Walkden area. The advice the Council and Police are giving out about bonfire night safety are absolutely correct, but the message would be far more effective in Walkden and the surrounding area if the Council were providing an accessible event for local families to attend.
I was delighted to learn that Salford Royal Hospitals Trust has received an excellent report, and has been rated as “excellent” both in terms of quality of services and use of resources. The staff at Hope Hospital deserve a huge pat on the back.
This does, however, beg a very important question. Why is our Labour Government removing much-needed maternity and neo-natal care from the best performing hospital in the entirety of Greater Manchester? Barmy decision.
Peter Wheeler is a Labour Party bigwig and Labour Party candidate for Claremont ward here in Salford. He has a blog of sorts but hasn’t quite got the hang of blogging, and stubbornly refuses to approve any comments I leave on his website - as with most of his colleagues in the higher echelons of the Labour Party he clearly isn’t terribly interested in open and honest political debate.
Anyway, according to his website, a couple of weeks ago Peter and his colleagues went campaigning. Fair enough, but then we get this gem of a quote:
The big issue - as ever - was the state of the roads and pavements.
He is quite right, of course. The state of the highways and pavements is a big issue for local residents not just in Claremont ward but across the whole of Salford. What Peter doesn’t say, of course, is that the state of the roads is the responsibility of Salford City Council - and remind me who has been in control of Salford Council since it’s inception in 1974? That’s right Peter, the Labour Party!
If local residents are concerned about the state of their local roads and pavements, the last people they should turn to at the ballot box are a Salford Labour Party who have neglected our highways for decades. The cheek of it…
I’ve just noticed on Facebook that Manchester Labour Club are hosting a meeting on Wednesday, entitled “What’s the Vision? Brown’s Britain”. That’ll be a short meeting then. Rumours that - in the absence of any vision or foresight from our policy-bankrupt Labour Government - the Labour Club have decided instead to show David Cameron’s Conservative Party Conference speech have yet to be confirmed.
They have chosen a very appropriate venue for the discussion on “Brown’s vision”, however. The Labour Student comrades have arranged for the discussion to take place in… wait for it…
…the Cameron suite. How apt indeed. Love it.
Local residents may have seen reports in the press (see also here) of the horrific sex attack in Walkden in the early hours of Friday morning.
If you have any information about this horrendous crime, please call Salford CID on 0161 856 5351 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
What Cost To The Taxpayer?
Today’s Guardian lead story that the Labour Party blew £1 million on the election that never was will cause a wry smile but no surprise amongst those of us who saw through Gordon Brown’s transparant reasons for calling off a snap poll. There’s analysis at PoliticalBetting and ConservativeHome - but funnily enough nothing at all on LabourHome. Now there’s a surprise.
Of course, the Unions will bail out Labour’s expenditure sooner or later, but who will pay for all the extra expenditure incurred by local councils in preparation for an autumn election? This must have taken a significant amount of staff time alone, never mind any additional expenditure and disruption caused?
By my estimation - and it is a rough but conservative guess - election preparations may have cost Salford City Council up to £10000 in staff time alone. Salford’s elections office would have covered the two constituencies of Salford & Eccles and Worsley & Eccles South. If we consider the cost to be around £5000 per constituency, then if other local authorities incurred similar costs then the total cost of the non-election to the taxpayer would have been over £3 million.
Gordon, can we have our money back?
(Of course, this £3 million estimate does not include any time or money spent by civil servants in Whitehall or taxpayer-funded Parliamentary staff)