Cllr Iain Lindley – Conservative Councillor for Walkden South Ward
This evening I will be attending the Manchester hustings for the Conservative Future 2008 national elections. It should be an interesting evening and it will be good to catch up with some familiar faces that I haven’t seen for a while.
If you are a CF member reading this and would like more information on the candidates who are running for National Chairman and the National Executive, click here.
Last night Councillor Turner and I held our monthly surgery at the Guild Hall Community Centre. It was just as well that there were two of us as we had local residents queueing out of the door!
I think that is the busiest I have ever seen a Council advice bureau. I find advice bureaux very useful, but it is unusual to see a surgery quite so busy as increasingly local residents get in touch with their Councillors via phone or e-mail messages.
Obviously I can’t go into any detail about individual pieces of casework, but there does seem to be a recurring problem about refuse collection and in particular the collection of the pink-lidded green waste bins. Both myself and Les are receiving complaints from across Walkden about bins and we are in regular contact with officers from Environmental Services about this issue.
If you also have a bin-related problem, please let me know by e-mailing councillor.lindley@salford.gov.uk.
One group of people who definitely won’t be listening to the views of local residents over the new Catholic school proposals are the Labour Councillors for Walkden North and Little Hulton – they’ve already jumped ship to support the closure of St George’s High School in favour of the new school in Wardley.
This is not a surprise as the Labour Party locally in Walkden & Little Hulton has spent the past 18 months saying as little as physically possible about St George’s in the hope of not offending their leadership. They have been silent when they should have been shouting from the rooftops.
I’ve received dozens of comments already from local residents, parents and pupils (past and present) about this week’s proposals. I want to hear as many views as possible, so please e-mail me at councillor.lindley@salford.gov.uk or leave a comment on this blog post!
Greater Manchester’s Labour leaders might be running away from the debate about the congestion charge, but it seems in one small part of Manchester they do things differently.
Manchester City Centre Conservative candidate (and Chairman of Manchester Conservatives) Rob Adlard will be joined by his Council opponents and others for a debate on congestion charging on Wednesday March 19th. The debate is being held at the Central Methodist Hall on Oldham Street in central Manchester, starting at 6.30pm.
It should be an interesting evening and all are welcome to attend.
Local residents may well already have seen the article in today’s Manchester Evening News about a potential new Catholic “super school”.
As a local Councillor I have said from the outset that the Council should not be closing down a good school – and St George’s is a very good school. That remains the case. Any new school would not be St George’s.
I – and my colleagues – need to know what local residents, pupils, parents and staff think about this new proposal. Please leave a message on this post or e-mail me at councillor.lindley@salford.gov.uk and tell me your views.
This evening I was invited to attend a meeting of the Worsley & Boothstown Political Executive (it’s a meeting of area Councillors and officers) to discuss possible community use of the proposed new buildings at Walkden High School.
I thought it was a really useful and productive meeting, and was attended by Mrs Hilton and Aled Owen from Walkden High School and the Building Schools for the Future project director as well as Councillors and community representatives.
It was however disappointing that none of the Walkden North or Little Hulton Councillors were able to turn up. Both myself and Councillor Turner were in attendance, however.
The fight to save St George’s High School has even made it into Private Eye. Please click on the header below to view the full article:
I was very disappointed when First Manchester withdrew their 554 service which linked Walkden with the Trafford Centre. This meant that there was no direct bus for shoppers and shop workers to use – except (somewhat ironically) on Sundays as the 556 bus still runs with a GMPTE subsidy.
I’m delighted that starting last week a local bus company, Vale of Manchester, has stepped into the breach, launching a new hourly 514 service between Bury and the Trafford Centre, via Radcliffe, Little Lever, Farnworth, Walkden, Worsley and Winton. You can find the timetable here (pdf file).
Remember of course that local buses are run on a commercial basis, and if not enough people use the new service then it won’t last very long. I received a letter from two local residents only a few days ago about the lack of bus service to the Trafford Centre and I am very pleased that Vale of Manchester have introduced this new route. I hope it is a success and well-used by local people along the length of the new operation.
Yesterday I attended the Beacon Youth Centre along with around 60 young people from Worsley, Walkden and Little Hulton for a Youth Forum event. The Council is rightly looking at ways to involve children and young adults in the decision-making process, and yesterday’s event was intended to encourage those attending to get involved further.
Along with my colleague Cllr Christine Gray, I was asked to host one of the workshops on local government and local democracy. I’m very grateful to Patrick from Bridgewater Youth Centre who ran the workshop with us and to the Community Development Worker Chris Tucker who joined us and provided valuable input.
The main thrust of our workshop was to find out some of the issues that concerned children and young adults in the local area, and then get across some of the ways in which they can get involved and make the changes they want to see. As is often the case, I learned a lot from the discussions myself. I am always keen to hear the opinions of local residents – whatever their age – on the issues that affect our local community and it is always refreshing to hear difference perspectives.
There were a number of workshops on the day, including the police, ranger service, youth service, sports development officers and the drug and alcohol action team.
At the end of the workshops, all those attending were given a post-it note and asked to write down one thing they had learned from the day.
The picture on the right shows my favourite note.
It was also really pleasing to see that most of those attending signed up to hear about future events.
Conservative Party News
Business Growth Grants Debacle
I’ve blogged previously about how the Salford City Council leadership were left high-and-dry by the Government’s withdrawal of business growth grants (known as LABGI) to local Councils.
Now it has emerged that one of the possible reasons for the LABGI withdrawal is that our Labour Government is far too incompetent to oversee the administration properly:
Unbelievable.