Cllr Iain Lindley – Conservative Councillor for Walkden South Ward
This coming Saturday (23rd August) there’s an open day at Agecroft Fire Station on Bolton Road in Pendlebury. It’s a great opportunity to get a glimpse of the service and the excellent work that our firefighters and staff do. Click the link for more details – hope to see you there!
I’m still glued to the Olympics, with the added bonus that the British athletes are doing fantastically well. The cycling results in particular have been sensational and it’s great to know what a huge part the world-class facilities at the Manchester Velodrome has played in that success.
I do have one concern though – now that Gordon “Jonah” Brown has waded into the action I hope that there isn’t a sudden reversal of fortune!
Yesterday I attended a presentation at Farnworth Fire Station for a group of young people from Little Hulton, Walkden, Ellenbrook and Boothstown who have been involved in the Fire Service “Firefly” project. You can read more about Firefly on the GMFRS website.
I was extremely impressed with both the Fire Service instructors and with the young people who had participated in the Firefly project. They had to give a demonstration and presentation of some of the skills they had learned through the course, and they were all enthusiastic and excellent. Well done!
At the July meeting of the Council, we had a debate about the proposed closure of the Post Offices in Langworthy, Adelphi and Patricroft. These closures have come about – on top of the ones from a few years ago – because the Labour Government has ordered the Post Office to close 2500 Post Offices across the country. Every local area across the country is being hit hard.
Salford Labour have embarked on something of a face-saving exercise with regard to these closures. I don’t doubt their sincerity in wanting the threatened branches to stay open, but as they don’t want to embarrass the Government they’ve opted for hand-wringing words over actual action.
The Government’s figure of 2500 Post Office closures is set in stone. The only argument is over which Post Offices close. Labour Councillors can (and did) make impassioned pleas about the importance of these particular Post Offices, but they also knew damned well that it wouldn’t make the slightest jot of difference. Keeping Langworthy open would only mean putting Lower Kersal under threat, saving Patricroft would have left Peel Green vulnerable, and so on. As for expecting the Post Office to close branches in all the neighbouring boroughs but leaving Salford unscathed… highly unlikely.
The only guaranteed way to save our local Post Offices is to persuade the Government to suspend their closure programme. Conservative MPs in Parliament asked the Government to do this and they refused – all our three Salford Labour MPs voted to keep closing Post Offices. At last month’s Council Meeting I asked the Labour Council to lobby the Government to suspend the closure programme – and every single Labour Councillor stuck their head in the sand and said no.
It gave me no pleasure at all to read this morning that following Salford Labour’s hand-wringing, all three threatened Post Offices have missed their chance of a reprieve and will be closing as planned. This is a huge blow for local residents in the affected areas – they have been badly let down by the local Labour Party who have chosen empty words over action.
The reason that these three Post Offices are closing is because the Government has embarked on a huge closure programme, and our Labour Council (and other Labour Councils like them) have refused to stand up and take the Government on.
I’ve decided it’s time to update my blogroll – for those new to the site that’s the big list of links on the left of the page – and I need your help, readers! I’ve already been through my existing links and I’ve had a bit of a cull of blogs which are no longer being regularly updated, although one or two have been given the benefit of the doubt for the moment!
Now I know there are a stack of new Conservative blogs and more coming online all the time. I don’t have time to peruse the entirety of the Total Politics blog directory so I need your suggestions! I’m particularly keen to add blogs by Conservative elected representatives and Walkden/Worsley/Salford-based blogs (they don’t have to be political).
I’m happy to take suggestions for non-Conservative political blogs but please be aware I’ll only tend to add them if a) there’s a personal connection or b) if they already have a reciprocal link. Of the three current “other political blogs”, SNP blogger Cllr Alison Thewliss is an old primary school classmate, Green blogger Peter Sanderson is a fellow York alumnus and Manchester Labour blogger and attack dog Chris Paul has a link to my blog in his own blogroll – although I also like to keep an eye on Chris in case he decides to criticise something I’ve written here! As a general rule I don’t usually add anonymous blogs either – even Conservative ones.
So, you have the floor readers! Who deserves a blogroll add?
Since I nominated my top ten political blogs last week, no fewer than three of them seem to have gone to ground. A sort of “blogging curse” similar to Private Eye’s Curse of Gnome, perhaps, although I somehow doubt my mystical powers extend that far.
At the end of June, grandmother Hameeda Begum was killed in an arson attack on the family home in Great Lever in Bolton. Her daughter Saima and one of the firefighters who courageously tried to rescue her – FF Steve Morris – remain in hospital after suffering serious injuries. Her granddaughter Alana Mian, who was just four years old, sadly died last week.
At my first meeting of the Fire Authority, Authority Members were briefed on this horrific incident (at the time the fire was being treated as “suspicious”) and shown what was left of FF Morris’s clothes. It was extremely sobering and a real reminder of the risks that our firefighters take to protect the public every time they clock on for a shift.
Two of the other firefighters involved in the brave rescue attempts hail from the Worsley area, and this week they have spoken out in the hope that more witnesses will come forward to aid the police. If you can help the police with their enquiries about this horrific crime, please contact the police on 0161 856 2197.
Huge congratulations to the Friends of Walkden Station who have been nominated for a prestigious national award. They have done a fantastic job in the 18 months or so since they were set up and fully deserve the accolade. I hope they go on to win!
Well the circus hasn’t even being going for 24 hours and I’m already developing Olympic-itis. I’ve not had this condition for four years. The main symptom is an uncontrollable urge to watch sports that I’d otherwise have absolutely no interest in whatsoever – and sometimes don’t even understand.
This morning a friend of mine (unsuccessfully) tried to explain the rules of Dressage to me. Despite her best efforts I can still barely tell the difference between a good Dressage rider and a poor one, short of someone falling off the horse.
Still, I’ll be glued avidly to the television for the next two weeks – best of luck to all the British athletes.
Conservative Party News
Salford Labour – Post Office Claptrap
Here’s what Langworthy Labour Councillor John Warmisham had to say to the Advertiser about the decision to close Langworthy Road Post Office:
The only problem is that this is utter nonsense – and I’m sure Councillor Warmisham knows this. The Post Office have little choice in the matter. They have been told by the Government to close 2500 Post Offices nationally, and that will inevitably mean that some Post Offices in Salford get hit. The Government have applied a blunt instrument with no regard to the effect on local communities. The only way to stop the Post Offices closures in Salford is to get the Labour Government to perform a u-turn on the national closure programme – and that is something that our Labour Council and Labour MPs have resolutely refused to do.
We cannot seriously expet that the Post Office will close Post Offices in all our neighbouring boroughs and leave Salford unscathed. Bolton, Bury and Manchester have all been hit equally hard, and their local Councillors are making the same representations to the Post Office.
It is the Labour Government who are not listening to the communities in Langworthy, Adelphi and Patricroft.