I’ve now had confirmation that Salford City Council does not have any investments in the troubled Icelandic banks.
This is welcome news and a small silver lining in what is otherwise a very bleak financial outlook for the Council.
Archive for October, 2008 Page 3 of 4
Important as they are, I never thought I’d be writing repeated posts about yellow school buses, but I think this issue is entirely symptomatic of the misleading way in which our Labour leaders have approached the TIF consultation and the information which has been put out to the public.
A week last Monday, GMPTE officers delivered a presentation to the Walkden & Little Hulton Community Committee about the TIF bid. I have a copy of the presentation and I’ve read it carefully. Here’s what it said about yellow school buses:
In case the image isn’t working, that’s “up to 29 yellow school buses by 2018″.
Now, and credit to David Ottewell for this, we can now see where that figure of 29 came from:
So, when local residents are told that “up to 29 yellow schools buses” will be included with the TIF package by 2018, we can now see that this is manifestly not true. Of those 29 yellow buses,
- 1 already exists
- 9 are being provided by regional funding (RFA)
- of the remaining 19, some will be provided from TIF funds and some will be provided from “local funds” (LTP – ie, the Council taxpayer), but we don’t know how many.
So local residents in Salford are being told that up to 29 yellow school buses would be provided through TIF when the actual number is likely to be no more than 10 or 12. This is a shamefully misleading use of figures and local residents should be appalled that their money is being spent on such dreadful propaganda.
Eagled-eyed readers may have already noticed the Twitter feed which has appeared at the top of the right-hand sidebar. This means I’ll be able to give quick – and quicker - updates when I’m out and about at meetings or at events in the local area.
This will be in additional to my regular posts, so do keep an eye out for the updates!
Following last week’s delay, I was pleased to learn that the Council housing stock in west Salford was successfully transferred to City West Housing Trust late on Monday night. This is good news – any further delay would have seen the postponement of improvements for tenants and would have been financially catastrophic for the Council.
Contact details for City West can be found on their website. Local residents in Walkden who wish to contact City West locally can call the Walkden office on 0161 605 7210.
The stock transfer brings to an end my time as a board member of New Prospect Housing. I was appointed to the board in December 2004 and I’d like to thank everyone I’ve worked with during that time – and especially John Rogerson and Steve Sheridan as Chairs of the board – for their help and support.
It gives me no pleasure to report that my e-mail inbox is full of e-mails from local residents, neighbourhood police and British Transport Police about problems of vandalism and anti-social behaviour on and around Walkden station. The nearby business premises (some of them empty) on Holyoake Road nearby have also suffered from the same problems. The Friends of Walkden Station have outlined some of the incidents on their excellent blog.
I know that the local police are very keen to work with BTP to try to stamp this problem out, and as a local Councillor I would welcome an improved BTP presence at the station. In the meantime, it is very important that local residents and commuters report any anti-social behaviour or vandalism at the station to the BTP on 0800 40 50 40. BTP are a very stretched force covering a huge geographical area, and the more they are aware of the problems that exist at Walkden station the more likely they are to prioritise resources here.
The TIF and congestion charge consultation period closes this Friday (10th October), so local residents and businesses now have just a couple of days left to pass on their views. If you want to submit a response, you can do so by clicking here.
David Ottewell reports here and here about a misunderstanding in Stockport concerning the number of yellow school buses that might be available under the TIF proposals. Personally I’m surprised that AGMA have put the figure of 120 new yellow buses up in bright lights – because whilst they would be extremely welcome they are barely scratching the surface of school transport issues.
Those 120 buses have to split between all 10 local authorities, so that’s 12 buses for Salford if divided equally. Given that population-wise Salford is not as big as the Manchesters and the Wigans of this world (probability of Manchester City Council getting less than a fair share from TIF = 0) we’re probably looking at around 10 yellow buses to cover the whole of Salford.
How far will ten buses go? If you wander up to Birch Road in Walkden at the end of the school day, you’ll spot at least three and possibly four school buses taking pupils home – and of course Walkden High School is due to expand by another 300 places after the rebuild.
So those ten buses will be suitable for two large schools, or three smaller schools at a push. Given the Council is determined to close good schools like St George’s and make Salford children travel even further to school, those ten buses are only going to become even more inadequate in the future.
I suppose the introduction of yellow school buses, but they shouldn’t be any more expensive to buy or run than an ordinary bus and they shouldn’t be used as a carrot to persuade parents and prospective parents to support the TIF package – particularly as even if the TIF bid is successful the chances of your child ending up on a shiny new yellow bus are fairly slim.
I wrote on this blog a couple of years ago about how impressed I was with the regeneration work done in Birmingham city centre, and particularly the area around the Gas Street Basin and the Mailbox. Last week at Conference I had chance for another good look, and I saw nothing to alter my opinion.
There has been some grumbling about the size of the main Conference hall at the ICC, and whilst we could certainly have done with a larger auditorium, that is as much a product of a successful Conference with a united, enthused and popular party as it is the size of the venue. Perhaps when Conference returns to Birmingham in 2010 we can make more use of the Symphony Hall – even if it does have red seats! Considering the whole package though, I thought that the ICC together with the Hyatt provided an excellent Conference venue – big enough to accomodate all the events that accompany such a big Conference but compact enough to get from one fringe to another in good time (although it was a bit of a maze in parts). I won’t be in a hurry to pay the prices in the Hyatt bar again either, but I suppose that is just an occupational hazard of Party Conferences and I doub that the Midland next year will be any cheaper!
Equally impressive is the wide range of bars, restaurants and amenities within an easy walking distance of the ICC. I think that the developments along the canalside at Brindley Place, the Gas Street Basin and the Mailbox are absolutely fabulous. The Mailbox of course includes the regional BBC operations for Birmingham and the West Midlands – I hope that those involved with the intimate details of MediaCity:UK at Salford Quays have looked at the Gas Street waterfront, because it looks fantastic. MediaCity:UK of course will be much bigger and better, and I’m hugely excited by the potential that we have to take the excellent work they’ve done at the Mailbox and Gas Street Basin and make it ten times bigger and ten times better.
Another common grumble was the price of accomodation in a big city like Birmingham compared to a seaside town like Blackpool. I know some friends who did pay through the roof, but our accomodation at the Arc Apartments was both excellent value (£25pppn) and high quality – highly recommended for 2010. Talking to the manager on duty there, he said that they were hoping to have a considerable number of extra apartments available in two years time, which is excellent news for the Conference punter.
Fortunately for me, accomodation for Conference 2009 in Manchester will be less of a problem!
I’ve received a number of calls and letters from local residents in Stanley Road and St George’s Crescent about planning application 08/56900/FUL, which is for a four-storey block of speculative office accomadation on land to the west of Stanley Road and north of the railway line.
Residents are rightly concerned about the sheer size of the proposed development which is likely to result in a severe loss of amenity for those residents in St George’s Crescent next to the application site. There are also reservations over parking and traffic, which already cause considerable problems for the community in central Walkden. I’m also uncomfortable about the presence of disused mineshafts in the vicinity of the site and have asked the planning officers to look into this further.
If you are reading this and are interested in viewing the planning documents, you can do so via Public Access - search for the planning application reference which is 08/56900/FUL. You can submit comments on Public Access, via the form on the Council website or by e-mailing planning.contact@salford.gov.uk.
Council Banking On Ice
Some worrying news for local Councils up and down the country following the collapse of the Icelandic banking sector – some Councils have huge sums invested in those Icelandic banks. ConservativeHome also have some some interesting comment.
I don’t know at this moment whether Salford City Council have anything invested in Iceland – doubtless we’ll find out soon enough (though I suspect the answer is “no”). Of course, Salford City Council have very little money to invest given that years of financial irresponsibility from the ruling Labour group have withered our precious reserves away to the bare minimum.
I do however know that the Fire Authority has not invested in overseas banks. We had this discussion at a recent Authority finance committee meeting, where one Labour Councillor seemed unhappy that we weren’t considering investing in overseas banks. British banks are no less immune to financial shocks than any other, but as we’ve seen today deposits in overseas banks – particularly in smaller countries like Iceland – can lead to even greater uncertainty when those shocks hit.