Just a quick reminder that there is a Friends of Walkden Station (FOWS) meeting tonight at the Walkden Royal British Legion on Wilfred Road – the meeting starts at 7pm and all local residents and rail passengers are welcome.
Archive for the 'Walkden' Category
A depressing report today from Experian, which suggests that Walkden town centre is one of the places worst-hit by the current recession.
Walkden town centre has suffered considerable decline over the last few years, and the number of empty shops has steadily increased. Obviously the current recession has exacerbated this, but traders have also complained about the inflexibility of the ownership of the Ellesmere Centre – not helped by the Council’s decision to flog the Market Hall and Pembroke Halls to them back when Labour last found themselves in financial crisis.
Incidentally, as I’ve pointed out before, Labour promised to reinvest that money in Walkden town centre and it has never materialised – we’re still waiting for the money.
The new Tesco development is now well underway. Many people are rightly wary of Tesco, but sadly there wasn’t a huge queue of firms waiting to invest in Walkden. I hope that the new Tesco – and particularly the extra parking spaces – will provide a boost to those smaller and independent traders who have stuck out the difficult times, and encourage new firms to invest and set up in Walkden.
Locally, the Council needs to do much better. The millions received from the Pembroke Halls sale went into a typical Labour black hole and show no sign of returning. There is a “Salford West” development strategy but Walkden town centre does not even feature on the radar (although they are doing some useful work elsewhere).
Nationally, we need to be doing much more to support businesses and independent traders. Conservative proposals include:
- Get credit flowing and save jobs with a £50 billion National Loan Guarantee Scheme.
- Help small businesses with cash flow by delaying VAT bills for six months.
- Get companies hiring again through reducing employment costs for small businesses by cutting National Insurance, and through a tax break for new jobs.
Like many local residents, I have my fingers crossed that the new Tesco has the desired effect. Regardless, I know that a Conservative Government and Conservative-led Council would be much more proactive in supporting town centres like Walkden (and Eccles and Swinton) and the businesses that inhabit them.
United Utilities are holding an exhibition with information about the West-East Link Pipeline – many local residents will already have noticed the excavations nearly the East Lancs Road!
The exhibition is being held at Worsley Courthouse on Tuesday 30th June and will be open from 2pm until 7pm.
Yesterday I received a large package in the post. It’s the detailed plans for the proposed Walkden High School build. I’m going to go through it with a fine toothcomb, but what strikes you immediately is the name on all the documents – not Walkden High School but “Walkden Global College”.
I don’t know whether this is kite-flying or a solid proposal to change the name permanently, but as a first impression I’m not convinced by it as a name.
This morning, myself and my ward colleagues Les and Nicky Turner accompanied representatives from City West Housing and the Council on a walkabout around the western half of the Birch Road estate.
We spoke to a number of local residents about their concerns, with traffic again a major concern. I will be studying the Walkden High School planning application very closely to see what the travel plan says about traffic flow throughout the estate. Personally I see a lot of merit in a 20mph zone across the Birch Road area but we have been told this cannot be implemented without additional traffic-calming.
I have just received the following information about the submission of the planning application for the proposed new-build Walkden High School. I am reposting it here, in full, for the information of local residents.
As you may now be aware, Transforming Learning Partnership (TLP) has been appointed as the Council’s Preferred Bidder for the Building Schools for the Future programme. Councillor Warmisham has asked me to inform you that as a consequence, a planning application for the new Walkden High School was submitted by TLP on Friday 5th June 2009. For this application, we anticipate the following chain of events:
5th June – Planning application submitted
Week beginning 8th June – Planning consultation letters to local residents sent out. The normal procedure is to give 21 days for local residents to submit any objections/comments. This would give a closing date for the receipt of any objections around 29th June. It was felt that this should be extended by another week to allow for the public consultations that will be taking place (see below).
25th June – A public information/drop-in event will be held at the existing school.
9th July – Planning Panel Members Briefing session
6th August – Planning Panel meeting
13th August – Possible site visit
Please note that the Planning Panel meetings/engagements are anticipated dates only at this stage.
Our local PCSOs have organised a Police and Communities Together (PACT) meeting, which will be held on Tuesday 9th June at Salford College, Worsley Campus.
The meeting starts at 7.30pm and will be a good opportunity for any local residents to air concerns with our community policing team.
For many years, there has been a summer rail service from Walkden direct to Blackpool North, which has been popular with many local residents, especially families with young children and pensioners.
Unfortunately in the new summer timetable, the Blackpool service has vanished, meaning that residents will now have a more complicated journey, or will simply take the car instead.
If you’ve been affected by this service cut, I can only echo the advice of the Friends of Walkden Station and ask you to write to Northern Rail at customer.relations@northernrail.org and let them know what you think!
Following persistent anti-social behaviour at former industrial premises on Holyoake Road, residents asked me to organise a meeting to discuss the problems. I have now arranged this meeting for Tuesday 19th May at the Guild Hall – the meeting will start at 7pm and representatives from the police and the site owners will be present. If you are a local resident affected by these problems please come along and have your say.
Depressing news from the AGMA meeting – the white elephant Leigh Misguided Busway stays on the list of priority improvements, despite being of absolutely no use to anyone.
I am completely opposed to the busway which will cause a huge increase in congestion on the A580 East Lancashire Road without actually providing any improvements in our bus services, which will speed down the East Lancs bypassing the communities it is supposed to serve.
What a bonkers idea – and now we are being told that we’ll have to fork out extra Council Tax for it as well.
Recent Comments