Cllr Iain Lindley - Salford City Councillor for Walkden South Ward
I’ve spent much of the weekend with Beechams All-In-One for company so apologies for the lack of updates!
Just a quick reminder for local residents that the local Community Committee is being held tomorrow at Little Hulton SureStart Centre on Longshaw Drive, starting at 6pm. Hope to see you there!
The next meeting of the Walkden and Little Hulton Community Committee is next Monday, 28th January 2008. The meeting venue rotates between the three wards in Walkden and Little Hulton, so this meeting will be held at the Little Hulton SureStart Centre on Longshaw Drive. The fun and games start at 6pm and all local residents are welcome to attend - hope to see you there!
I read with horror the story in today’s Manchester Evening News about a man falling between the platform and a train at Greenfield station in Oldham:
A DAD has told of his miracle escape from a ‘death trap’ after getting stuck between a train and the platform.
Paul Steele slipped in pouring rain as he was handing over two-year-old daughter Chantelle’s pram to the conductor at Oldham’s Greenfield station.
The 36-year-old father frantically freed himself and managed to get on board before the train set off.
Greenfield is not the only station to suffer from death trap platforms. Northern Rail and Network Rail have been told by passengers here at Walkden - and reminded repeatedly by representatives from Friends of Walkden Station - that the platform is an unsafe height. There must be many other stations across Greater Manchester that suffer from the same problems. Here’s what FOWS have to say on their website:
The height between carriage doors and the platform is as much as 17 inches in some places, much too high for safe, comfortable boarding and disembarking of trains.
We understand the problem has been caused by track maintenance operations which have steadily raised the level of the railway lines over the years. Northern Rail, Network Rail, and GMPTE have all acknowledged the problem but no rectification work is planned.
FOWS believe the large gap presents a serious safety issue, with at least two passengers having fallen into the gap and onto the track in the last few years.
Latest status … (10 Dec 2007) FOWS have written to the chairman of Network Rail about this specific problem, but been told that Network Rail have no plans to fix it until major construction work is next performed at the station. At present we do not believe any such work is planned, so we have escalated the issue to the government’s rail safety watchdog (the Office of Rail Regulation) to ask for their intervention.
I can only hope that the rail companies do not wait until the horse has bolted before they take action on this issue. It would be a tragedy if it takes a death or serious injury to provoke action.
There’s a small piece in this week’s Advertiser (sadly not online) about the visit to Salford earlier this week of Theresa Villiers, the shadow secretary of state for transport. The visits are covered more extensively on the Walkden Conservatives and Salford Conservatives websites, so I won’t get overly repetitive other than to say I am extremely pleased that Theresa not only took the time to visit Walkden station to discuss the issues affecting commuters and rail users in the local area but also showed a genuine interest in how we could work to solve those problems, particularly the issue of overcrowding at peak periods.
After a bit of a sabbatical - initially caused by the same hosting problems that pole-axed this blog for a while - I have now restarted the Walkden Conservatives website.
You’ll notice it has a familiar look; I’ve opted once again for the ease-of-use of WordPress over Joomla, which was the Content Management System I used for the old Walkden Conservatives site.
Obviously the content will build up over time, but if you have any comments or suggestions about the site - or indeed this blog and the Salford Conservatives site - please do let me know!
New Prospect have organised a neighbourhood walkabout for the Athens Drive area this coming Monday, 14th January, starting at 10am. The walkabout will include ward Councillors and representatives from New Prospect, the Council and the local Police.
If you live in the local area and have any problems or concerns, please do not hesitate to come out and let us know your views. I am particularly interested in meeting local residents in Oracle Court to find out how successful the new fencing has been in deterring anti-social behaviour.
As social networking continues to attract column inches and Facebook continues to garner attention - including a double-page spread in the Advertiser a few months ago - I thought I’d do a quick run-down of a few groups that local residents in Walkden and across Salford might be interested in. I apologise in advance if I had a hand in creating a disproportionate number of them!
First of all, there’s a campaign group about creating a Salford network as well as the current Manchester one. This seems to be a roaring success and has nearly 1500 members. I hope it is successful - Salford is of course very much a City in it’s own right.
Even closer to home, the Save St George’s High School facebook group now has nearly 300 members and has gone from strength to strength. St George’s also has an alumni group, as do Walkden High, Mesne Lea and James Brindley schools. If there are any more local schools with facebook groups please let me know in the comments!
There are a plethora of Conservative groups on Facebook - locally, regionally and nationally - but rather than list them all I’ll just give a quick plug to our own City of Salford Conservatives group.
Finally for now, and not Salford-related, the political hacks amongst us will enjoy “You Know You’ve Been In Politics For Too Long When…”
If you have any Facebook groups you want to share, please leave a comment!
Apologies to those readers who do not use Facebook and don’t have the foggiest idea about what these groups mean…
This week’s Advertiser has printed Cllr John Warmisham’s response to the stupid signs on the Ash Grove playing fields:
“The playing fields are private property and the signs have been erected to clearly indicate this”
No, John. Those playing fields are public property and the Council is entrusted with maintaining them on behalf of local residents. Playing fields and urban open spaces are valuable local amenities and senior Councillors should know better than to play dog-in-the-manger with them. Of course, under the terms of the Walkden High School PFI contract, a private firm will fence off those fields in the years to come and charge a small fortune for “community use”. The same will happen at Harrop Fold when those facilities are finished next autumn.
“During the previous consultation the community expressed concerns about anti-social behaviour on the land including the ues of motorbikes and dog fouling on the fields”
This is of course absolutely true, but what are you going to do about it John? I’m sure the kids on motorbikes are quivering at the thought of those signs. All that the signs have achieved is to make a group of residents who have already been badly let down by Councillors Warmisham and Merry have even less trust in the Council.
I’ve just noticed the report on the recent OFSTED report on St George’s High School from Kevin Duffy of Channel M News. Well worth a look…
BSF Feature In The Telegraph
Today’s Telegraph includees an article and a feature on the effect of the Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme. Both articles mention Labour’s appalling decision to close St George’s High School:
Popular Schools Face Closure In £45bn Scheme
The Battle Of The Badge