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Archive Page 2 of 62
Tomorrow we are having a full Council policy day on the effect of the recession on Salford people and Salford businesses. This is very welcome, but as Conservative opposition Councillors we asked for an economic summit back in the autumn. It’s taken the Labour leadership six months to organise this. How many Salford people have suffered in the interim?
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.
I don’t mind having a debate about electoral reform, but let’s make no bones about Gordon Brown’s announcement today that he wants to examine ways to change the voting system – he knows he is going to lose, so as a last desperate attempt to restrict the damage he is now going to look at fixing the system.
If the Prime Minister is so concerned about the democratic legitimacy of his Government, there is a very simple option he can take – call a General Election and let the British people decide.
Watch David Cameron’s reaction to the European election results…
Here in Salford, we narrowly failed to top the poll, with Labour ahead by just 900 votes and the Liberal Democrats in a poor fourth behind UKIP. This is a great result and we would have been comfortably ahead across the Worsley & Eccles South constituency.
Conservatives are now the only Party to have MEP representation in every part of the country, and now thanks to our link-up with the Ulster Unionists there is now an MEP elected under the Conservative banner in Northern Ireland too.
As you may have seen on the news, Labour MP Ian Gibson has stood down from Parliament following the expenses affair; this means that there will be a by-election in his Norwich North seat.
The Conservative Prospective MP for Norwich North is Chloe Smith, a contemporary of mine at the University of York and a fellow York Tory alumnus.
I hope by now that she’s got over the shock of suddenly becoming a by-election candidate, and although it is quite a trek from Worsley I look forward to heading down at least one weekend to lend a hand with her campaign.
Chloe is a Norfolk girl and I know she’ll make an excellent Member of Parliament for the good folk of Norwich. I wish her every success – fingers crossed!
I’m just having another browse through Thursday’s election results for Lancashire, which show a huge swing to the Conservatives across the board. It’s great news that Lancashire now has a common-sense Conservative administration for the first time in 28 years.
From a personal point-of-view I’m particularly pleased with the Conservative clean-sweep in Rossendale where I worked for a short time, and the outstanding results in Pendle, with two gains including defeating the LibDem leader.
We have won some unexpected seats with huge swings, and any media commentators or opposition activists looking to peddle the blatant lie that the Conservative Party is not winning in the north of England have had their lies debunked in comprehensive fashion this week. We have Conservative County Councillors in Skelmersdale, Fleetwood and Pendle Central, amongst others. What an exceptional result, well done!
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.
Stop Hiding Behind “Security”
It isn’t hard to find out where politicians live if you really want to do so.
The overwhelming majority of Councillors (including me) have their home addresses published online and in Council publications. Almost all are on the electoral register – data that is easily obtainable. Home addresses are printed on election ballot papers and at polling stations, and rightly so – local people have the right to know whether their candidates live locally. Then there’s the media – it’s hard not to know where Hazel Blears has her constituency home, as there’s been a constant scrum of media figures parked outside it for the past month or so.
So let’s not have any crying wolf about “security” or “privacy” over the blacked-out expenses. That’s just not good enough. By all means blank out the details of office staff – but for the MPs themselves there are no excuses. Publish or be damned.