5th - Bury Liberal Democrats monthly meeting

7th - Meeting with Six Town Housing

8th - Healthier Communities Scrutiny Meeting, 6pm Bury Town Hall, public welcome

12th - Joint Scrutiny meeting into Elderly Persons Accomodation, 5.30pm Bury Town Hall, public welcome

13th - Prestwich Area Partnership 6.30pm

20th - Standards Committee Hearing 6pm, Bury Town Hall

26th - Lib Dem Group meeting

27th - Holocaust Remembrance Service

At the risk of incurring some ancient curse for saying it before midnight, I thought i’d take the opportunity to wish everyone in Prestwich and of course Bury, A very happy 2009. I hope it is happy, healthy, memorable and peaceful.

Somehow I have managed to reach Christmas Eve. I still have cards to deliver, shopping to do and I confess to feeling exhausted already.BUT, we’ve made it to Christmas despite credit crunch, global downturn, flu epidemics et al.

However you celebrate Christmas, If you celebrate Christmas, I hope it will be an enjoyable, memorable and relaxing one.

Wishing a very merry christmas to you all.

If you know any older people who will be on their own on Christmas day direct them to the Quirky cafe on Bury New Road for a Christmas dinner from 12 till 2pm on Christmas day.   

Also many of the Churches will be directing people to various lunches so call your local church for a local venue.

Bury Council offices will be closed 25 and 26 December as well as 1 and 2 January.

If you need to call Bury Council urgently during this time please ring 253 6606.

Liberal Democrats in Bury have given their backing to plans for investment in green schemes that will make homes warmer, cut energy bills and improve public transport.

The plans, called Green Road out of Recession, were announced on 18th December by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg MP. 

The plans will cost £12.5bn, which would be paid for by scrapping the recent VAT cut. The vast majority of that money will be spent immediately, making a real impact on the economy and people’s lives right away. 

• A five-year programme to insulate every school and hospital, with 20% completed in the first year

• Funding insulation and energy efficiency for a million homes, with a £1,000 subsidy for a million more

• Building 40,000 extra zero-carbon social houses

• Buying 700 new train carriages

• Installing energy and money saving smart meters in every home within five years

“The plans proposed by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats will give an immediate boost to the economy here in Bury,” said Vic D’Albert, Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson for Bury South“. And by insulating people’s homes, it will help thousands of residents whose heating bills have gone through the roof in the past year.

 “I would particularly welcome the widespread introduction of smart meters in homes which would prove a massive boost to the increasing numbers of residents suffering from fuel poverty across the area.” 

Richard Baum, Parliamentary spokesperson for Bury North also welcomed the proposals adding, “Whilst Labour and the Conservatives are quietly dropping serious interest in tackling climate change and damage to the environment, Liberal Democrats believe that moving forward with green action on homes and transport will create jobs, cut energy bills, put money back into people’s pockets and protect the environment. It’s right for Britain and it’s right for Bury”.

At last nights Police (Bury Division) Carol Concert at Bury Parish Church, Reverend Findon reminded us that Christmas was about the little people.

“God tells us to care for the little people”. Clearly not eliminating myself on height grounds and meaning significantly more than those challenged in that direction, I nevertheless found his message a very stirring one albeit caged in very subtle and simplistic tones.

At Christmas it is always worth reminding ourselves of those “little people”. Those less fortunate, the dispossessed, the disenfranchised in society, the homeless, the weak, the vulnerable and those in  suffering or hardship those little people mustn’t be forgotten. Meanwhile our “little ones” can enjoy ther christmas in safety and the love of their families.

I must congratulate Chief Inspector Rush and his team for last nights concert. In particular the wonderful playing of the GMP band and the fine singing of the Choir - all in aid of the GMP Benevolent fund.

All in all a wonderful night, reminding us(if needed) what Christmas is really about.

Last nights last full meeting of Bury Council before Christmas was a mix of bad tempers and anger in a meeting that was even by Bury’s standards pretty awful.

At times as the pantomine unfolded I was left thinking that surely between the 3 party’s and senior officers we could find a way of conducting better meetings than this.

The meeting started with a series of questions from the public. They were all about Radcliffe Riverside and under the new Tory rule, submitted in advance with no follow up questions permitted which basically rendered them pointless.

That was followed by the Leaders statement. Once again Cllr Bibby took the opportunity  to hurl accusations and provocations at the Labour Group especially with regard to the recent Job evaluation debacle. Once upon a time meetings close to christmas were distinguished by efforts on all sides to maintain a degree of respect and general bon amie in recognition of the season of goodwill. Well Cllr Bibby not so much disregarded the tradition as vaporised it with his witless hurling of abuse. Of late he has decided if he is going to be insulted or accused by the opposition , he’d better get in first. Last night was no exception. Oh, by the way I called on him to apologise for the trauma and misery the Councils mishandling of the affair has caused our long suffering, hard working staff. he declined and hurled more abuse at Labour!

The meeting continued to hurtle down hill faster than a sleigh-born Santa. Questions to the leader were highlighted by a protracted answer on the state of the public toilets in Radcliffe - Cllr Gunther even had photos to show us. I’m afraid I found myself giggling incontrollably at this - shameful I know - but you had to be there. Generally though Tory answers were distinguished by a determination to either not answer the question or to answer some mysterious question that no one had actually asked!

We then moved on to Council motions. The Labour group had proposed a motion to propose council committment to use the new powers available in the Sustainable communities act - especially to save Post Offices. The Conservatives proposed an amendment that we (Lib Dems) felt improved it and in the end all 3 parties supported the amended motion. 

The Lib Dem group had submitted a motion highlighting the apalling funding settlement this year from the Government for Council finances 2009/10 (below inflation again!) and calling for an all party approach to lobby for a fairer deal for Bury. My Colleague and Resource spokesperson, Cllr Richard Baum made an excellent speech and unanimity once again erupted when all 3 parties supported this motion.

Anger at Bury Times plans to move to Bolton

There was then an emergency motion calling for Newsquest to abandon plans to move the Bury Times Group to Bolton. Which would mean that after 155 years Bury would not have a newspaper produced in the town. Angry speeches and comments from all sides of the chamber (including myself) culminated in unanimous support to keep the BT in Bury.

Following a couple more procedural items that brought the time to 10.15 , those that still had the will to live joined the Mayor for the customary mince pies and christmas cake. I didn’t spot Cllr Bibby amongst the festive treats however - perhaps he was still hurling abuse at Labour somewhere. Such anger.

The tragic death of Baby P has saddened and angered people across the country. To learn the full lessons of this tragedy, we need a public inquiry and so I am today joining the campaign for a full public enquiry and urging everyone to contact their MP’s calling for them to do the same.

I believe the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, took the right immediate steps after the convictions, ordering an urgent investigation and ensuring there were changes at the top of Haringey Council.

But there are many wider issues that Baby P’s death has raised.

Today it was confirmed that Haringey has inadequate childrens services yet a desk top research inspection awarded Haringey three stars – despite no knowledge of what is really going on in a children’s department? How is that possible? Then there are other issues such as - Is our inspection approach the right one? Is the emphasis on following procedures and ticking boxes really a good regime to hold children safe? How has the merger of education and social services at a local level been working? Where health and other services are outsourced, how do we ensure a strong level of accountability and communication?

These issues are ones that matter across the country. And that’s why we all need a public inquiry to get to the bottom of them.

So far 39 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion (EDM - a sort of Parliamentary petition) calling for one. Please contactour MP’s and urge them to add their signature.

It takes just a few moments to contact our MP’s David Chaytor (Bury North) and Ivan Lewis (Bury South) and send them a message via www.writetothem.com.

It is important that the coming Christmas break doesn’t mean this issue just slips off the agenda. And important too that we show that the political system can take people’s angers and concerns - and channel them into a productive outcome.

Bury Council has launched a consultation in relation to the proposed closure of the cash payment facilities at Prestwich Library. 

The aim of the paper based consultation exercise is to gain a broad view of opinions about the proposed closure. Bury Council claims there has been a 70% decline in the number of people using this facility. As a result they now propose to close this facility and for staff to be redeployed to other customer services. 

The council has identified that there are a number of local post offices and pay point facilities nearby in Prestwich Village, which can process the same  transactions. If the cash office were to close, it would still be possible to make cheque and card payments at Prestwich Library. The consultation is taking place throughout December and consultation forms are being handed out to users of Prestwich cash office; and forms will be circulated to individuals who have signed up to receive emails from Prestwich Local Area Partnership (LAP).

The consultation forms seek to find out more information about how many people use the service, any comments that they might have about the cash office facility and it also asks whether individuals would consider making payments via Direct Debit.

“The outcome of the consultation will be reported to the next meeting of the Prestwich LAP in January 2009. Make sure you have your say on this facility - If you use this service, if you think its important - make sure Bury Council know your views. Apathy will close this service and once closed we won’t get it back! Don’t forget to also let your councillors know your views on this.”

If you want to comment please complete the survey attached and post/hand in or better still email to the address on the form. cashoffice-consultation.pdf