A new direction for Bury South

A year ago today I was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary Spokesperson for Bury South.  It has been a fantastic year and I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed.  I have had the opportunity to meet and help so many residents of Bury South, visit many of the schools, community groups, sheltered housing associations, sports clubs to name a few.  Bury Council is now under Conservative leadership and I am an Executive Member for Safer and Securer Communities – all this has happened in just a year.  There have been many controversial issues over the past year and I am delighted that the re-siting of the In-vessell composting unit in Bradley Fold also reached a successful conclusion and resulting from that a Radcliffe North Councillor’s complaint about my conduct over this issue to the Standards Board has been dismissed.

This afternoon is the vote by AGMA on congestion charging -let’s hope that this Labour initiative which will just be another stealth tax is rejected.

Last night I attended the monthly meeting of the Old Hall Residents Group.  This group was initially formed to unite to object to a planning application on their estate.  Following this they formed a home watch scheme and now run many social events as well.  Issues of concern both locally and throughout Bury are discussed and my thanks must go to Yvonne Moore the Chairman of the group and Louise Largan who is the secretary.  They work extremely hard and are very committed.

This time of the year sees a lot of AGM’s and school speech days and I have attended two over the last two days.  On Sunday was the AGM where I work at the Nicky Alliance Day Centre and yesterday I was invited to Speech Day at King David Junior School where my three children attended.  The SATS results were amazing,  achieving 100% in the Key Stage 2 exams at Level 4 in Maths, English and Science and my congratulations goes to the Head Teacher Mr Parker and all his staff. 

On Tuesday night I appeared on a live television debate on Channel M about the proposed congestion charging throughout Greater Manchester.  This was reported on in Wednesday’s Manchester Evening News.  I have then spent the last couple of days at a planning conference on behalf of Bury Council in my role as Exec member for Safer and Securer Communities.  Interesting to read a report yesterday about the high number of students dropping out of university courses – no surprise there as far as I am concerned – the Government’s target of 50% of all students attending university is unrealistic and unnecessary.  We are lacking a skilled workforce placing too much emphasis on academic achievement and not enough on practicals skills.

At lunch time today I went along to St Gabriel’s school in Bury to present a cheque for £500 to the Head of Art, Andrea Burns, half to go to the school and half to go to the three pupils for their prize in winning the art competition.  Abigail Coop, Ellie Whitehead and Sofia Mellidoni all year 8 pupils had their art work chosen to be placed on three of Bury’s Hackney taxis.  This is part of an ongoing project in conjunction with the Hackney Taxis and local schools to promote services in Bury such as Bury sport.  Well done to all who take part in this initiative which helps to provide a good example of partnership working throughout the Borough.  

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to the Urbis in Manchester for the filming of a live debate on Channel M about congestion charging.  It will be on from between 7pm and 8pm.

The Church Inn in Whitefield was demolished at midnight last night as part of the Morrisons developments.  A distraught resident rang me at 00.05am to tell me what was happening.   Unfortunately no-one was available to speak to today but I shall be looking into this first thing tomorrow – if I had not seen it for myself late on Friday afternoon and a mound of rubble today I would never have believed it.  Permission had been granted to demolish this so why it was done at such an hour I have no idea – but I shall find out.

Don’t know where the time goes but I have just realised it is Tuesday since I last wrote a post.  Wednesday evening went to visit a resident and then attended the Executive meeting where I presented a report in the restricted part of the meeting.  Thursday night I went along to the Sedgley Ward AGM and yesterday spent 6 hours driving to Absersoch and back to pick up my daughter and a friend of hers from a few days holiday staying with a school friend.  Spent today catching up with the newspapers including the one in the Advertiser about my facebook account!

I went along today to open a conference on Domestic Abuse held at the Elizabethan Suite at the Town Hall in Bury.  There were two identical sessions held one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  At 5pm this evening there will be a drop in for members of the public to come along to see what is on offer from agencies throughout Bury.  A testimony on behalf of one adult victim was given at the beginning of the conference – a stark reminder of why we were there – but we not forget that children are often caught up in domestic abuse and a child gave her own account later in the session.  In the UK alone £23bn is spent on domestic abuse related incidents whilst in Bury it is £6.5m which is more than the amount spent on drugs and alcohol related incidents.

This morning I attended the AGM of Brookvale, which is based in Simister in Prestwich,  an organisation which provides residential and day care for young people and adults with learning disabilities.   The Mayor of Bury was also present and brought greetings from the Borough of Bury.  It was a great opportunity to catch up on the amazing work this organisation does and to see the new rooms and extension that have been added on since my visit there last year.  Well done to Lynne Richmond and all her team.

From the 1 July I have reduced my days at work to four giving me a Friday to ‘catch up’ with constituency work and attend meetings that I might not otherwise be able to go to.  So yesterday was my first Friday off work – in the morning I went along to Bury REC (Race Equality Council) to meet with the Chief Exec there and to find out more about the vital work they do in the community.  Another excellent model of a voluntary organisation doing essential work with no statutory funding (Bury Council withdrew their funding this year).  In the afternoon I went to the ’soil cutting’ ceremony for the new Morrisons supermarket in Whitefield along with fellow Councillors and our Bury South MP.  This long awaited development is actually underway at last – hopefully providing a showcase for the Centre of Whitefield.    We managed to avoid the showers but the hard hat and yellow flap jacket provided adequate cover – sorry no photo’s available unless a certain photographer who was there and reads this site would like to post his on for me!