Saturday, March 17, 2007
Believe everything you read. And then some more...
I read the Prestwich Advertiser this week, as every week, and was a bit disappointed that two of the Lib Dems biggest projects at the moment managed to gain significant coverage without a word from us!
First off Labour's plans to change Area Boards. Whilst nobody really thinks they work in their present format, plans to get rid of the open forum element are wrong in my opinion. We should be strengthening residents' access to Councillors, not weakening it. Councillors locally should be given more of a control over the Bury Council budget so that they can get things done that people in their neighbourhoods actually need. And I applaud Conservative Councillor Michelle Wiseman's stand on this issue, which is coming from the same point of view. Unfortunately, whilst Cllr Wiseman (the Chair of Whitefield and Unsworth Area Board) gets a big picture and interview in the paper, nobody came to ask our own Lib Dem Chair of Prestwich Area Board Cllr Vic D'Albert for his views. Which is a shame given that the Advertiser is a Prestwich paper!
The other story concerned Bland Road, and the traffic calming measures introduced after a residents' survey over rat-run concerns. Although the plans are controversial, the Area Board heard from dozens of local people and decided that they should be approved. The plans will make the streets safer for local residents, especially children, and may help to tackle the car-jacking problems that some residents have suffered. It is good to see that the Sedgley Labour Councillor Gill Campbell is happy with the result, although in the interests of fairness it would have been nice for the paper to have interviewed either of the two Lib Dem Councillors as well!
So, for one week only, DO believe everything you read in the paper! Just remember that we'd have said pretty much the same thing!!
Rick
First off Labour's plans to change Area Boards. Whilst nobody really thinks they work in their present format, plans to get rid of the open forum element are wrong in my opinion. We should be strengthening residents' access to Councillors, not weakening it. Councillors locally should be given more of a control over the Bury Council budget so that they can get things done that people in their neighbourhoods actually need. And I applaud Conservative Councillor Michelle Wiseman's stand on this issue, which is coming from the same point of view. Unfortunately, whilst Cllr Wiseman (the Chair of Whitefield and Unsworth Area Board) gets a big picture and interview in the paper, nobody came to ask our own Lib Dem Chair of Prestwich Area Board Cllr Vic D'Albert for his views. Which is a shame given that the Advertiser is a Prestwich paper!
The other story concerned Bland Road, and the traffic calming measures introduced after a residents' survey over rat-run concerns. Although the plans are controversial, the Area Board heard from dozens of local people and decided that they should be approved. The plans will make the streets safer for local residents, especially children, and may help to tackle the car-jacking problems that some residents have suffered. It is good to see that the Sedgley Labour Councillor Gill Campbell is happy with the result, although in the interests of fairness it would have been nice for the paper to have interviewed either of the two Lib Dem Councillors as well!
So, for one week only, DO believe everything you read in the paper! Just remember that we'd have said pretty much the same thing!!
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 09:49 
