Thursday, July 26, 2007
Pubs and Buses
The last couple of days have been fairly busy, and the next couple promise more of the same. I followed up a resident complaint about noise coming from The Priest's Retreat pub on bury New Road in prestwich Village the other day, and the Council's Environmental Health staff went and checked it out. Whilst there they did discover a noise problem, but also some pretty severe licenisng violations. As a result they shut the pub down! So that was a result, and then some! It will re-open once the relevant violations have been rectified.
My battles with the PTE over the ridiculous treatment of elderly people crossing the Borough boundary to the north goes on. Just to re-cap, elderly people are entitled to free local bus travel. But at the Borough boundary, the X43 carries on to Burnley, and the old people have to get off and wait to pay to travel on the next bus! They can't even offer to pay and stay on the bus they're already on, unless the driver agrees. And they often don't! I am told that any change to the contract with the bus operators to ensure that old people aren't left freezing at far-flung bus stops is likely to take months to negotiate, and since all OAP bus travel is becoming free from April, they don't see the point. I pointed out to them that between now and April there is a small patch of calendar known as "Winter," which I hear can get quite nippy at desolate bus stops, but this didn't sway them. So I am considering my options on this one now.
Tonight it's the regular Lib Dem Council Group meeting- lots of exciting things to discuss. Not least of which is congestion charging. We will see tomorrow how the decision goes. Unfortunately the PTA (on which I sit) won't be able to advise the AGMA Leaders of their view because the Labour PTA Chair has re-scheduled our meeting until after the AGMA decision is made (our meeting was supposed to be today). But we'll see if the TIF bid is apporved as it stands. Since a number of high profile Bury Tories have publicly come out against the bid, it will be interesting if their leader votes for it! We shall see...
Rick
My battles with the PTE over the ridiculous treatment of elderly people crossing the Borough boundary to the north goes on. Just to re-cap, elderly people are entitled to free local bus travel. But at the Borough boundary, the X43 carries on to Burnley, and the old people have to get off and wait to pay to travel on the next bus! They can't even offer to pay and stay on the bus they're already on, unless the driver agrees. And they often don't! I am told that any change to the contract with the bus operators to ensure that old people aren't left freezing at far-flung bus stops is likely to take months to negotiate, and since all OAP bus travel is becoming free from April, they don't see the point. I pointed out to them that between now and April there is a small patch of calendar known as "Winter," which I hear can get quite nippy at desolate bus stops, but this didn't sway them. So I am considering my options on this one now.
Tonight it's the regular Lib Dem Council Group meeting- lots of exciting things to discuss. Not least of which is congestion charging. We will see tomorrow how the decision goes. Unfortunately the PTA (on which I sit) won't be able to advise the AGMA Leaders of their view because the Labour PTA Chair has re-scheduled our meeting until after the AGMA decision is made (our meeting was supposed to be today). But we'll see if the TIF bid is apporved as it stands. Since a number of high profile Bury Tories have publicly come out against the bid, it will be interesting if their leader votes for it! We shall see...
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 13:02 
