To help people keep track of what the council’s doing – and give people as much chance as possible to find out about issues that interest them and have their say, the council publishes a “forward plan” of upcoming decisions.

It isn’t perfect – some issues will also pop up that need an urgent decision taking and so haven’t previously appeared on the plan – but it does capture most of the items.

Stockport’s forward plan for October and November 2012 can be seen here.

Decisions being taken include the Manchester Airport strategic review (where the Manchester Airport Group is looking to sell half its shares to an Australian pension fund and buy another UK airport with the money), the “Community Right to Bid” (part of the Localism Act), Primary School expansions and other issues (21 in total).