I’ve just spent an hour driving around Gatley, having compared notes with Cllr Pam King on the issues we’re aware of.

The big issue right now is ice at the end of cul-de-sacs and some other low-traffic roads.  All the main roads and most through-residential roads are clear of ice (though some pavements are still icy).

Pam and I are very concerned that people - especially the elderly - living on these cul-de-sacs - might be trapped in their houses or risk serious injury by venturing out.

For example in Gatley:
- Saville Road is mostly clear but has two absolutely treacherous areas of ice near the end.
- Sevenoaks Road, Hyldavale Avenue, Lyntonvale Avenue, the top of Leyland Avenue, Brogden Drive, Brentwood Drive, Eskdale, Cartmel Close, Langdale Close, The Tarns, Kentmere Close, the top of Troutbeck Road, Birch Road, the top of West Drive and Penrhos Avenue are examples of dead-end roads which still have serious ice problems.
- Some through roads with naturally low traffic also have problems, including Heathfield Avenue, the western section of Borrowdale Avenue, Charnville Road, Connor Way, Highcrest Avenue and Halstead Grove.

Pam and I have asked for attention to be turned to these cul-de-sacs and low-traffic roads, perhaps either by gritting them or leaving piles of grit by the icy patches to be spread by residents.

Of course, a lot of work is going  on, especially trying to deal with the need to switch focus from the main roads to these smallest of residential streets- before probably switching back to the main roads for the next lot of snow forecast.

By the way, if anyone wants more information on how gritting works, when it doesn’t work and what the problems are, this piece on the BBC website is very good.

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

UPDATE: There are eight gritters working around the clock on roads around Stockport Borough.  There’s a long list of roads needing their attention from Marple to Gatley, Reddish to Woodford.  I’ve got the roads off Pendlebury Road, around Silverdale  Road/Kendal Drive/Borrowdale in Gatley and around Brackenwood Drive in Cheadle added to the list.  The Council isn’t able to guarantee a response time, but I’m assured everything is being done that can be done with current resources.

If you’ve other roads that need to be added, please let me  know and I’ll sort it out (I’m around for the next couple of days).

Returning home from my parents’ today I found all the main roads completely clear, except for my own (small residential) road which was slippier than ever.  It’s east-west so gets limited sunlight on the road itself at this time of year and the snow has turned into an inch of hard-packed ice.

The same issue has afflicted the pavements across large chunks of the Borough - many are now treacherous.

I’ve been sent these two pictures of Tumblewood Drive (off School’s Hill in Cheadle) where there was a similar problem.  Seven people spent two hours clearing ice from the road and it was hard work.

I spent half an hour trying to clear the ice from the road and pavement in front of my house, with very limited success.

The question for all of us is what, if anything, should the Council be doing about it.

The Council’s approach to gritting is (I’m told) set out in a policy document from 2006 and is similar to other local authorities up and down the country.  Stockport aims to grit all major and minor roads across the Borough as a matter of course, but not residential roads.  Key car parks and high-use pavements are also gritted, along with some other key locations such as the entrance to Stepping Hill Hospital.

So there are two issues.

First, did Stockport do what it set out to.

As I’ve written in other posts, my personal experience is that it did, despite some very tricky weather conditions (e.g. salt spread on the roads last Saturday was partially washed away by rain in the evening, so the same roads had to be re-done on Sunday).  Some clearly disagree with that.  As a councillor, I want to make sure the Council has done what it should have.

Second, should the Council do more than is currently in its policy?  Should it grit all roads and pavements automatically, or perhaps grit some residential roads - such as those on slopes?

This is a tricky one.  Travelling about today, I’m very concerned.  I’m sure there are many people  - not just the elderly - unable to get around safely right now.  Many more people are sensibly walking in the roads to avoid slipping, but on little roads like mine that doesn’t help much.

On the other hand, I don’t know how much more it would cost to do all that additional gritting.  We could end up spending millions of pounds and then not get another freeze like this one for two decades - I just don’t know.

In the New Year I will be looking to review exactly what was done and, with my fellow councillors and our council officers, explore the options for doing more.  I don’t feel I’m in a position to form a firm opinion until I’ve got a few more facts, but you can be sure I’ll be reporting back.

Of course, you are welcome to offer your opinions and concerns here.  I also suggest you contact our local MP, Mark Hunter, and - if you live outside Cheadle & Gatley ward - your own local councillors. (I can address general issues, but am not able to take up specific issues such as a particular problem road when it’s outside my ward).

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

 Between today and 3rd January I’ll be spending some time at home and some time visiting relatives around the country.  I will be checking email and voicemail so you’re welcome to give me a call or send me an email - just bear in mind that I might take a day or so to respond.

I’ve been asked to post a list of roads being gritted.  This is the information I’ve received from the Council. I pass this on as-is.

An Ice Grit to routes 1-10 starting at 19.00 to 00.01 then a Snow Grit to routes 1-10 starting at 01.00 to 07.00

Plus designated Car Parks , Footpaths and Bus Routes

Routes 1-10 are:

PRIORITY ROUTE 1 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO TRAVIS BROW
TRAVIS BROW TO GEORGES ROAD
GEORGES ROAD
A6 TO MANCHESTER BOUNDARY
CROSSLEY ROAD TO BOUNDARY
A6 TO DISLEY BOUNDARY
A6 TO MACCLESFIELD ROAD
MACCLESFIELD ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY
A6 TO GEORGES ROAD
BELMONT WAY INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
LANCASHIRE HILL, TURN RIGHT
GREAT EGERTON STREET INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
KNIGHTSBRIDGE
GREAT PORTWOOD STREET INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
GREAT PORTWOOD STREET BACK TO OLD KING PUB
CROOKILEY WAY INCLUDING BOTH ROUNDABOUTS
CROOKILEY WAY BACK TO PORTWOOD
CARRINGTON ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD WEST
STOCKPORT ROAD EAST
HYDE ROAD TO BOUNDARY
ASHTON ROAD TO DENTON BOUNDARY – BOTH SIDES OF ISLAND SAFEWAY
LINGARD LANE
BRINNINGTON ROAD – BOTH SIDES OF CENTRE ISLAND
TIVIOT WAY
MANCHESTER ROAD, RETURN TO BROADSTONE ROAD VIA MANCHESTER ROAD
SLIP ROAD ONTO MANCHESTER ROAD
BROADSTONE ROAD
GORTON ROAD TO STATION ROAD
STATION ROAD
GORTON ROAD TO BOUNDRY
THORNLEY LANE SOUTH
WINDMILL LANE TO GORTON ROAD
LONGFORD ROAD WEST TO BOUNDARY & BROWNING ROAD BUS ROUTE
HARROGATE ROAD & HOULDSWORTH STREET
LONGFORD ROAD TO MIILL LANE
REDDISH ROAD
SANDY LANE
RETURN TO BELMONT WAY, GRIT SLIP ROAD TO A6

PRIORITY ROUTE 2 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO STOCKPORT ROAD, CHEADLE HEATH
STOCKPORT ROAD INCLUDING ALL ROUNDABOUTS TO MANCHESTER ROAD
MANCHESTER ROAD TO BOUNDARY
A34 FROM MERSEY BRIDGE TO CHESHIRE BOUNDARY (INCLUDING ROUNDABOUTS & EXCLUDING SCHOOLS HILL)
A34 FROM CHESHIRE BOUNDARY TO MANCHESTER BOUNDARY
HIGH STREET
GATLEY ROAD
NORTHENDEN ROAD
PARK ROAD, TURN LEFT
CHURCH ROAD, TURN LEFT
STYAL ROAD
FINNEY LANE – TURN LEFT
TO JOHN LEWIS ROUNDABOUT THEN RETURN TO ETCHELLS RD
ETCHELLS ROAD
TURVES ROAD, TURN LEFT
CHEADLE ROAD – TURN LEFT
SCHOOLS HILL & ALL ROUNDABOUT AND TO JOHN LEWIS ROUNDABOUT
SCHOOLS HILL DUAL CARRIAGEWAY & RETURN TO WILMSLOW RD
WILMSLOW ROAD TO BROADWAY
BROADWAY TO A34
TRAVEL BACK TO WILMSLOW ROAD VIA SCHOOLS HILL
WILMSLOW ROAD TO HIGH STREET
TRAVEL BACK TO BROADWAY VIA GATLEY ROAD AND A34
BROADWAY TO WILMSLOW ROAD ( ISLANDS – SLIP ROUTES )
TRAVEL BACK TO ETCHELLS ROAD – WILMSLOW ROAD
TO HANDFORTH BOUNDARY
STANLEY ROAD TO FIRST ROUNDABOUT – STOP GRITTING
TRAVEL VIA A34 TO SCHOOLS HILL ROUNDABOUT
NORTHBOUND OFF AND ON SLIP ROADS

PRIORITY ROUTE 3 - WINTER GRITTING

COUNCILLOR LANE, TRAVEL TO A34
ON & OFF RAMP AT SCHOOLS HILL ROUNDABOUT
GROVE LANE TO CHESTER ROAD
CHESTER ROAD TO BOUNDARY DEANWATER
CHESTER ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY
WOODFORD ROAD
MOSS LANE
ACRE LANE
JENNY LANE
BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH
BRIDGE LANE
JACKSONS LANE
DEAN LANE, TURN LEFT, STOP GRITTING
CHESTER ROAD, TURN RIGHT TO GRUNDEY ST GRIT TO A6
CHESTER ROAD TO JACKSONS LANE
BRAMHALL MOOR LANE TO A6, RETURN TO CHESTER ROAD
CHESTER ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY, STOP GRITTING
ACK LANE EAST
ACK LANE WEST
RAVENOAK ROAD
MANOR ROAD
CARRWOOD ROAD TO BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH, STOP GRITTING
STATION ROAD, CHEADLE HULME
MELLOR ROAD, FULL LENGTH TURN IN CARPARK
ALBERT ROAD
HULME HALL ROAD
CHURCH ROAD
GILL BENT ROAD, STOP GRITTING

PRIORITY ROUTE 4 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO MILLGATE
MILLGATE
CHURCHGATE
SPRING GARDENS
HALL STREET
OFFERTON LANE
MARPLE ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD
STATION ROAD
BRABYNS BROW
LOWER FOLD
GLOSSOP ROAD TO BOUNDRY (STOP GRITTING)
ARKWRIGHT ROAD
STRINES ROAD TO BOUNDRY & STATION ROAD(STOP GRITTING)
STRINES ROAD FROM ARKWRIGHT ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD TO STATION ROAD
HOLLINS LANE
OLDKNOW ROAD
COMPSTALL ROAD
COMPSTALL BROW
COWLISHAW BROW
COMPSTALL ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD
SCHOOL BROW
BERRYCROFT
HARRY TOWN
BREDBURY GREEN
GORSEY BROW
HIGHER BENTS LANE
LOWER BENTS LANE
GEORGE LANE
BARRACK HILL
HATHERLOW
OTTERSPOOL ROAD
DOOLEY LANE
OFFERTON ROAD
TORKINGTON ROAD TO A6 (STOP GRITTING)

PRIORITY ROUTE 5 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE TO BIRD HALL LANE
BIRDHALL LANE
EDGELEY ROAD TO STOCKPORT ROAD. TURN RIGHT
GRIT TO WOOLPACK. TURN LEFT
GRIT BOTH SIDES OF WOOLPACK BRIDGE & J1 ROUNDABOUT
GRIT CHESTERGATE TO KING STREET WEST
WOOD STREET. TURN LEFT
GRIT BRINKSWAY TO ROCKS
EDGELEY ROAD. MORRISONS TO A6
EDWARD STREET
WATERLOO ROAD (TURN LEFT)
HOPES CARR (TURN RIGHT)
HIGHER HILLGATE
BRAMHALL LANE
BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH. TO ROUNABOUT AT B/PARK
LADYBRIDGE ROAD
ADSWOOD ROAD
LOWFIELD ROAD
LONGSHUT LANE
HEMPSHAW LANE
ST.MARYS WAY (BOTH SIDES)
LONGSHUT LANE WEST
SHAW HEATH
KING STREET WEST
HEATON LANE. TURN RIGHT & GRIT GEORGES RD TO RDBT
TRAVIS BROW
DIDSBURY ROAD
BURNAGE LANE TO BOUNDARY
KINGSLEIGH ROAD
MAULDETH ROAD
BANKHALL ROAD
MOORSIDE ROAD
THORNFIELD ROAD
HEATON MOOR ROAD
SCHOOL LANE
WHITEHILL INDUSTRIAL ESTATE
GREG STREET TO REDDISH ROAD
NELSTROP ROAD
CARNFORTH ROAD (ALL)
MARBURY ROAD
KESWICK ROAD
SHAW HEATH (LONGSHUT LANE TO BRAMHALL LANE)
ADSWOOD LANE EAST
ADSWOOD LANE WEST
GARNERS LANE
*WOODSMOOR LANE (DO NOT CROSS RAILWAY CROSSING)
MOORLAND ROAD
KENNERLEY ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 6 - WINTER GRITTING

LEYLAND STREET, TURN LEFT AT BOTTOM
LITTLE EGERTON STREET
BRIDGE STREET – BOLLARD!!
UNDERBANK – BOLLARD!!
CHESTERGATE – BOLLARD!!
DAW BANK TO VIADUCT STREET
BUS STATION – ALL LANES
ROCK ROW
PETERSGATE – PART
HIGH STREET
WELLINGTON STREET
MARKET PLACE
LOWER HILLGATE – BOLLARD!!
UNDERBANK, RETURN TO HILLGATE VIA PETERSGATE
HILLGATE TO EDWARD STREET
PICCADILLY TO PETERSGATE
DUKE STREET
REST OF PETERSGATE TO A6
WELLINGTON STREET TO HOPES CARR
RAILWAY ROAD AND STATION ROAD (GRAND CENTRAL)
EXCHANGE STREET
MERSEY SQUARE VIA BUS STATION
PORT STREET
BRIDGEFIELD STREET
WARREN STREET
CORPORATION STREET
NEWBRIDGE LANE
BREDBURY TIP REFUSE PLANT
MIDDLESEX ROAD
THE LINK
NORTHWAY
BLACKBERRY LANE INCLUDING BUS TERMINUS
NORTHUMBERLAND ROAD
NEW ZEALAND ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 7 - WINTER GRITTING

DELAMERE ROAD, GATLEY
SILVERDALE ROAD
ST ANNES ROAD NORTH
BROWN LANE
OUTWOOD ROAD (ALL)
BOLSHAW ROAD
CROSS ROAD
HIGHFIELD ROAD, CHEADLE
HEATHBANK ROAD
QUEENS ROAD
BUCKINGHAM ROAD
ORRISHMERE ROAD
QUEENS ROAD TO WEAK BRIDGE
RADNORMERE DRIVE
DEMMINGS ROAD – COUNCILLOR LANE TO WEAK BRIDGE
ST LESMO ROAD, EDGELEY
NORTHGATE ROAD
AVONDALE RD (PART) – BUS ROUTE
YORK ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
WORRAL ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
LOMAS ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
CASTLE ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
GRENVILLE STREET
BLOOM STREET
CHATHAM STREET – GRENVILLE ST TO KING ST WEST
DALE STREET TO BERLIN ROAD
HEATON ROAD, HEATON MOOR
PARSONAGE ROAD
GREEN LANE (PART)
ALEXANDRA ROAD
ASHBURN ROAD
BOWERFOLD LANE
GREEN LANE (PART) TO ALEXANDRA RD
CLIFTON ROAD
STATION ROAD
CRAIG ROAD
LANGHAM ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 8 - WINTER GRITTING

GRANGE ROAD
RINGMORE ROAD
DEANMOOR ROAD
MARSHAM ROAD
MOSTYN ROAD
LYNDHURST AVENUE
HARLECH DRIVE
CAVENDISH ROAD
STATION STREET
HATHERLOW LANE
POPLAR GROVE – INCLUDING BUS TERMINALS
DIALSTONE LANE
BANKS LANE
TURNCROFT LANE – FULL LENGTH
GRAHAM ROAD
LUDLOW ROAD
BIDIFORD ROAD
ILFRACOMBE ROAD
WOODLANDS DRIVE
WOODLANDS PARK ROAD
CURZON ROAD
LISBURNE LANE – ALL ROUNDABOUT
BLACKSTONE ROAD
MALLOWDALE ROAD
ALFRETON ROAD
LISBURNE LANE
HEMPSHAW LANE TO ST MARY’S WAY & CHRISTIE STREET
MILE END LANE

PRIORITY ROUTE 9 - WINTER GRITTING

COMMERCIAL ROAD, HAZEL GROVE
BOSDEN FOLD ROAD
HAZELWOOD ROAD (FULL LENGTH)
BRINKBURN ROAD
CLARENDON ROAD
TORKINGTON ROAD (TO WINDLEHURST ROAD)
WINDLEHURST ROAD TO A6
ANDREW LANE, HIGH LANE
WINDLEHURST ROAD, HIGH LANE
UPPER HIBBERT LANE, TURN RIGHT
CHURCH LANE
WATERSIDE
THORNCLIFFE ROAD
BRAMHAM ROAD
HAWK GREEN ROAD (INCLUDING BUS TERMINAL)
HIBBERT LANE, CHURCH LANE TO STOCKPORT ROAD
TOWN STREET, MARPLE BRIDGE
HOLLINS LANE
CONSTABLE DRIVE
HOGARTH RD (PART)
BONNINGTON RISE
LEIGHTON DRIVE
BENTON DRIVE
COTTAM CRESCENT
HOGARTH RD (PART)
LONGHURST LANE
KNOWLE ROAD TO SCHOOL
MOOREND ROAD
SHILOH ROAD TO MOORFIELD ARMS
CHURCH LANE (STOCKPORT ROAD TO RIDGE)
RIDGE ROAD
WYBERSLEY ROAD
CARR BROW
SANDERLING ROAD, OFFERTON
SHEARWATER RD TO BEAN LEACH RD
BEAN LEACH RD TO MARPLE RD
SHEARWATER RD TO SANDERLING RD
TURNSTONE ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 10 - WINTER GRITTING

MIDLAND ROAD
ZURICH ROAD
GENEVA ROAD
HANDLEY ROAD
BRAMHALL PARK ROAD TO CARRWOOD ROAD
FIR ROAD
SEAL ROAD
DAIRYGROUND ROAD
ROBINS LANE
NORTH PARK RD (BRAMHALL PARK TO MIDLAND RD)
NANGREAVE ROAD
HILLCREST ROAD
GUYWOOD LANE
MARSDEN ROAD
SANDY LANE
GREAVE
WERNETH ROAD - PART (TO PENNINE)
PENNINE ROAD
SMITHY GREEN
WERNETH ROAD – PART (TO PENNINE JNCT)
HIGHFIELD AVENUE
GOYT VALLEY ROAD
WILD STREET
VERNON ROAD
BROADWAY
OSBORNE STREET
KINGSWAY
WARD STREET

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services 6th Jan

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

On Saturday I reported quite a few faulty lights around Cheadle and Gatley.

To be honest, I wasn’t expected much to be done right away, with the bad weather and it being the week before Christmas.

So I’m quite impressed that some have been fixed, including the Christmas star outside Barclays Bank  in Gatley (where just about everything Christmassy seems to be working now) and the lamp near my house on Frances Avenue.

The light in the Gatley Green car park is fixed too (I reported that one a little earlier).

I would have  gone round to check the progress on more lamps, but somehow staying in my warm home with the family won out last night.  I did think the Christmas tree outside Gatley’s bowling green was looking very nice though, with the snow all around it.

A warning for today - watch out on the pavements, some of which are getting treacherous.

As the Stockport Express reports:

[Greater Manchester Police was] ranked either bottom or next to bottom in four national tables produced from the results of the annual British Crime Survey.

The tables showed that the area suffered from a higher rate of so-called ‘acquisitive crime’ – which includes robbery, burglary and car crime – than the five other English forces judged to be most similar.

It also came bottom in the proportion of these crimes which are detected.

In our area, in my experience, the police are doing a good job.  Our new Inspector Steve Gibertson (covering Stockport West: Cheadle, Gatley, Cheadle Hulme, Heald Green, Bramhall, Davenport and Cale Green) has picked up where Inspector Dave Turner left off.

The police work well with local politicians and residents, target their efforts effectively and are doing a good job - one of the main reasons why crime in our area is among the lowest in Greater Manchester.

Of course,  there’s always room for improvement and any crime is too much.  Also, people may rightly point out that our area is relatively affluent.  We have deprived areas, but large areas of Greater Manchester are substantially poorer.

Having spent perhaps more time than most out and about in the last two days, I thought I’d share what I’ve seen around our area in the way that Stockport’s responded to the snow (which, as I write, is falling heavily again).

Please use the comments to share your experiences too.

I was out at around 9am on Monday morning.  At that time the roads weren’t all completely clear, but none that I drove on was especially slippery and all were easily passable.  I spent the day driving and walking around Gatley, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall and Woodfood and found much the same story.

By late morning all the major and minor roads were pretty clear and people were being sensible on the residential roads.

I was also pleased to see refuse and recycling collections, along with public transport, going ahead pretty much as normal.

Grit boxes were being refilled (this morning I passed the lorry refilling the one by Gatley car park).

Some people have expressed concern about the amount of salt being spread on the  roads.  Others have seen the salt being spread.

Of course, one real question we politicians have to ask is how much money we want to devote to dealing with this bad weather, which may hit us once every year or two.  The Council can invest in more gritters and the like, but that means cutting something else or raising taxes - neither of which we take lightly, to say the least.

Again, I’d be interested to know whether people feel Stockport’s got the balance right, or whether the Council should be investing more in dealing with the bad weather.

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Snow, travel and services on 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

Another one where I don’t know the details, but I’ll be interested to find out.

Greater Manchester has been designated the UK’s first Low Carbon Economic Area (LCEA) for the Built Environment the Government announced today. Ministers have been working with environment and economic chiefs in the city region to be named as the UK’s fourth LCEA.

The announcement means that over the next five years Greater Manchester will become a world leader on this agenda and enjoy a range of additional benefits linked to jobs and investment, sharing its expertise throughout the UK and beyond. The Low Carbon Economic Area in Greater Manchester will:

· save 6 million tones of carbon

· create an additional £650 million to the economy

· support 34,800 jobs.

Here’s the announcement. Can’t say I know what it means - I’ve no idea precisely which powers are being devolved from central government to Greater Manchester, but I’ll be interested to find out.

The ten local authorities in Greater Manchester have signed a groundbreaking deal, giving the area more powers and responsibilities devolved from central government. The agreement will unite the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities behind a formal arrangement. It was signed by Lord Peter Smith, the chair of AGMA, and Phil Woolas the Minister for the North West, at a ceremony in Bury.

There have been extensive discussions about the deal since the Chancellor announced the Manchester City Region pilot in his Budget in April. It recognises the role of Greater Manchester as a focus for national growth.

Here’s the message councillors have received about Stockport’s gritting from Solutions SK (the company wholly owned by Stockport Council which does these sorts of things):

“Over the weekend we have been doing non stop gritting operations, using 440 tonnes of salt.

Due to the road surface temperatures constantly remaining below freezing and frequent heavy snow showers the laying snow and ice will be slow to melt.

From Friday we have been in constant communication with the Met Office throughout the weekend monitoring the situation.

This morning we will be carrying on gritting operations on the tertiary routes along with hand gritting teams from Highways, Cleansing and Grounds with 2 JCB’s working on the High level Roads snow removing.”

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Snow, travel and services on 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

What better way to spend the Saturday evening before Christmas than driving around Cheadle and Gatley spotting faulty lights?

OK, I didn’t spend more than an hour before deciding a warm house was definitely preferable, but I picked up a few issues that I’ve passed onto the Council.

1. Christmas lights in Cheadle & Gatley
- The star outside Barclays Bank, Church Road in Gatley is still not working
- On Gatley Road, Cheadle the Christmas light outside Meadows Cycle Shop is not working.
- At the junction of Wilsmlow Rd and the High Street, the Christmas light outside the White Hart is not working
- On High Street, Cheadle the Christmas light outside Thomsons isn’t working
- On High Street, Cheadle the Christmas light outside the Royal Bank of Scotland isn’t working
- At the corner of Stockport Road and Manchester Road in Cheadle, the Christmas light isn’t working.

2. Streetlights in Cheadle
- Lamp 14 on Ashfield Road (south end) at the corner of Whitegates Road not working
- On the Massie Street (East) car park,Cheadle, the lamp nearest to M.J. Scott (in the north west corner of the car park) isn’t working.
- Lamp 29 outside 68 Wilmslow Road, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 22 outside 56 Wilmslow Road, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 5 opposite 3 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 6 outside 3 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 9 outside 17 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 13 outside 31 Broadway, Cheadle, isn’t working

- The lamp outside Costa Coffee, High Street, Cheadle isn’t working (though the Christmas lights on the same post are)
- The lamp outside Cheadle Library, Ashfield Road, in the centre of the parking bays, isn’t working.

3. Illuminated streetsigns in Cheadle and Gatley
- At the junction of Milton Crescent and Gatley Road, Cheadle there are four illuminated speed signs.  Three are not lit.
- At the north end of Old Hall Street, Gatley, by the grass triangle there are four no entry signs, none of which are lit.

Solutions SK, a Stockport Council wholly owned company have scooped a much sought after national award, beating 50 other entries from across the UK.

Solutions SK School Meals team won the National Overall Best Education Catering Team of the Year award at the Annual Network Performance Awards organised by the Association for Public Service Excellence.

Winning the award shows that the School Meals team provide a service that delivers value for money through recognised quality and performance indicators linked to standards of excellence.

Last week I attended a workshop on how Stockport can play its part in tackling climate change.  The challenge is to reduce our carbon footprint (as the fairly innacurate jargon goes).  This one focussed on buildings, development and power generation, with transport being considered elsewhere.It was a workshop to get ideas and opinions so no firm decisions were made, but it was interesting and encouraging to see what’s already been done.

For example, we looked at whether we should have wind turbines.  The answer a definite maybe (I’m not convinced).  Wind maps show which parts of the borough have higher wind speed, which turns out to be the eastern edge bordering onto the Peaks.

More encouragingly, we looked at district heating systems.  Traditionally we all have our own boilers which use electricity to heat up water.  That turns out to be pretty bad for the environment.  The idea is to use a local heating station, probably gas powered, to heat up water and then pipe it around an area.  Individual houses and businesses could throw out their boilers and get metered hot water, hopefully costing them about the same or less.

The problem with district heating is that you need a certain number of customers to make it economically viable, but the customers want to see it works properly before they sign up.  That’s where the Council could potentially help.  This system looks likely to be suitable for the Town Centre businesses initially - don’t expect to be throwing out your home boiler any time soon.

We also looked at biomass (essentially wood chippings harvested in the Borough and transported to local businesses with biomass boilers).  Also, with three rivers running through Stockport, hydro-electric power could play a small but useful part.

On housing, new regulations mean that the buildings being build over the next few decades should be very good (though there was some disagreement over how much wriggle-room the less scrupulous developers had).

The real issue is the old housing stock - the vast majority of which will still be around in 2050.  Getting this properly insulated - cavity wall, loft and double glazing - is the biggest challenge.  That’s especially tricky when most of it is privately owned.

Hopefully a mix of subsidies, improvement schemes and planning controls can improve the situation over the next few years.

Stockport Council opening times over Christmas and New Year are as follows:

· Thursday 24th December - Open until 12 noon.

· Friday 25th December – Closed.

· Saturday 26th, Sunday 27th and Monday 28th December – Closed.

· Tuesday 29th December – Open 8.30am to 5.00pm.

· Wednesday 30th December – Open 8.30am to 5.00pm.

· Thursday 31st December – Open 8.30am to 3.30pm.

· Friday 1st January 2010 – Closed.

· Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd January 2010 – Closed.

· Monday 4th January 2010 – Open 8.30am to 5.00pm.

The closures will not affect essential Council services. These will continue to operate over the festive period. If anyone needs to contact the Council as a matter of emergency whilst Council buildings are closed to the public, they should phone 0161 477 2626, people in need of social care support should phone 0161 718 2118.

On Sunday 20th December Bramall Hall is hosting its annual Christmas Cracker event from 11.00am to 5.00pm.

Experience Bramall Hall decked out for Christmas in this year’s Winter Wonderland theme. It will be a magical day with ‘cracking’ entertainment for people of all ages.

Tickets for children (up to nine years old only) to see Father Christmas, including the festivities, are priced at £6.00 and £5.00 for Leisure Key. For further information about this event, call Bramall Hall on 0161 485 3708 or visit www.bramallhall.org.uk.

I posted the details for Christmas refuse collection last month, but as it’s almost upon us, here it is again and in more detail.

Stockport residents whose recycling and refuse collection day falls on a Friday need to be aware of various changes over the festive period. On Friday 25th December 2009 and Friday 1st January 2010 no refuse will be collection. These residents refuse will be collected on Saturday 2nd January 2010.

Bank Holiday Monday 28th December 2009, recycling and refuse collections will take place as normal.

For your recycling collections, please check your new recycling calendar. The household waste recycling centres (local tips) in Adswood, Rose Hill, Torkington and Bredbury are also open over the festive period. These sites will be closed on Friday 25th December and 1st January 2010 but will be open every other day, Monday to Sunday between 8.00am and 6.00pm.

For further information about recycling and refuse collections, please call 0161 217 6111, email stockportdirect@stockport.gov.uk or go to www.stockport.gov.uk/waste

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg today visited Stepping Hill Hospital and then came to lunch at the Village Hotel in Cheadle.As the Stockport Express reports:

Mr Clegg, himself a father of three young children, praised the way the new unit involved families, especially fathers, in the birthing process.

He said: “This neonatal unit is cutting edge. I would like to see units like this in every hospital up and down the country.

“Speaking not only as a politician, but also as a dad of three, it is fantastic to see the way children are catered for here.

“The maternity centres keep families involved from day one in the child’s life, which will benefit the child in every way as it grows up.

“By having families involved from an early stage, this hospital in Stockport is leading the way.”

Millions were invested in the maternity service to cope with the increasing number of births at the hospital.

The new unit, which has received the highest rating in the country, has three en suite parent bedrooms, a full kitchen, play facilities, two breastfeeding rooms and a transitional care unit for babies to stay with their mothers until they are fit enough to go home.

As we reported in our recent Keeping in Touch leaflet, the Tatton site developers have now launched a formal appeal.

The proposal being appealed is to have a large convenience store in the cinema building, limited parking at the front and a care home at the rear.  This was rejected by councillors back in the spring.

To quote from the letter being sent out to local residents:

The appeals to be decided at Informal Hearing to be heard by an Inspector appointed by the First Secretary of State.  I will inform you of the date and venue in due course.

Any comments that you made to the Council at the application stage will be sent to the Planning Inspectorate and taken into account before he or she reaches their decision.

If you wish to make any additional comments you may do so by sending 3 copies to The Planning Inspectorate, Room 3/18A, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Temple Quay, Bristol, BS1 6PN within 6 weeks from 09/12/2009.  Please quote reference APP/C4235/A/09/2117976/NWF for Planning Permission Refusal and APP/C4235/E/09/2118090/NWF for Conservation Area Consent Refusal.

The Planning Inspectorate have introduced an online appeals service which you can use to comment on this appeal.  You can find the service through the Appeals area of the Planning Portal.   The Inspectorate may publish details of your comments on the internet (on the Appeals area of the Planning Portal).  Your comments may include your name, address, email address or phone number.  Please ensure that you only provide information, including personal information belonging to you, that you are happy will be made available to others in this way.  If you suply information belonging to a third party, please ensure you have their permission to do so.

There’s more information on taking part in this nine page PDF.

Yesterday I went on a walkbout around Gatley (not the whole village - there’s only so much you can cover in 90 minutes!).  It was with our new Area Conditions Officer Julie Henshall and Richard Daniels, also from Environmental Services at Stockport Council - I’m grateful to both of them for coming out with me.

Here are some of the things we identified for action:

• Bags of rubbish dumped by station car park - Environmental Services will be tracing the owners.
• Poor state of land around electricity substation -vegetation needs tidying.  It should be United Utilities’ responsibility.
• Concrete bollard by station underpass broken, needs repair
• Poor state of path along the back of the station car park - always gets muddy.
• Litter is starting to build up around Gatley Station again, so we need Network Rail to clear up inside the railings and the Council to clear up on the verges.
• The alleyway running down from the Station car park past the end of Brentwood Drive to Gatley Road is in poor condition.  The fence leans out dangerously in places and whole fence panels are missing in others.  Vegetation grows over the top of the path in several places, blocking light from some of the streetlamps. There’s also some graffiti on the panels and the lampposts.
• Although not too bad at the moment, we identified the area where the motorway slip road comes onto the South Park Road Estate as often troubled with litter, graffiti and overgrown vegetation.
• On Kingsway southbound where the motorway slip road meets the A34 there’s obviously been an accident, probably with a car coming through a bush on the slip and hitting the fence by the A34.  The bush is broken and the metal fence is, at one point ripped out of the ground.
• Along the east side of Kingsway north of Gatley Road there’s quite a bit of litter on banks, verges and parking bays.
• We took a look at litter around Kingsway High School.  Environmental Services do go into the school to do assemblies around littering and have been known to hand out £75 penalty notices when the warnings remain ignored.
• The state of the electricity substation at the end of Foxland Road (by Springfield) is poor, with litter strewn around the front area.  The Council will chase up United Utilities to get it cleaned.
• There’s a lot of litter on Network Rail land around the railway bridge at the end of Foxland Road, plus overgrown brambles on the north side.
• More litter along the path from Foxland to Hawthorn, which I’ve asked the Council to sort out.
• The streetlight outside the entrance to Gatley Primary’s nursery school is faulty.
• Some graffiti on signs at the Gatley Green entrance to the Recreation Ground (I was very pleased to see graffiti on the skateboard ramps and old pavillion has been cleaned off).
• Detritus on the land at the back of the Tatton needs to get cleaned away.
• Brown wheelie bin someone left in front of the Tatton to be cleared away.

Following last week’s public meeting about traffic issues on Schools Hill in Cheadle, I can report some early action.

Council officers will be looking into the water issues at the bottom of Schools Hill: that’s the pooling near the junction with Wilmslow Road and the water that seems to run across from somewhere behind the Pavillions from time to time.

At the other end of Schools Hill, the lines on the road marking the right turn into Turnfield Drive will be repainted to make them clearer.  Additionally, the whole road is now down on the list to have its lines repainted, though I don’t have a timescale for that.

Of course, Pam King and I will continue to work to resolve the other issues raised including the Schools Hill/Wilmslow Road junction, traffic going to the school blocking the road and turning out of Daylesford Road onto Schools Hill.

New proposals to allow councils to put in place 20 mph schemes over groups of streets without the need for traffic calming measures such as speed humps were announced today by Road Safety Minister Paul Clark.

The Government is encouraging local councils to introduce 20 mph schemes into residential streets and other roads where cycle and pedestrian traffic is high, such as around schools, shops and parks.

In the past, councils wanting to implement 20 mph schemes on groups of roads have had to do so in ‘zones’ which require traffic calming measures such as speed humps. 20 mph limits without traffic calming were only recommended on individual roads.

However, following a successful city-wide trial in Portsmouth which suggested it is possible to significantly reduce speeds on residential streets without speed humps or other traffic calming measures, the Department for Transport plans to allow 20mph limits to be used across more streets where traffic speeds are already low without the need for such measures.

Paul Clark said:

“The number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads has fallen by 40% since the mid-1990s and Britain now has the joint safest roads in the world. But too many pedestrians and cyclists – including many children – are still being killed or hurt on the roads around their homes and schools.

“We have seen that 20 mph zones with traffic calming measures can make a real difference to the safety of local roads. But we’ve also looked at the latest research and listened to councils and residents who want to introduce 20mph limits on a series of roads where physical traffic calming measures aren’t possible or practical.

“Allowing councils to put in place 20 mph speed limits on more streets without speed humps or chicanes will mean that they can introduce them at a lower cost and with less inconvenience to local residents.”

Last week a report published in the British Medical Journal found that 20 mph zones in London had led to a dramatic reduction in the number of accidents in those areas and called for more 20 mph zones and limits to be put in place.

The Government is also reiterating its call for councils to carry out speed limit reviews of their rural roads by 2011, focussing on National Speed Limit single carriageway ‘A’ and ‘B’ roads where 41% of fatalities occur. Local authorities should consider reducing the limit on the most dangerous roads where this will have a significant impact on casualties. These decisions remain entirely for local authorities to make based on their knowledge of local roads.

The Department for Transport is seeking the views of local councils on these proposals in order to allow new guidance to be published at the earliest available opportunity.

If you’ve driven down Silverdale Road in Gatley after heavy rain recently, you’ll have seen water pouring off the land on the Cheadle Royal side, across the pavement and down the road to pool by the pub and the parade.

There’s a stream that runs from Cheadle Royal, under the road and across the grass/woodland on the Borrowdale side.  This seems to have got blocked up, leading to water pooling up.  It looked to me like the water was at least a couple of feet deep in places on the Cheadle Royal side, making the path to Cheadle Royal totally unpassable.

I’ve been told today that Council work is now scheduled for the next week or two to sort out any issues where the stream passes under the road itself.  If there are problems where the stream is on private land, those will have to be dealt with separately, but I’m hopeful it can be sorted.

I was very pleased indeed to see the grids and gullies being properly cleaned along Styal Road - between Church Road and West Drive in Gatley.

Some background on this.  Pam King and I identified, with help from local residents, that some of the grids and gullies haven’t been cleaned out in years.  They’re checked at least once a year, but for some reason not cleaned.

There are often good reasons for not cleaning out a grid.  For example, if a vehicle is parked over it or it’s jammed.  We couldn’t see why those should apply on Styal Road though.

Rod Camblin at the Council offered to look into it, starting with Styal Road, and as we saw today, he’s come up with the goods.   The grids were cleared out and a couple of issues identified for further attention.

I’m told this shouldn’t be a one-off either.  We should see the machine back every few weeks and I’m hoping the Council can tackle Gatley Road next.

We’ve achieved quite a lot in the last few months tackling this issue:

• Grids on Old Hall Road, Cambridge Road, Belmonth Road, Leyland Avenue, Norwood Road and Dunmore Road were cleared over the summer - getting rid of the large puddle opposite the exit to Gatley Medican Centre.
•  The problem causing large puddles outside Hewitts, by the junction of Church Road and Gatley Road, has been fixed.
• The grid on Longley Lane has been unblocked, getting rid of the large pool of water that covered half the road after heavy rain.
• Structural work around Gatley Green looks to have sorted out the regular flooding outside the Co-op, by the Prince of Wales and near the War Memorial.
• Work to fix the flooding issue on Silverdale Road, near the High Grove pub, is scheduled for the next week or so.

There’s more to do - and these things do take time.  In Cheadle there’s the pool at the bottom of Schools Hill and at the corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road.  In Gatley there’s the water under the railway bridge and at the bottom of Oakwood Avenue.  There are a few others around too.

But there’s a lot to be positive about.  Thanks to Rod and his team at the Council, things are really started to move.

Many thanks to the Cheadle Muslim Association who welcomed 1st Gatley Cubs to their mosque a couple of weeks ago.  As well as a tour of the mosque, we had a presentation from Mr Mirza and snacks all round.

In the presentation, the Cubs learned something about Islam, with the emphasis on the many similarities with Christianty and Judaism.  Mr Mirza was keen to point out how some practices associated with Islam, such as forced marriage, are cultural and have no religious basis.

Cheadle Muslim Association is always keen to open their doors and engage with the local community. They ran sports training in the recent inter-faith week (there’s a small football pitch and cricket nets in the grounds) and frequently have visits from school groups.

My thanks to Gatley & District Rotary Club, who kindly invited me to speak to them last Wednesday - I even got a meal and a drink into the bargain, which can’t be bad.

The Rotary Club  do a lot of good work.  It’s 1.2 million members wordwide are currently raising money to tackle polio in the developing world (Bill Gates will donate three hundred million if they can match it with their own fundraising).

Locally, the Rotarians do everything from providing the Santa for the Walter Stansby Memorial Park to funding a special garden for the Seashell Trust and kitchen equipnent for Gatley Youth Club.

The Rotary Club, which meets most Wednesdays at Cheadle Golf Club, are always looking for new members - drop me a line if you’re interested and I’ll put you in touch.

I noticed this evening that more of the Christmas lights are out in Cheadle - including several along the High Street that were working a few days ago.

I’ve reported these to the Council’s street-lighting people who I imagine will be as frustrated as me that the lights are faulty.

Stockport Council’s Revenues and Benefits Team won the ‘Quality of Service and Innovation Award’ by creating extra capacity for the department through working more efficiently. Instead of cutting jobs the spare capacity was offered to other Local Authorities and Benefit processing work taken on. This brought in extra income for Stockport Council and enabled jobs to be retained that would otherwise have been lost.

The success of this scheme meant that the Revenues and Benefits team were able to create Apprenticeship posts for 12 local young people to train as Benefit Assessment Officers. There are plans to further increase the work done for others to create more long term jobs in Stockport.

The judges were impressed by the innovative way the team used spare capacity to help other Local Authorities at the same time as boosting the local economy. Alongside this innovation, the quality of service for Stockport residents remains high. By retaining and expanding its Revenues and Benefits team, the Council has the expertise and capacity to cope with the impact of the economic downturn.

Key Stage 2 test results were published on 1st December 2009. Verified results show that Stockport pupils are ranked 10th out of 150 Local Authorities for the expected Level 4 scores in reading, writing and mathematics.

Stockport did even better at the higher levels (Level 5 and above) in reading, writing and mathematics, and was 7th nationally.

Analysis also shows that Stockport’s Year 6 (11 year old) pupils made significant progress, and for the first time exceeded expectations based on the most challenging national comparisons.

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish readers.  I always enjoy seeing the candles lighting up over the week (and even listening to the odd Hanukkah tune).

Anyone interested in finding out more about Hanukkah could start by visiting this site.

Thanks to our new Area Conditions Officer Julie Henshall, who’s told me that the graffiti covering the walls on the underpass of the Cheadle Royal roundabout has all been cleared off.

The is the roundabout over the A34 by Cheadle Royal.  Because it’s both isolated and a common route for school kids, it’s always going to be an attractive target for graffiti, but we can discourage it by making sure it never lasts long.

Thank you to the thirty-odd people who came to our consultation meeting about traffic in the schools hill area on Tuesday evening.  I felt it was a useful meeting: I think everyone had their say and a lot of issues were raised.

The issues mentioned include

• Long queues on Schools Hill for traffic turning onto Cheadle Road at the start and end of school.
• Heavy traffic and parking problems with children being taken to Ladybarn School.
• Speeding on Cheadle Road, Wilmslow Road, Schools Hill and Daylesford Road
• Poor visibility turning from Daylesford Road onto Schools Hill
• Water pooling at the bottom of Schools Hill
• A variety of issues relating to the heavy traffic and the Kingsway junction issues.

Sorry if I’ve missed anything - the list is from memory.  Special thanks to Steve Fox from the Council for ably assisting (Steve not only came along for the evening, he also did all the leaflets I delivered and booked the room).

A few things to report.

I’d heard of problems at the Red Lion pub in Gatley and contacted our new police Inspector Steve Gilbertson.  He was already on the case and I was very impressed to see a mobile police station in front of the pub on Tuesday morning.  Great to see strong action.

I was told the Tatton site was open at the front a couple of days ago, so I reported that both to the Council and direct to the site’s owners

And finally for this morning, I reported a small patch of graffiti that appeared on the skateboard ramp in the Recreation Ground - that should be cleared off soon.

I’m pleased with the way we’re getting on top of graffiti in Cheadle & Gatley.  We can’t have police on every corner to stop it, but we can paint it out quickly when it happens and that’s normally what’s happening now.  Let me know if you spot any and I’ll take action.

The Stockport Express today has a story about how the Lib Dems and Conservatives are neck-and-neck in Cheadle when it comes to the betting odds.

I guess it goes to show how quickly these things can change.  Perhaps it’s the admission from the Conservatives that they don’t think they can win Cheadle, but the odds are now favouring a Lib Dem victory in the General Election with Mark Hunter favourite to hold the seat.

Odds change over time, and you can see the latest for all UK parliamentary seats here.

Today the new way of assessing councils has been launched by the Government and the first reports are all online.

Unfortunately, they aren’t comparable to the old star ratings: they measure totally different things in totally different ways and have a different scoring system too.

Stockport’s reports are here (if the site is back up).

My one-sentence summary is that Stockport is healthy, green, safe and economically strong compared to others, but needs to do more to improve our poorer areas.

As with all assessments, there will be long arguments about whether it’s measuring the right things and whether it’s getting the right answers - both questions on which it’s too early for me to draw any conclusion.

People might also be confused by what the green and red flags mean.  “Green” is does not mean good.  It means that a service is exceptional and something special and different is being done that other Councils need to learn from.

In other words, many councils will be running good services, performing well and meeting the needs of local people without getting green flags (as is the case for Stockport).

The Conservatives have already said they will abolish the website if they come to power.

A big thank you to everyone involved in the primary school carol concerts at St Georges Church in Heaviley, Stockport.  I was there on Monday night, along with fellow councillors Wendy Orrell, Stella Humphries and June Somekh, not to mention several hundred friends, parents, relatives and teachers come to watch the choirs.

On Monday evening, eleven school choirs including  Gatley Primary gathered to entertain us.  The church was warm (how do they do that?), the length of the concert just about right and the whole thing expertly led by Rev Alan Ball, with the choirs directed by Jill Henderson-Wild.

Having everyone singing a good number of the hymns, plus the instrumental sections, makes the whole event work really well.

Tonight is the second of the two events with a further ten Stockport primaries - I’m sure it will be another very enjoyable evening.

Over the last few days, I’ve reported several lights in need of repair around Cheadle & Gatley.

• In the centre of Cheadle, four Christmas lights are faulty - one at the bottom of Massie Street and three around the High Street/Wilmslow Road junction.
• In Gatley there’s still one Christmas star not working - outside Barclays.
• At the start of the slip road from Kingsway southbound onto the South Park Road estate, the signs should be lit up and aren’t.
• I’ve asked for the pea lights in Walter Stansby Park to be connected up.  The light were bought by the friends of the park - the Council should just plug them in each year.
• I’m also chasing the Council on streetlights not working where Ashfield Road crosses Whitegates, outside numbers. 24/26/43/45.

Do let me know if you spot faulty lights or lit street signs.  I spent a lot of time around the ward, but I don’t get everywhere after dark.

Last month members of Gatley Youth Centre made the trip to London to visit the Houses of Parliament and ask their local MP Mark Hunter some interesting questions.

Led by Youth Work Manager Anthony Atkins and colleague Richard Whitwam, members of the centre were given a full tour of the Houses of Parliament. They were given exclusive access to see the House of Commons, the House of Lords and various other areas of historical significance.

Following the tour, members of the centre were given free reign to ask Mark any questions they liked in a special ‘Question Time’-like discussion. The hour hour long Q&A session included saw a real range of topics discussed, ranging from local youth facilities to tackling crime.

Commenting after the day, Mark said:

“It was a real pleasure to welcome members of Gatley Youth Centre down to Westminster.

“As well as having the chance to properly explore Parliament, we all had a compelling discussion about the issues of today.

“It is great to see the strong work of local organisations like Gatley Youth Centre. Young people are the future and their interests are hugely important to all of us.

“Their questions were really insightful – much better than the riff-raff you get from some politicians!”

Today’s Times reports that the Conservatives are reining back their efforts in many seats to focus on their core targets, as the likelihood of a landslide victory recedes.  It gives Cheadle as an example of a seat the Conservatives no longer think they can win.

Cheadle, currently held by Liberal Democrats with a majority of just under 4,000, is among seats no longer regarded as likely to fall despite a well-funded, two-year campaign to woo key groups of voters. Party strategists privately admit that some incumbent MPs, particularly Lib Dems, are putting up fiercer-than-expected resistance.

Might have something to do with Cheadle having a fantasically hard-working Lib Dem MP in Mark Hunter, who’s been doing a great job representing us in Parliament and helping thousands of local people.

The Council is again asking residents to complete a survey about life in the borough.

The A4-sized ‘Stockport Survey’ questionnaire has been sent to 6,000 randomly selected residents, evenly spread throughout the borough’s 21 electoral wards. There are questions on many topical issues including community safety and local services.

The questionnaire takes about 15 minutes to complete, and all responses are completely confidential. The survey, carried out by Ipsos MORI, a leading market research company, is strongly backed by the Stockport Partnership which comprises the Council, Stockport Primary Care Trust, Greater Manchester Police, and other public, private and voluntary sector organisations and agencies.

The deadline for completed questionnaires is December 24th.

Stockport Council is celebrating a double achievement after scooping two Green Apple Environment Awards for promoting sustainable travel through the Active Stockport campaign and the highly successful Environment Fair, held this summer.

The awards were presented at a prestigious ceremony held at the House of Commons on Tuesday 17th November. Launched in 2008 the Active Stockport campaign aims to encourage residents to use sustainable modes of travel in order to reduce congestion, improve air quality and improve health and wellbeing.

Meanwhile the Council’s Environment Fair was led by Environmental Services, Sustainability, Regeneration and Housing Strategy to celebrate World Environment Day. Stalls were set up to provide information and giveaways about recycling, composting, saving water, energy efficiency and Fair Trade.

It was the first time an event like this had been held in Stockport Town Centre. For more information about Environmental Services, phone 0161 217 6111 or email stockportdirect@stockport.gov.uk

Ten days to save the cheque.  See my story on Lib Dem Voice and sign Mark Hunter’s petition on the Number 10 website.

Three of the seven areas inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) were judged to be “performing excellently” and four were “performing well.” In addition the CQC said that all Stockport’s services for older and vulnerable people in 2008-09 consistently delivered above minimum requirements for local residents, were cost effective, and contributed to a better quality of life for local people and communities.

Strong partnership working with NHS Stockport was highlighted and the Council was also praised for its leadership and commissioning and use of resources. To view the full report please visit the CQC website.

Stockport residents are encouraged to get into the festive spirit by coming along to the Enchanted Christmas event at Hat Works.

This magical family fun day is filled with Christmas delights for all ages and takes place on Sunday 6th December, from 1.00pm to 4.30pm. Throughout the event visitors will be able to enjoy seasonal craft activities, music and dance performances.

The Liberty Bells barbershop choir and The Warren Wood School Brass Band promises to raise the rafters with their Christmas carols and the festive dance performances by the Arlette Muldoon School of Dance are sure to entertain with their new moves. Children are invited to visit Father Christmas in his magical grotto where they will receive a small gift.

They can also enjoy free Christmas crafts and face painting for a small charge throughout the afternoon. Admission price is £3.00 for adults and children are FREE. A visit to Father Christmas is £2.00 per child and face painting is £1.00. For more information, contact Hat Works on 0161 355 7770 or visit www.hatworks.org.uk.

I’ve spent time over the last couple of days working with Council officers to get all the Christmas lights up and working in Gatley.

The street-lighting people have been out fixing stars down Church Road and (from my check last night) all of them seem to be working - let me know if not.

The christmas tree by the bowling green on Altrincham Road is all set up, of course.  The one on Gatley Green is still in its netting.  It hasn’t been forgotten!  It just takes time to get round all the trees in the Borough and it’ll be done early next week.

I’m also reminding the Council that they need to connect up the lights in Walter Stansby Memorial Park.

Who checks that restaurants prepare food safely, take action against off-licences selling alcohol to children and act against shops using dodgy scales to con customers?  That would be the Council’s Environmental Health and Trading Standards section, who presented their annual report to our Cheadle Area Committee on Tuesday.

You can read the report in full on pages 64 to 75 of the agenda (PDF, 2MB).

Some of the work the teams undertake include;

• Investigating reports of food poisoning and infectious diseases
• Delivering a wide range of CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) approved training courses in food and health & safety
• Provision of a Pest control service
• Offering a Graffiti removal service
• Administering fixed penalty notices from issue up to and including court action
• Monitoring farms and small holdings to ensure they keep records of the transfer of animals and check that animals are transported humanely
• Investigating and advising on problems with drainage
• Ensuring public safety by licensing and carrying out checks on private hire vehicles, taxis and their drivers
• Licensing all premises requiring a licence to operate, such as those selling alcohol, gambling and lotteries
• Licensing pet shops, boarding kennels, riding schools, dog breeders and owners of dangerous wild animals
• Providing advice and information on fair trading, consumer rights and trading standards legislation to the public and business
• Enforcing the law on counterfeiting, trade marks and copyright
• Enforcing the law on weights and measures, pricing, overloaded vehicles and hallmarking
• Investigating complaints about dangerous products and conduct regular inspections and surveys
•  Investigating complaints about the sale of clocked or unroadworthy vehicles

Amongst many other activites, the environmental health and trading standards people gave awards like the Curry Chef  Competition and the Fair Play Charter (the second to the retail motor trade).

They also tackle pest control, and have seen reports of rats drop  significantly in the last two years.  They issued 14 Fixed Penalty Notices to dog owners who failed to remove their pets’ faece, and provide free dog bags to all Stockport residents via libraries and information centres.

They’ve been looking at the wall around the old cemetary in Gatley, and provided burial space for Muslim burials at Mill Lane Cemetary in Cheadle.

They deal with noisy pubs (something they suggest may have been made worse by the smoking ban - more people congregate outside our pubs now).

They’ve promoted and run Pub Watch, starting in Four Heatons and learning the lessons for the more recent schemes in Gatley, Edgeley, Bramhall and Cheadle.

The service has developed a rapid response approach to rogue traders, and have been pro-active in  holding “rogue trader days” in conjunction with police.

On alcohol sales to children, a survey suggests that the number of young people saying they’re able to purchase alcohol has fallen 23% in the last two years.  The team send out young people to make test purchases: vendors should refuse to sell them alcohol.  In Cheadle, two warnings were given to businesses.

There’s lots more in the report, so why not take a look.

Local businesses joined together with Christmas cheer on Thursday the 26th November, for the Gatley Net Christmas Market organised by local business BOSSco in support of the CLIC Sargent Charity.

14 local businesses snapped up stalls at the Gatley.Net Christmas Market and brought the community, new and unique gifts for Christmas unavailable on the high street such as handcrafted items from Sue Rawlinson, Manchester Uni design students and Former Glory.

Market goers were so positive with comments such as “It’s great that such a variety of stalls have been brought to our village, their are some beautiful gifts”

With over 600 visitors to the market and special guests Batman, Star Wars Storm Trooper and Tusken Raider, the market had a real buzz and Christmas spirit. Children got creative on the Edibles stall designing their own chocolate lollipops and many Christmas shoppers gobbled down delicious delights from Manchester Tarts and local eatery Armenique. Eye catching jewellery from Just So Silver, Posh and Crystal Angels had the ladies in the village filling up their Christmas Lists whilst Lorna Mai had all the pampering goods a girl could wish for.

Picture Left: Hollywood Heroes Storm Trooper and Batman picture with local school children. Picture Right: Manchester Tarts delicious cupcakes tempt shoppers of all ages.

The Market provided great exposure for all the stallholders and showed Gatley some of the exciting new businesses that are being formed in and around Gatley. Stallholders from Gatley included Mooli Mooli, Party Lite and Knitting Nirvana who enjoyed bringing their products to their community in a successful Christmas shopping event that all enjoyed.

Picture Left: Posh bring glamorous costume jewellery to Gatley Net Market. Picture Right: Children personalise their chocolate lollipops on the Edibles stall, with coloured icing.

Many shoppers said how the Christmas Market was a welcomed shopping experience within the village and stall holders too enjoyed the location and event organised by BOSSco “If BOSSco are to do any more markets please let us know as soon as possible, it’s been absolutely great”.

BOSSco said “We are so happy to have held such a successful event that promoted local business, whilst also raising £260 for charity”

On Monday night I spotted the streetlamp I’d reported a few weeks back - on the path between Belmont Road and South Park Road - still wasn’t working.  Turns out it was marked as fixed by the Council, so now they’ll take another look.

This morning I was out delivering more leaflets, including invitations to our public meeting next Tuesday evening to discuss traffic problems at the junction of Schools Hill and Wilmslow Road in Cheadle.

I delivered to Lynton Road, and parts of Gatley Road, Wilmslow Road, Schools Hill, Park Lodge Close, Valley Road and Valley Close.

On the way I spotted a few issues that I’ve reported to the Council

• Litter at the top of Schools Hill, on the side road that approached South View Gardens.
• Litter around the Wilmslow Road entrance to Brookfield Park.
• Graffiti on the Virgin Media box outside 224 Kingsway.
• Paving stone sticking up outside 232 Kingsway
• Branches across footpath, outside Turnfield House, by Turnfield Road.
• Graffiti on underpass beneath Cheadle Royal roundabout (the one over the A34).

I also delivered a letter to residents of Depleach Road - Pam and I are hoping we can find a good solution to their parking issues.

Today The Federation of Small Businesses officially announced their full support for Mark Hunter MP’s “save the cheque” campaign.

The organisation, as stated on their website, is ‘the UK’s largest campaigning pressure group promoting and protecting the interests of the self-employed and owners of small firms. Formed in 1974, it now has 215,000 members across 33 regions and 230 branches.’

Top consumer group Which? have already given their backing to the campaign, and with the support of such an established business organisation, pressure is mounting more than ever on banks to give up their commitment to scrapping the cheque.

Stephen Alambritis, Head of Public Affairs at Federation of Small Businesses said:

“The Federation of Small Businesses strongly support Mark Hunter MP’s “save the cheque” campaign, backed by Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum.

“Cheques are vital to the way many people and organisations operate. With over 4 million cheques written each day, many small businesses will be disadvantaged if banks decide to scrap the cheque and there could be a big knock on effect on the economy.

“When there is no viable alternative payment method for many people out there, we should not be thinking about cutting corners by eliminating the cheque in Britain.

“That is why FSB strongly oppose getting rid of the cheque.”

The ViaMichelin route planner site has an interesting feature: it allows you to plan your route, anywhere in Europe, by bike or on foot in addition to driving.

I’ve been giving it a test drive, and it’s not bad - but far from perfect.

In my testing, the cycle route planner directs you down smaller roads when the route’s the more direct, as you’d expect.  It also picks up on at least some places where a bike can go and a car can’t, such as where two roads connect but bollards prevent cars passing through.

Essentially, it seems to pick the shortest route, avoiding motorways, and using these cut-throughs where it can.

What it doesn’t do, yet, is have any way to avoid routes unsuitable for less experienced cyclists.  For example, in planning a route from Gatley to Manchester, it has no hesitation in sending me up Kingsway and sending me round the junction by East Didsbury station in Parrs Wood (a particularly challenging junction when you’re cycling south out of Manchester).

It’s a good start, but I’d love to see an option that actively tried to avoid dual carriageways and complex junctions, and was aware of signed cycle routes and paths.

The Stockport Express is reporting that a body was dragged from the River Mersey near Tiviot Way in Stockport this morning.  Arrests have already been made, with two men and a woman in custody.

I’m chasing up why only one of Gatley’s Christmas stars is lit up, and why the tree on Gatley Green isn’t lit.  Could be a good explanation, but elsewhere the lights seem to be up and running (including Heald Green, the other Local Centre in our area).

Following the launch of the national annual ifs Young Business Writer of the Year competition, Hazel Grove MP Andrew Stunell has urged teenagers living in the Stockport area to get involved and say what they think about bankers pay and bonuses.

The banking crisis has had wide ranging effects on the UK and much has been said about the huge salaries and bonuses enjoyed by City bankers but up until now voices from younger generations have been left out.

That’s all set to change with the start of this competition which is open to all UK school and college students aged between 14 and 19 and enables them to test their writing skills by inviting them to come up with a 1,000 word article with the headline, “Bankers rewards - asking for trouble?” As well as the title “ifs Young Business Writer of the Year”, the winner will also receive a £500 cash prize.

Commenting, Andrew Stunell said:

“This competition offers teenagers a fantastic chance not only to hone their writing skills and get them thinking about banking and finance issues but also to have their voices heard on a wider level.

“I strongly urge bright and engaged youngsters from across the Stockport community to grab this opportunity with both hands.”

Rod McKee, Head of Financial Capability of the ifs School of Finance, said:

“We are pleased that Mr Stunell has highlighted some of the benefits of this popular competition and urged his constituents to submit an entry. Issues relating to bankers rewards can be complex and contentious so it will be interesting to read local teenagers views.”

Anyone aged between 14 and 19 who wishes to enter the competition simply has to e-mail their article (which must not exceed 1,000 words) to ybwy@ifslearning.ac.uk between now and the competition closing date of Monday 26 January 2009.

For more information please visit www.financialcapability.co.uk

As reported in the Manchester Evening News:

 only 749 people have made an appointment to enrol in Greater Manchester for an ID card.

That is around 0.04 per cent of the total eligible population of 1.8m in this ‘pilot’ area for the ID card scheme.

When will the Government admit they’ve got it wrong and stop wasting our money on this daft scheme.

I was really surprised to see the University Hospital of South Manchester Foundation Trust listed in an Observer article as the sixth worst in the country.

University Hospital South Manchester is the new name for Wythenshawe Hospital, somewhere I’ve had several occasions to visit over the last few years.  In addition to a few visits for the kids’ cuts and breaks, I had an operation there a few years ago and my daughter was in for a week with suspected meningitis.

On none of those visits did I feel the standard of care and cleanliness was below par - generally I found it excellent.

And yet the Dr Foster Hospital Guide rates the hospital poorly on patient safety.

Just taking the personal experiences of my family is a poor way to judge a hospital - perhaps there are problems we didn’t happen encounter.  Statistics that look at the experiences of the thousands of people who use the hospital every year are much better.

If there are real problems, they need to be tackled - whether or not my personal experiences found them.  But we need to be careful about taking a bunch of measures, weighted and scored in a particular way, and assuming that tells the whole story.  Often small changes in the way the counting is done can make big differences to the outcome.

(And by the way - this is a particularly poor use of the phrase “postcode lottery” in the Observer - meaning nothing more than different hospitals score differently.  How could it have been otherwise?  Apart from anything else, the Dr Foster Guide would surely not have bothered with any scoring system where all the hospitals came out the same).

The public meeting to discuss the traffic issues around Schools Hill and Wilmslow Road will be on Tuesday 8th December 2009, 6pm in the Lecture Theatre, Kingsway Lower School, High Grove Road, Cheadle.

At the meeting I hope we can do two things.

The first is to get a list of what the different issues are, and the priorities residents assign to them.

The second is to have some initial discussion of the possible solutions.

We don’t have firm plans or budgets, so we aren’t in a position to make any commitments at this stage.  My hope is that the information from the meeting will give us as councillors what we need to focus our efforts.

I’ve got several hundred leaflets to deliver, which I’m hoping to get out in the next few days.

From Mark’s website:

Cheadle MP Mark Hunter has launched a new campaign to “save the cheque” after growing concern over news that high street banks are planning to stop the use of cheques.

Yesterday (26 November) Mr Hunter tabled a cross-party Parliamentary motion which, just two hours after calling on other Members to sign it, had collected the signatures of over three dozen MPs including that of Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable.

Mark also challenged Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, at Business Questions yesterday to remind the banks of their role in serving customers, and asked her to hold a debate on the issue.

Commenting, Mark Hunter MP said:

“Abolishing the cheque will cause great inconvenience to many people who rely on cheques as a means of payment - particularly many elderly people.

“This development is most unwelcome in its own right but taken together with the news on bank charges I think they amount to nothing less than a two-fingered gesture to the British public.

“What a way to say thanks after what we’ve done for them!”

The Cheadle Area Committee meets on Tuesday 1st December, 6pm at the Ladybridge Residents Club, Edenbridge Road, Cheadle Hulme. All welcome to come along.

There’s one planning application up for consideration: DC043046, the erection of 5 no. three-storey mews houses at 176 Kingsway (this is on the Kingsway service road, South Park Road Estate).

Other issues on the agenda include amending the parking restrictions on Chapel Street, Cheadle and discussion about parking on pavements.

You can view and download the agenda here (PDF, 2.2MB) .

The Star Inn on Cheadle High Street is the latest to join our Community Toilet scheme.

Cheadle now has three community toilets: the Star Inn, Cheadle Library and Jackson’s Fish Bar on Ashfield Road.

You can use these as public toilets.

The Community Toilet scheme replaces the old public toilet in Massie Street car park.  Instead of a single cold, often dirty and vandalised toilet, we now have three.

In the run up to Christmas, car parking in Cheadle will be free in Council Pay & Display car parks in Cheadle on:

• Saturday 28th November
• Saturday 5th December
• Saturday 12th December
• Saturday 19th December
• Christmas Day
• Monday 28th December
• New Years Day

This is not just in Cheadle but all the district centres: Romiley, Heaton Moor, Bramhall, Hazel Grove, Cheadle Hulme, Marple, Marple Bridge and Edgeley (excluding Armoury Street).

Gatley, of course, has free parking all the time anyway - just not enough spaces!

There will also be free parking in Stockport Town Centre in the run up to Christmas, but I can’t remember the exact details (I think it’s every Saturday again, but don’t hold me to that).

I’d like to wish all my Muslim readers happy Eid al-Adha.

Anyone who’d like to find out more about Eid al-Adha, what it celebrates and what happens over the three days could take a look here.  Since we’re taking 1st Gatley Cubs to the mosque on Monday, I’m sure we’ll find out all about it then.

Last night I tweeted from Full Council, to give anyone who’s interested a flavour of what was going on in the meeting.  Here are those tweets

#stockportmbc Full Council Starting shortly. Lamb curry was nice.

#stockportmbc Full Council Shouty mayoral entrance & prayer.

#stockportmbc Full Council Mayor kindly welcomes me to the council.

#stockportmbc Full Council Half the councillors seem to be declaring an interest.

#stockportmbc Full Council some confusion about questions over questions.

#stockportmbc Full Council Leader explaining English Heritage propose protected sites, not smbc, in response to public question.

#stockportmbc Full Council Powerpoint presentation from and about the mayor.

#stockportmbc Full Council Cllr John Pantall & Ian Ratcliffe outlining ‘kill the winter chill’ campaign.

#stockportmbc Full Council Cllr Pantall reminds us the late Maggie Clay founded ‘Kill the Chill’ last year.

#stockportmbc Full Council Before dvla, coucils issued car reg plates. Stockport’s were all JJA, hence mayoral plate JJA1.

#stockportmbc Full Council ‘kill the chill’ cut deaths from cold last year, now being adopted across Greater Manchester.

#stockportmbc Full Council No questions on joint authorities (fire, transport, police & waste)

#stockportmbc Full Council Leader talks about Boost campaign for more jobs.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Leader thanks all parties for sensible approach to future of BAE site in Woodford.

#stockportmbc Full Council: exec reports in flow, seems like time for some cllrs to catch up on those newspapers & magazines.

#stockportmbc Full Council: recycling bins rollout complete ahead of time & budget. Recyling now 43% but Trafford just ahead.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Cllr Candler attacks Tories across country for slash-and-burn approach to local services.

#stockportmbc Full Council: our business services team does work for other local authorities - brings in £250k, won award.

#stockportmbc Full Council: cllr porgess says Tory plans to reward people recycling would require surveillance chips in bins.

#stockportmbc Full Council: cllr bodsworth - installing chips in our bins would cost £2m if George Osborne forced us to do it.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Cllr Bodsworth 10:10 is very tough target. We might not meet it; we’ll try, & encourage others too.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Entertaining political grandstanding from lab cllr verdeille. Tories aren’t in Govt yet, apparently.

#stockportmbc Full Council: cllr foster-grime has to sit down. she’s now an exec member so can’t ask exec members questions. Shame.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Tory Cllr Syd Lloyd attacks ld’s for lack of principles. Good fun, but loosly connected to reality.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Cllr Weldon responds to Tory baiting with some baiting of his own. Two hours gone.

#stockportmbc Full Council: motion time. Cllr weldon: Govt expands nursery provision but doesn’t give enough funding.

#stockportmbc Full Council: half the tories have left the chamber - loo/fag break, I assume.

#stockportmbc Full Council: cllr maureen walsh supporting nursery motion for Tories.

#stockportmbc Full Council: lab cllr foster says lib dems trying to blame gov for council failings.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Lab Cllr Foster now on secondary schools - really not sure how this relates to the motion.

#stockportmbc Full Council: nursery motion carried 45-11. Lab voted against.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Lab cllr scott proposes free leisure provision for armed forces & their families in Stockport.

#stockportmbc Full Council: cllr bodsworth supports army leisure motion & wants govt to promote idea across country.

#stockportmbc Full Council: Con cllr jones supports motion & attacks gov record on military covenent, gurkhas, etc.

#stockportmbc Full Council: army leisure motion passed unanimously.

#stockportmbc Full Council: now considering whether we move to strong leader or mayoral leadership model. Strong leader it is.

#stockportmbc Full Council: charging through dull but worthy stuff. And we’re all done at 8.50, bar the raffle.

The Gatley United Reformed Church in Elm Road is holding its Christmas Fayre tomorrow, on Saturday 28th November.

• Visit Father Christmas in his Never Never Land Grotto
• games
• face painting
• tombola
• toys
• cafe
• cakes
• home produce
• gifts
• plants
• and more…

Admission only 50p, children free

Over the following few months the West Neighbourhood Policing Team will be running the above operation to target domestic burglaries and robberies at this time of year.

We are deploying high visibility patrols in conjunction with other areas of the police service including the mounted section and air support with a view to targeting offenders for these offences.

Please can you review your own security and ensure that valuables are not left on view and your home is properly locked.

We are looking to increase the number of Neighbourhood Watch Schemes in the Gatley area – If you would like to get involved please contact us.

Please can any information in relation to criminality be reported, either anonymously to CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111, or to the West Neighbourhood Policing Team on 0161 856 9776.

Regards

PCSO Mark Salt

PC Mark Shaw

West Neighbourhood Policing Team
Cheadle Heath Police Station
0161 856 9776

Over the last couple of months I’ve been contacted by people concerned about an increase in aircraft noises.  I tried to contact Manchester Airport but heard nothing.  Finally, a colleague found out it was an issue with their automated landing system.

Well, this morning I’ve received a letter from the airport - you can click on the thumbnail to see it.

The message seems to be that things are back to normal now and, next time, they’ll make more of an effort to tell people what’s going on.  Let’s hope so.

Don’t miss Gatley’s Christmas Market at BossCo’s car park this afternoon, from 3.30 to 8pm.  More information here.

Two “in-progress” issues we mentioned in our latest Keeping in Touch leaflet are now being sorted, both on Oak Road.

At the junction with Stockport Road, the dip (which turns into a big puddle in wet weather - and I’ve almost forgotten there’s any other kind) is now fixed.

The area of land between the two sets of Honeycombe Cottages is being tidied up by the owner, after I asked the Council to track him down.

Tonight is Stockport’s Full Council meeting (there’s one roughly every 2-3 months, and this is the first I’ll have been to).

I’m hoping to tweet from the meeting, so everyone can see what’s going on as it happens.

The meeting starts at 6pm and will probably finish between 9 and 10pm.  To see my tweets (assuming nothing goes wrong!), visit my Twitter page or search on Twitter for hashtag #stockportmbc.

Police today handed out letters at Gatley Primary School warning parents that they risk a fine if they park illegally when dropping off or collecting children.

The letter points out that parents have been requested to park considerately and that certain parents have been written to.  The police are now saying they will issue fixed penalty notices to infringers.

In particular, the letter asks us parents to NOT

• block  the pavement or road
• park on the bend at a junction
• park on yellow lines when they’re in force
• drive whilst using a mobile phone
• block residents’ driveways

Sometime in the next few days, Stockport residents should get the latest copy of The Stockport Review through their letterboxes.

It may be something that usually spends little time between doormat and blue recycling bin, but take a quick look this time.  OK, I don’t expect you to be very excited at it being the first Review issue with my picture, but there’s lots of useful information in there, not least the back page with the full A-Z of Council services.

I’m interested in the Financial Review of the Year - on pages 12 and 13.  Or, more specifically, how understandable and useful is the  information is in the way it’s presented.  Please take a look and return the feedback slip - or comment here, of course.

There will be no collections on Christmas Day or New Years Day - both Fridays.  If you normally have a Friday collection, your rubbish will be collected on Saturday 2nd January 2010 from 7am.

Collections will take place as normal on all other days, including the bank holiday Monday 28th December.

You might have seen the Stockport Boost campaign the Lib Dem Council have been pushing over the last few months.  There are lots of elements, from attracting big name companies to Stockport - creating hundreds of jobs - to giving communities the ability to improve their shopping areas.

The good news is that, although it’s early days, it seems to be paying off.  Unemployment in Stockport is down for the second month running, and I’m told we’re the only Greater Manchester borough to see unemployment fall.

A few things reported to the Council in the last day:

• Faulty streetlight outside 7 Turnfield Road, Cheadle
• Uneven pavement on Hawthorn Road outside the United Reform church
• Smashed bottle on pavement outside the Hollies, Oakwood Avenue, needs cleaning up.
• Litter in the alleyway behind 2-12 Pendlebury Road needs clearing.

EDUCATE - Early Dementia User’s Co-operative Aiming To Educate - looks to give people with dementia a voice through involvement in training, or speaking to others about their experiences of having dementia. EDUCATE is part of a two year multi agency project funded by the Department of Health to set up peer support for people with dementia.

Organisations involved in the project include NHS Stockport, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Stockport Council’s Adult Social Care, Age Concern and the Alzheimer’s Society. People wanting to get involved in EDUCATE are invited to an introductory session to be held at the Cheshire Conference Centre, Edgeley, Stockport on the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd December.

For more information about the event or EDUCATE, please contact Sally Mendham or Ruth Mills at Stockport Dementia Care Training on 0161 419 6016 or Ruth Chaplin, Occupational Therapist based at the Meadows in Offerton on 0161 419 6064 or email sally.mendham@nhs.net or ruth.chaplin@nhs.net.

The swine flu vaccination programme will be extended to offer children over six months and under five protection against the virus. Extending the vaccination programme to young children is supported by the panel of experts that provide advice on vaccination issues - the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

Vaccination of people in clinical risk groups is well under way, with more than seven million doses of vaccine already distributed. Vaccinating these groups remains a priority to protect those at greatest risk from swine flu. For more information on this article click here.

Christmas has come early for Stockport’s shoppers as the Council, in conjunction with town centre partners, announce that parking will be FREE in Merseyway car park from the 12th December up until Christmas Eve. The free parking at Merseyway runs all day from Saturday 12th December up to and including the 24th December. This is in addition to the free parking already offered by the Council in the run up to Christmas, as well as the bank holiday’s on the 25th and 28th December 2009 and the 1st January 2010.

The House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee, which is tasked by the House of Commons to scrutinise the Department for Communities and Local Government, is conducting an inquiry into the Government’s Decent Homes Programme. 

As part of that inquiry, the Committee are visiting Stockport on Monday 23 November 2009 to find out more about how the programme is working on the ground, and how councils and ALMOs are handling the funding and management challenges of the programme.

The Committee is particularly interested in views on how the programme should look after 2010, given the lessons which have been learnt so far. Stockport Homes are hosting the day’s proceedings.

As part of the meeting there will be an evidence session, when the following will give evidence to the meeting:

●     East Durham Homes

●     The NFA (National Federation of ALMOs)

●     Residential Landlord Association

●     Dr Julie Rugg (University of York)

This will take place from 2.30pm – 4.00pm, in the Council Chamber at Stockport Town Hall.  There will be a public gallery at this session, and if you would like to witness the evidence session, please arrive at the Stockport Town Hall reception at 2.15pm promptly.

The Council is consulting on its walking and cycling strategies.

You can access, and comment on, both here.

The consultation runs to 14th December.  I’ve had a brief look through the cycling strategy and it seems pretty good, with an understanding that its about more than plastering the roads with cycle lanes.

However, as always there’s a big gap between having a strategy and making it reality.

 Bramall Hall will be hosting a special Tudor Living History Day on Sunday 22nd November.   People can immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of an authentic recreation of the 16th century as the Davenport family welcome you into their home.   

Visitors can find out more about traditional crafts such as spinning and carding, embroidery and the art of calligraphy. Or learn about the health properties of herbs and spices in the Still Room with Good Wife Kate.  There will be an opportunity for children to help the family cook prepare the herbs for baking and roll out the jumbles (Tudor biscuits). Or perhaps you would prefer to watch the hilarious jig puppet show in the Ballroom.

All the activities will be brought to life by a variety of costumed characters and traditional Tudor music playing throughout the Hall.  The event takes place between 11.00am and 4.00pm and there is no need to book in advance. Admission costs £4.95 for Adults and £3.50 for Concessions/Under 16s and Leisure Key.   For more information about the event, contact Bramall Hall on 0161 485 3708 or visit www.bramallhall.org.uk

A really interesting (for me, anyway) article on the law around 20mph limits and traffic calming.  I didn’t know that the law said you had to have traffic calming measures if you had a 20mph limit. (Although I’m sure some places have 20mph without traffic calming - Crossacres Road in Wythenshawe for a start).

The law seems to be that you can have a 20 mph limit without traffic calming measures, but only if the traffic is already quite slow - at least 85% of vehicles should already be going 24mph or slower.

However, the Government research is clear that 20 mph limits do work in reducing speeds and accidents (though not in getting everyone to drive slower that 20 mph).

average speeds reduced by 9 mph, annual accident frequency fell by 60%, the overall reduction in child accidents was 67%, and there was an overall reduction in accidents to cyclists of 29%. Traffic flow in the zones was reduced by 27%, but flows on the surrounding boundary roads increased by 12%. There was generally little accident migration to surrounding roads.

The Government advice on introducing 20mph zones is here.  I’ll be interested to read up on the details: certainly I agree with the author of article that any community should have all the information as early as possible.

Gatley Primary’s always been a good school, but under the leadership of Michelle Murray, Vanessa MacManus and the rest of the Senior Management Team, it’s been going from strength to strength over the last couple of years.

For the governors, this is sub-committee week (and somehow I seem to be very bad at getting the right dates and times in my diar).  Between the governors we’ve been reviewing the school’s achievements and plans, and I can only say that it’s nice when the main role of the governors is to congratulate the staff and children on their achievements.

We’re lucky to have a bunch of really good schools in our area.  Not only Gatley Primary but also Lum Head, Cheadle Primary and Kingsway.  I’m privileged to know many of the children and, in the vast majority of cases, the modern negative stereotypes we see all too often in the media couldn’t be further from the truth.

Yesterday was our monthly meeting with the police and various Council departments, looking not just at crime and anti-social behaviour but also parking, speeding and litter issues.

Overall, the news in our area is good.  Crime is down, especially burglary and robbery, and a stronger police presence between now and the New Year aims to make sure it stays that way.

This was our last meeting with Inspector Dave Turner.  He’s been a real asset and we all wish him well in his next role.  I look forward to getting to know his successor, Steve Gilbertson.

There was praise for the manager and staff at Gatley’s Foxland Road Spar.  Inspector Turner spoke highly of the positive approach all at the Spar had taken in tackling a spate of robberies - luckily there’s been nothing recently.  I raised the possibility of beefing up the CCTV around the Spar - something the police will look into.

We noted some areas of litter and graffiti, such as St Annes Road North in Heald Green.

We were told that Halloween had passed without serious incident.  Although there was a beefed-up police presence, the poor weather probably had as much as anything to do with it.

Finally, this is anti-bullying week and work’s been done at Kingsway School on tackling cyber-bullying.  As my son told me today, even children at Gatley Primary have got involved in their weekly visit to Kingsway.

 This is your chance to reward and recognise people who make a difference in Stockport by entering them in the borough’s citizens’ awards: Proud of Stockport.

The Awards are now in their third year, celebrating those who do exceptional and extraordinary things to support our communities. Do you know an individual or a group of people going out of their way to make Stockport a better place?

Is there a residents’ association or community group, which has greatly improved things for local people? If so, this is the chance to give these people their spot in the limelight by nominating them for specific awards.

Ambassador for Stockport

Rewarding someone who has helped to give Stockport a good name and improve its reputation.

Best Street

Rewarding the residents who help make their street a better place to live.

Children’s Champion

Rewarding a person or group of people who influence children’s day to day lives in a positive way.

Citizen of the Year

Rewarding adults who help their community in lots of different ways.

Community-spirited Business

Rewarding the Stockport business that puts a lot back into the community, be it through fundraising, caring services or staff initiatives.

Good Neighbour

Rewarding those people who go out of their way to be the best neighbour possible.

Green and Glorious

Rewarding a group or person that is responsible for a great community clean-up.

Life Changing

Rewarding someone who has turned their life around against the odds.

Sports Personality

Rewarding those involved in sport in Stockport.

Volunteering Champion

Rewarding individuals or groups of people who make a real difference to Stockport, such as resident associations and community groups.

Young Citizen of the Year

Rewarding young people under the age of 18 that help their community in lots of different ways.

You can submit a nomination online here - the final date for nominations is Thursday 17th December 2009,

I was really pleased to see that, the morning after all that torrential rain, there was almost no standing water in front of the Gatley Green Co-op.

The recent work has obviously done the trick - for now at least.  As I noted a few days ago, there’s no shortage of other blocked grids to be tackling, but it’s good to see progress being made.

See the PDF flier

From David and Sue at BossCo:

This year GatleyNet will be hosting its very first outdoor Christmas Market on the 26th November, for all the local community to enjoy.

The new Christmas Market featuring 16 festive stalls will provide an array of seasonal treats from local traders and crafts people this winter. Stalls will be selling unique crafts and Christmas decorations, Belgian chocolates, handcrafted accessories and artisan jewellery as well as fun puzzles and games for all the family.

Organised by BOSSco in support of the Clic Sargent charity, the outdoor Christmas Market aims to bring together the community and local traders from Gatley and surrounding areas. The Christmas Market will run from 3.30pm- 8pm on the BOSSco car park which is set in the heart of Gatley, next to the old Tatton Cinema.

Those needing inspiration for Christmas gifts or looking for a special present can be sure to find it at the Gatley Christmas Market, with retailers Edibles World, Crystal Angels and Just So Silver amongst others already confirmed. Hot beverages will be on offer to keep you warmed up whilst doing your Christmas shopping and entry to the Market is free.

For community Christmas cheer pop down to the Gatley Christmas Market on the 26th November with all the family between 3.30pm and 8pm.

Next Thursday, 26th November, is my first Full Council meeting since being elected, and the notes for the meeting - in the form of a bound 302-page book - dropped onto my doormat this afternoon. You can download it in PDF format here.

I’m reliably informed that I don’t need to read most of it - the first five pages are the most important: the agenda for the meeting and the text of two motions submitted (one on the funding of nursery educaton, the other on “Leisure and Cultural Services - provision to Armed forces Personnel and Veterans”).

The rest is mostly the minutes of other Council meetings that have happened in the last two months - mostly local area committees and scrutiny committees.

I’ve been taking a look this morning at flooding outside the High Grove pub on Silverdale Road in Gatley.

Something’s caused the water level to rise in the woodland between the road and Cheadle Royal.  The high water is pouring across the pavement, onto the road and down the hill to settle by the pub and the parade of shops.

It’s not clear at the moment what the problem is.  It could be a blocked culvert or something else.   I’ve spoken to someone from the Cheadle Royal team who’s investigating to see if it’s their issue, and I’ve contacted the Council officers to look at it from SMBC’s side too.

Two weeks ahead of schedule, Cheadle’s new Tesco Express store is opening tomorrow, Wednesday 18th November.

This is good news - Cheadle has been without a good all-round supermarket for too long.  Thank you to everyone who’s put in a lot of work to make this happen.

According to a story on the BBC this morning, £50 million will be spent on upgrading facilities across ten stations.  Seven of the ten are in the North West: Stockport, Manchester Victoria, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay, Preston, Wigan North Western and Liverpool Central.As the BBC Reports:

Last week, rail operator Network Rail announced plans to spend £3.25bn to improve more than 2,000 stations across England and Wales by 2014.

But the government’s railway “champions” - former Virgin Trains chief executive Chris Green and Town and Country Planning Association president Sir Peter Hall - have identified 10 that are in need of the most urgent work.

In a report released on Tuesday, they described the 10 as having been “left behind”.

Many were large Victorian buildings that were difficult to develop or had little commercial appeal, they said, and all had customer satisfaction ratings of less than 50%.

Manchester Victoria was judged to be the worst followed by Clapham Junction and Crewe, with all three suffering from overcrowding.

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has released figures which show that Stockport Council has one of the highest recycling rates of any metropolitan council in the country and is top in Greater Manchester.

In 2008-2009, Stockport Council recycled 39.2% of all its household waste. The figure has increased from 35.4% in 2007-2008.

The full DEFRA tables can be found by clicking here.

Stockport celebrates the UK’s first Inter-Faith Week from 15th to 21st November.

On Wednesday 18th November there will be a celebration at Hat Works from 5pm to 9pm.  Stockport’s Inter-Faith Network invites you to an evening of dance, music, drama, food and hats!  There will be a short school production, music workshops, and drama by Stockport Youth Theatre.  The Bishop of Stockport will be present and he will lead a demonstration of headgear by members of different faith groups.

In addition to this event, sports events have been organised in partnership with Stockport Sports Trust, CMA, (Cheadle Muslim Association) and local schools. Faith buildings are hosting a variety of events throughout the week.  For dates, times and fuller details, visit www.stockportinterfaith.org.uk.

A big thank you to everyone at Gatley’s Yeshurun Synagogue for the warm welcome we were given this morning.

As part of Stockport’s inter-faith week, we local politicians were invited to a service at the synagogue, along with representatives from the police, fire brigade, Cheadle Muslim Association, local churches and faith groups and more. Fellow councillors Pam King and Paul Porgess, plus Mark Hunter MP, came along.

Whilst some elements of the service at the synagogue will be familiar to church-goers, others might seem quite different.

There are songs, prayers, readings from the Bible and a sermon.  A great deal is in Hebrew, and readings (in the case of the Books of Moses, from a scroll) are sung.  Luckily for those of us not quite up to speed with our Hebrew, the service book provides an English translation, and some commentary.

Where a church might have a choir, Yeshurun has a single  (and very talented) singer - Chazan Muller - sometimes leading the congregation and sometimes performing solo.

The sermon from Rabbi Chaim drew on the story of Abraham’s search for a wife for Isaac to talk about the value of kindness and contrasting it with charity. It wouldn’t have seemed out of place in any church or mosque, and Rabbi Chaim used the stage to good effect.

After President Elliot Cohen had read out the messages and announcements, we retired to a pretty fantastic buffet, with wine and whisky for all who wanted (which has to be a pretty effective way to get people through the doors).

The Yeshurun Hebrew Congregation was founded in Gatley in 1963, and the present synagogue built in 1968.  The Yeshurun congregation is  modern orthodox.

Councils across Greater Manchester are asking for residents and businesses views on the preferred sites for waste facilities and the preferred approach to dealing with future development of sites as part of a Preferred Option report.

The consultation on the Waste Plan Preferred Option Report (a catchy title if ever there was one) is being held from 13 November to 8 January 2010. 

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) is working to develop a Joint Waste Development Plan detailing planning policies for managing waste, identifying potential sites for waste facilities, including residual waste disposal, and providing policies to determine planning applications. The document will help identify and deliver the facilities that will be required to manage the conurbations waste.

The Waste Plan Preferred Options Report is available to view and comment upon at www.gmwastedpd.co.uk. Further information is available from the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority on Tel No. 0161 779 6182, or e-mail planningteam@gmwastedpd.co.uk.

Two Stockport parks are among the first in the country to be recognised as Accredited Country Parks by Natural England. Mersey Vale Nature Park and Reddish Vale Country Park are among the first four parks across the country to be given this accreditation from Natural England.

In order to achieve accreditation, parks must meet a range of strict criteria for essential services and facilities, high quality signage and disabled access. Parks must be at least ten hectares in size, free to enter and have a daily staff presence in order to put themselves forward. 

Thanks to everyone at last night’s Cheadle Village Partnership.  We had an excellent discussion about Stockport’s Core Strategy (12 days to go to register your opinions wih the Council).  I was impressed that more than one person had made the heroic effort to read the strategy document, and people had some excellent questions and points.

Other than that, I spent too much time speaking to take notes (sorry!) so I’ll have to wait for the AboutMyArea report.

A few weeks back I asked if anyone was experiencing more noise from aircraft, especially around Gatley Road.  A few people got in touch (which is more than Manchester Airport did - I never had a response to my emails).

My friend Cllr Lenny Grice sits on some airport committee so he found out the details.

It seems that the computer system that normally guides pilots in to land is out of action at the moment (don’t know why).   The result is that aircraft are being guided in to land in a different way, resultingin a wider corridor.

So, although not every plane is coming in over the area, some are.

That should be temporary, but I don’t have an end date.

Some small improvements coming to Oak Road in Cheadle:

• A few days ago I reported the dip at the corner of Oak Road and Stockport Road, and it’s now marked up for repair.
• For a while, residents on Oak Road by Oak Court have been asking for a higher fence to improve the privacy and security in their back gardens.  Stockport Homes have confirmed that this is now going ahead, and residents will be consulted on the type of fence they want shortly.  This affects people living on the west side of Oak Road, immediately south of Oak Court.
• I’ve asked Council officers to look into who owns the messy bit of land by the electricity substation between the two sets of Honeycombe Cottages.  I’d like to see the owner looking after it properly.

Dear resident,

The last two months have been as busy as ever, both in Parliament and in the community tackling the issues that really count.

I have decided to make my email updates more concise and so they are easier to digest, but I have made sure there are links to different news stories on my website and as always any feedback would be gratefully received.  

One issue that has dominated Parliament and the country as a whole in recent months is that of MP’s expenses. For those who aren’t already aware, I publish my expenses on my own website on a quarterly basis. In addition I can confirm that I have not been asked to repay any money after the recent independent Legg enquiry into MP’s expenses. I have never made any claims on my family home in Bramhall and I do not employ any relatives. I will continue to campaign for greater openness, transparency and accountability – it is after all, public money we are talking about.

Recently, Sir David Kelly has produced a report about the expenses system with recommendations to restrict MPs’ allowances and improve the system - all of which I have welcomed - and I am now pushing the Government to implement these recommendations as soon as possible. It will be a difficult process to rebuild trust in politics, but we must start now.

Here is a summary of my activities in Parliament and in our community in recent weeks:

BAE Systems Woodford closure date announced; Prime Minister quizzed over battle for jobs in Woodford; consultation on site’s future is launched:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000542/bae_systems_woodford_to_close_in_2012.html

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000552/hunter_blasts_brown_over_bae_blunder.html

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000549/consultation_crucial_over_woodford_future.html

Stepping Hill Hospital Car Parking Charge campaign update – opposition to massive hike in car parking charges:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000546/nhs_parking_charge_announcement_is_a_move_forward.html

Giving my support to the Royal British Legion in their campaign for better conditions for our troops:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000544/local_mp_pledges_to_do_his_bit_for_british_armed_forces.html

Joining forces with Hazel Grove MP Andrew Stunell to raise awareness about Breast Cancer:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000554/stockport_mps_wear_it_pink.html

My reaction to the MP’s expenses scandal – and why the Government must put its House in order:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000562/government_must_put_its_house_in_order.html

Official opening of new college development at the Seashell Trust (formerly Royal School for the Deaf):

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000550/seashell_trust_students_celebrate_college_redevelopment.html

Why I am backing the National Autistic Society’s campaign for better access to employment for people with autism:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000555/harman_declines_opportunity_to_back_autism_campaign.html

Latest on the Equitable Life fiasco, and the fight for justice for local policyholders:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000556/government_fails_equitable_life_victims.html

Huge increase in rail fares criticised - and how rail services could be improved:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000564/189_rise_in_rail_fares_ridiculous_says_hunter.html

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000547/longer_franchises_will_put_stockport_on_the_right_track.html

Demands grow for action on climate change as Copenhagen Summit beckons:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000557/lib_dems_lead_the_way_on_1010_climate_change_campaign.html

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000559/letter_about_copenhagen_climate_change_summit.html

My recent visit to Auschwitz:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000558/local_mp_returns_from_harrowing_visit_to_auschwitz.html

Celebrating our local voluntary sector – why it’s a great asset to the community:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000560/local_mps_and_celebs_get_behind_national_volunteering_day.html

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000561/hunter_hails_stockports_free_advice_sector.html

New Cheadle & Gatley Councillor Iain Roberts elected as Lib Dems achieve another convincing win:

http://www.markhunter.org.uk/news/000541/hunter_hails_great_victory_for_new_councillor.html

As always I am eager to hear your views and if anybody has any new issues they would like me to take up either locally or in Parliament please get in touch. You can contact me either by email; telephone on 0161 486 1359; or write to me at Hillson House, Gillbent Road, Cheadle Hulme, SK8 7LE. I also have twice-weekly advice surgeries on Mondays and Fridays, and can make home visits when requested. Please just call to make an appointment at your convenience.

I’ve reported a faulty streetlight on the alleyway between Belmont Road and South Park Road in Gatley.  The streetlight is the one immediately on the Belmont Road (west) side of the railway line, labelled as “2″ on the post.

Chris Davies, our Liberal Democrat MEP, shares his views on Afghanistan and would like to know what you think. If I have time to think about it properly, I may be getting in touch.

The fraudulent elections held in Afghanistan, and the further death and
maiming of British soldiers serving in the country, have forced me to
think hard about the situation.  I have written to Nick Clegg to give
him my views and I want also to share them with readers of these
occasional LIB DEM NOTES.

I believe that our troops should be pulled off the front line in
Afghanistan. The justifications for their continuing presence seem to
vary with the day of the week and the desperation of the advocate.  I am
not convinced by any of them, and I don’t know how we would even
recognise a ‘victory’ if it were to be claimed.

Our people are part of a NATO contingent involving troops from many
nations (though our numbers are second only to the Americans) that has
the support of the United Nations.  But we are easily portrayed as an
occupying force in a foreign land, fighting for one side in a civil
war as crusading imperialists seeking to impose our cultural and
religious beliefs on others. Radical Muslim men rally to the cause of
our opponents in consequence.

As we seek to avoid casualties we fall back on the use of technology
that allows us to attack and bomb from afar; all too often killing
innocent Afghans.  Support we may briefly have enjoyed from local people
turns to hatred.  None of this helps to make Britain a safer place.

I bow to no-one in my detestation of the Taliban and the perversion of
Islam they use to justify their suppression of women’s rights.  I would
love to see the country transformed into a benevolent liberal democracy,
free from corruption and a champion of liberty.  But the recent
elections demonstrated how removed that vision is from reality.  If we
are fighting for Karzai’s government are we sure it is a cause worth the
effort?  We cannot use the treatment of Afghan women by Afghan men as an
excuse for military intervention any more than we would use it to
justify an attack on a country where genital mutilation is still
performed on female children.

In any case, genuine defeat of the Taliban may prove impossible whatever
resources and lives are thrown against them.  Its various local
commanders can withdraw in the face of overwhelming odds, only to return
when troop numbers have been reduced.  Individual fighters can cut their
beards, bury their weapons, and pose as hard working farmers – which
indeed is what they may be.  The weapons can be dug up again at any time.

We can continue to train Afghan soldiers, but the Taliban have a role to
play in the country’s future and we should talk with them.  Can that be
so much worse than dealing with our current allies, the cruel and
corrupt warlords who care not a jot for human rights?  Our money at
least buys us some influence with the warlords; perhaps its provision
for development purposes can also be used to persuade the Taliban to
keep Al Qaida at a distance and curb the worst excesses of their
treatment of women.

To make Britain a safer place we have to win hearts and minds in the
Muslim world.  We have to address the causes of grievance used by our
opponents to bring people to their side.  Our attack on Iraq did us
great damage.  Our involvement in Afghanistan risks doing the same.  The
failure of Europe as a whole to address the injustice experienced by
Palestinians is a source of anger amongst Muslims that we consistently
underestimate.  We should learn our lessons.

Yes, we must be prepared to use force to defend our values when
necessary, but military action can only be taken when the objective is
clear.  That is very far from the case in Afghanistan.  We should
not allow more soldiers to be killed and maimed because politicians here
are too unwilling to lose face, too embarrassed to admit that lives have
been lost in vain, or too weak to challenge orthodoxy within NATO.

Afghanistan has defeated Britain in the past.  It has defeated the
Russians.  The present campaign is not going to result in a triumph for
America or its British and other allies.  If our troops are to remain
there it should be only to provide support and training for Afghans.
They should not be on the frontline.

I would welcome your views.

CHRIS DAVIES MEP

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today challenged Gordon Brown at Prime Minister’s Questions on planned cuts to Housing Benefit.

Current Government plans are to scrap excess payments to local housing allowance claimants where their rent is lower than the rate of the allowance. This would see some of the poorest families in the country up to £780 a year worse off.

Nick asked:

“How is it possible that in the middle of a recession, with unemployment now at two and a half million and rising, this Government, a Labour Government, wants to change the local housing allowance rules to take £15 a week from some of the poorest families in Britain?”

Stockport’s Victorian Christmas Extravaganza, Saturday 28th November, 10.30am to 4pm in the Covered Market Hall, a year after its restoration.

Transport bosses in Greater Manchester are encouraging people to take advantage of two days free travel on the Metrolink network.

Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) is providing free travel on Metrolink all day, from the first tram until the last tram, this Saturday, 14 November, and next Thursday, 19 November, as a ‘thank you’ to passengers.

Councillor Keith Whitmore, Chair of GMITA, said: “We’ve invested a significant amount in improving the Metrolink network this year; projects that will make journeys smoother, quieter and more reliable.

“We’ve completely replaced the city centre tracks, provided high quality new street finishes, upgraded two of the busiest city centre stops and installed the first sets of new ticket machines – major improvements that were completed on time and on budget.

“However, we fully appreciate that passengers were left without a full service while all this work was done, and we want to thank them for their patience and understanding during that time – that’s why we’ll be providing these two days of free travel.”

The city centre section closed in April and services returned on 2 November.

Major overhauls of the St Peter’s Square and Piccadilly Gardens stops – two of the most heavily used on the network – have been completed.

The St Peter’s Square stop has been widened and the platform heights modified to allow level boarding for all passengers. The Piccadilly Gardens stop has also been widened and new canopies have been installed to provide better shelter for even more people.

New state-of-the-art ticket machines that take bank notes and credit and debit card payments, have also been installed on the two revamped stops. They will be rolled out across the Metrolink network by spring next year
All the city centre stops now bear Metrolink’s new identity, which will be rolled out across the remainder of the network.

Councillor Ian Macdonald, Vice Chair of GMITA, said: “Shoppers will be able to benefit from free travel this Saturday and I hope more people will choose to leave the car at home and try the tram instead.

“Commuters will benefit from free travel next Thursday, but I hope people will also take the opportunity to travel in to the city centre in the evening to sample the Christmas markets and get into the festive spirit.

“Meanwhile, the investment in Metrolink is going to continue, with several brand new trams in service by the end of this year, all-new ticket machines installed across the network by spring next year and four new lines being built.”

A total of 40 new trams have been ordered to provide more room on existing services and to cater for passengers on new lines being built to Oldham and Rochdale, Droylsden in Tameside, Chorlton in South Manchester and MediaCityUK in Salford.

Passengers who have a season ticket which covers the days valid for free travel can claim a refund by writing to Customer Service Secretary, GMPTE, Freepost MR7 116, Manchester, M1 9QL, by 7 January 2010 with their name, address and telephone number.

They will also need to provide a photocopy of their Metrolink Travel Club membership card as well as a photocopy of their season ticket if it is still valid, or the original ticket if it has expired.

Thanks to Tim Pickstone for this story.

Events over the next eleven days:

• Aged 14-16?  Use the Urban Evolution themes to inspire your own piece of creative writing with help from professional writer Julian Jordan.  Ideal for beginners.  2-4pm, Satuday 14th November, Stockport Story Museum (SK1 1ES).  Free, booking essential (call 0161 474 4453).
• Vintage photography.  What do your clothes say about you?  Happy Goth?  Sad Punk? Angry Rocker? Try dressing in the ‘looks and locks’ of young people from the past and capture it all with some ‘vintage’ photography.  Hat Works Museum (SK3 0EU), 2-4pm, Sunday 15th November, ages 13-25 years.  Free - call 0161 355 7770 to book.
• Design an album cover and have it displayed. Remaster a cover for an album you’ve inherited in your collection.  Finished artwork will be displayed in the Urban Evolution exhibition.  Stockport Story Museum (SK1 1ES), 1-4pm, Saturday 21st November, ages 13-25 years.  Free - call 0161 477 6517 to book.
• Identify Yourself. Give Gok Wan a run for his money.  Design a T-shirt which expresses your unique identity.  Discover the history behind Manchester gangs and learn how Victorian gang members customised their outfits to demonstrate their group identity .  T-shirts supplied, but feel free to bring another item of clothing you’d like to design into.  Stockport Story Museum (SK1 1ES), 2-4pm, Sunday 22nd November, ages 13-25 years.  Free - call to book on 0161 477 6517.

This evening I took the family to the opening night of the Urban Evolution exhibition at Stockport Story, next to the covered market - and I can strongly recommend it.

The exhibition takes a look at our history over the last seventy years, from the perspective of what it was like to be a young person in each age, from the Second World War through the fifties’ teenager’s bedroom to transistor radios and what it means to be a young person today.

That’s not all.  Not only did young volunteers contribute much of the content for the exhibition, they also planned the whole layout -a mixture of photos, film, posters, artefacts, sculpture and more.

Everyone involved can be very proud of what they’ve achieved. The Urban Evolution exhibition runs from 11th November 2009 to 28th February 2010 at Stockport Story Museum - don’t miss it.

Good news: the Council’s investigations into the flooding problems on Gatley Green will start later this week.

We know that just cleaning the grids won’t work  - it’s been tried more than once.  The problem is that there are quite a few other things that could be causing a problem.  Until the drains people take a good look at what’s happening underground, they won’t know how to fix it.

Once that’s been done, we’ll be looking to get the problem sorted as soon as we can - though exactly how long  will depend on what’s found.

From Mark Hunter’s website:

Cheadle MP Mark Hunter has welcomed the recommendations from the Kelly report into MP’s expenses and urged the Government to implement the recommendations as soon as possible.

The Kelly report was an independent enquiry setup to recommend reports to MP’s expenses after the scandal earlier this year. It proposes several changes such as not allowing MPs to claim for mortgages, a ban on employing relatives, and reduced travel claims.

Mark has never claimed on his family home in Bramhall, has not been asked to repay any money by the Sir Thomas Legg enquiry, and publishes his own expenses on a regular basis on his own website.

Mr Hunter has also signed a special parliamentary motion, which calls for the implementation of all of Sir Christopher Kelly’s recommendations at the earliest possible opportunity, without amendment.

Commenting, Mark Hunter MP said:

“Parliament must seize this opportunity to put its House in order. Now is the time for real change - none of this political posturing we have heard in the past - it is time for action. We must accept these recommendations lock, stock and barrel.

“Voters have rightly been outraged at the misuse of taxpayers’ money by a significant number of MPs who purport to serve the people. Our country and our local communities deserve better.

“I have long campaigned for greater transparency and that is why I opposed attempts by some MPs to make themselves exempt from Freedom of Information (FOI) requirements.

“It is a tragedy that the actions of some MPs have tarnished the image and reputation of Parliament as a whole. It will take a long time to restore faith and trust in politics, and we must start that important work now.”

I’ve received this from Andrew Stunell, Lib Dem MP in the neighbouring constituency of Hazel Grove

The Government is set to cut nearly £800 from the budgets of some of Stockport’s poorest people in April, according to Hazel Grove MP Andrew Stunell.

Government plans to alter the Local Housing Allowance could leave low-income families up to £780 a year worse off. At the moment, families receiving Local Housing Allowance (LHA) are able to keep up to £15 a week if they choose a home with a rent below the Local Housing Allowance’s maximum for their area. Chancellor Alistair Darling now proposes removing the £15 a week payment from April next year.

Estimates indicate that around half of all the people receiving LHA pay a contractual rent that is lower than the LHA maximum rate. This means that over 1,500 people in the borough will lose out as a result.

Commenting, Andrew Stunell said:

“£15 per week may seem like small change to Government Ministers, but for local families struggling to make ends meet this money is important.

“The government has a track record in secretly raising taxes for the poorest and most vulnerable people. Now they want to take away a vital source of their income just like that.

“Cutting this scheme will save very little money, if any at all, but will make a huge difference to local families budgets. This is irresponsible behaviour from Labour during a recession, and Gordon Brown has once again abandoned the people who need the most help.”

Now Mr Stunell is joining with other Liberal Democrat MPs to press the Government for a rethink.

Just a quick plug for Manchester Harriers and Athletics Club, providing opportunities for young and old from across the south Manchester area and based at Scholes Field in Gatley with the shiny new pavillion.

Yesterday was one of the regular cross-country days, giving opportunities to hundreds of young people to catch the athletics bug.

Recognising the parking issues that these once-a-month occasions cause, the Harriers were yesterday handing out advice to parents on where to park: suggesting Gatley Hill and Foxland Road in addition to Beech Avenue and the new enlarged car park by the pavillion.

This morning I dropped by Frances Street in Cheadle (living on Frances Avenue, we used to exchange wrongly-delivered mail with them on a fairly regular basis, though that seems to be have improved recently).

I was looking at the electricity substation on the road,  with peeling paint on the doors, a leak on the roof and overgrowing foliage along the side,

My initial assumption was that it’s owned by Electricity Northwest Ltd and maintained by United Utilities, but a resident who’s looked into it has got a more confusing message.

Looks like I’ll be doing some digging on this one - it hasn’t been touched in years.

When it comes to spotting surface water problems, you can’t beat getting out after heavy rain. Sometimes the place you thought was a major problem turns out not to be so serious and one you hadn’t spotted becomes obvious.

Few people would suggest we could or should get rid of all puddles, but where pools of water are causing serious problems for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists they should be prioritised.

So what did I find?

Gatley Green
Several issues around Gatley Green (which may be connected if there’s a serious problem under the road).

Outside Bethany Community Church:

Outside the Prince of Wales pub:

The entrance to the road in front of Gatley Green Co-op and A&I:

The exit from the Gatley Green Co-op road:

Longley Lane

The junction of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road, by the railway bridge

Entrance to Gatley Medical Centre, Old Hall Road

Gatley railway bridge

Stockport Road, opposite Frances Street

Entrance to Clifton Drive

Styal Road crossing, from Baxter Park

Outside 8 Styal Road

The good news

Frustrating as it is to have all these issues - and Pam and I are working hard to resolve them, though it will take time - it wouldn’t be fair to ignore the good news.

I’m sure I missed some problems (in the time I had this morning I mostly stuck to the main roads), but at the time that I checked (between 9am and 10am) I didn’t see significant pools of water on West Drive, along Gatley Road (except by the railway bridge) or on Schools Hill (though I’ve seen problems both at the bottom of the hill and at the exit to the school recently).

There was no pool of water at the junction of Gatley Road and Kingsway - something that has been a problem recenrtly.

The pools of water outside Hewitts in Gatley village centre are gone following Council action

And the large pool that aleays formed on Old Hall Road, Gatley has been sorted as well.

And there are thousands of grids which are clear and working fine.

My bundle of papers today includes a proposal for extending mobile phone coverage from a mast on the Brookfield Business Park, off Brookfield and Demmings Roads in Cheadle.

Vodafone currently have a mast situation on the business park with 2G and 3G antennas.  The proposal is to replace these with dual user tri-band 2G/3G Vodafone and Telefonica O2 antennas mounted on the existing headframe, and for an additional control cabinet at ground level.

If you’d like more information about this, just let me know.

Sorting out a public meeting for residents to discuss the options for improving the Schools Hill/Wilmslow Road junction in Cheadle has proven to be a little trickier than I’d thought - but all part of being a new councillor, I guess.

On Tuesday at the Cheadle Area Committee, I asked for the public meeting and it was approved.  I’ve now got to chase it up and get the thing organised.

I’ve pretty much got all the information to bring along to it, so should be soon.

Dodging the rain around lunchtime, I managed to get about half of the South Park Road Estate delivered with our latest newspaper.

I chatted to a few people on the way round and thought an update on a few issues was in order.

• there’s been a residents’ consultation on parking restrictions in Coniston, Brentwood and Brogden.  I don’t know the results yet - should find out soon.  Some residents are concerned that the options offered didn’t go far enough to deal with the problems - something I’m looking into.
• Mark Hunter and I have both been in touch with the police about improving enforcement of the “no entry except for access” rule.  I think it’s fair to say that the police remain cautious about committing manpower to this and there’s still work to be done.
• I’ve been contacted about the “Ahead Only” sign on the road surface of South Park Road, just past Mardale Drive.  The concern is that it’s not very useful having it there.  I’m not sure, to be honest, but as it’s now down, I don’t think we could justify spending money painting it out.
• I’ve reported a dodgy bit of pavement by the kerbstone outside 172 Kingsway.
• I was very glad to see the trees at the entrance to Brogden Drive have now been full removed - an issue Pam and I raised with the Council at the end of July.

Back in August, before I was elected, I reported a bunch of potholes on Newboult Road in Cheadle (among many others).

Many of them have now been repaired, but one stretch has slipped through.

I’ve now reported the following:

1. Pothole in centre of road by 1/3 Newboult Road, Cheadle

2. Pothole in centre of road by 5 Newboult Road, Cheadle

3. Line of 8-10 potholes down centre of Newboult Road, Cheadle from number 20 to number 26.

It’s raining again and so we’ve once again got the flooding by the road in front of the Gatley Green Co-op.

This is an issue we’ve been working on for a while and the good news is that work to fix it has been scheduled.  There’s also work in the plan to fix the flooding at the corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road, and others Pam and I are working on.

Some have been fixed already.  I’ve been closely checking two areas that used to flood all the time: Old Hall Road opposite the exit to Gatley Medical Centre and Gatley Road outside Hewitts.  Both seem to be greatly improved.

The problem is that it’s a lot more than a quick hosing or rodding to fix some of these. It can be a serious problem underground.

Sometimes a builder’s poured waste concrete down a drain and, surprisingly enough, it sets and blocks everything. Or a utility company will lay a pipe through the drain and not tell anyone: the water drains into the earth at first, then backs up and floods.

These sorts of problems need to be fully investigated and work commissioned to fix them, typically costing thousands of pounds.

In addition to these flooding problems, I’m also working to get other locations fixed, including Styal Road and along Gatley Road from Gatley into Cheadle; but it will take time.

At the Cheadle Area Committee meeting, Inspector Dave Turner reported good news on burglary.  Three arrests have been made of known burglars in the Cheadle and Gatley area, with the burglary rate dropping sharply as a result.

Of the three, one has been convicted and is in prison.  One was convicted and given a non-custodial sentence, and is receiving nightly visits from the police.  The third is awaiting trial.

Inspector Turner also mentioned a cannabis factory having been found on South Park Road in Gatley.  It held around 250 plants, which was estimated at a street value of £25,000.

Inspector Turner spoke of a heavy police presence at Halloween a few days ago, and that it seemed to have passed relatively peacefully.

Inspector Dave Turner spoke about Guy Fawkes Night at the Cheadle Area Committee meeting.

He noted that last year not a single person in the whole of Stockport Borough had ended up in casualty as a result of fireworks or bonfire injuries, something we’re hoping to repeat this year.

If you’re concerned about something on or around 5th November:

• Call 999 if there’s an immediate threat to property or life (for example, if someone were repeatedly throwing fireworks at your door).
• Calling 0161 872 5050 for other  issues.

Both in the call centre and on the ground, policing numbers will be higher around 5th November.

A few issues Pam King and I have reported:

• two of the lighted bollards on Broadway, near the junction with Wilmslow Road, need repairing.
• there’s graffiti on the green telecoms box on Mornington Road, near Broadway, which I’ve asked to be cleared off.
• I’ve reported a couple of potholes in the tarmac section right at the bottom of Cherington Road.
• Pam’s reported graffiti on the NTL box on Daylesford Crescent at the junction with Daylesford road and the North West Water Board gate next to 49 Daylesford Road.

It was good to see work being done tidying the plants and trees on Gatley’s old cemetary, next to the medical centre on Old Hall Road.

I was glad the foliage growing across the pavement at the corner was cleared back, as I asked a little while ago.

The signpost in the cemetary, which is leaning badly,   still needs to be repaired and made safe - I’ll be chasing that up.

Meanwhile, having reported foliage growing onto the pavement space from the railway land over the road from the station, I was pleased a couple of days ago to get a call from Network Rail.  The guy I spoke to was on site and I was able to explain exactly where the problem was.

Across the Granada region, which covers the whole of stockport and most of the North West besides, the analog signal for BBC2 will be turned off tomorrow, in most cases at 6am  (some will be turned off later in the day).

If you still have an analog TV just picking up the signal from the aerial with no satellite, cable, freeview or freesat, you will no longer be able to view BBC2.

You then have a month until all the other channels are turned off, on 2nd December.

For more information, and for help on going digital so you don’t lose all your channels next month, visit the DigitalUK website.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service want to visit your home, give you a home check on fire safety and supply and fit smoke alarms (where appropriately).  And they want to do it at absolutely zero cost to you - completely free.

Take advantage of this service by calling 0800 555 815 or visiting www.manchesterfire.gov.uk - I will be.

Update: I registered via the website and they’ve just sent me a letter asking me to call 0800 555 815, so you might as well call the number in the first place and save the Fire Service the cost of sending you a letter.

A big thank you from Gatley Cubs to the Cheadle Hulme Firefighters.  We took the cubs to take a look at the firestation on Turves Road. They got to see all the equipment t firefighters wear, have a look around a fire engine, get a ride in the engine and have a go at spraying water from a fire hose.

In a couple of weeks we’re going back for some first aid training.  One of our helpers might even be considering a change of career.

I’m running a series of posts to summarise over 400 pages of documents in way that helps those who live and work in Stockport Borough understand the issues we’re facing, the options we have and the Council proposals in how the Borough develops over the next 17 years.

This is the third post.  You can read my overview plus my piece on  the Accessibility Appraisal paper.  This one covers the Core Strategy DPD Preferred Options Consultation, which you can read in full, and comment on, here.

This time I’m trying to condense 140 pages into a few hundred words - wish me luck.

What issues is the strategy trying to tackle?

Although both the population of Stockport Borough and the amount of traffic has fallen slightly in the last few years, we don’t expect that to continue.   The Government is asking Stockport to provide 450 new dwellings (houses or flats) every year - that’s over 7,000 by 2026.

At the same time Stockport, like everywhere, has issues to tackle with how things are now.   We’re the third most polarised borough in the country with pockets of deprivation and much more affluent areas.  Our main roads are congested. Stockport Town Centre isn’t all it could be.  Lots of people live in the Borough and travel out for work, with lots more living outside and travelling in.  And, in common with most other areas, we have an aging population and a lack of affordable housing.

The general approach

So we expect to have thousands of new flats and houses, which means (over time), more shops, offices, schools, sport, leisure, culture and health facilities and cemetaries.  Where should they all go?

This was the subject of a previous consultation.  Different options were looked at and the conclusion was, in the main, to strengthen existing centres.  By far the most development is planned for Stockport Town Centre.  Another big chunk goes into the District Centres and the Large Local Centres, with a smaller amount elsewhere.

Stockport has 8 District Centres: Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Edgeley, Hazel Grove, Marple, Reddish and Romiley.  It has 10 Large Local Centres: Gatley, Heald Green, Moor Top, Heaton Moor, Shaw Road/Heaton Moor Road, Heaton Chapel, Davenport, Great Moor, North Reddish and Marple Bridge.

Housing

There’s more to this than just building lots of houses and flats.  How big should they be?  How expensive?  Where should they go?

The proposal in this strategy paper is

• a 50/50 split between houses and flats overall, with most flats going in the Town Centre (which will end up with a much higher population) and most houses going around the District and Large Local Centres.
• The majority of the flats to have two bedrooms.
• 40% of new housing to be affordable for those on lower incomes.
• 80% of new housing to be in existing buildings and previously developed land.
• More social rented housing for Bramhall, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, Edgeley, Davenport, Marple, Romiley and the Heatons.
• If Woodford Aerodrome becomes vacant, using it wholly or partially for housing is one of several options.
• Stockport currently has no formal Gypsy and Traveller pitches.  Following Government guidance, we are expected to create 35, plus another ten travelling showpeople pitches.  This should increase to 57 pitches in total by 2026 and they should be be in urban areas with good access to services.
• 50% of the new dwellings to be in the Central Housing Area, with up to 2,000 in the Town Centre (the Central Housing Area is the Town Centre plus some areas around it).
• A further 35% of new dwellings to be within walking distance of District and Large Local centres.
• 15% of dwellings to be built elsewhere.

Reducing the size of some struggling centres

Even in the recession, most of our District and Local Centres are doing OK, including Cheadle, Gatley, Bramhall and Heald Green.  Walk around them and you won’t see many empty units.

Some are suffering more, including Hazel Grove and Edgeley.  For these, one option is to reduce the size of the centres - for example, by turning retail units at the edges of the centres into residential properties.

For all centres, the paper also offers the option of limiting the number of hot food and fast food outlets either within a centre altogether or near to schools and play areas.

Cemetaries

It may not be something most of us give much thought to, but Stockport’s cemetaries will be full in 10-15 years.  Should we create new cemetaries (if so, where?) or re-use existing ones.

Strengthen District and Local Centres

The overall strategy is to maintain and enhance the Town Centre along with existing District and Local Centres.

Here, I confess, I don’t think the document is very clear (and, in one case, makes a fairly blatant mistake).  The section in question is 7.135 on page 70.  It refers to changes in planning policies.

The paper proposes  controlling the scale, clustering and mix of uses in Centres to meet local needs and enhance the viability of the Centres.  Great in principle, and fine if there are lots of retailers and developers with different schemes.  The problem comes when the commercial environment isn’t quite so strong.

You might want to have a retail outlet in a particular place, but if no retailers want to open there, your real choice might be something else (a take-away, for example) or nothing. It could well be that nothing - an empty unit - is the best choice in some cases, but we should be aware of the issue.

With that in mind, I’m not clear exactly what the paper’s proposing.

Outside Local and District Centres, the paper proposes that we permit a change of use from service to non-service (e.g. offices or residential) unless there’s a good reason not to, as part of the strategy to strengthen the Centres.

In Large Local Centres, the paper says we should restrict the size of new shops and leisure units (where not re-using an existing building) to a maximum of  500 square metres (and 250 square metres in other Local Centres).  For District Centres, the much higher limit of 25,000 square metres is proposed.  (I think incorrect wording results in this paragraph actually saying the opposite of this).

There’s also a sentence which, I think, suggests that a new small convenience store would not be permitted if other local retailers already provide the same services.

Requiring that new convenience shops meeting local needs (up to max 250 square metres) will only be allowed where there are no alternative sustainably accessible facilities.

Again, it not necessarily a problem; but I don’t understand why we’d want to single out convenience shops.  If we’re going to protect that one type of shop from competition, why not protect newsagents, cafes or hairdressers?

Building business

The plan identifies the need to build strong business centres around Stockport, and argues that this should be primarily achieved by enhancing and promoting the Town Centre for new office development.  That fits in with the principle of enhancing the Town Centre overall, and concentrates more traffic flows into the centre (which is the location best served by public transport and car parking).

In particular, the strategy is to attract ICT, digital, creative and new media companies into offices around the A6 south of the M60 - especially in the civic quarter.

There’s also strong office provision in some our District and Local Centres: Bramhall, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Hazel Grove, Stepping Hill and Gatley.  These should be supported.

Heavier industry should have direct access to main access routes (e.g. motorways) without having to go through residential areas.  The Bredbury Industrial Area is given as an example of a location that fits the bill.

The report says that there’s no specific need to find new areas of employment close to deprived areas: either they are there already, or there are good public transport links from those areas to the Town Centre.

Sport, green spaces and leisure

Stockport has an oversupply of senior sports pitches (compared to the Government recommendation for how many we should have) but slightly too few mini soccer facilities.

The report also identifies a shortfall of leisure facilities in the Town Centre, Hazel Grove, Reddish, Romiley and Edgeley, with too few sports halls (relative to the population) in the north and north east of the Borough.

There’s a discussion about our green spaces, both “formal open space” - parks and similar - and other green spaces.

Should we continue the current strategy of retaining a semi-rural character for our river valleys; or should we use that space to meet more formal needs, for example by building sports pitches there?

Overall, though the Cheadle area (Cheadle, Gatley, Heald Green and the northern part of Cheadle Hulme) was identified as having more than enough formal open space (again, compared to Government recommendations), the Borough as a whole falls 105 hectares short.  The Heatons also do well for green space, with Victoria, Tame Valley and Werneth needing improvement.

The plan rejects giving absolute protection to current green space.  It gives the example of the Cheadle Committee area, where there’s lots of formal green space and a shortage of affordable housing.  It suggests the option to swap some should be left open.

Transport

The strategy paper advocates more people living, working and playing in Stockport Town Centre along with our District and Local Centres.  If that’s going to be successful, we need to be able to get to and from those places.

Issues identified include:

• a lack of orbital train links from Stockport to Manchester Airport and Tameside
• a lack of train links between Stockport and some District Centres (Marple, Cheadle) and a general weakness in public transport between Marple and Stockport
• congestion across many of the Borough’s main roads

It notes that there are plans currently in place to improve transport provision, including SEMMMS, aiming to deliver the extended A555 Relief Road by 2016 and rail improvements scheduled to start from 2014.

Other reports and plans are noted including the 2009-2015 Stockport Cycling Strategy,  the Greater Manchester Integration Transport Strategy (GMITS) and the South Pennines Integrated Transport Strategy (SPITS).

Beyond those (which I won’t cover here, but will do at some stage if I have the time), the paper comes up with a selection of ideas that fall some way short of firm proposals:

• we need to shift from single-occupancy car use to more car sharing, cycling,  walking and public transport.
• promote flexible working and home working
• introduce more 20mph zones in residential areas
• improve the network of walking and cycling routes, both direct (normally on-road) and off-road for recreational and less confident cyclists.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Core Strategy Development Plan Document (DPD) consultation paper.  This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes.   Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

The Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper is part of Stockport Council’s Core Strategy - how the borough needs to develop over the next 15-20 years.  The document is being consulted on and you have until 25th November to give your opinions.

This is my summary of that paper.  Since the full document is 82 pages, you can take it as read that things are missed out.  Also, this is purely from me reading the document - which you can do too.  I’ve no extra information and I may have made mistakes.  With that in mind, let’s press on.

What’s the purpose of the Accessibility Appraisal? 

We should start off by being clear about what the document is and isn’t trying to achieve.  It doesn’t lay out proposals for what should be done in Stockport.  You won’t find plans to improve a certain bus service, build new housing in a certain area or create a new retail park.

Rather, it attempts to set the scene, to provide the basis for making those proposals, to define the problems that we need to solve and the challenges we need to meet.  Not quite as exciting, but very important.  If you’re not asking the right questions, your chance of coming up with the right answers is pretty low.

What is accessibility?

For this study, “accessibility” is simply how easy it is for people to get to everywhere they need to: their jobs, shops, schools, medical centres, hospitals, pubs, restaurants, leisure facilities, parks and community facilities.

You may reach them by car; but not everyone has a car and, even for those who do, it’s not much good saying the shop’s just down the road if you have to sit in a traffic jam for an hour to get there.  You might also get to them by train, bus, bike or on foot.

The Government is asking for over 7,500 new dwellings to be built in Stockport over the next 17 years, meaning more people and more traffic.

A big part of our challenge is to figure out how to organise that so we get the extra flats and houses in the right places and keep (and improve) this accessibility, for both new and existing residents.

Dealing with inequality

Stockport has relatively high inequality, both between areas in the borough (e.g. compare Brinnington and Bramhall) and within areas (e.g. older people).  It’s very important we provide access for all, not just the wealthier in our community.  We also need to recognise that more deprived areas have different problems, such as poorer health and higher unemployment.

Two examples

Let’s suppose we look at a relatively poor area, and we think it might be a good place to build additional low cost housing too.  So we can predict we’ll have a population who not only need all the usual services and facilities like shops and parks, but will have a higher need for healthcare and certain sorts of jobs.  Additionally, they are less likely to have cars.

For an area like this, it will be very important to ensure safe and reasonably fast access to healthcare, shops, workplaces, entertainment and the rest of it by public transport, walking and cycling.

Alternatively, we can look at a wealthier area with high car ownership.  In this case, it might be more important to look at congestion, to predict where new pinch points in the  road network will emerge and tackle those (for example, through the SEMMMS strategy).

 So what are the problems?

The paper is the result of a big study that looked across the borough, worked out how good access was to all the different services in each place and mapped it.  That was also compared to areas of low car ownership and poor health.

Overall, the picture is clear.  Those of us in the centre, north and north west of the borough have - by and large - the best access to all the different services.  That’s areas like the Town Centre, Cheadle, Gatley, the Heatons, Reddish, Cheadle Hulme and out to Hazel Grove.

Those in the south and east of the borough have the poorest access to services: Bramhall (outside the village centre), Woodford, Romiley, Marple, Bredbury and Offerton, for example.

That’s not necessarily a problem right now: plenty of people choose to live somewhere more rural and happily trade-off being a bit further from the shops against living in their preferred location.

It is a problem, however, where you have a population with poor health and low car ownership who also have poor access to services; or where the roads are getting so congested that drivers can’t get to where they want to go.

So, for example, the study identifies a lack of links from Marple to Stockport Town Centre and congestion around Bramhall Moor as serious issues.  It also expresses concern about the lack of access to services in places like Bredbury Green, Cherry Tree Lane (Romiley) and Marple South (especially Hawk Green).

And to absolutely no-one’s surprise, the study idenfies congestion issues on most of the main roads around the borough.

What’s to be done?

As I said before, this report is about identifying the questions, with the answers still to come, and that’s an important thing to get right.  However, we do get a sniff of what some of the answers might look like.

The study suggests better promoting the Town Centre as  an evening destination.  That means not only having the restaurants, pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres and the like, but also public transport links that run late into the night.

It also talks about promoting mixed developments (where you have housing, workplaces and other services all in the same area) and more “employment sites” around the borough.  The aim is to reduce the distances people need to travel, which would reduce congestion, not to mention making our lives more pleasant.

For example, the report idenfies Cheadle Royal and Woodford as two such centres, but warns that public transport access to both are currently poor and would need to be improved.

What’s there to consult on?

So far I’ve tried to summarise the content of the report.  This is a consultation and the paper says

Comments are invited on the proposed approach. By way of guidance comments would be welcome in relation to the following questions:
1. Do you agree with the principles behind the approach?
2. Do you think the process is sufficiently transparent to use as a basis for accessibility policies?
3. Do you agree with the emphasis of the approach on public choice rather than just achieving a minimum accessibility standard?
4. Would you like to see this approach applied in support other areas of policy development (such as in education or health service provision)?

What might you say?  You might think the report is about right - if so, it’s worth saying it.  If nothing else, it’ll give the people who wrote it a bit more job satisfaction!

Do you agree that accessibility is the right thing to focus on?  As we look forwards over the next two decades, should we be spending time, money and energy on minimising the travel time for people to get to where they want to go; or is that the wrong goal?

You might feel that it hasn’t got the measures right when looking at accessibility.  As the report admits, it doesn’t identify pinch points in the transport network, nor does it take into account off-road transport routes such as footpaths and cycle paths.

Perhaps you disagree with the idea of trying to bring our jobs closer to our homes and feel that a better solution would be to build a transport network to shuttle people as quickly as possible to Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and elsewhere to give Stockport residents the widest catchment area for jobs.

Question 3 links into ideas of what the Local Authority - and its partners - are there for.  Is it the job of the public sector to make our transport network as good as it can be, or should we be doing much less (and so needing less money to do it, perhaps resulting in lower Council Tax).

Until 25th November, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper. This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes. Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

I’ve nothing new to report on the Tatton beyond my last posting, but I wanted to say that it’s something all your councillors are working hard on right now and we’ll let you have more information as soon as there’s something firm.

During a busy morning around Cheadle and Gatley today, I checked out more blocked grids on Gatley Road (now reported), popped into the Gatley Green Co-op and the Foxland Road Spar to check on a couple of issues, went down to Yew Tree Close  to take a look for a forthcoming planning application (DC/042877) and spotted some graffiti on the path from Gatley Golf Club to Troutbeck Road (also now reported).

Here are the details of the grids reported today:

1. Two grids on the south side of Gatley Road, immediately to each side of the railway bridge by Gatley Station.  Both blocked, causing regular large puddles at the junction of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road.

2. Ten grids on the north side of Gatley Road between the railway bridge and the Synagogue in Gatley.

3. Grids on the north side of Gatley Road in Cheadle, between Kingsway and Wensley pretty much every grid is blocked.

4. Outside 73 Gatley Road there’s a grid in the centre of the pavement in a dip.  It looks clear, but local residents tell me it’s blocked further down and, because it’s in a dip, causes deep puddles around the entrances to the properties after heavy rain.

5. Outside 79 Gatley Road, grid blocked with grass growing out of it.

Most of the things I get involved with are pretty immediate.  Problems that need fixing as soon as possible, or at most issues like the Kingsway filter that might take a couple of years to sort out.

So thinking about how I see Stockport developing up to 2026 requires a bit of a shift in focus.

That’s the idea behind Stockport Council’s Core Strategy.  Some progress has been made on this and the latest stage is now open for consultation until 25th November.

The issues aren’t simple.

Like everywhere else in the country, Stockport needs to provide new housing (at least 450 dwellings a year - nearly 8,000 by 2026.  That’s a whole Cheadle & Gatley and a bit more besides (we have about 6,500 dwellings in the ward).

What should the mix of housing be?  Where should it be located?  How many flats?  How much social housing?

How do we build the economic future of the borough, providing jobs, education and training for current and future residents?

What needs to be done to attract more people into the Town Centre along with our local and district centres (Cheadle is a district centre, Gatley is a local centre).  How do we ensure not only vibrant retail centres but also the best access for all to leisure, culture, education, health, open space and other community facilities.

How do we protect our open spaces, greenbelt land and heritage?

Stockport is already congested, so how can we get everyone moving even with thousands of extra homes?  What mix of buses, trains, facilities for cyclists and pedestrians and, of course, private car travel is right?

For the next month, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

The actual consultation documents are fairly involved - together there’s several hundred pages.

So, to get more people involved, I’m currently reading and summarising the different documents - hopefully in a way that draws out the key questions and issues.

First there’s the Accessibility Appraisal.  That document sets the scene - it’s more about defining the issues than coming up with solutions.  It looks at how easy or difficult it is for people to get to where they want to go - to access schools, shops, jobs, leisure and healthcare, for example.

Next is the Core Strategy Consulation, which looks forward over the next 17 years with proposals covering housing, jobs, green spaces, sport and leisure, transport and more.

The other three papers, which I haven’t summarised yet are:

• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Habitats Regulations Assessment Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report Annexes

Sadly there will be no bonfire/fireworks display at Together Trust on Schools Hill, Cheadle this year.

AboutMyArea has the full story.

So where can you go for a bonfire and fireworks?

Two places to look:  Kidsguide and  Stockport Express.

The next Cheadle Area Committee meeting is at 6pm on Tuesday 3rd November.

This is a meeting open to the public (we’d love more people to come along) and held at the Ladybridge Residents Club, Edenbridge Road, Cheadle Hulme.

You can hopefully access the agenda here (83 pages this time, but most of that’s supporting information, like all the minute details of planning applications).

As well as considering planning applications, both councillors and members of the public can raise issues directly with the police, with the area conditions officer (who deals with issues like litter and graffiti), we’re being asked for our thoughts on the Council’s core strategy - it’s approach to development in the borough over the next 17 years - and on whether Stockport should have an elected mayor.

I wrote about the mayor issue yesterday and I’ll post more about the core strategy soon (when I’ve read the document myself!).

Currently Stockport, like most local authorities, is run on a leader/executive model.  The leader of the Council is a councillor (currently Dave Goddard for Stockport; the two previous leaders were Brian Millard and Mark Hunter).

Each year all the councillors elect the leader (in practise, the leader of the Council is chosen by the Lib Dem councillors, who hold a majority of the seats).

The Government has decided all councils have to choose between new systems, and we have to choose before the end of the year.

Option 1 is the “strong leader” model.  It’s pretty simlar to what we have today, except the leader is elected for a four year term, or for as long as they’re a councillor if it’s less.

Option 2 is to have an elected mayor.  The mayor would be an individual elected by the whole of Stockport to run the council for four years.

That’s about as exciting as it gets, but if you want more detail, take a look at pages 59-65 of the Cheade Area Committee agenda. If you have a preference, let me know what you think - and make sure to include the reasons too, please.

Oh, the high powered life of a local councillor.  Yesterday afternoon I had a two hour introductory session on local government finance, then last evening I walked around Gatley, visiting a couple of people,  and spotted some streetlamps that aren’t working.  If only I’d taken photos, I might have featured on the wonderful glum councillors website.

Anyway, here’s the list.  If it’s just a faulty bulb they should be fixed within a few days - it may take longer if the fault is something more serious.

1. Lamp outside 14/16 Coniston Road, Gatley

2. Lamp outside 200 Kingsway, Gatley (marked “59″)

3. Lamp outside 8/10 Torkington Road, Gatley

4. Lamp outside 12 Springfield Road, Gatley

Come along to the sixth annual Fairtrade Fair at Stockport College, 10.30am - 3.30pm Saturday November 14th at Stockport College on the A6.

poster-2009-v3.pdf