On wet days, you always need additional jobs to do. I’m a complete failure at delivering leaflets in the rain so other tasks such as compiling a graffiti list for a long awaited clean-up and getting leaflets to our wonderful delivers are jobs for today. Hopefully we’ll get a dry bit to enable some letter boxing exercise too.

The route for the great Mass Trespass up William Clough to Kinder Scout was a super ramble, yesterday, with Hazel Grove’s MP Andrew Stunell, staff and friends. It’s an annual event for the MP, which raises lots of £s, necessary for the valuable work of Amnesty International. I was warned that the sheep are cheeky - not quite as bad as Westminster pigeons - they are so naughty!

Bury Tories have made a U-turn on their plans to save money by switching off 40% of residential area street lights at night. This is both a victory for common sense and our lobbying against this foodhardy plan.

Lots of people work shifts and they need to be able to get to and from home at night. This leaves me wondering why the Tories insisted on spending valuable time and resources researching the possibilities of this cost-cutting and unpopular measure.

Where street lights need updating and replacing, there are facilities to have lights with sensors that come on at night where needed – that’s what’s needed for busy urban areas. There’s no point switching off lights where our roads and footpaths are in such a poor state of repair that people would not be able to safely move about at night!

Have you organised a friend to help you if you get ill?

This is the latest information from NHS Bury about the National Pandemic Flu Service:

Important changes have been announced to the way in which the NHS is managing the growing swine flu pandemic in England, this sees the launch of The National Pandemic Flu Service.

The National Pandemic Flu Service is a self-care service that will asses a patient’s symptoms and, if required, provide an authorisation number which can be used to collect antiviral medication from a local collection point.

The service can be accessed online at https://www.pandemicflu.direct.gov.uk/ and for those who do not have internet access, the same service can be accessed by telephone on 0800 1 513 100 (Minicom 0800 1 513 200).

For England, the online health resources remain as:

• Health information www.nhs.uk
• Public information www.direct.gov.uk
• Business information www.businesslink.gov.uk
• The Swine Flu Information Line (automated) can still be contacted on 0800 1 513 513.

Key messages are:

• If you have flu-like symptoms and are concerned that you may have swine flu:
• Stay at home and check your symptoms at the National Pandemic Flu Service at https://www.pandemicflu.direct.gov.uk/ or Telephone 0800 1 513 100.

You should call your GP directly if:

• You have a serious underlying illness
• You are pregnant
• You have a sick child under one year old
• Your condition suddenly gets much worse
• Your condition is still getting worse after seven days (or five days for a child)

We’ve been working on this “Be Active in Prestwich” pocket sized map.

The map promotes walking, cylcing and jogging in Prestwich, with suggested cycling routes from Rhodes to the bottom of the Clough, public footpaths, ideas for health walks and heritage walks. Its a pain to look at on-line (sorry)

The map can be picked up from the Library, or you can download a copy here. Have fun!

We’ve been out and about ~ our weekly knock on doors ~ to ask residents what they think about various issues that concern us at the moment. One Mum tonight said I should go, her house is in quarantine, and her son has swine flu. She was so stressed - are we doing enough to help families care? It’s okay having a help-line but who is there helping families cope with this nasty virus?

We’ve just returned from spending a week with our university student son. Dundee is a great place to explore and I can recommend visiting, if not only to see Discovery. As the weather has been so wet, we decided to join the Scottish National Trust and spent damp afternoons exploring Scottish history. We also trekked through woodland along the coast in search of seals and red squirrels – to no avail – perhaps the cold and wet had sent them else where, too! To escape another wet day we found ourselves Edinburgh bound on (not too clean trains), to visit Holyrood House and gardens as well as the Scottish Parliament building. What can I say about Scotland? Huge unemployment challenges and similar challenges of youth pregnancy and graffiti. I’m impressed that their local newspapers are more engaged with the problems of Afghanistan and Iraq as our local papers are though! Back home we have a mountain of post to wade through, the garden’s overgrown and due to a faulty pressure valve, no water. Just wondering whether to catch the next train north for a few more days …….

We leafleted lots of local resiudents to stage a “Save Heaton Park” protest and how you can help rally on Sunday - we’re worried about plans to create a large commercial sports centre on part of the park.

Over 150 local residents were joined by six of our local Councillors to make clear their opposition to the proposed Goals Soccer Centre which is planned to be built near the St Margaret’s Road entrance to Heaton Park. The message was clear: Save Heaton Park!

Cllr Tim Pickstone, the Liberal Democrat Councillor for Holyrood ward, addressed the crowd. He said “More sports facilities are great, but this is in completely the wrong place. The park has been here for the people of north Manchester and Prestwich for over 100 years. It’s open parkland where people can play football, have a picnic, walk the dog or play in the sun. All of this will be lost forever if it is a £40 an hour soccer centre.”

St Margaret’s Road resident Paul Toner, who helped organise Sunday’s rally, said “None of us are opposed to sports facilities, but the impact of this development on the local area would be terrible - parking, traffic, illuminated pitches.”

Parks are common land for people to enjoy - Councils who think that they are free building plots need to htink again!

Many thanks to local resident Guy Dickinson for this information to help us. Lodging a planning application objection will take you 2 minutes.

You must lodge an objection by 20th July - go and do it right now!

1) Go to this page - click here - (it redirects to the Mancs Council planning site) -

2) Fill in your details and then carefully select the various options:

3) COMMENTATOR TYPE: Neighbour (obviously if you live near the park, you’re a neighbour)

4) REASONS:

(hold down the ctrl key to select multiple reasons.) I chose:
Disturbance to wildlife
Loss of trees
Noise disturbance
Parking
Traffic
Loss of public park space

5) MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE OPTION “Inform the Authority that you object to the Planning Application.”

6) COMMENTS:

As I understand it, planning decisions apply more weight to objections/concerns over traffic and pollution, parking and environmental concerns. Your objection is likely to carry less weight if you simply object on grounds of aesthetic or tradition.