At tonight’s local TRA meeting, residents had the opportunity to find out about the Council’s tree policy. Sixty years ago trees were planted by roads, in council house property gardens and communal spaces that were fast growing, cheep to source and could cope with a much polluted urban environment. Unfortunately the trees are now often twice the height of houses and pruning them is very, very difficult. Without the houses sandwiched between them, they would be an amazing forest. We are trying to find solutions to enable the trees and residents to live in peace. Our local Community Police Officer came to talk about her role and answer questions and the group had to cram organising a community clean-up in the last twenty minutes. It’s a lively embryonic group and I hope and hope that more residents will get involved so that they can start to apply for funding to work on bigger projects to benefit them, the community and local environment.

Last weekend was a Wendy’s 40th b’day party at a campsite in beautiful, quaint Dent. A special time to catch up with folk we’ve not seen for ages and ages. It made me remember that I need to think about friends and family and not just work, work, work! So with that in mind I surprised Mum when I popped in for a coffee, after college. Something I need to do more often!

Marking late coursework, an exam board key skill quality visit, case work and our councillor group meeting have filled the rest of the week nicely. The only fly in the ointment is being mis-quoted in this week’s Jewish Telegraph by Dr Wise. When Richard Baum and I met with him, he wanted to know why generally I avoid the press unless absolutely necessary – this is a stark reminder!

I was fortunate to be at our annual North West Lib Dem dinner last night - Nick Clegg’s after dinner speech was superb, motivational and without a prompt sheet! He’s knowledgeable and focused with the right carefully considerred policies to make a difference as well as a growing supportive army of MPs and party members! It’s a shame it wasn’t being filmed! He was also good at answering questions put to him. I liked the way that he didn’t over use hand gestures or sound bites - which the other two party leaders do - which makes them come across as puppets without originality! I also had the amazing opportunity to ask advice on how to approach Dr Wise and his article in JC from Jim Hancock. It was strange to be able to talk with somebody whom I’ve listened to on the radio, for so many years! He’s personable and genuinely interested in people, without the know-it all arrogance of many, which is how it should be.

It’s a showery day, making me not looking forward to touting for petition signatures against Post Office closures in Bury and Radcliffe! However, its important that we get our message across to people adn make sure they know whats happening! I also need to get our Focus leaflet into letter boxes this week before we circulate another about Bury’s Mayoral Referendum. My leaflets are delayed for a number of reasons, one being a war my chiropodist and I have been waging on a small army of warts on my foot, making walking painful for a while!

Much as I try to be successful with veggies other than leeks, onions and herbs, I’ve not yet managed to be as successful as I’d like to be. My beetroot, after cooking it for two hours, peeled too woody to eat! On the other hand, my gardening time is limited to the odd hour here and there. This week’s activities has ranged from a community garden plan that’s going far too slow for residents to bare, casework about a resident who feeds pigeons in her garden with imagined results for other residents and their homes and gardens, a community regeneration meeting, advice to residents about school places appeals and a hatchling plan about cycling route improvements. Wilf’s 70th birthday afternoon tea party on Saturday was super. He also likes the tankard we bought him, engraved with:

Mayor Wilf
A Special Local Liberal.

He did ask why we hadn’t put ‘A Special Local Liberal Democrat’ but I pointed out that as its £2 a letter for engraving, we had to fit within budget! And he was a Liberal – not SDP member on merger! Anyway, we enjoyed a super afternoon with his family and friends. It was good to be able to relax and catch-up with people.

Today Andrew and I visited a resident about a neighbour’s planning application and I wriggled out of leafleting due to a poorly foot!

Residents have asked us to find out when more re-cycling will take place as many residents (5, 000 of them) as well as schools/youth and community centres still don’t all have a brown bin for composting garden and other such waste or full access to re-cycling activities.

Fellow St Mary’s Lib Dem Cllr Donal O’Hanlon and I were at the first meeting of the Scrutiny Commission for Environment, Economy and Transport last night and a report about re-cycling was tabled for our discussion/comment/scrutiny.

Apparently there is a review taking place to work out how to use the equipment (trucks) and staff teams more effectively in order to be able to extend re-cycling more efficiently. It’s hoped that more brown bins will be available by the end of 2008 and that the Council, can take recyclables from schools by incorporating them into new collection routes.

As to the green bags for paper/card/catalogues/directories - although it’s accepted that the green bags are not fully sufficient/fit for purpose and they blow around - alternatives explored at present have not turned up anything more viable - as yet. And if households need more than 2 green bags they can have them - just phone Bury council (253 5000) or email me and I’ll deliver them with your Focus.

I am shocked to find out that households are still only enabling the Council to collect 26% of possible material for re-cycling of what they produce - this is ridiculous! We all need to do more!

All the Greater Manchester Councils (except Wigan) all work together for re-cycling and waste disposal to develop a joined-up approach as well as keep costs in check. There are new re-cycling sorting plants coming on-line over the next 2-3 years which will also increase the quality of re-recyclable materials that the Greater Manchester Councils can jointly sell/pass to companies to then re-cycle. The more companies want different materials from household rubbish to re-cycle, the more that can then be collected from us householders.

An interesting development, is that a Bury charity called re-Build, refurbishes furniture for needy people. The Council now takes bulky items that are suitable over to them to mend/repair instead of putting it in landfill! This is what should be happening. Re-build also have volunteers who need to have work experience working for them, too - so its more than a furniture re-vamping process but a real community-based approach.

However, for may residents, the issue of re-cycling is blood-boiling stuff – as much of our rubbish, ie unsolicited letters and unnecessary packaging, we have to dispose of, we didn’t ask for in the first place!

If you’d like to attend the Local Area Partnership meeting for Prestwich (LAP) - the next meeting is Tuesday 15th January from 6.30pm at St Monicas’s High School.  The meetings now run differently than our previous Area Board. Now we have the business meeting of the partners who represent Prestwich (Councillors, PCT (Primary Care Trust partner rep), Police rep, Schools rep, Council Officer rep, Faith representatives (at present, one personfrom the Council of Churches and one from the Jewish Rep Council), local Businesses Representative, Tennants/Residents Group’s rep etc..we still have places for more community representatives.) first, followed by question time from residents and then presentations about things happening in our area. Meetings are approximately every 6 weeks.

The major happening - is the beginnings of research towards plans for a new-look centre of Prestwich village - URBIS has been commissioned to investigate and consult what we need to happen to the Longfield/area/shops etc… in order for change for the future.  Bury Rock development and the new Radcliffe Centre has been before us in the queue for re-development and it’s now our turn.  So we all need to start visioning and thinking what we need for the centre of our community i.e. health/leisure/sport/shops/library/heritage/art/open spaces/parking/sustainability/environmentally sound/pedestrian access …

Arthur phoned me yesterday evening - reminding me that my un-collected newspaper in Green Bags were still outside my house - as was his.  If you are on the Tuesday bin round, green bags were to be collected yesterday (Thursday) but they had problems getting to us - I got an email apology this morning - they collected at lunchtime.If you’d like a new green bag/an additional one - I still have 10 new ones in the garage, looking for new homes - I am more than happy to drop one or two through your letter box.   I just need an email for your Sedgley address: mail@anngarner.net