Last Wednesday (21 October 2015) was the regular ‘full’ meeting of Bury Council – the only time where all 51 Councillors meet together. Here is a quick report from my Lib Dem colleagues Cllr Tim Pickstone and Cllr Mary D’Albert

Missing Coucnillors
The meeting was unusual because the shortly into the meeting the entire Conservative Group of councillors ‘walked out’ and were absent for the rest of the meeting. The reason for their walk-out was a disagreement over questions they had asked to be put on the agenda which had been ruled out of order by the Mayor and the Coucnil’s solicitor. You can read more about this at this Bury Times report here.

The walk-out left the small team of Lib Dem councillors as the only opposition to Labour’s dominant 34 councillors, which was an ‘interesting’ experience and an important responsibility. (Bury’s only Green Party Councillor hasn’t been to the last two meetings.)

Questions
We will report more on the written answers we got to questions over the coming weeks, but we were able to ask ask some questions on the night:

– Cllr Tim Pickstone asked a question about the worrying increase in people who are homeless and living on the streets. This is particularly noticeable in Manchester City Centre, but our belief is that something it is an issue that needs to be tackled across Greater Manchester by Councils working together. I asked the Council’s Deputy Leader if he agreed with the well publicised comments of Manchester Council’s Leader who claimed that 80% of people begging in Manchester are not homeless, and criticised people who donated items to homeless people. (See this Manchester Evening News story.) Our Deputy Council Leader was apparently not familiar with the comments….

– Tim was also able to ask a question about the future of Civic Venues in Radliffe. The Council has announced that Radcliffe Civic Suite is the close next April, but says that it has a ‘vision’ of a multi-purpose civic suite and leisure centre on the site of the old Radcliffe Swimming Pool. I asked how much this ‘vision’ was a paid for plan, or how much of it remained a ‘vision’ – I didn’t get much of an answer which leads me to worry that the Civic Suite is closing without much chance of anything happening to replace it any time soon….

– Cllr Mary D’Albert asked a question about to carriage of dogs on Metrolink. The issue is being reconsidered by Councillors in November, and we wanted to know what the view was on Bury’s rep to the Transport Authority. He wouldn’t tell us (because he is not a member of the sub-committee that will make the initial decision….)

Motions and Debates
The motion for debate proposed by the Liberal Democrat Group was on the recent Plastic Bag Levy. The levy, which was introduced by the previous Coalition Government came into effect earlier in October. We wanted to highlight the levy, and the significant improvement to the environment that the levy is expected to make. We also wanted Bury Council to play what role it could in trying to make sure that as much of the levy that we pay to supermarkets and shops locally goes to LOCAL good causes here in Bury. The motions was agreed.

The motion proposed for debate by the Labour Group was on cuts in police funding. This is an important concern, particularly for Greater Manchester where cuts have been harsher than other areas and we were happy to support the motion.

The papers for the meeting are here. Any questions please ask!

   Leave a comment