At all meetings of Bury’s FulL Council the team of Liberal Democrat councillors use our maximum entitlement to ask questions of the Councils Leadership. Questions at the most recent meeting included:

Could the Leader of the Council please inform members now many school crossing patrols are currently not operational, and how many others do not have permanent allocated staff members in place?

There are currently have 15 crossing points that are not operational. 12 of these are assisted crossings where there is a puffin/pelican in place and 3 are unassisted. These crossing points do not meet the criteria for a staffed crossing point and are due to be disestablished.

There are 20 crossing points that do not have a permanent member of staff allocated to them. However, they remain operational utilising relief staff, and by reallocating members of staff from the assisted crossing points referred to above.

Could the Leader inform members of reports of illegal fly-tipping within the Borough – so far this financial year, and in the previous three financial years?

Table 1 – Fly tipping cases taken via Contact Centre and online
2014/15 – 2263
2015/16 – 2713
2016/17 – 3830
2017/18* – 2790
* To 12/01/2018

Illegal fly tipping involves the dumping of a wide range of wastes including commercial waste, construction and demolition, bulky waste such as furniture, asbestos and some black bag type household waste at locations as diverse as back streets and rural public rights of way.
As the cost of waste disposal has increased in recent years unscrupulous traders have sought to undercut legitimate rivals by avoiding the cost of disposal by dumping waste illegally. There has also been a clampdown on illegal deposits of waste at Household Waste Recycling Centres across GM, which has also contributed to the increase in fly tipping across the borough.

Could the Authority’s representative to Transport for Greater Manchester Committee give members an update on how the Authority tracks customer satisfaction with the ‘Ring and Ride’ service? For example, what is the number of complaints received about Ring and Ride, or what customer satisfaction surveys are undertaken and how do both of these compare to previous years?

Ring & Ride is operated by Greater Manchester Accessible Transport Limited (GMATL). Between April – December 2016, GMATL received 52 complaints; this is in comparison to 26 complaints for the whole of 2017. GMATL record all of their correspondence and have responded to a lot of other queries such as wheelchair assessments, regular bookings and compliments. In 2016 they received 25 queries and 6 compliments, in 2017 they received 27 queries and 11 compliments.
The TfGM customer relations team responds to and logs only those complaints received directly by TfGM. TfGM logged 42 complaints in 2016 and 39 in 2017. The number of complaints made to TfGM is relatively stable with no significant increase in complaints from previous years. There is no particular trend in complaints.

Please get in touch if you would like further information on these issues or you feel there are issues we should peruse.

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