I have been very excited about plans for the regeneration of the Lower Irwell Valley these last few months. The area is home to Drinkwater Park, Phillips Park, Clifton Country Park, and Prestwich Clough. Bits of it are about to come under the control of the Forestry Commission, who have plans to invest nearly £4m in improvements to Waterdale and the former bleach works. I attended a consultation event back in the autumn with lots of other local people, and the plans really are exciting. Lots of pathways and woodland areas will be improved, and some of the old industrial wasteland transformed.

One of the plans is to use some of the money to create a mountain bike track. You can read more on the proposals here. I think this is an excellent idea which will provide a brand new facility on our doorstep to be used for fun, exercise and competition. We don’t have the best sports facilities round here, but this is a very positive development which could bring an improved facility to the area. Nothing’s guaranteed, but the idea is a proposal, and views are being sought now.

There are a couple of concerns I have though. Firstly it is a bit disappointing that, having engaged so well with us a few months ago with the consultation event, the Forestry Commission seem to have bypassed local people this time round, and are warning of “large vehicles” in the Clifton Road area as the development gets underway. I will check out why this has happened. Also, whilst a mountain bike course would be good news for the local area, it would be fantastic if there was some joined up thinking and the Metrolink reversed its ban on bikes on trams. Why put a great biking facility in Prestwich if bikers have to drive there rather than get the tram? With this in mind, I have tabled a question to our representatives on the GMPTA (Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority) asking if the ban could be reconsidered, particularly at off-peak times.

Rick 

In the whirlwind of last night’s Council Executive meeting, one item really did stand out (although not enough to keep the Conservatives in the room longer than 16 minutes…). There was a report from AGMA (The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) which revealed that over £18m of public money had been spent on the failed bid to impose congestion charging in Manchester.

Divided equally between the ten districts, this is £1.8m for Bury, which is more or less equal to the entire amount due to be invested in priority services next year. And every penny of it was wasted developing plans which were always unpopular and rightly rejected. It’s a disgrace.

Government continue to refuse to prioritise public transport funding, and are content to see millions of pounds wasted “bidding” for money that should already be our’s. That £18m could have been spent so much more wisely, on better local services or lower local taxes. Or both. Fair enough, some of the work done might be useful in planning for future transport improvements, but a substantial proportion of the money was wasted exploring a scheme which was fundamentally flawed.

The Liberal Democrats in Bury recognised the massive problems with an unfair scheme like this from the start. £18m later and the government still didn’t see the problems until a massive majority of people in every single district in Greater Manchester voted against the proposals. We should demand our money back from government, as well as repeating our calls for the public transport investment the area needs.

Rick

This morning, the temperature indicator installed on my car for no apparent reason informed me that it was six degrees below zero. This is a new record which delighted my geeky and statistics-loving brain. Unfortunately the statistic didn’t delight my frozen fingers as they tried to unlock a stuck door, or my cold hands and feet as they tried to control my Peugeot as it slithered across the frozen wasteland that my street had turned into.

However (Look out ahead!! Awful pun alert!), the weather has been much sunnier for the residents of Sunny Drive in the ward, who will be the beneficiaries of some new pavement later on in the week, when their road gets refurbished courtesy of the good people at Bury Council’s Highways Department.

The budget for road and pavement refurbishment in Prestwich is woefully tiny. Regular readers may recall my annoyance when, at the time it was set, the entire budget for roads was less than the amount needed to re-do the single worst road in town, let alone the dozen others in dire need of repair, and the many others with potholes and cracked pavings.

But we have managed to eke out a few quid from the Council here and there to fill in the most gaping holes and repair those roads most resembling the Moonscape.

One such road is Sunny Drive, the cracks in which are so deep that passers-by have reported magma seeping up through the surface. They needn’t fret further though, as the pavement is now being repaired, and the chances of falling towards the centre of the Earth will be greatly reduced.

That still leaves us to ponder what to do with the rest of the crumbling roads infrastructure in Prestwich. Anyone driving down Warwick Street would be forgiven for thinking that they were undertaking a strenuous vibration test in the place where shock absorbers go to die. And people with the misfortune to have to venture down Clifton Road to the tip experience something out of Alton Towers as their vehicles sway violently whilst dodging the craters. It’s not good enough and the Council need to prioritise Prestwich’s roads in the next budget.

Rick

Today’s congestion charge result was a staggering rejection of the TIF proposals. That voters in all ten districts rejected the proposals, and by such an overwhelming margin, is a vindication of the “No” campaign’s argument that these proposals were simply unfair, unwise, and not the right way to tackle congestion.

Across every one of Greater Manchester’s ten districts the result was a clear “no.” Turnout was very high compared to most non-general elections – 53.2% overall and no less than 45% anywhere. 78.8% of those who cast their vote said “no.”

I am glad, of course, that I share my stance on this issue with so many local people, and that perhaps my work on the Council has turned one or two people towards my point of view. But whilst the right decision has been made, I don’t think this is a time for celebration. Greater Manchester has said “no” to TIF, but in doing so has rejected the government’s offer of public transport investment, and the proposals to reduce congestion.

Both problems remain, but I know from the conversations I’ve had with voters all over Bury in the last few months that Mancunians are as determined as ever to get rid of them both.

This vote is a call for the government to come up with a proper, fair system of public transport investment. We may have said no to the TIF offer, but Manchester still wants and needs a public transport system fit for the twenty-first century. We just don’t want an ill-thought out congestion charge system introduced to pay for it.

The architects of the TIF bid did a grand job trying to conform to government rules. But the rules are wrong.

At a public meeting a fortnight ago in Bury, Roger Jones, the former Chair of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (the people behind the TIF bid) spoke in support of the bid. I served on the GMPTA with former Cllr Jones, and I don’t think there is anyone in Manchester more committed to public transport than him. To have to admit, as he did in Bury, that the city’s public transport only merits 5 out of 10, is a damning indictment of the government’s failure to properly invest. That we as a city had to beg for money that is rightfully our’s, and only get it on the condition that we impose a punitive tax on motorists, was never right, and I am glad that it has been rejected.

Manchester now needs to do two things.

First it should take this vote as the clearest possible sign that a massive, one-size-fits-all congestion charge scheme is not the answer to the problem of congestion. Incentives to get drivers off the road should be much fairer, based on income and/or engine size to address pollution as well as congestion. The size of the scheme was too large, the method of collection too cumbersome. Charging should be one of many options to reduce congestion, not the only option. What was lacking in the TIF proposals was anything practical to do with altering working patterns, or dealing with hotspot areas specifically.

TIF promised innovation, and delivered none, which is why it was rejected.

The second thing we should do now is redouble our efforts, through Councils, the PTA and direct lobbying of our MPs, to get the government to give us the transport system we deserve. Mancunians want it, I’m sure. This was a rejection of charging, not public transport. The government’s offer of investment has been rejected, not because we don’t want the money but because the conditions imposed were too great and unwarranted.

We have engaged a great number of people in a debate on public transport. More people voted in the referendum than vote in most local elections. People are talking about buses and trains more than ever before. It is clear that they want a better system for them to run in, and now is the time we can capitalise on that goodwill and go out and get the improvements we need.

Today isn’t about jubilation that we’ve said no to TIF. It shouldn’t be about celebration, it should be about determination. Determination to learn the lessons of the vast amounts of money spent on a bid that was always unpopular. Determination to come up with a better proposal next time round. And determination to get the public transport system Manchester needs to improve pollution, reduce congestion, and keep the city ahead of its rivals.

Rick

If you want to post your ballot off in the Greater Manchester Congestion Charge referendum, then TODAY is the last chance you can do it. The papers have to arrive at the returning officer by tomorrow.

If you want to be absolutely sure, or can’t get to a post box today, there is still time to hand deliver your ballot as well, and this can be done tomorrow if you want, between 7am and 10pm. The delivery drop off points are at the main town halls in each of the Boroughs (Bury Town Hall on Knowsley Street, for instance).

Regular readers will know that I voted “no” in the referendum. I am very much for a properly funded, greatly extended, safe, reliable and clean public transport system for Manchester. But I think that the government should be too, which is why they shouldn’t be asking us to pay for it again through a congestion tax, and should be paying for it themselves. I also think that we need less cars on the road, but that this scheme just isn’t the right way to do it.

Here’s a quick run-down of the reasons why I voted “no,” and why I am asking others to do the same:

1) We’ve paid for excellent public transport already through our taxes. The government want to spend that money on ID cards and wars, and have us pay again for buses and trains, with decades spent paying interest on a loan of our own taxpayers’ money! I don’t think that’s right.

2) The proposed scheme will do nothing to reduce fares for most people. It’s true that people on minimum wage will see some small reductions in fares at peak times only, but nobody else will benefit from seeing a reduction in fares. Fares on buses, remember, have doubled in real terms in the last 20 years, and the Metrolink is crazily expensive. We need a better scheme which deals head on with greedy companies putting profits first.

3) Buses won’t be re-regulated. Private companies will still be able to cut unprofitable routes, run hundreds of buses down money-making main roads, clogging them up in the process, and we won’t be able to do anything about it. I want a scheme that stops this. The TIF proposals don’t.

4) The scheme doesn’t do anything to help the M60, which is the most congested and most polluting road in the area. In fact, because it is right on the outside edge of the charging zone, it is likely that more people will use it to avoid the charge!

5) The scheme is unfair to poorer motorists who will receive no congestion charge discount. A Premiership footballer on £100,000 a week will pay the same as a nurse earning £20,000 a year. That’s just not fair.

6) The scheme doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to deal with the pollution caused by gas-guzzling vehicles. In London the most polluting cars pay much more and the cleanest pay nothing. That won’t be the case in Manchester.

7) The charging system is incredibly expensive and very intrusive. The “tag and beacon” scheme which will monitor all of our movements across the charging points means that our journeys can be monitored. And we have to pay for the tags! And the cameras to record people without tags are hugely costly to buy and run. About 30p from every £1 paid in the charge will go no administering it. That’s not right.

8] Manchester’s proposed zone is going to be the largest in the world. It’ll be seven times the size of London’s! I think this is completely unnecessary and will cause people to think twice about moving here, working here and investing here.

9) People living in Bury are going to be particularly poorly served by the proposed improvements. We get a few new buses, sure, but there’s not enough money to extend the Metrolink northwards, and do we really want to impose a £1,200 per year congestion tax to see 17 miles of Metrolink built miles away from the Borough? I don’t.

10) The scheme will see communities split in two. Prestwich and Whitefield will be either side of the charging zone, which means that every peak time journey between our two towns will be subject to the charge. It’s silly. Any parent from Whitefield taking a child to Parrenthorn School or going shopping in Tesco at peak time will pay the charge regardless of whether they go on into town.

So please join me in voting “no.” It will mean the end of this scheme for sure, but it won’t be the end of public transport investment or easing congestion. We need to sit down with government again and come up with a proper scheme that addresses all the problems of congestion and pollution in a much fairer and more innovative way. Don’t succumb to the doom-mongerers and the government bullies. We can do better than this offer, which is why we should vote “no” for it.

Don’t forget to vote.

Rick

I have voted “no” in the congestion charging referendum, and people across greater Manchester have until December 11th to return their postal ballots.

I have heard reports that some lucky people in Prestwich have received duplicate ballots, which doesn’t bode well for the voracity of the poll. If it becomes anything more than a few isolated incidents, I will write more about that.

I have written several reasons now to explain my “no” vote. Here’s another – the fact that we’re currently at the mercy of private bus companies, and this proposal will do nothing to address that.

Anyone serious about public transport will tell you two things. First, that the majority of public transport journeys are made on the bus. And second, that since deregulation 20-odd years ago, local Councils have almost no say on which routes are provided, and which fares are set.

Recent legislation points in the right direction, but local people and their councils are still at the mercy of private bus companies who concentrate on profitable routes, and either cancel or ask for vast subsidies for routes that don’t make any money. That’s why here in Prestwich there are six 135s an hour down Bury Old Road into town, and only a sporadic service elsewhere.

Private bus companies also set fares which guarantee little but a steady profit. Buses remain dirty, overcrowded, and in many cases quite old, and yet fares have more than doubled in real terms since deregulation. It’s a scandal, and the very least that we could expect from a congestion charge is an end to this type of thing.

But we won’t get it. All the investment in public transport that we will get by introducing the charge (investment which, remember, we should be getting anyway without having to introduce the charge) will not do a single thing to end deregulation. We should have full re-regulation (something the Lib Dems locally have long been campaigning for), but we won’t even get partial re-regulation.

But companies will not be able to be forced to do a single thing they don’t want to do. Buses on unprofitable routes, through housing estates, to hospitals, to doctors surgeries and so on, will still run infrequently if at all. Fares will still go up because profit will still come first. Any “promises” made by the “yes” lobby are entirely dependent on the goodwill of private companies who are unlikely to budge if history or the current economic climate are anything to go by.

We all want better buses. People rely on them more than any other form of public transport. But the way to get them is through reregulation and an emphasis on local control. We aren’t getting that here, and instead of wasting time, effort and money lumbering Manchester with a congestion charge, we should be campaigning for a reregulated bus system giving people what they need at a fair price.

Rick

This weekend has seen more campaigning from both sides in the congestion charge debate. Yesterday I attended a debate on the subject, with Graham Stringer MP and Cllr Susan Williams (the Leader of Trafford Council) speaking on the “no” side against Roger Jones, the former Chair of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, and Ken Knott the Chairman of Ask Developments.

Obviously I have a view on the subject already, but it was clear from the arguments on both sides that nobody will be truly happy with a “yes” vote. Even the “yes” people acknowledged the clear injustices that it will create in terms of low paid workers having to find an extra £1,200 per year. In fact, the most compelling reason for introducing the charge is, according to the people voting “yes,” that it is the best offer we are going to get in Manchester.

Well I don’t think that we should lumber Manchester with a charge for that reason. We should be telling the government where to stick its blackmail, and to spend money on public transport ahead of expensive white elephants like ID cards. Roger Jones said that there is no way that Manchester can expect a £3bn gift, because other city regions wouldn’t get the same, and that would be unfair.

Well, frankly, until he was voted out of office this May, we in Manchester paid him to lobby for just that, so if he thinks it’s unfair then perhaps he is better out of that job. It’s no less unfair than the tens of billions earmarked for London alone. Nor is it any less unfair than the transport projects earmarked for specific cities in the past, like trams in Leeds and the Metrolink here. And it’s lots less unfair than teachers, nurses, and working mums on £6ph having to find £1,200 from somewhere to pay to go to work.

And besides, I don’t see that it has to be unfair. I don’t understand how people like Roger Jones, so admirably passionate about public transport, can sit by and watch the government offer such a paltry deal to Manchester, and not even offer that to anywhere else! Government claim to champion public transport and an end to congestion, but the facts don’t back that up. The government could afford to invest £3bn in transport for Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham AND Newcastle/Gateshead just by scrapping ID cards. But it won’t.

Instead, it is saying that unless we create the world’s largest congestion charge zone, it will deny us OUR money and let public transport continue to fail the public. We pay taxes to get the public services we want. We want public transport, so the government should give it to us. It’s as simple as that. Unconditionally. The money is there, it just needs allocating properly.

I have mentioned many reasons for voting no. Here’s another – voting “yes” will create the world’s largest congestion charging zone right here in Manchester. It will be 80 square miles. That’s ten times the original London size, seven times the current London size, and ten times what London will be again once the western extension is scrapped. It’s seven times the size of the Stockholm zone, and 40 times that of Rome and Singapore.

It will create a massive no-go area for the low-paid, and be an 80 square mile “no entry” sign for any new business thinking about coming to Manchester to invest. How will they attract staff when every job they advertised has a £1,200 additional tax on the salary?

I don’t want to live in a city breaking the wrong type of world records. That’s what we’ll be living in after a “yes” vote. A ludicrously large c-charge zone which is so incredibly over the top in size that it makes me wonder where they got the idea from! Does it really need to be FORTY times the size of the zone in Rome, a capital city famed for its traffic? Of course not. 

Another reason to vote no, and another indictment of these ill thought out plans.

Rick

Ballot papers will be arriving this week in the Greater Manchester wide referendum on the TIF Bid and Congestion Charging. Liberal Democrats in Prestwich and across Bury have been campaigning for a “no” vote in the referendum. All of us are part of the “Stop the Charge Coalition”. Find out more about how the charge will affect you, and download more information, leaflets and resources here.

My own ballot paper arrived today, and I have filled it in ready to be posted back. I voted “No.”

This is an entirely postal election, so you need to send your vote off to be received by the close of the poll on 11th December.

Rick

Another day, another good reason to vote “No” in the c-charge referendum. And today’s choice is… The silly way that they propose to collect it by monitoring our movements in a hugely expensive way that will leave us open to crime.

People familiar with the only other large scale congestion charging scheme in the country (London – where they have an extensive Tube, bus, train and boat network to make up for the charge) will know that vehicles are photographed using number-plate recognition cameras. If you drive into the charge zone, your number-plate gets recognised, and you have to pay the charge or get a fine.

There are three problems with this –

First, I don’t like the principle that people can track when and how often you go into the zone. Where I go is my business unless I’m committing a crime thanks, so keep out.

Also, number-plates aren’t hard to forge, and lots of criminals are doing just that. We all hear from time to time about people who’ve never been to London in their lives suddenly being sent demands for c-charge fines after someone’s cloned their plate. It happens frequently, and it’s because we rely too much on cameras and not enough on human beings.

Finally, the cameras cost an absolute fortune to install, monitor and repair. A very large chunk of every pound collected, in fact, is spent on servicing the cameras!

The people behind the Manchester charge have taken on board all of these concerns and… decided to introduce cameras all the same! So the people of Manchester will have the same intrusion, the same risk of number-plate cloning, and the same costs as London. In fact, about half of the money collected by the charge will be spent paying to collect it!

But this isn’t the worst part – because the cameras are in fact only the secondary method by which the charge will be collected. The main way will be by using a so called “tag and beacon” system. Everyone in the area will be asked to put a tag in their cars, and if they drive past a charge point, a beacon will pick up a signal and record the journey.

It’s even more intrusive than the cameras! And who will have to pay for the tags? That’s right, you and me. Who will pay if they break or are lost? Right again, you and me!

Tags and beacons are cheaper than cameras, but because not everyone driving into Manchester will be a regular, not everyone will have a tag and so the cameras are still needed! Not a single penny is saved using tags and beacon, and all we get is an additional cost!

It’s crazy, and it’s another reason why the proposed c-charge scheme is ill thought-out and bad for Manchester.

Use your vote to reject it.

Rick

People across Greater Manchester are taking part in a referendum on congestion charging, and will be receiving their ballot papers in the next day or two. My mother has just gleefully announced that her’s has arrived already. Mine is probably lost somewhere amidst the plethora of taxpayer-funded pro-charge literature being plastered across every flat surface in the north of England, but I am sure it will arrive soon enough.

There are plenty of reasons why I will be voting “no,” and I hope to be able to go through a few of them here in the coming days.

Today’s choice is… Because it’s another unfair stealth tax.

People driving from Whitefield into Manchester and back at the usual times for working people will be charged £5 a day to do so. That’s £1,200 per year, or the equivalent to a month’s take-home pay for an average earner in the region. That’s £5 on top of parking charges and petrol.

I have no vested interest in this financially – I do drive a car to work, but I won’t pass a congestion charge zone and so won’t pay a penny if this charge is introduced. But I do have a sense of social justice, and even though I won’t pay a thing but will benefit from improved public transport, I still think that the people of Manchester are being asked to pay far too much in return for far too little. It doesn’t matter if you earn £10,000pa or £1,000,000pa, it’s still a fiver a day.

It is simply not right that this additional tax is imposed. The cost of public transport is already sky high, and will not come down if the c-charge is agreed to. The price of a single Metrolink ticket into Manchester from Bury is three times the price of the maximum Oyster fare to travel across Zone 1 on the London Underground. The effects of the charge will be catastrophic for those on marginal incomes already paying through the nose to get about. Public transport run by profit making private companies is, sadly, often the least convenient and most expensive form of travel. Equalising that out by making cars more expensive is not the way to a better society. We should be making public transport cheaper by investing in it properly.

Road charging in principle is fine, but let it be a replacement to tax, not an additional tax. All the proposed charge will do is make it easier for the wealthy to drive to work, whilst turning trams and buses into mass cattle trucks for the poor. It isn’t what I want my Manchester to become.

The c-charge is meant to be part of the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF). But where’s the innovation in a single flat fee paid by all regardless of journey type of income or vehicle? It’s crazy, it’s about revenue raising, and it’s an unfair tax.

For this and the host of other reasons, use your vote to reject the charge. Vote No.

Rick