Theresa May wrong to ‘roll out red carpet’ for Donald Trump

Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron MP has urged Theresa May not to “roll out the red carpet” for Donald Trump after he was invited to Britain on a State visit.

As the government indicated it would ignore a huge petition calling for Mrs May to withdraw her invitation to Mr Trump, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “The government is ignoring millions of ordinary British people and their revulsion that Donald Trump will receive the red carpet treatment.

“It is wrong for Theresa May to put The Queen in this position. People can see how desperate she is for a Brexit trade deal. But the Prime Minister needs to be aware how dangerous her game with President Trump is.

“Tony Blair decided in 2002 to hitch his cart to a president and say: “I’m with you whatever”. It sank his premiership, and poisoned his legacy. May risks exactly the same.”

Mr Farron spoke last night at an emergency demonstration in London, which will oppose Mr Trump’s executive order to suspend entry to the US for all nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The US President’s order, signed on Friday, also halts the entire US refugee programme for 120 days and indefinitely bans Syrian refugees from entering the country.

Save our Libraries – Sign the Petition

Bury Council’s Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday 25 January 2017 agreed to consult on proposals to close up to 11 of our 14 libraries.

The Council has been consulting on library service for a number of months, though for everyone involved in the consultation (which never mentioned closures) these plans will come as a huge surprise.

The options to be sent to public consultation are:

Option 1 – Close 11 Libraries, keeping Bury (with Archives), Prestwich and Ramsbottom.
Option 2 – Close 10 Libraries, keeping Bury (with Archives), Prestwich, Ramsbottom and Radcliffe.

Please sign our petition to save our precious libraries.

Bury currently has 14 library buildings in total, 7 original “township” libraries and 7 smaller, part-time, “community libraries” which were added to the town between 1999 and 2014 to meet reasons of social inclusion and to support smaller communities.

Across Bury there are currently 54,632 registered users of Libraries:
Bury – 18,458
Prestwich – 10,897
Radcliffe – 7,449
Ramsbottom – 4,695
Tottington – 2,720
Unsworth, 3,612
Whitefield, 3,758
Other library or service, 3,043

The Libraries which would be closed under both options proposed for consultation would be:
Ainsworth Library, Brandlesholme Library, Castle Leisure Centre Library, Coronation Road Library. Dumers Lane Library, Moorside Library, Topping Fold Library, Tottington Library, Unsworth Library, Whitefield Library.

The current library service costs the council £2.4 million per year. Most people will be aware that local councils are being forced to make significant savings by Government, but ultimately all Councils have choices to make.

We have two specific concerns:
– leaving whole areas without libraries will ultimately only hurt the most vulnerable in our community, those who are least able to travel, and those who are most lonely.
– insufficient attempts have been made to find alternative ways of providing libraries – e.g. volunteer, community or charity run libraries, which would enable a wider service to be maintained whilst still saving money.

Please sign our petition to send a strong message to the Council that we need to save our local libraries.

Bury and Prestwich Walk-In Centres to Close

Bury’s NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) met on Wednesday 18 January 2017 to consider the outcome of its own ‘consultation’ on the future of our two Walk-In Centres, in Bury and Prestwich.

The result of the public engagement undertaken included over 1,000 survey completed by residents and showed:
90% thought that the Walk-In Centres serve a purpose not otherwise provided in Bury.
83.5% disagree or strongly disagree with a decision to not renew the Walk-In Centres.

The CCG recognised that the largest number of objections and concerns were regarding the Prestwich Walk-In Centre, rather than the Moorgate Centre. Only one petition was received by the CCG objecting to the closures, which had been organised by the local Lib Dems in Prestwich.

Our view, given in a statement by Group Leader Councillor Tim Pickstone on Wednesday stated: “Everyone knows there is a crisis in NHS emergency care and that our local A&E departments cannot cope with existing volumes. Everyone who I speak to tells me how difficult it is to get GP appointment.”

“By going ahead with the closure of the Prestwich and Bury Walk-In Centres, Bury CCG are not only ignoring the clearly stated views of local people in their own consultation, but they’re also ignoring common sense. With this decision we’re not just losing two much loved and well used local services, we’re making our local A&Es worse.”

You can read the full report of the CCG here.

Lib Dem Group Response to GMSF

Bury Council’s Liberal Democrat Group has submitted its formal response, and objection, in the consultation on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. More details of the response below.

Councillors in Bury will also have a chance to debate Bury leaving the GMSF at the Full Council meeting on 1 February 2017 with a motion proposed by the Liberal Democrat group (see Council agenda here).

The full response is below, with the key points being:

– We do not want to see any building on green belt land, certainly not before brownfield sites and existing planning permissions have been used first and empty houses have been brought back into use.

– We object specifically to the use of large sections of green belt land for thousands of houses.

– We believe that the share of green belt to be lost in Bury is unfair and inappropriate (20% lost in Bury compared to 8% across Greater Manchester. 48/49% of green belt lost in Prestwich and Whitefield/Unsworth).

– We do not believe that our Motorway network has the capacity to cope with significant new housing and specifically could not cope with the proposed massive ‘Northern Gateway’ employment site on the M62 next to Whitefield.

– We do not believe that our Highways Network has the capacity to cope with so many new homes in Bury – specifically the A56 is already full, and about to be made single land through Prestwich.

– We do not believe that the Metrolink system currently has the capacity for so many new homes in Bury – it is already full to capacity at many times in the day.

– We are concerned that we already have to live in an area with high air pollution from the M60, and the plans will make this worse.

– As Holyrood Ward councillors we wanted to specifically to object to the proposals in the Northern Gateway to build 3,200 new houses around Simister and Bowlee. The plans would destroy the special character, and community of both villages, the site is poorly located for transport links and public transport and the green ‘break’ between Prestwich/Middleton/Whitefield and Heywood would be completely lost.

– Similarly we do not believe the Heywood Road, or the Mount Road/Sandgate Road/Polefield Road areas have the capacity to deal with any major new developments either in Simister or across the Sandgate Road bridge over the motorway.

– We do believe in further investment in public transport, particularly further extension of the Metrolink network, but would oppose the wholesale building of new motorways.

Read our full submission here, which includes 37 pages of comments received from members of the public.

The Liberal Democrats are STILL the only party with a plan for Britain

If you were hoping for a clear and sensible plan for Brexit Britain from Theresa May youíll be disappointed. Theresa Mayís 12 point speech contained no plan for Britain.

The one thing we did learn is the Conservatives have ditched their 2015 manifesto promise to stay in the Single Market and have now decided to take Britain out whatever the cost.

Itís clear the government has no idea of how to move forward and no opposition from Labour, who are also backing Brexit.

Many local people are choosing to back the Liberal Democrats because they have a positive plan for Britain and are the only party united in delivering an open and tolerant Britain.

The Liberal Democrats positive plan for Brexit Britain:

We will fight to keep the UK in the single market.
We will give the public not just MPs the final say on a Brexit deal.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron says, ìI think even people who disagree with us will respect the fact we are standing by what we believe.

And for the many millions of people who agree with us, my message to them is: join us.

You can do just that here.

One Week to have your say on Green Belt proposals

Just before Christmas Greater Manchester councils added a few weeks more to the consultation on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework – the new deadline is 16 January 2017.

We only have a few days left to get our voices hear before so much of our precious Green Belt land will be lost for ever.

Please: Sign the Petition – and remind your friends, family and neighbours.
And even send in your own personal response to the consultation – more information on how you can do this below.

The GMSF sets out how Greater Manchester Councils plan to provide the land to build an extra 227,000 houses over the next 25 years. (To put that in context the whole of the Borough of Bury currently has just over 75,000 houses…)

Across Greater Manchester, just 8.2% of Green Belt land is proposed to be destroyed. Bury fares very badly, and if these plans go ahead 20% of our precious green belt land would be lost. In Prestwich a shocking 46.7% of green belt land will be lost. In the Whitefield/Unsworth area 49.1% of green belt land will be lost.

The proposals include:
In the Whitefield/Unsworth/Prestwich areas:
A ‘Northen Gateway’proposal – for a new development ‘bigger than Trafford Park’ on both sides of the M62. This includes 3,300 houses to the south of the motorway (all the green belt land currently around Simister and Bowlee)
600 houses to the north of the M60 near Mode Hill Lane in Whitefield
A massive industrial employment development North of the M62.

In the Bury/Radcliffe area and to the north of Bury:
3,400 new houses in land between Bury and Radcliffe around Elton Reservoir
1,250 new homes north and south of Walshaw Road between Bury and Tottington
As well as smaller developments at Gin Hall, Holcombe Brook and Seedfield

The Labour Party in Bury made a very clear commitment in it’s Local Government Manifesto:
“Bury Labour Group will defend the greenbelt and do all we can to stop development of this precious resource.” They are now letting people down by abandoning their previous promise, with the Council Leader signing up to the proposals.

The Lib Dems in Bury are totally opposed to this wholesale destruction of our Green Belt land. We DO need more homes, but we should use brownfield sites, empty houses and existing unbuilt planning permissions FIRST without destroying our precious countryside.

As well as signing the petition, it would be great if as many people as possible could send in their own personal objections. Details of how to do this are here.

The Save Bury’s Green Belt Campaign have done this excellent guide to how to object here.

Tim Farron responds to the resignation of Ivan Rogers

Responding to the shock resignation of the British ambassador to the EU, Ivan Rogers, Tim Farron said:

“It is damning when our own top people are slamming this Conservative Brexit government for using ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking.

“This is the biggest decision by the UK Government in modern times and Theresa May is marching ahead without a plan or even a clue.

“We need out top people around the table if we are going to avoid wrecking the country with Brexit. It is shameful that vital, talented people like Ivan Rogers are instead being driven away.”

Rogers resigned yesterday, urging his staff ‘to continue to challenge ill-founded arguments … and never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power’.

The full resignation letter can be viewed here.

Volunteers needed!

We’re looking for volunteers to join the Focus delivery team in St Mary’s and Holyrood wards.

Getting our message out there to voters is really important. One way we do this is by delivering regular mailings to residents to make sure they are kept up to date with our campaigns.

If you can spare some time (as little as an hour a month) on a regular basis to help expand our delivery team it would be greatly appreciated and would make a huge difference to our campaign effort! You can help by delivering in your local area or further afield if you wish – it’s completely up to you.

As well as having regular delivery rounds available we also have group deliveries each week and take part in action days every fortnight. Action days are where we get together as a team to do delivery or canvassing. They can be great fun and make campaigning more social!

Our next action day will be on Saturday 21st January. More details will be sent closer to the date via email. You can also keep up to date with campaign events by joining our Facebook group.

If you have any further questions about taking on a regular delivery round or taking part in an action day then please get in touch with Louise at organiser@burylibdems.net

Bury Liberal Democrats

Campaigning for a Liberal Bury, Prestwich, Radcliffe, Ramsbottom, Tottington and Whitefield