Council Starts Consultation on ‘Local Plan’

Consultation on Bury Council’s own ‘Local Plan’ started on 7 August. The Plan will set out housing and employment requirements of the borough for years to come and the need for new infrastructure.

The above is strategic issues outlined in the GMSF. 

The Issues Paper forms part of the Local Plan, which is being drawn up within the context of both national planning policies and policies developed at the Greater Manchester level, including a rewritten Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. Together they will form the key planning documents that will shape sustainable growth and control development for the next decade and beyond.

The plan will only deal with local issues relating to Bury. This is different from the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, which deals with more strategic issues across the conurbation. The hope is that the documents – the strategic framework across Greater Manchester AND the local plan for Bury will happen at the same time. There is no news yet on when the Mayor of Greater Manchester will push forwards on the GMSF, and what changes there will or will not be. 

At the moment the housing numbers for the plan remain the same as the GMSF (12,500 extra houses over the next 20 years), so do doubt dome of the same controversial issues will come up again. There is also a further ‘call for sites’ where people can suggest ideas for housing or industrial development.

The deadline for comments is 2 October, but residents will have further opportunities to have their say on the details of the new Local Plan as it progresses next year.

If you are worried about any issues around the future of our communities – housing, land, green spaces, tranport and local services it is important to have your say.

Details of the Local Plan Issues Paper, including how you can make comments, can be found at http://www.bury.gov.uk/localplan

Mental health discharge waits a “humanitarian disgrace”

One elderly patient had to wait more than three years to be let out of a mental health unit after being declared ready to leave. These figures are a humanitarian disgrace.

Figures on mental health delayed discharges released today are a “humanitarian disgrace”.

The shocking new figures revealed that people have had to wait over a thousand days to be let out of a mental health unit after being declared ready to leave.

Figures by the BBC revealed that patients in Sussex have had to wait more than three years to be moved out of a mental health unit after being declared ready to leave.

This is a humanitarian disgrace which violates the human rights of patients.

Mental health units by necessity are secure so these people have been deprived of their liberty.

There is a failure of the system because people need a home and care within the community, not an institution.

But there is a lack of link up in our public services and this is the result of not spending on patient care while simultaneously wasting money on keeping people in highly expensive institutions where they should no longer be.

Only the Liberal Democrats have set out a comprehensive and positive plan that will deliver a step change in mental health.

This includes ending the under-funding of mental health, new units for children and more professionals at more locations capable of delivering therapies.