Last week was the regular meeting of Bury Council’s ‘Cabinet’, the Committee of the eight Labour councillors who are Cabinet members. The two opposition leaders are allowed to attend but not vote, Councillor Tim Pickstone reports:
The main items on the agenda included:
Homelessness
The Homeless Reduction Act comes into force in April 2018. The new legislation focuses on early intervention and prevention. There are twelve clauses within the Act which means that the Councils approach to supporting people who are homelessness or approaching homelessness needs to be revised. The Council is doing a lot of proactive work preventing homelessness and doing better than most of our Greater Manchester neighbours.
I asked about what more could be done across Greater Manchester. The Major of Greater Manchester has promised to end rough sleeping completely by 2020. New figures released in January by the government show rough sleeping in the conurbation has gone up up 42% in the last 12 months. Manchester has three times the number of rough sleepers as Liverpool.
One good piece of news is that Greater Manchester has received £7 million of Government Funding to provide a number of housing projects to support homeless people.
Radcliffe Market
The Council has sought bids to run a different sort of market at Radcliffe Market, which is currently losing the Council money in an unsustainable way.
The Council is looking to move away from the traditional market model due to a perceived lack of demand from both the public and stallholders The Council wish to put Food and Drink and evening entertainment at the heart of the offer at Radcliffe Market and is keen to expand on the number of days the site is open and also to extend its current Friday evening offer.
Radcliffe Market benefited from a £1 million refurbishment in November 2015. Now a new private sector operator will run the market with the specification including:
To hold markets on a minimum of three days a week.
To hold events on one or more evenings per week centered on food and drink. Day to day management of the market building and stallholders.
The Council will receive not rent from the private operator, but would take a small share of profits after reasonable costs have been covered by the company.
Full papers for the Cabinet are here.
Radcliffe East Lancashire Paper Mill Housing Plans
Not at the Cabinet but it did happen last week was the publication of plans to build 440 new houses on the site of the former East Lancashire Paper Mill in Radcliffe. Most of the land belongs to the Homes and Communities Agency, though some land belongs to the Council on what was meant to be the site of the Radcliffe Riverside School, plans which never happened, meaning that sadly there is no high school at all in Radcliffe.
There are some poster boards which promote the site which can be viewed here.
There is an online survey here: online survey which will be open until Wednesday 14th February 2018.