Three separate reports were presented to the Summer meeting of the Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Councillor Michael Powell Reports.

Bury Market Covid-19 Recovery Plan:
– The reopening of Bury Market for non-essential retail took place on 15th June, apart from businesses for which restrictions were extended to 4th July such as cafes, hairdressers, nail bars, beauty salons and barbers.
– The Market has remained partially open (approximately 12 stalls) throughout the lockdown to support food Traders providing a service to our vulnerable residents, including home deliveries. Social media support has also been provided.
– A plan has been published to guide the recovery of the market after the Covid-10 crisis. The main challenge in the long term is to attract footfall to ensure the markets viability whilst simultaneously ensuring the safety of visitors to the market.
– Amendments are proposed to the Markets Rules and Regulations, including a review of current opening and closing times.
– A Capital Programme is underway with £1.38 million going to be invested in making further improvements to the Market, phased over the next four years. The work could include the replacement of Market Hall glazing panels, addressing open Market roofing issues, Market Hall toilet refurbishment and an upgrade of Market’s parade area.

Bury and Radcliffe Town Regeneration Schemes:
– The Council have begun work on a new masterplan for Bury town centre to ensure Bury is fully prepared for the economic consequences that will arise from coronavirus and to establish a clear and deliverable plan to support economic recovery.
– The masterplan is very much in the early stages but will seek to address the town’s role as a retail and leisure destination, commercial development, improved town centre living, develop the tourism and cultural sectors and improve linkages between the town centre and surrounding assets and neighbourhoods.
– The Council recently unveiled a Strategic Regeneration Framework for Radcliffe aiming to shape the future of the town over the next 10 to 15 years. The public consultation on the SRF began on 22^nd June and will run until 3^rd August.
– The key elements recommended in the draft SRF include the creation of a central hub in the town centre, the creation of new leisure facilities, a focused retail strategy, improved public open spaces and a new Secondary school.

Resetting the education service in Bury:
– The report provided a further update on the progress being made by the Local Education Authority during the Covid-19 pandemic to reset the education service.
– Individual risk assessments have been carried out by all education settings across the borough to ensure social social distances and enable social bubbles to be created to avoid mixing different cohorts unnecessarily. 
– The aggregate total of pupils attending Bury schools on Tues 23 June 2020 is 3584; this marks a further growth in the returns.
– A medium term recovery work plan has been established for at least the next academic year, which will include providing support to children in three vulnerable groups- those who are transitioning from one education establishment to another, children with SEND and the newly vulnerable and those children who have fallen further behind in their learning than their peers.
–  A substantial programme of work will be required according to the Council’s education authority if they are to secure the lost learning for many of the borough’s vulnerable children. In this recovery the Council say they have some additional resource and support; from HMI, the RSC, from central government, and within local partnerships.

The papers for the meeting are here.

Report back on High Rise building fire risks and financial impact of Covid-19.

Earlier this week was the regular meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority Corporate Issues and Resource Scrutiny Committee. This brings together 15 councillors from across Greater Manchester. Bury is represented by Prestwich councillor Tim Pickstone, who also chairs the committee this year.

High Rise Building Fire Risk Residents Survey
Following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, the Greater Manchester High Rise Task Force was established to ensure that the area was prepared to respond to a major incident and that all high rise building are safe from fire, and that residents feel safe.

As part of assessing how safe residents feel, a survey of residents was undertaken in the latter part of 2019.

65% of residents said they are concerned about having a fire in their home.
77% of residents who lived in a building where cladding was identified as a risks were concerned.
97% of respondents said that they would trust GMFRS to provide advice.

One of the most significant concerns was the financial impact on apartment owners. Some residents had experienced a 400% increase in service charges and others reported that they had been presented with significant bills (e.g. to remove cladding).

I asked about the financial impact on apartment owners, as I understand mortgage lenders are refusing to lend for properties where there are cladding issues, and in particular whether this was also affecting the ‘non high rise’ apartment blocks which are not covered by the current guidelines.

The full report on the residents survey is here.

Financial Impact of Covid-19 on Greater Manchester Local Authorities
The Combined Authority Finance Director gave members an update on the financial impact of Covid-19 on local government in the area.

The first part of the report concerned the impact on the individual Districts (e.g. Bury). All local councils have experienced extra costs, as a result of Covid-19, the bulk of which have been around social care costs, but also significant costs around highways, transport public health and housing.

Local councils have also had significant loss of income. Around 60% of this has been a loss of ‘commercial income’ – anything from rented property to fees and charges. Roughly 40% is lost taxation income – either lost business rates or lost council tax receipts.

There has been Government grant to help with some of this, but largely this hasn’t covered the lost income.

The second area of the report was on the financial impact on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. By far the most significant issues are with:

• Retained Business Rate losses – Greater Manchester is part of a pilot scheme for local areas to ‘keep’ (some of the) increases in Business Rates that they generate. For Greater Manchester as a whole this has been successful, as new commercial buildings have opened in recent years. However this is very unlikely to be the case this year and perhaps in future years, so this will have an impact on what the CA can spend.

• Metrolink – obviously use of Metrolink was severely impacted during Metrolink, and remains significantly lower than ‘normal’. The Government has given GM £25 million to help cover this, which covers the bulk of this loss. At the moment Government grant only goes to 3 August 2020, so there is a major issue about lost Metrolink income going forwards.

I asked about the long term impact of the loss of ticket income. Most of the money for the new lines was from borrowing, and the ticket income is paying for that borrowing. I also asked about potential Government funding for new lines, and whether there were any ‘ready to go’ applications being considered.

The financial impact paper is here.