The next draft of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) has been delayed again by the ten Labour Council Leaders in Greater Manchester.

The second draft was originally meant to be published in June 2018, but was recently delayed to July – now we’re not expecting to see anything until much later in the year.

The previous plan had been to provide for an extra 227,000 new houses across Greater Manchester (the equivalent of another Bolton and Bury added together) in the next 20 years. New population growth figures released by Government show a lower rate of predicted population growth for Greater Manchester, and there are more figures expected in September.

Previous plans would have seen whole swathes of Green Belt Lane across Bury destroyed by housing and industrial land.

The first draft of the GMSF would have seen 20% of Bury’s greenbelt land lost, almost 50% in Prestwich and Whitefield. We’re demanding that this should now by 0%. 

Bury Council is refusing to commit that the Green Belt is now safe saying: “Although no guarantees can be given is likely that less Green Belt land will have be released in Bury to meet housing needs than originally envisioned”. At the Greater Manchester Mayoral election in May 2017 Labour promised “no net loss of Green Belt land”, a promise they still seem to be breaking.

Our view as Liberal Democrats is that we DO need more housing. In particular we need more housing the people need and can afford, which is not necessarily the same as what developers want to built to make the most profit.

We want to see 100% of this building outside of Greenbelt land, using the extensive brownfield sites that exist across Greater Manchester.

Councillor Steve Wright represented the Liberal Democrats at last weeks meeting of Bury’s Health Scrutiny Committee.

Fairfield Hospital Update
Senior management from Fairfield Hospital gave a presentation on the ‘Improvement Journey’ Fairfield Hospital in the last couple of years.  The hospital was rated by the Care Quality Commission as  ‘Requires Improvement’ and now it is ‘Good’. This was hard to achieve because only half the set criteria were checked. According to management the main reason for the change is due to a high level of engagement with staff ‘on the ground’ and lot of the ideas and resolution to issues has come from them.

The full presentation is here.

Children and Young People Autism Waiting Times.
Burt Clinical Commissioning Group came to give a presentation on what they are doing to improve the length of time it is taking for children and young people to be able assessed for a diagnosis of autism.

– The number of Children under 9 requiring review has increased from 75 2012/13 to 144 in 2017/18.
– Referral to First Assessment wait time – average wait is 8-9 weeks (though this has been significant improvement seen since July 2017)
– Referral to Diagnosis Outcome waits – some children waiting up to 18 months for consideration at the SCDDG.

A number of improvements to services have already been put in place, with more planned. A full summary is in the presentation here.

Liberal Democrat MP Were Hobhouse, who was previously a LiB Dem Councillor in Rochdale, has declared victory her bid to make ‘upskirting’ a specific criminal offence.

Ms Hobhouse had brought a Private Members’ Bill to make the practice a specific officen, but the Bill was blocked by a Conservative MP Christpher Chope (he also blocked a bill to make injur police dogs and horses on the same day…).

The Government’s Justice Minister has met with Ms Hobhouse and, on behalf of the Government, agreed to take her Bill through Parliament.

Wera (second from left above) said:

“I’m very happy that the law is changing, this is a huge victory for women across the country. I hope this can go through on Friday 6th July with my Bill, but my main concern now is that the law is changed as soon as possible and therefore I also welcome the Government Bill.

It seems unfair that just one person was able to block a Bill that we had spent so long building cross party consensus behind, but reform for Private Members’ Bills is for another day.”

Leading Liberal Democrats have written to the Chancellor calling for new, dedicated money from the Treasury to fund teachers’ future pay rises and are seeking cross-party support.

The call comes amid fears that the Government will accept a pay rise for teachers, but won’t provide schools extra money to fund for it.

The Liberal Democrats MPs argue that schools are “under huge financial pressures” and it is the responsibility of the Chancellor to “save them and their pupils from the inevitable consequences of a further erosion in the funding.”

The School Teachers Pay Review body has been looking into the issue of teachers pay and has made recommendations to the Government, which Education Ministers are due to respond to in the near future.

The party’s Education Spokesperson Layla Moran has written to MPs seeking cross-party support for the campaign.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said:

“We have seen school spending slashed, resulting in a narrowing curriculum and dedicated, hardworking teachers being forced out of the profession they love. Up and down the country, parents are already fundraising to pay for resources for schools. This shows the scale of the problem.

“Our hardworking teachers deserve a pay rise, but quite simply schools will not be able to cope if they have to fund pay increases from existing budgets.

“Despite raising this issue several times in Parliament, Education Ministers are refusing to say if they will give schools the money they need to pay for any increases in pay.

“Cross-party support is building. The Government must commit to new funding to ensure teachers get a decent pay rise without placing extra pressure on school budgets.”

Bury Liberal Democrats have organised a public meeting on the theme: “Democracy needs you: why you should get involved in politics today”.

“Democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted” former USA President Barack Obama says. We will look at how democracy works, why sometimes it doesn’t and how you can be part of fixing it. Remember – decisions are made by those who show up!

Wednesday 27 June, 18-30 -20.30, St Margaret’s Church Hall, St Margaret’s Road, Prestwich. 

Our speaker is Councillor Lisa Smart, Deputy Leader of the Opposition on Stockport Council, and the Liberal Democrat Target Parliamentary Candidate for Hazel Grove constituency.

The event is free and open to the public. We ask everyone to register for a free ‘ticket’ in advance so that we can manage number.

18.30 to 19.00 Doors and Light Refreshments
19.00 to 19.45 Speaker
19.45 to 20.30 Q&A

Event details can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/events/170488923669159/

Last Wednesday was Bury’s ‘Annual Meeting’, the yearly meeting which follows the local elections in May.

The meeting is in two parts, a ‘business’ Annual Meeting, and a largely ceremonial ‘Mayor Making’ second part.

Because there was only a slight change in the composition of the Council this year the Annual Meeting didn’t many significant changes:
– Labour will be running the Council, with a Labour Leader and Cabinet with no changes.
– Council confirmed the appointment of Geoff Little as Chief Executive, although the recruitment had been done by an interview panel, the appointment must be ratified by full Council.
– Appointments were made to the Council’s committees and working groups. This year the Liberal Democrat group have been asked to chair the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which will be undertaken by Councillor Mary D’Albert.
– Councillor Tim Pickstone has been re-elected as Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Steve Wright will serve as Deputy Group Leader.
– Tim Pickstone has also been re-appointed to one of the Greater Manchester Scrutiny Committees which looks at the work of the Mayor and Combined Authority. Steve Wright has been appointed to the Board of Six Town Housing.
– In the second part of the meeting Councillor Jane Black (Labour) was appointed as Mayor for 2018-19. The previous Mayor, Councillor Dorothy Gunther (Conservative) will serve as Deputy Mayor.

Local Lib Dems are backing the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in its campaign to persuade the Government to exempt overseas nurses working in the NHS to stop being charged to receive care for themselves and their families.

Under a system introduced in 2015, non-EEA nationals must pay a £200 overseas health surcharge per family member for every year on the main sponsor’s work permit. It’s resulted in some overseas nurses receiving requests for more than £3,000 to cover possible use of the NHS.

In February, the Government confirmed it will double the cost from £200 to £400 later this year and has so far refused to rule out extending the fees to EU migrants after Brexit.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Mary D’Albert said: “We have a chronic shortage of nurses in this country, and at the moment we have 25,000 nurses from outside the EU working in the NHS. All of them pay income tax and National Insurance as well as providing a key public service.

These people keep the NHS running; they are the very last people who should ever be sent up-front invoices for health care.”

There are also 21,000 EU nurses working in the NHS, who will be fearing what the system will be post Brexit.

A huge thank you to everyone who supported the Liberal Democrats in the local elections last week.

In Bury:
– The Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Councillor Tim Pickstone, was elected in Holyrood Ward.
– In next door St Mary’s Ward, Michael Powell narrowly failed to take the seat from Labour, this time by 56 votes. This was despite a terrific 250 vote increase in the Liberal Democrat support.
– In most other wards there was increased support for the Liberal Democrat candidates in many wards.

The new composition of Bury Council is: Labour 31, Conservatives 17 and Liberal Democrats 3.

Across England, the Liberal Democrats saw the best local election results for 15 years.

Highlights included:
– retaining control of South Lakeland, Cheltenham, Eastleigh, Sutton and Watford, including defending the elected mayor of Watford.
– taking control (from the Conservatives) of London Borough of Richmond, London Borough of Kingston, South Cambridgeshire Council and Three Rivers Council (the latter from No Overall Control).
– Significant gains in many other councils, the biggest being Hull (9 more councillors) and Haringey (6 more councillors).
– 77 more councillors nationally
– 16% of the vote in the BBC’s notional national share of the vote.

More information at the Liberal Democrats national website.

Last week was the regular monthly meeting of the Greater Manchester Corporate Issues and Reform Scrutiny Committee. This report is from the Liberal Democrat representative on the Committee,  Prestwich councillor Tim Pickstone.

Last week’s meeting mainly focussed on the very significant issues raised in the Kerslake Report into the 2017 Arena bombing terrorist incident and the response of the Fire Service. Amongst other things this Scrutiny Committee is responsible looking into the work of our local fire service.

A non- statutory independent review of the events and aftermath of the Manchester Arena Terrorist Attack were commissioned, chaired by cross-bench Peer Lord Kerslake. This Review has focused on Greater Manchesters’ preparedness for and response to the attack and the nine days that followed it.