The month that was October 2012.

The Core strategy is still an important issue in October and the report came out from the Council that over 2000 residents in Standish where against the idea of building the 2500 houses in Standish under the Core Strategy proposal. Now this report has been drawn up it will be voted on in November's meeting of the Council, which I suspect will get voted through OK. The issue then is when the planning inspectorate comes to Wigan and views the report that he supports the report and does not change it, which he can.So yes we have won round one but there will be another fight later. That will not mean any more letters or petitions but putting all our points across which we told the Council. I will be in them discussions and fighting for Standish.

With the financial situation that we are all in the Council is no different and they too are looking at ways at saving money. There are many jobs being lost are in the front line services. I believe that there are other areas that the Council should be looking at first.

One area the Council are looking at is the depot in Sovereign Road, Hindley Depot and a depot in Leigh and putting them in the old Asda Warehouse in Ince. This will cost the Council £3 million to purchase and then there are the rehousing costs, which will cost millions too. The possible sale of these 3 sites plus any savings will take decades to save unless the Council are going to get rid of more jobs from these 3 depots, which will result in loss of more services.

On the last point the Council are proposing to service all street gullies in the borough with just one vehicle. There are 61500 gullies in the borough and that means the housing estates will only see the vehicle once every 4 or 5 years, which is unacceptable.

There are rumours that the old Langtree Garage in Standish is being turned into a McDonalds fast food restaurant. I have asked the Council who say they are unaware of this and McDonalds have not responded to my email. So we will watch the situation carefully.

There is a planning meeting on the 13th of November to vote on whether to allow the old ATS garage to be turned into 2, yes 2 more takeaways. Standish does not need any more takeaways and I am Cllr George Fairhurst have objected to this application.

Also Standish traffic lights give us concerns as motorists are still turning where they should not and jumping the red lights and we are committed to having a camera on these lights.