The week that ended........7 April 2013

Well the week started off with April's fool and a number of residents tried, unsuccessfully, to wind me up. My eldest fell for a xbox points wide up...lol.

Anyway back on Councillors work. Had a number of media exposure this week with the first being a letter in the Wigan Evening Post, saying that if Lisa Nandy is serious about trying to stop the housing being built in Standish, she can support us. At the time of writing we had not heard form her office. Since the letter was published we have spoken with her office and we are being told that we will have an answer by next Tuesday, if she will support us or not. This letter was sent in because I had read an article that she was concerned that she did not want Standish greenbelt being built on. The issue is the three sites that are currently being proposed are not greenbelt, but safeguarded land. Safeguarded means it is being safeguarded for building in the future. The developers are wanting to build on the land sooner.

Save Standish campaign - we have now called the meeting for Monday 15th April at the Unity Club
on Cross Street. Here we will be updating resident where we are up too and the next steps we are proposing. We are also delivering leaflets to all residents this week and with that in mind we are expecting a huge turnout, so turn up early. This will be published in the local press next week and we had a photo taken on the former golf club site for this article. A big thank you for all those that turned up.

We have the beat it team in the Ward next week and I have asked for residents to give us updates where they want to have cleaned up. Thank you for all those that have tweeted, put comments on facebook and emailed me.

Sad news came in the week, when we had an elderly lady was knocked down on Wigan Road, just in front of the old Horse Shoe pub. I believe that this was serious and the lady was rushed to Salford Royal and we hope she recovers soon. Wigan Road was closed off at the Traffic Lights, in the Village Centre, through to Ashfield Park drive for a number of hours.

Also in Wigan there was a by-election in Pemberton Ward. Labour won this, unsurprisingly, but what was clear was that they vote decreased from 80% of the vote to 57%. The first reason why this could be was that there was more candidates. Then one of the party's standing was the Community Action Party. They lead an attack campaign on Labour, which could be another reason why Labour votes decreased but what was interesting was that they then didn't pick those votes up and instead they went to UKIP. I have heard also from UKIP that the members that they have picked up have all come from Labour and not right wing groups. This must be a real concern to Labour for future where their majority is small.

Finally, I heard that a good friend of mine Ken Smalley died too. I met Ken when I was on the Save Mere Oaks committee and he was the chairman of the group. He was such a gentleman and will be sadly missed. Even after the campaign was over for Mere Oaks he was active with a number of other groups that help children with Special needs. My thoughts are with his family at this sad time.