The week that ended.....24 Aug '14

Wow what a week, busy as ever. It has been a lot colder and wetter this week :-(.

Confident Council
The week began with me attending the Confident Council scrutiny meeting at the Town Hall, I had the Young Alice Wilcock continue to shadow me - as part as her award she is working towards. The meeting was OK and we had numerous discussions. One that got me was when we were discussing the amount of sick days for staff and then Labour Cllr Walker said, " It was OK for staff to have sick days when they want one." Really reality check is needed here. Sick days are there for when someone is sick and for me, having seen these now there are trends when sick days are happening in numbers. We only get the snap shot but this needs to be looked at. And before Labour starts shouting, look Fairhurst is having a go at our staff, I would say the vast amount of staff do their best and don't abuse sick days but when there is a clear trend the Council need to put things in place to control it. That includes supporting staff! Also we we able to meet and discuss a number of groups that had been successful in funding for their groups. It was good to hear what some of these do and how they make a different.

Confident Places
Wednesday saw me attend the Confident Places meeting which discusses houses and things like that. It was a heavy agenda and a lot to go through. I think we got to or certainly close to the 3 hour guillotine of 3 hours. The meeting is always topical at the moment as one may guess. The housing allocation plans were discussed, as ever I asked numerous questions about Standish and the Council have said at this time, note the caveat here - at this time, they have all the houses for Standish. I just wish they would say Standish is now full and no more houses but they won't call me cynical but I guess we will here more in the future. Lowton Cllr James Grundy made some good comments about trying to connect Leigh with a train station in Leigh as part of HS3. Whilst we are on about train stations I think it is poignant to mention that I raised, again why Standish cannot have a train station? In the past I have been told it will cost too much and that it will slow the high speeds trains down but yet the Council are looking to give Golborne a Train Station which is smaller than Standish and is also on the same line so why will it not slow the high speeds train there? Call me cynical again but I am sure Leigh MP Andy Burnham lives there. I guess he is fighting for a train station there unlike our MP Lisa Nandy who never comes to Standish. Last time she mentioned that she wants to Save Standish Green belt. When it was pointed out that the greenbelt was never under threat it was green open land, which is different to Greenbelt land she disappeared. I wonder if Lisa Nandy would support our call for a train station for Standish? During the meeting it was discussed how to improve King Street. Well so not to go on to long if you allow strip joints on there like Wigan Council has done then expect it to become the area that is seedy. Not rocket science Labour! On this matter too the Labour Chairman allowed Alice Wilcock to ask a couple of questions, which was good of him and some interesting points and questions were asked from her too. Often people ring me up and tip me off with things I was tipped off to go and have a look at the expenses forms for the candidates for the last local election. No before anyone says you can't claim these off the taxpayers it is a form to say what you spent, on what and where the money came from. Interesting that Ex Labour Cllr Emma McGurrin has not returned one to the Town Hall which all candidates have too by law. Wonder if Labour have reported her? I know they would if it had been me. Also it is clear that Labour were trying to do a campaign spending over £700. However what was interesting that the Tory's that came second obviously knew they weren't going to win only spent £40. I bet Labour are upset that the Tories spent considerably less and beat them who had spent over £700.

Summer Camp
So this week saw the last of the sport camp that Cllr Debbie Fairhurst started this year. This is because she knew that as a mum children want things to do and parents want a break so she tried this camp programme . It was good to see a record number of children turn out and attend and I know that the event will be happening again next year. What was also a good suprise for those that attended was they got a free latics ball and free tickets to go and watch the Latics game, yesterday, Good win for them too. So I guess when our critics say all you Standish Independents do is complain about houses it proves them wrong. The houses are the biggest issue for sure but we put back, support and help our community and the events that Cllr George Fairhurst and Cllr Debbie Fairhurst have done this summer helps proves this. As for me I am working on the news for Ashfield that will be announced in soon, so keep tune and have a happy bank holiday I better go and start my DIY :-( .