Parliamentary Boundary Changes 2018

You may have seen or heard on the news that the next timetabled General Election in 2020 will see a  the number of MP's reduced Parliamentary Seats. The reason for this is some MP's seats have more than others. So in effect some votes in one seat are worth up to 3 times as much as other areas. That can't be fair.

So the Government are trying to change it so each and every vote is valued the same. Labour are kicking off with this saying it is not fair. The main reason being that they have the most to lose in terms of Mp's seats. They claim that claim that since the cut fate, 1 December  another 2 million voters registered for the EU Referendum and now believe because they registered after the  cut date that the numbers should be re-crunched. You can faintly see their argument but there has to be a cut off and it is more likely that the 2 million voters only registered because of the EU referendum and not both. However, saying that one should not assume but Labour should have campaigned for people to register before the 1 December 2015. It is not like they can't say they didn't know as this has been planned for some time.

The 3 seats for the Wigan areas will all remain under the proposal so we will still have 3 MP's. For me one vote being equal to another vote has to be the right way to go!

School Lane/ Green Lane Junction Box

So here we are back again after the holidays and business as usual is happening for people. Kids back in school - parents settling back into normal routine and things are getting back to normal, inc this blog.

Many things have happened over the summer but issues are still there for residents. One such issue is for residents in the Green Lane area and they have constantly had the misery of trying to get out of Green Lane onto School Lane.

The issue is at peak times people wanting to turn right have had difficulties because drivers coming from St Maries Church direction have blocked the box junction and that has then prevented drivers getting out of Green Lane. If then there are drivers wanting to turn left behind them that has then impacted on them because they can't move. Many times the lights go on green and drivers cannot move.

Now in there wisdom Wigan Council have put up large yellow signs saying do not enter the box. I can see why they have done this as they do not want drivers blocking up the box junction put my first thought when I saw these signs was they are not correct. For example you can come from St. Maries direction want to turn right into Green Lane and if your exit is clear but oncoming traffic prevents you carrying out your turn then you can in fact enter the box and wait till a safe gap comes. This signs stops people doing what the highway code says.

Removing the signs will not cure the problem either as because people will carry on doing what they are doing, in fact the signs legally do not stop people from carrying on anyway as there is no enforcement action that can be taken for those that enter the box junction. So we need to come up with a solution.


The Standish Independents Cllrs have been in contact with the council and have said to them that the lights at the main cross roads need to clear some traffic just prior to the Green Lane Lights going onto green as this will allow some space to be created and then allow those cars out. Wigan Council Highway's team are looking at this and will be working on a solution that works and this is yet great work by Cllr Debbie and George Fairhurst. Keep watching as hopefully we can get a solution soon, although Wigan council highway team did say it is all down to the shear weight of traffic in Standish - but still they allow more planning applications to go though.