The week that ended.......11 October 2015

Another week floats on by, well not sure about floating seems to be going faster and faster and the darker nights are a sure signs that things are a changing. I guess when the clocks go forward that's it in for the long Winter haul. To be fair the weather hasn't been that bad - yet.

So this week a number of issues have popped first is:-


New Law Plastic Bags

Last Monday saw a new law whereby you have to pay 5p per plastic bag. The Government has brought this law in England to bring it in lane with Scotland, Wales and NI. Also the reason is to try and get people to re-cycle more and there is not lots of these plastic bags rotting for 000's of years in land fill.

Trying to encourage re-cycling has to be a good thing but will 5p do the job? I guess it will have a n impact but how much, time will tell.

The thing I don't get is we can put man on the moon but we can't make a substitute bag for the plastic bag, that has the same strength and all the other characteristics of a Plastic bag with the exception of not taking so long to rot?

Devo-Manc - more money

So Devo-Manc is this new Government and Local Authorities in Great er Manchester thing where by more power and influence is decided at a local level.  Not a too bad idea in some ways. This is because the Country is not all like London but then we do need to have some centralisation between the different parts of the Country.

However, there is now a campaign for more money, this is backed by a number of publications like the Wigan Evening Post. They want the deal to have another £6bn. The deal has been done!

In the main the local Authorities in Greater Manchester are made up of Labour Controlled Councils, with the exception of 1, which is Trafford. They agreed the figure and signed the deal. You simply can't agree a deal and then say, "O we don't like it - we want more money." If they thought it was such a bad deal is this now Labour realising that, although in some ways a good concept, in practical terms they can't deliver? Won't be the first time. But time will tell.

On this matter it was only recently that the Chancellor, George Osborne, was in China asking them for money for this area. Why?


Street Parking in Standish

As Local Cllrs we get many comments about street parking but I had one Gentleman contact me this week about parking in Church Street. Outside and around the old Doctors surgery are the double yellow lines and now the doctors's surgery is no longer there then why can't we have the double yellow lines removed? Good question and one that we will be putting to the Council this week and this will help in some small way to local residents.

Should you have any comments or suggestion please get in touch on 01257 42 32 12.

Wigan Warriors

Got to say bad luck for the warriors in last night's Grand Final. Let's see if we can break the run next year by winning it.