Last night I attended our first Ordsall & Langworthy Community Committee meeting since the election. From a representative point of view, nothing has changed. All 6 Ordsall & Langworthy councillors remain the same (since neither of the 2 up for re-election lost their seats) and our first point of business was to elect our community committee chairman, who also retained his position. Congratulations to Roy Marsh, he guides us through the busy agenda with a good degree of skill.

It has always slightly annoyed me that as a mere resident, representing no one group, while my voice can be heard along with all of the others in the room when it comes to discussing topics on the agenda – I do not have a vote when it comes to making community committee decisions. The rule is: you must be a ‘member’ of the committee to vote. Membership is open to elected members (I tried so hard!) and representatives of residents associations and other partner groups.

Therefore I was extremely upset and annoyed when the next agenda item for consideration by the community committee was the ‘approval of a decision to lock Chimney Pot Park from dawn until dusk’. After a lengthy, but thorough consultation which involved the entire ward (and beyond), the overwhelming result of the public consultation was to close off Chimney Pot Park at night. Without going into the problems that troublemakers have caused by congregating in the park at night – the residents of CPP have, quite frankly, had enough of the anti-social behaviour brought about by a minority of idiots in the park after dark.

Residents want the park closed at night. Personally, I voted for the alternative option (which was to light the park instead), but I respect democracy. I respect the 68% of people who out-voted me. Why then, would the community committee want to ignore the 68%? Simply, they did not like the idea of locking a park at night.

With no thought to the people enduring a living hell, who have to live through the constant onslaught of stone and bricks thrown against their windows & cars from the elevated position of the park, the ‘voting members’ of the community committee decided to ignore a full and proper consultation – intending to overrule local residents wishes.

At this point I made an impassioned plea to the voting members to re-consider and think about the problems of the area and more importantly what the residents of CPP wanted. I’m afraid all I think I have achieved is to hold off the decision for a couple of months – since after some heated debate with a voting member from the Pendleton/Broadwalk area, it was decided to defer the decision until the next community committee meeting in July (where Neighbourhood Manager Ross Spanner will present a full report on the consultation, including actual numbers of people who responded).

It is my profound wish that Chimney Pot Park has re-established it’s residents association by the time of the next community committee meeting, since if they have, they would be entitled to vote on this very important matter.

I cannot fathom why we should (and do) allow people from outside the area make decisions in our area. The only two ward councillors who attended the meeting both live outside Langworthy, yet they were granted full voting rights. Members of residents associations from Pendleton and Islington Estate were also allowed to vote, yet I, someone who lives close by the park, was not. Nor was their anybody present from Chimney Pot Park itself to either speak or vote.

Voting members of the community committee should remember why they are there – to help make the area better for local people. They have a unique privilege in voting, and therefore a unique responsibility to think beyond what they want themselves and represent the unheard population who need their wishes and requirements met.