A little over three weeks ago, I wrote to Urban Vision (copy here) and requested a walkabout so that I could personally show them the dreadful state our road had deteriorated to. Less than a week later, I was pleased to be joined by Steven Lee (Director of Engineering at Urban Vision) on Seedley Park Road where we met and discussed the current condition of the road and poor previous attempts to fix it.

Steven promised an immediate fix for the pothole and longer term, a partial re-surfacing of Seedley Park Road in the Summer.

I am pleased to report that today Urban Vision workers arrived on-site for the first of two days work to cut out the damaged sections of Seedley Park Road and fill in the holes. I will be checking by tomorrow to see the completed works, but I would just like to pass on my personal thanks to Urban Vision for re-acting quickly.

My enthusiasm for Urban Vision is, of course, tempered – because it took a resident’s complaint (i.e. mine) to get Urban Vision to agree to action. If it hadn’t have been so close to election time, who knows how long it would have taken to get the road sorted?

I am sick of hearing that a pothole “doesn’t meet intervention criteria” and I am looking forward to meeting Steven again to discuss how we can make changes to the decision to fill/not fill a pothole. Further, there are many a road that need complete or partial resurfacing – yet the policy seems to be just to fill in the holes, no matter how many they are and how close together they are.

This policy is wrong and needs to be changed.

It was my pleasure today to be invited to attend the public demonstration that was planned by the Save Barton Moss protest group on Liverpool Road in Eccles.

I know the area reasonably well, since in my last two jobs as a sales rep, I frequented the area (including the nearby Makro) and I have never been able to comprehend the council’s plain daft idea to build an industrial estate on nearby green belt.

Green belt land exists for a number of reasons, which I won’t go into here – but given the Secretary of State’s recent decision to refuse planning for the Worsley Racecourse on the grounds that building on Green Belt couldn’t be justified, it seems bonkers for the Labour-controlled Salford Council to continue with the industrial estate building plan.

I joined Salford Lib Dem Leader and Prospective MP for Salford & Eccles Norman Owen in the protest and it was good to chat with demonstration organiser Jackie Anderson about how well the protest group has grown. Norman has supported the Save Barton Moss campaign and helped them ensure they have had their voices heard by the council. The group’s arguments are sensible, well thought out and conveyed to the council with attention to detail. Other protest groups would do well to emulate the Save Barton Moss campaign’s strategy and ethos.

It was pleasing to see cross-party support for the protest, but I was a little irritated to see the local Conservative party staging their own, separate, protest – seemingly organised by Councillor Iain Lindley, who no doubt assumed this would look good on his next leaflet.

A note to the Conservatives, either join in fully with the existing Save Barton Moss campaign or start your own and hold your own party’s support on a different day.

The Salford Liberal Democrats are backing the Save Barton Moss campaign.