It seems that buildings are falling down all over Salford. If the council aren’t tearing them down in the name of “regeneration” then council-owned buildings are falling down, due to poor maintenance (or lack thereof). Case in point, a row of shops on Liverpool Street in Langworthy (adjacent to Seedley Primary School).

The shops have been vacant for many years and the council has been unable to let them, latterly because they have been uninhabitable. The picture above (taken courtesy of Google Streetview) is by my reckoning at least a couple of years old, and you can see how bad things were then.

So it should not have come as a total surprise yesterday morning when I arrived home from my night shift at 7am to see a pile of bricks strewn across the pavement and road. I was far too tired after a 10hr shift which started at 9.30pm the previous day to stop and take a picture, but as soon as I arrived home I made sure there was a message waiting for Lib Dem Langworthy Councillor Lynn Drake.

Thanks to Lynn’s efforts, by 9am the council had inspected and now it looks like some of the block is to be demolished.

This pathetic way than Salford Council have of handling their extensive property portfolio so annoys me. They seem to have no understanding that these building are assets, not problems to be ignored (and then finally destroyed when their failure to maintain them results in a collapse).

Do the council not realise that as well as the financial cost of ignoring building maintenance there is the personal cost to residents? Neighbours of mine could have been injured or possibly killed if the building had collapsed if someone was walking by at that moment. I would not even like to speculate on how many rats are probably inside the end building, which as I mentioned, is next door to Seedley Primary School.

I hope that the council will move quickly to solve this problem – both the short term and long term needs of the site. Let’s remember, if this building had been in private hands, surely Salford Council themselves would have begun legal action to force the owner to make the building safe and secure.

While I note Salford’s Labour council is supporting the evil empire that is Tesco on their application to build a new store on Fitzwarren Street in Pendleton, they seem to have completely forgotten about the little shops.

Or maybe they just don’t care for the small businessman?

It’s been a bad week for Children in Salford. At the start of the week, St. James RC Primary School in Pendleton was the subject of an arson attack, which saw the roof severely damaged – but thanks to the quick response and bravery of local firefighters, the damage was contained and valuable equipment and school work was saved.

On Thursday, the Salford Advertiser & Manchester Evening News broke the story that I had feared could happen again. Earlier in May of this year, OfSted inspected Salford’s Childrens Services and it seems the report is going to, once again, rate the service as inadequate.

This is the second time Salford’s Childrens Services has been rated inadquate by OfSted, both times under the stewardship of Langworthy Councillor John Warmisham. After the last inadequate rating, the council gave undertakings to the government it would improve the service (and briefly it did). Now, if the MEN article is correct, the council’s efforts have failed and our looked-after children are once again at risk.

I call on our new coalition government to take decisive action and step in to take control of Salford’s Childrens Services and rescue things before another, inevitable, death occurs. I do not want another Demi-Leigh Mahon case hitting the Advertiser’s front page – but it’s obvious to me that Salford Council cannot be trusted to take care of our children at the moment. The department needs radical overhaul – I do not know what that means in terms of staffing, Jill Baker (former strategic director of Childrens Services) was sacked, Chief Executive Barbara Spicer took over temporarily and then handed the reigns over to Jill Baker’s former deputy, Nick Page.

Further, if the Salford Labour cabinet will not take former Lead Member for Childrens Services John Warmisham to task,then I would hope that local Conservatives and Salford Liberal Democrats can come together to push for a full investigation into what has gone wrong.

As I look across my road to the newly-built Willow Tree Primary school due to open in September, I worry what will happen to those children that didn’t make it into the new school (because it is too small to occupy all the pupils who currently learn at the four schools it replaces). I worry about how our looked-after children are cared for in Salford Council’s childrens homes.

And I fear for Adult Social Care, John Warmisham’s new post in the cabinet. After the disasters he has left behind him at Childrens Services and Housing before that, things do not bode well for Salford’s older people.

At around 1.30am last night/this morning, I was awoken from a sound sleep by an almighty crash from outside. It’s the kind of sound you know is so, so, wrong. On examining the scene it became clear that a Toyota had hit the metal barrier opposite my house, chopped a concrete post in half, lost it’s bumper, rode up the barrier and then buried itself into my neighbours Clio – writing both cars off.

How the car hasn’t flipped onto it’s roof or smashed into my own car, I will never know. How the occupants survived the incident, only they know that.

For far too long we’ve had to put up with heavy traffic on Seedley Park Road, if it’s not the heavy goods vehicles delivering materials to the new Willow Tree Primary School currently undergoing construction a few yards from my house, it’s speeding ‘boy racers’ who see my street as a race track and speed bumps as nothing more than a challenge.

The junction outside my house is a nightmare. Clearly, the design looked great on a piece of paper, but in the real world – it just does not work. Anything larger than a family saloon car must drive onto the wrong side of the road to turn right, lest they hit the illuminated barrier in the middle of the road. Most of the HGVs that turn from Glendinning Street onto Seedley Park Road, block the road trying to make it around the tight corner (whilst performing the manouvre on the wrong side of the road).

Everyone survived last night’s accident, but how long before a speeding car or HGV kills a child on Seedley Park Road? I worry it could happen.

That’s why over the next few days you will see me at your door, calling on my neighbours to sign a petition which I intend to present at the next council meeting. I am asking for a weight restriction to be put in place on Seedley Park Road and Lower Seedley Road and I’ll be looking for highways to try and help prevent incidents such as the one last night from costing lives.

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.

As I’m sure most readers of my blog are aware by now, I did not win in Langworthy, while I am obviously disappointed not to win, I offer my congratulations to John Warmisham. While I am sure John is pleased with his victory, I have every intention of continuing to fight for Langworthy and I’m very happy with my 1,211 votes (which was more than Lynn Drake polled in 2008 when she won here).

Further, I hope John joins me in thanking the electorate for a record turnout in Langworthy – I’d like to think that both the intensive Labour and Lib Dem campaigning in our ward over the last few months contributed to the fact that more local electors engaged in the process. I found it incredibly frustrating last year (when I stood in Irwell Riverside) that only 17% bothered to vote. Look at it this year, 43.5%. That’s great news for the city, I really hope we can maintain (and maybe improve on) these turnout figures.

Elsewhere across Salford, it was a disappointing night for the Liberal Democrats. We lost 2 seats (Mary Ferrer in Claremont and John Deas in Weaste & Seedley). Both were shocks for us, but it upsets me to think that the city has lost 2 really good councillors. Our two main targets of Swinton South and Langworthy saw us come close, but there are no prizes for second place!

If there is one saving grace for us, it is that our own data shows that, broadly, the local election results mirrored the general election results – which simply means electors voted in both elections wearing their “general election hats”. I firmly believe that in next year’s local elections, the trend will reverse somewhat and we’ll see voters thinking nothing but locally.

The Salford Liberal Democrats are here to stay. We’re a committed and great bunch of people who genuinely care about our city. We will be back.

Every weekend for the last few months the team has been meeting up at 10am and 2pm on both Saturday and Sunday as our campaign to get Norman Owen elected moved into top gear. There has also been the small matter of the council seats we are defending, plus several targets we are confident of stealing from under Labour’s noses.

It was therefore extremely pleasing this morning to see I had been beaten to the office by half the Salford Lib Dem team who were all raring to go – what was even more gratifying was the 4 new volunteers that came down to help the Langworthy and Ordsall campaigns. With only 5 days to go, I’d like to note the invaluable help of our 4 new helpers: Jane, Anthony, Andrew and Michael.

The extra help added the already dedicated team meant we were able to hit two entire wards today, with plenty already planned for tomorrow.

So, if anyone else can spare an hour of your time over the bank holiday weekend, please feel free to drop by the office at 10am and 2pm on both Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, where you’ll find a dedicated team stuffing their bags with leaflets for delivery all across Salford.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Tonight will see the final Seedley and Langworthy Trust “Salford Question Time” event at Salford Arts Theatre, just off Liverpool Street in the heart of Langworthy.

Chaired by Gerry Stone, the panelists are: Salford Lib Dem leader Councillor Norman Owen (Parliamentary Candidate for Salford & Eccles), Labour MP for Salford Hazel “chequewaver” Blears, cardboard cut-out Tory Mathew Sephton, Salford Advertiser reporter Pamela Welsh and Alex Halligan who is secretary of the Salford TUC.

It all kicks off at 7pm and it’ll be interesting to see if Hazel has bussed in her supporters to hijack the event with prepared questions or, maybe, we’ll have a balanced night with thought provoking questions from all sides of the spectrum (both political and non-political).

I’m told this isn’t a hustings (the stage wouldn’t be big enough for all the declared Salford & Eccles candidates anyway!) – but it’s still an important pre-election test for the three main party candidates.

Hope to see you there!

It seems as if (locally) Labour have started a Barchart war, the first salvo being fired by Labour councillor John Warmisham on his blog. The war has been joined by Salford Tory Iain Lindley, who has updated his own site’s header to include an equally flattering bar chart.

Allow me to retaliate with this:

We Lib Dems love bar charts  For those that are unaware, the last election in Langworthy was in 2008 when the Liberal Democrats booted out Andy Salmon, who was a Labour councillor in the area. Residents were fed up with Labour and let them know about it with a stunning victory for Langworthy Lib Dem Councillor Lynn Drake.

Let’s continue the lesson for Labour.
Boot out Labour’s candidate who lives in Broughton on May 6th by once again voting LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

Vote Steve Middleton. Your local choice.

One of my Langworthy neighbours had the misfortune to receive a Labour local election leaflet this week.

I must admit to being apalled by their brazen attempt to take credit for other people’s work, such as their ‘top story’ about improvements to the M602 roundabout, printed right underneath the headline ‘Labour working for Langworthy & Ordsall.’ This work was planned and is being funded by the North West Regional Development Agency, not Labour, not even Salford Council.

Further, the audacity to claim credit for The Bridgewater Residents Association’s and, in particular, Paul Brodie’s efforts in gaining £100K investment from the Safer Home Funds for security hardening in Irwell Riverside was particularly galling.

I know Paul quite well and campaigned alongside him and other residents as we tried to overturn Labour’s decision to re-locate a Young Offenders centre to a residential street – totally against the wishes of residents who already lived in one of the worst areas in Salford for crime.

I’m sure he will be as disgusted as I am that Langworthy & Ordsall Labour councillors are claiming credit for his hard work and efforts in their election leaflet.

Perhaps the most annoying point of all about Labour’s leaflet is that they seem to think Langworthy and Ordsall are the same! Nothing could be further from the truth!

I believe that while we should (and do) work together with our neighbours in Ordsall, decisions about Langworthy should be made in Langworthy – that’s why I would split the Ordsall & Langworthy Community Committee and have one for Ordsall and a completely seperate one for our area.

Lets stop decisions for Langworthy being made in Orsdall and Broughton. Both Langworthy’s Labour ward councillors live in Broughton – it’s my belief that a Langworthy councillor should live in Langworthy.

Langworthy Liberal Democrat Councillor Lynn Drake lives in Middlebourne Street and I live on Seedley Park Road, both in the heart of our area.

On May 6th you have two votes, one for the general and one for the local election.

For the local election, I’m appealing to you to VOTE LOCAL.

Vote Liberal Democrat.
Vote Steve Middleton.

Let’s return local politics to local people.