Residents of Pendleton are celebrating now that the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government has approved a PFI scheme for the area which will see it transformed. Over £100m of investment from the government will build over 1,200 new homes as part of the scheme and see a massive refurbishment of 1,200 council homes.

Pendleton is already the home to 13,000 proud and passionate residents and they will benefit from this government-backed large scale regeneration which will return the area back to the once thriving community it used to be. Under PFI the properties will remain in council ownership and tenants will remain as council tenants with all their existing
rights, including right-to-buy.

I welcome the government announcement. Pendleton has been in need of modernisation for far too long and for many years Labour dragged their feet over investment here. The regeneration of Pendleton will create a better choice of
quality houising for new and existing residents. In addition to providing new homes and bringing existing ones up to
the Decent Homes Standard, we will now see a much needed re-modelling of streets and estates.

There has been no real investment in Pendleton in the 34 years since it was built and that’s a sad reflection on Labour’s
dismissive attitude towards the community-spirited people who live here. I’m glad that the government has approved the PFI scheme and I think this is an opportunity to make Pendleton a better place.

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Langworthy Lynn Drake said “People have been frustrated by the lack of investment in Pendleton so I am extremely pleased that the coalition has given the green light to Pendleton PFI. I’m particularly gratified to see that social and private housing will be developed in a way that means there is no obvious visual distinction between them.”

Lynn added “Pendleton has a great community but the estate does need redesigning to help reduce crime. I think most residents will welcome the proposals.”

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Lynn Drake has been asking Salford Council officers if they can shed any light on the future of Seedley Primary School. So far the school, which closed last summer, has not been earmarked for any future
use and local residents are worried that the building will be allowed by the council, to fall into unsafe disrepair, just
like the adjacent council owned shops on Liverpool Street.

Councillor Drake who lives behind the school said “The shops on Liverpool Street partially collapsed in June last year and I’m worried this will happen to the school building if it is not maintained properly.”

Recently, Salford Council published a notice of intention to demolish the old school building, but there’s no indication of when that might happen, how the site will be secured both,during and after demolition and what (if any) plans the Council have beyond that. It’s possible the Council will try and sell the site to a developer, if so, both Councillor Drake and I will be keeping an eye out for any future planning applications.

Langworthy residents were left angry and upset after January’s Community Committee meeting where it was revealed by council officers that it was unlikely there would be enough money left in the budget to pay for much needed car parking and an access road behind the shops on Langworthy Road.

I attended this meeting and raised my concerns about the council’s priorities.

By the time the Langworthy Road shop car parking scheme reached the community committee, it was too late as council officers wanted the money left over in the budget to be spent in Ordsall on some new ‘super crossings’ at the soon-to-bebuilt Oasis Academy.

If the Council can afford to spend nearly £700,000 moving the two blue cranes from the Quays to Regent Road roundabout, I’m sure they can afford to fund the supercrossings themselves and let us spend community funding on the essential car parking and an access road behind the struggling shops on Langworthy Road.

Local Lib Dem ward Councillor Lynn Drake was astonished at the decision.

She said “Shop owners and residents on Langworthy Road were promised the parking 5 years ago as part of the re-generation. It never happened then and looks like it won’t happen now.”

Last summer Langworthy Lib Dem campaigner Steve Middleton and local
Councillor Lynn Drake submitted a 250 name petition to Salford Council in protest over the alarming rise of speeding cars and heavy goods vehicles cutting through side streets across the ward.

Residents of Seedley Park Road, Lower Seedley Road & Seedley Terrace in particular have had to put up with their streets being used as rat runs and short cuts by motorists trying to avoid traffic jams on Langworthy Road and HGVs delivering to the new Willow Tree Primary School and the surrounding house clearance demolition.

Local residents have had enough of late night car crashes on their streets and this petition was the final straw for some. We are glad the council has finally seen sense and approved two schemes to slow down the traffic.

I’ve always stood up for free, fair and unbiased reporting as I believe it’s one of the things that makes this country great. To stand up and speak the truth is, I think, a universal right. The Egyptian people are struggling with this same problem as we speak, their media’s right to free speech was quashed yesterday when the popular news network Al Jazeera was banned from broadcast.

So it with disdain that I read in our local paper, The Salford Advertiser, the week before last about how the Langworthy ward contained the most benefit claimants compared to the rest of Salford. Whilst this snippet of information is true, the article written by Salford Advertiser reporter Denise Evans was slanted (along with unhelpful comments from Langworthy Labour ward Councillor John Warmisham) to suggest that because Langworthy had the highest number of benefit claimants, they therefore must all be benefit cheats.

The Langworthy article was poorly constructed to sensationalise a statistic that exists purely because of the geographical and diverse community that we have in Langworthy, compared to say Worsley and Boothstown (which the article helpfully points out has the lowest benefit claimants).

My letter, which was published in last week’s Salford Advertiser readers viewpoints page, addressed some of the problems with the assumptions in the original article and I won’t repeat those words here.

Manchester Evening News

It was doubly disappointing to therefore read a Manchester Evening News article written by respected MEN reporter Pamela Welsh (see here), which is basically a government-bashing piece that shows the MEN is decidedly biased in it’s reporting.

To openly support an anti-government petition is surely beyond the remit of The Manchester Evening News – this goes beyond mere news reporting and comment; it is making the news itself.

Pamela Welsh and The Manchester Evening News should withdraw “support” for this petition and merely report on it. If they do not, I cannot take anything they write as the truth, but merely the opinion of an anti-community and anti-government mouthpiece.

Salford and Manchester’s free and fair local paper has died. RIP.

Back in November I wrote here about the cancellation of funding from the NWDA for phase II of the Quays Gateway Masterplan, which involved moving the old and disused Quays Cargo Cranes to the M602 roundabout and the construction of three key ‘supercrossings’ that would be built across Trafford Road directly in front of the new Oasis Academy at MediaCity:UK.

When the Manchester Evening News suggested that the whole plan had been scrapped, suddenly Salford Council came to the rescue and claimed the MEN had it all wrong (even forcing the paper to print a retraction and withdraw online versions of the articles) and that the Cranes had been saved after all. Salford Council generously offered to fund the continuation of phase II of the Quays Gateway Plan – minus the Trafford Road supercrossings.

A despicable plan has been hatched, and it would seem this plan was in motion as far back as November of last year when Ordsall & Langworthy Neighbourhood Officer Ross Spanner suggested that the community committee would have to consider funding the supercrossings from it’s road safety budget, following the withdrawal of funding from the NWDA.

So, in exactly 7 days time on January 11th (6.45pm), the Ordsall & Langworthy Committee will be asked to exhaust it’s road safety budget to pay for three supercrossings that Oasis Academy should have been forced to build as part of their planning application.

Further, if Salford Council can afford to fund the moving of 2 lumps of old, rusting metal to “pretty up” a roundabout but cannot fund essential life-saving supercrossings that would protect our children – they they have their sums wrong (at the very least their priorities).

I’m asking every resident of Langworthy if they think this is right. Please do your best to attend next week’s community committee meeting and send the council a message that we will not be manipulated in this way.

There are far too many road safety schemes that need the community committee’s attention to be exhausting our budget on a scheme that should have been paid for by Oasis Academy and could be paid for by Salford Council.

What do you think? Cranes or Crossings?

Blogging has been thin on the ground these last few months (a new year’s resolution may be in order to rectify that), but it seems that a new year has not brought a ‘new’ Labour. In fact, quite the opposite.

Nationally, we see Labour claiming the VAT rise is “the wrong tax at the wrong time” – and while I’m no fan of the VAT rise, I do remember Alistair Darling publicly discussing the need to bring in a rise of 19%. Just what would Labour have done if they’d won the election (or, god forbid participated in a coalition)? We’ll never know, Labour’s blank page is still waiting for a drop of ink.

Locally, Salford’s Labour are no better. The end of the year saw disaster after disaster: Salford Childrens Services being rated poor (the lowest possible rating), the previously excellent Adult Care suffered badly under the new stewardship of Langworthy Councillor John Warmisham and a dodgy land deal was done with Tesco.

The £4m under-the-counter “deposit” by Tesco as part-payment for land in Pendleton adjacent to the Precinct could be tantamount to a bribe, but to subsequently discover the land itself has probably been undervalued by possibly a further £10m suggests a return to the sinister and backhanded corruption that I personally always thought was the writings of  TV fiction.

I’ve submitted a Freedom of Information Request to attempt to find out which officers knew about the £4m payment and, if it’s even suggested anyone on the planning panel knew about this, I intend to report this whole sorry saga to the Council’s Standards Board.

Don’t for a minute think I am against the new Tesco at Pendleton, I’m not. But I am against council corruption.

This year, I’ll be standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in May’s Salford Local Elections – where it’ll be my intention to route out corruption like this and expose the guilty. With more opposition councillors on the council, I’ll have more chance to reduce Labour’s waste and ensure we return our Adult Care & Childrens Services to the effective departments they have the potential to be.

It’s time once again to update the local community committee’s priorities for next year and we want to hear what you think. Last year our priorities ranged from Improving health and reducing crime all the way through to initiatives for investing in young people,  encouraging learning and creating prosperity.

You can email me your thoughts at steve@stevemiddleton.info, use the contact me page here or simply leave your comments below. Your comments can be anonymous if you wish, but I’ll make sure all suggestions are heard by the committee.

At the Ordsall & Langworthy Community Committee on 2^nd November Neighbourhood Manager Ross Spanner confirmed that funding is in place and secured for new fencing that will close off Chimney Pot Park from dusk until dawn. Regular readers of my blog will remember that this has been a contentious issue, with residents divided over whether to close off the park or provide better lighting, which would have made it safer to keep it open.

A consultation event was carried out by Seedley and Langworthy Trust (SALT) and after a worrying delay of a couple of months, ratified by the community committee. The majority of people who responded to the consultation decided in favour of closing off the park and erecting fencing to keep it secure. It was felt this would remove trouble makers involved in drugs & other crimes from the park and help protect Chimney Pot Park streets below from the constant problem of stones thrown at cars/windows from the elevated position of the park.

There is no definite date when the fencing will be installed, but Ross assured us it would not be too long.

Whilst browsing through recent planning applications/decisions today (sad, I know), I was disappointed to come across an application from Lark Hill Primary School on Liverpool street. The headmaster of Lark Hill (Liam Fry) proposes to build a new extension to the school (presumably to cope with the extra pupils the school is due to receive thanks to the incompetence of Salford’s Labour Council and their barmy decision to build a replacement school too small for the 2010/11 intake).

Why am I disappointed? Well, one word: Consultation.

Lark Hill have failed to consult it’s neighbours on this building plan which directly affects hundreds of Langworthy/Pendleton/Clarendon residents.

I’m sure the local community would have had very little problem with the proposal to expand Lark Hill Primary School, but common courtesy would be to behave a tad better and talk about the plans with your neighbours.

For those interested, the plans can be viewed here (but the application has been permitted, so no further comment can be made).

Shame on you Mr Fry, be a bit more neighbourly in future.

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.