Last night was the first meeting of the Prestwich Local Area Partnership for the new municipal year. This is the body that brings together the nine local councillors in Prestwich (who are all Lib Dems now!), key partners like the police, NHS and fire service and community representatives from business, charities and local groups.

The main item on the agenda last night was the URBED study into the Prestwich Village Centre, which I’ve already reported on below. Other than that the main issues were:

– Local Grants – we’ve received applications for grants from the Prestwich (anti) Litter Campaign, to purchase Graffiti Cleaning Equipment and to support the Bent Hill area for environmental improvements. The grants were referred to the Finance Working Group to study in detail. Personally I hope that this can be done as quickly as possible as, with the graffiti in particular, there is a issue that needs dealing with as soon as possible.

– Highway Maintenance Program – each year the Area Partnership is asked for its views on which local roads and pavements should be repaired. My view is that this is becoming a bit of a joke – we’ve been given a budget of £108,000 for the whole of Prestwich and the “worst” road, which was deferred from last year because it wasn’t done then, would cost £152,000! I’m not sure how we’re meant to do with that!
In our ward of Holyrood, the most urgent roads were Oaklands Drive, a part of Cuckoo Lane, Mount Road and Parrenthorn Road. We’ve asked the Town Centre Working Group to look into these in detail and make a decision on our £108,000. Obviously with such limited funds lots of people are going to be disappointed, I suspect that the Lib Dem group will be taking this up at a Council level to see what can be done to improve the situation.

– Youth Manager Update – we received an excellent update from the Prestwich Youth Manager on some of the different activities for young people that are being organised. This includes the regular youth facilities which are at the Phoenix Centre in St Mary’s Park and also at Parenthorn High and Rainsough Community Centre. The groups that meet at the Phoenix Centre include time for disabled young people, young mums and young people who are involved in the Duke of Edinbugh scheme. Another good initiative is the “BRAG” scheme, which is running in the half term and summer holidays an d includes a really good value bus pass – more information here.

– Prestwich Cash Office – we received another presentation on the possible closure of the Prestwich Cash Office (see earlier post), yet again we made the points that some people do need a face to face service and ask for this to be considered during the consultation.

Tim