Yesterday was Bury’s and Bury Council’s annual ‘Strategic Planning Event’. This event brings together senior councillors, senior staff at the Council together with our partners in ‘Team Bury’ (Police, NHS, Fire, Probation, Housing, voluntary sector, Colleges etc). The morning was spent with partners, and the afternoon was just the Bury Council people looking at the Council’s own priorities. I get invited as a leader of an opposition group on the council.

The morning was spent with us thinking about the challenges that are facing Bury over the coming years. A lot of this is about the challenging economic situation the country is in, the cuts that have needed to be made to balance the books and the work the Government is putting into encouraging business to create more jobs in the future.

We thought about what ‘Team Bury’s’ priorities should be for the coming year and came up with a draft proposal which is going to be properly worked up by various people before its ‘launched’. The most important thing for me, which I stressed a couple of times, was the need to focus around jobs. If we manage to encourage more employment to the area over the next, say, 10 years, then that has to be good news for all of us who live in Bury.

The afternoon was spent looking at the Council’s priorities. Again these will be properly written up before being announced publicly, but the most important factor we looked at was around money.

Bury Council needs to reduce its spending by about £18 million over the next three years, as our share of balancing the books nationally. This isn’t going to be easy, and during the autumn the council is going to be asking the people of Bury what we feel are the priorities (and therefore I suppose what isn’t a priority and shouldn’t be funded). Its going to be a difficult process, but its great that all of us are being asked for our say.

Tim