Last night was the regular meeting of Prestwich Local Area Partnership, this brings together your nine local Liberal Democrat Councillors together with representatives of partner agencies like the Police and NHS, and community group representatives.

The main issues that came up were:

Area Manager’s Report
Included in the report of the Area Manager was news of Prestwich’s bid to the £1 million that Bury has been awarded for play facilities. These are:
– Ballzone at St Josephs Playing Field
– Improvements to the Kersal Road playside
– Natural play area behind the existing childrens play area on Kings Road.
(I did ask about the St Jospeh’s play area, as we need to check that it doesn’t adversely affect residents there who have already had some issues with the existing football ground.)
I asked about the discussion at the last meeting on closing the cash office at Prestwich Library – apparently this will be coming back to a meeting in the Autumn.
I also asked about the issue of graffiti, and asked that the numbers that people can ring are widely published, but that we monitor the effectiveness of some of these agencies in clearing up graffiti.

Youth Manager Update
We received an update from James Perkins – Prestwich’s Youth Manager on some of the excellent activities that are planned over the summer months for young people in Prestwich. The local Youth Action Group has also got off the ground again and we asked James to help make sure that there was a good “two-way” communication between young people and the area partnership.
We also heard about an excellent “Health Kick” scheme (part funded by the Area Partnership to raise health issues in the Rainsough Area. Its targetted at 16-25 and over 50 men, and involves football sessions leading into health awareness and promotion sessions.

Funding Bids
The Partnership agreed a number of funding bids for local projects -I’m going to report on these in a separate entry.
Prestwich Heritage Society asked for some money to help with the heritage exhibition at Prestwich Library, we said we would consider in detail.

Open Forum
Open Forum is the part of the agenda (45 minutes) set aside to hear issues and concerns from local residents in Prestwich. These included:
– concerns on fencing on Ludlow Avenue
– concerns about youth nuisance on Ogden Street
– concerns about the closing time noise of a local pub
– good news about the recently funded Simister Wetland site
– discussion about the opening times of Prestwich Police Station

Prestwich Community Plan
Richard Baum, who chairs the Developing Communities Group, presented the proposed Prestwich Community Plan for 2008-2011. The plan was agreed, and I’ll report on its contents separately.

The next meeting of the Area Partnership is on Thursday 4 September 2008. This will be a special meeting to discuss the URBED proposals for Prestiwich Village Centre. 6.30pm at the Longfield Centre.

Any questions please ask. Tim