Category Archives: Moorside

Moorside

Street surgery feedback

Interesting session in Colinton this morning. Mainly complaints about the paths and alleyways, some of which have clearly not been touched for years. It’s depressing to have to keep banging on at the council, and for nothing to be done.

I delivered my surgery flyers with Lily, our three year old daughter. It was good fun and when we had finished she wanted to play on the playground at the bottom of Colinton near the school.

I must say that I was disgusted by the state of the playground. There grass was strewn with broken glass. There was evidence of drug taking (thankfully no needles around). Litter and old papers which had clearly been there for months.

It’s a disgrace that the playgrounds are left in this state. We also go to the Scott estate playground in Ormskirk because it’s close to where we now live – and the council keeps that one clean. I wonder why… Perhaps it’s because it’s one law for Skelmersdale and another for Ormskirk.

When we ask the question, what could a Town Council in Skelmersdale do? this is one area that it could make a real difference. Up Holland Parish Council owns and maintains the playgrounds and keeps them in good working order. It gets some money from the District Council for this – not just from the parish precept. Skem could do the same and start making the towns playing areas a bit better.

Moorside

Roving / Street Surgeries

After a brief hiatus with the street surgeries, I’m back on the case and intend to get around the rest of the ward in the next couple of months. In April I’ll be visiting people in the following estates:

  •  7th April – Colinton
  • 21st April – Cornbrook
Moorside, West Lancs

Recycling chaos in Skem

Last year, the Tory council changed the recycling collection in Skelmersdale which was supposed to make things better – easier to recycle and a higher percentage of waste recycled.

Well, it isn’t working in Moorside – and by all accounts it isn’t working across Skelmersdale.

Things have been made much worse by the chaotic collections since the start of December. I complained last month about the collections and was fobbed off with an email stating that there were “teething problems” in the area.

The fact is – before Christmas, the streets and paths were starting to look in a state because cardboard wasn’t being collected from everywhere and the autumn leaves were left to rot. Now it’s worse because of patchy and incomplete collections.
I’ve had complaints of:

  • Collections not happening – leaving recycling out on the streets
  • Collection teams actually telling residents that they had been when they hadn’t
  • Teams not taking all the waste from outside a house, despite it being presented in the correct way.

The result is that the estates have rapidly ended up with cardboard, paper and other waste blowing around or rotting outside houses.

When there were “teething problems” in the past, in Burscough for example, a lot of the problems were because the Council didn’t explain fully what was happening. Consequently there was more waste and the wrong waste presented to the Council. In Skem the “teething problems” are because the Council can’t or won’t do the job properly.

We’ve now reached the point where people are asking for the old skips back and the old recycling service to be re-introduced. No wonder, because some people have over a month’s recycling collected in the house.

The situation is an absolute disgrace. People are rightly demanding a public meeting and Pat and I will try to get the Tory Cllr Baldock and the Council officers responsible to attend.

Moorside, SSCF

December SSCF

Some notes from the SSCF board meeting yesterday…

We’re still in a position where we’ve got to spend the investment before the end of the year – otherwise it’s taken back by the government. We’re getting there and we should be ok on the capital cash now. It seems that the revenue (wages) money is going to be difficult because we end up in a position where we have to spend nearly a year’s worth of revenue in the last quarter of the year.

This is honestly the most ridiculous way of running investment in a community. I’ve said before that Chris Skinkis is doing a great job locally to line everything up, but to be given four months or so to spend twelve months of cash – or it goes back to the government – is lunacy. We should never have been put in this position in the first place, and it’s down to the rules of the investment and local delaying that has left us here.

Still, there are projects in the pipeline from the police and possibly for some CCTV which will take the rest of the cash – but I don’t think that many of the people on the board are terribly happy with it.

We ought to be putting in the plans for next year’s spend now… but because we’re chasing our tail to sort out this year’s spend we aren’t getting a chance to lift our heads and look forward.

Other things to note were further discussions about CCTV and where any new paths and cycle lanes should be built.

Hopefully this will settle down in the new year.

Moorside, SSCF

SSCF update 2

The government has said (apparently) that the Safer Stronger Communities investment (SSCF) for year 1 has to be spent by the end of the financial year. This is regrettable because the first half of the year has been spent talking to residents in the SSCF neighbourhood and setting up the board, which was further delayed because of a change in policy by the Local Strategic Partnership to hold elections for the board.

The upshot of trying to get the community involved in the process is that now there is an almighty rush to get the money spent. Of course, there are all sorts of lead times for spending in local government, which means that realistically we have to have a proposal for the spend in the next couple of weeks.

This represents 1/3 of all the capital spend – in other words, the bricks and mortar changes in the Digmoor area…

It’s disappointing that, because there has been an attempt to engage with the community, the board now has to go back to the County and District councils to draw up plans quickly to spend the money. A cynic would suggest that the process was set up this way to bounce the board into going along with what the council wants. I tend to think it’s more cock-up than stitch-up. I hope I’m not being naive.

Moorside, SSCF

Digmoor SSCF update

It was the second proper meeting of the SSCF (Safer Stronger Communities Fund) board on Thursday evening. Things are starting to move forward. At the first meeting the board had decided to invest the capital monies in the super output area covering Beechtrees and surrounding roads.

This meeting first agreed to co-opt Joanne Harrison on as a community representative to fill the place that was left open in Moorside after the ballot.

There was also discussion about the idea of a newsletter – a very good idea that came from the LAD group (Listen, Act, Do) who had been doing the initial consultation about how the money should be spent. While there was some discussion around the costs and what the precise details of the proposal, it was generally agreed to be a good idea and that information has to get back to the community about how the money is being spent.

It’s fair to say that there are some concerns over spending a lot of the money on CCTV. There are some areas that would benefit from CCTV, such as by Digmoor Parade, along the main pathway and by the park (if it helps bring in some other funding too). However, I’m getting feedback that people are concerned about it being close to houses and also concern that there is a desire by some to just spend the money on cameras and not on the broader aims identified in the consultation.

In terms of the money… there is a lot of pressure on the board to spend the first year’s capital investment quickly, particularly since we are told that it cannot roll into next year (i.e. it has to be spent by April 2007). I have my concerns about the pressure to spend money – it makes it difficult to spend the money wisely. There were months of consultation and then the local LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) decided that there should be an election for community representatives. That took out six months of the year, so we’re only just getting round to the spending now.

The board agreed that a “blueprint” or development framework for the Beechtrees area should be put together to guide how the money is spent.

Finally, it was decided that the project should be called the “Community Development Board”.

I’ll update this blog regularly with updates as the project moves forward. Next update should be about next week’s presentation from John McCall Architects with some ideas about what can be done with the money.

Moorside

Birkrig street cleaning


I did a street surgery in Birkrig this morning. The main problem seems to be the state of the pavements, the rubbish and the “landscaped” areas that have been left to become overgrown, full of weeds, litter and broken bottles.

There are parts that feel like they’ve been abandoned by the Council, and from reports that I got speaking to people this morning, it sounds like the Council have just ignored the estate.

This picture seemed to sum it up – a can thrown into an overgrown bush.

It’s possible that some of the money from the safer, stronger communities funding could be used to improve the area, but thats not good enough. The Council should be keeping the estates around Skelmersdale clean, and I think they’re failing.

Moorside

Street surgeries

I’ll be doing some street surgeries over the next couple of months, starting at Birkrig on Saturday from 10am. I’m hoping to get around the whole of the ward over the next 12 months running every two weeks (the Saturday after normal surgeries at Digmoor Community Centre).

Forthcoming dates are:

  • (West of Digmoor Road) 
  • 19th August – Birkrig
  • 9th September – Birleywood
  • 23rd September – Blakehall / Martins Lane
  • 7th October – Nixons Lane / Ormskirk Road
  • (East of Digmoor Road)
  • 21st October – Ormskirk Road
  • 18th November – Colinton
  • 9th December – Cornbrook

In the new year I’ll take in Cherrycroft, through Carfield and Brierfield and then start again.

I’ll pop a card through the door on the Thursday before and then potter around on the Saturday. If you’ve got a card in your window, then I know that you want me to pop up and discuss something.

I don’t know if it’ll work straight away, or if my cards are terribly clear, but I’m working on it and will make changes if I don’t think it’s working.

The thing is… I’ve been telling fellow councillors and others that we should be doing this for the past three years and haven’t actually done it myself – mainly because sometimes it’s hard to get off your backside and make the first step. So I’ll post how things work out here.

Moorside

Gulley cleaning

At last week’s EMB meeting there was a complaint that machines clearing the gulleys on the streets weren’t going down side roads. In particular, they would enter an estate, go down the middle road of an estate but ignore the smaller ones. On the face of it, it sounds like some penny-pinching, but I’m looking into it and post an update when I get some information.

Moorside

Some notes from visiting the community centre today

An interesting visit for the surgery today at Digmoor Community Centre. It wasn’t busy, but often chatting to the staff at the centre is useful.

Things complained about: the cuts in the budget for community centre staff (understandably), the state of local politics and the local labour party, poor levels of recycling, poor refuse collection service, broken fences by the roads, knackered bus shelters. Oh, and dog fouling and what’s happening to St Luke’s school.

Often people will apologise for complaining about something. “I don’t normally complain, but…”, and sometimes they’re a bit embarrassed about coming across all moany and complainy. Thing is, it’s my job to listen and act on that – if there weren’t any complaints there’d be something wrong, I’m sure.

Thanks to Mandy at the centre for sorting out some food and a brew when I visited. The community centre is a lovely place and the people who work and help out there do a fantastic job. I get my ear bent about the stand we took on LSVT, but it’s always a pleasure to go and visit :-)