Northern Regeneration – its the economy stupid!

Like everyone else I read with dismay the comments about the report from the think tank suggesting a north-south migration. Apart from being an illogical idea for the reasons David Ottewell outlined, it’s surely what all politicians have been trying to subvert for the last two decades. As a Northerner, and also a Conservative, I find the report more irritating than most. It may as well be from a different planet in comparison to the Conservative Party’s policy and approach to the North and to regeneration.

 

Metrolink (1995), The Velodrome, the Commonwealth Games, Bridgewater Hall (1994), transforming Hulme, the saving of Castlefield and creation of city living are all down to the Conservatives regeneration plans instituted pre-1997. Many argue that Liverpool is doing a better job of the work begun by the Conservatives Development Corporations, connecting the initial Albert Dock developement to the rest of the city in a far more effective way than has existed in Castlefield, with the latter essentially becoming a closed housing estate.

 

Since 1997 no new strategy has existed, (no completion of the Metrolink plans laid down before 1997) and the great increase in mobility and wealth this city enjoys is from the great strides made during that time, unimaginable prior to that period. The current refusal to invest in our city (via the TIF bid) without making Mancunians borrow the money and then pay it back, plus taxing them for the privilege is at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum to the approach that made Manchester what it is today – which is why the Conservatives oppose the blackmail intrinsic in those plans. Only genuine investment in our northern cities will produce further growth and strides towards the future.

 

Gordon Brown’s strategy for the north has been dreadful. The plug pulled on investment in our city, no Metro extensions as promised, the Casino plan withdrawn with nothing to take its place, denied the National Football Stadium and no share of the Olympic plans, while billions upon billions are being spent on infrastructure in London – the government isn’t suggestion London has to borrow the money as Manchester does.

 

Gordon Brown’s target of 3 million homes exacerbate the huge collapse in the city centre housing market, buildings unfinished, construction companies going into liquidation (two within yards of my apartment in the city) causing massive negative equity for city centre home-owners. In some northern cities employment by the state is in excess of 50%, in some cities the sate is putting more money into them than it actually recevies back, essentially creating a socialist economy in parts of the north. The money is not being invested in infrastructure for future growth, but in job creation which has shallow roots, a fragile vail over the true requirements of northern economies. The southern economy structured in a completely different way has boomed. Dragging average public sector jobs into a city is no substitue for true economic vibrancy, failing to generate wealth in the same manor as genuine wealth creation with new companies, and small companies growing larger – Newcastle has the poorest record of this in the country.

 

Our skyscrapers in Manchester, current and planned, are without exception residential buildings. The strategy for our city seems purely based on the property market and so we are about to be hit very hard indeed. What other strategy exists for our city? Compared to Leeds, Manchester’s City Council has been far less successful in attracting 21st centruy economic power such financial services.

 

These are the challenges that need to be looked at, not migration, and not the failed policies of New Labour which have endangered a return to the widening of the North/South divide, slowing the huge change that investment in the 90’s brought to Manchester and Liverpool, and which began to show their fruit some 10 years later. Without a new direction, where will we be in 10 years time, what legacy has New labour left for our city? New Labour wants to bring us 30 years of debt (via the TIF plans) after a 10 year gap in infrastructure development, how long before Manchester starts to feel the pain of these decisions and face up to a new reality. Genuine investment, genuine growth is required, not simply playing the housing market. What benefit are loft apartments in the city to the neighbouring deprived areas close to the city centre? We all thought New Labour would have a better grip on economics – how wrong we were.

Prepare to be groomed! A referendum is on its way.

The first minor consultation that Manchester City Council carried out showed clear signs of grooming for the correct answers (written about previously in this blog) where people were ‘coached’ into giving the answers over a period of time. There’s nothing wrong with a public information campaign, but not if its public funded, and purely one-sided. We may have all seen for example the large signs saying “how would you like 3 billion pounds of transport investment” and then in tiny print at the very bottom nearly out of sight “funded by a congestion charge”

I’ve been shocked at how much of OUR money is being spent on very biased ads for the charging plans, we’ve all seen the TV ads ”asking people for their views” with a well-known coronation street actor walking past miles of traffic jams and distressed drivers….

The council’s plan for success  

If there were to be a referendum, which I’m now sure there will be, it should have public money spent on both sides of the argument. The way around this is to spend all the public money available now, to groom people in advance of a snap referendum. I feel more confident of this because I overheard a marketing team discussing this very plan today in a cafe. Plans were being discussed on how to reach the right people to market a YES campaign to prior to a referendum being called. A short film has been made, and plans were discussed about inserting the DVD into the pages of the MEN to target commuters who travel into the city. The plans discussed included the amount of funds they had available, with potential for more funding on the table to carry out the ‘grooming’ plan. Their target is to be primarily train users, and catchphrases such as “We’re going to make your life better” for the title of the DVD were bandied around. (with talented marketing bods like that on the campaign, maybe the NO campaign doesn’t really need to worry too much!) In the interests of democracy lets have another public funded campaign equally as skewed, perhaps entitled “we’re going to give you a 30 year mortgage you never asked for” or “We’re going to spend million of your cash selling the roads you’ve already paid for” or my personally favourite “We’re going to ruin your economic competitiveness”.

Naturally there are some questions you can ask which will gaurantee a Yes or a NO. Do people want to pay to drive their cars NO do people want better public transport YES. Both these are too simplistic, and it disgusts me that the city council takes the latter basic misleading approach to something so significant. Of course having an extensive light rail system will enhance our city a great deal, but its only the system we were promised a decade ago without the charge. What people want to know is:

1. How much EXACTLY will the loan repayments be
2. How many cars will need to pay £5 per day in order to make this
3. what profit will be left after the REAL running costs of the scheme
4. How many people are likely to be caught by the fines, and how much will the fines be

The strategy in general is to make the scheme seem so cheap and capturing so few people, so that is seems less threatening. At the same time its somehow meant to raise such a vast amount of money, which Congestion Charges never do. So whats really going to happen? Who pays if the sums are wrong? By how much will prices increase and what area will be covered by the zones when the sums don’t add up, this is what we really need to know…..as inflation rises, what will the true costs be in 5 years time, and who will still be paying the charge in 10 years time as new engine technology means cleaner cars and more cars running on combinations limiting petrol consumption? Its very easy to imagine how this will be caught on the wrong side of the technology in a few years time….how long was the loan for again, 30 years?

The charges will be forever, ever larger, ever more expensive, managed by a council which finished bottom for ‘value for money’ and financial transparency’.

Save Our Post Office Campaigns

6 further post offices will be closed in Manchester it has been announced. These are Ladybarn PO, Parswood PO, Harpurhey PO, Lower Crumpsall PO, and Barlow Rd PO. Successful post offices are being closed all over Greater Manchester.

Last Saturday Manchester Conservatives protested against the planned closures of post offices, collecting signatures for the Conservative’s petition outside branches under threat. Lower Crumpsall PO on Waterloo St and Harpurhey PO on Rochdale Rd are thriving and an essential part of the community.

Lower Crumpsall post office on Waterloo Street has been run by the same family for 32 years and is successful and busy. Locals from the estate on Waterloo Street will be left without a vital service if this branch closes.  Harpurhey Sub Post Office Master Mr Bharat Keshwala is furious.

What’s crazy about the Lower Crumpsall plan, is that the Waterloo Street area is being redeveloped and population will be increasing substantially. There are new houses being built on all sides of the post office, and it is currently the only shop of its kind in the area. With that in mind, it seems crazy to be closing this vital service for local people when its use will clearly increase.

Conservative MPs proposed a motion to stop post office closures which was defeated by the government, with all local Labour MPs including Tony Lloyd and Grahmam Stringer voting against the Conservative proposal. Local Crumpsall resident Mr Nickson said “its a disgrace, they’re totally out of touch with the needs of local communities” 

Gareth Brown, a local, and regular user of Harpurhey Post Office said “I use this post office all the time, I never realised how lucky I was having one within walking distance, and as I don’t own a car it’s going to be a real problem for me if it closes”

 

 

Labour dishonesty

It’s incredible the lack of integrity that we see around us in politics, no wonder that faith in politicians under New Labour has fallen to an all time low.

I blogged a piece about government minister James Purnell posting on his website about how fantastic Gordon Brown’s last budget was, and how it would help families in his constituency, you know, the one with the removal of the 10p tax rate, which he referred to as a good thing! Well, now when you follow the link to the piece on his site you will find the following:

ADODB.Field error ‘800a0bcd’

Either BOF or EOF is True, or the current record has been deleted. Requested operation requires a current record.

/news-1.asp, line 117

So he removed the offending story….not really surprising for the man famous for the photo-shopped photo of him at a Hospital that was essentially ‘faked’, and not to mention the ‘fake’ constituents who wrote letters of support on a campaign, used as evidence, when they were actually made-up by one of his assistants….

Congestion Charge – the flaws in the plan.

Recent newspaper articles have focused on how few people the council says will actually end up paying the charge. If this is the case, how on earth is it going to fulfill its purpose of being the income generator to repay the 1.8 billion loan? It it doesn’t pay its way, charges will go up and the area expanded (although its already so huge its hard to see how they’ll do that)

Other likely outcomes are that the fines will be huge – yet to be declared.

In the list of people who wouldn’t pay the charge, the absence of private hire cabs (who are exempt in London, but seemingly not in Manchester) seems incredible. When we’re encouraging people to not take a car into the city, shouldn’t people have more access to a cab, not less? At a time when it seems huge fuel prices are here to stay, it seems crazy to penalise those further who earn a living from driving. 

Nobody is really asking the right questions about this in the media. The balance is between how much the charge will generate in revenue, versus the cost of the loan. If it doesn’t cover it, whats the point, its just a huge waste of money. In order to try on the right side of public opinion the council tries to make it appear as if hardly anyone (apart from private cabs) will pay it. Lets have some serious answers about how many cars will need to pay the charge in order to service the debt, and what happens if this isn’t meet, is it simply added onto our council tax bills?

The weird and wonderful world of James Purnell

James Purnell is an interesting character, after coming to poplar fame initially because of the faked hospital photo scandal and fake letters from constituents, its interesting to see what else there is to say about him.

There are a couple of entertaining recent posts about him here:

http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2008/05/james-purnells-great-escape.html

http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2008/05/james-purnells-blonde-ambition.html

Another interesting link is here where Purnell writes after Gordon Brown’s final budget as chancellor where he scrapped the 10p tax rate, that it was an excellent budget for Tameside….lets hope Purnell never becomes chancellor!

Tory ‘Toffs’

The hypocrisy of New Labour; below is the result from a search in Burke’s Peerage of the name Dunwoody.

2 matches found	Search again

1.	Family Name: DUNWOODY Incumbent: GWYNETH PATRICIA DUNWOODY Lineage: WILLIAM PHILLIPS, of Aberdare; had:… … Preview Family Record
2.	Family Name: DUNWOODY Incumbent: (MOYRA) TAMSIN DUNWOODY Lineage: JOHN ELLIOTT ORR DUNWOODY; Dr; married Hon Gwyneth Patricia Dunwoody, MP (s… … Preview Family Record

http://www.burkes-peerage.net/freesearchresults.aspx

Prague visit

I spent a couple of days in Prague at the end of this week with the orchestra, making a brief visit to play a concert on Friday night as part of an international music festival at the incredible concert hall there.

I love Prague for all kinds of reasons, cultural, musical (Kafka, Dvorak) the coffee shops, Viennese connections (another city I love for similar reasons), the amazing history and beautiful buildings (I even like the bread dumplings!).

It’s always interesting seeing what other audiences look like in other parts of the world. You might say it was a more conservative audience, like Vienna, (I’ve never seen a more smartly dressed audience, they all looked like they were on their way to a grand ball!) but also a real spread of ages, fairly evenly from young to old. We performed some English music they can’t have really come across before, including Elgar’s 1st symphony, one of the pieces very much tied in with the history of the Halle. Despite being unfamiliar, the response was incredibly positive.

The city had changed a little since I was last there, the ugly soviet era housing blocks seemed to have been refurbished and made brighter, much less gloomy looking, there was large construction work going on, despite many very run-down buildings in the centre still. There are many very ugly buildings that jar with the beautiful old traditional buildings, as if to illustrate this isn’t just a British disease. The amount of greenery in the city is absolutely breathtaking compared to a city like Manchester. There are city centre residential avenues lined with trees (not just ornamental trees, but chestnut trees!) not just on both sides of the street but also in the middle, and most of then must have been planted in the last 5 years. Whenever I go somewhere else in Europe that regards itself as a great city, the difference in street environment is the thing that always strikes me most, the impoverished street environments in Manchester contrast so starkly. Not that everything was perfect there, despite their dynamic mountaineering mayor in Prague there are obvious problems, like graffiti – on some streets every lovely old building is daubed with large graffiti, a problem clearly worse than here.

Public toilets….or lack of

Lena St, Paton St, Dale St and particularly Back Piccadilly are increasingly becoming a public toilet and are begining to stink. Although Back Piccadilly is a small side street, a number of people’s apartments and balconies face onto it, and the patch of pavement next to the kitchens of the 4 star Bode Hotel is now soaked with people in twos and threes constantly urinating there.

I’ve reported the problem to the police, who as always are helpful and efficient in their responses, we’ll see if any have time to do anything about it. How the council didn’t see all this chaos coming is beyond most people – the fact is they did but simply don’t care what impact it has on the lives of city centre residents it seems.

Again, the council proves it cares little for the lives of city residents

City centre residents are used to the council’s lack of interest in improving residential city life, but today really takes the biscuit. Why on earth would they (via Cllr Pat Karney) oppose a New Years Eve celebration in the city on the grounds it would disrupt city residents (most I know would welcome it) and then not consult residents or plan properly for the invasion of football fans.

 

Currently, on my street my apartment building is being used as a toilet, and somewhere for people to dump cans and beer bottles. The streets around me are blocked by impromptu street parties, in some places with people putting down portable chairs in the street, putting their feet up on cases of beer and getting on with littering our city. It has been impossible to buy food locally or go into a cafe to eat. A continuing problem in our city is that laws are not enforced that would enhance residents quality of life. Public urination is illegal – not enforced, drinking in the street – illegal not enforced, littering, dropping cans and bottles is illegal, and not enforced. All these are aspects of city life that have been tackled far better by other cities for the benefit of local residents, but not in Manchester.

 

Last night I was kept awake by the fans, and I can only imagine how much worse tonight will be. Other residents I know are leaving the city centre to stay with friends, and local shops closing early. A new apartment building next door is full of football fans renting flats for the night, what happened to the Labour council’s plans to stop the ‘party lets’ that Cllr Karney trumpeted in the MEN during his local election campaign? 

 

Our public transport has ground to a halt, buses and the trams, shops are inaccessible, litter and anti-social behaviour everywhere. What will the state of our public spaces be tomorrow? -What was the strategy to deal with this, given that the council knew the numbers arriving for some time? Enough of the talk to get re-elected, lets see some action to improve residential city life, or finally an admission from the council that they never intended to fulfil their promises.