Regional Cities

Just a quick note about other regional cities I’ve been to recently. All UK cities have been changing for the better. Although I think along with other Mancunians that Manchester has been doing the best in some ways I’m keen for us not to be complacent.

A few days ago I got the train to Nottingham for a Halle concert I was playing in. I got the tram straight from the station, it was quick, had more capacity than our trams and stopped right outside the concert hall.

Today I’m writing this from Cafe Nero in the main square behind the town hall in Sheffield. I have written before about the changes here, but today on this sunny evening the difference in amazing. The city is cleaner and greener than Manchester (people who know Sheffield will know the winder gardens, and the small but frequent public spaces work really well. The main square behind the town hall works better than any of ours I believe. Its sunny and people are sitting outside eating (not just drinking!) people are sitting on the grass, by the fountians and many water features, and it has a real European feel to it. There is nobody playing foorball on the grass or fountain as there always is in Piccadilly Gardens, there are no groups of scallies, its just extremely pleasant and works so well. City Lofts are building apartments next to here and you get the feeling the area has more of a joined up plan than some of ours.

Anyway, I’m going to be late on stage if I don’t leave now, but I’ll re-visit this theme later….

Litter and vandals….

I walked through the little planted area on Dale Street the day after the election and the litter has started to build there. Its an area not used by the local residents, but by vagrants drinking and drug-taking. Its an area that we cleaned up twice during my campaign. We also planted new things there to add some colour. The things we planted there that I had posted photos of on here were all torn out of the ground and killed – the other existing things next to them were left intact….

After the election…

Well, the status quo was upheld by a turnout of 16% in the city centre. This is half the turnout in other wards in Manchester, and well shy of the 50% achieved in parts of Trafford. It was a close result in the city centre with me being behind the Lib Dems by roughly 150 votes, with my vote up and theirs down. I’d like to congratulate Ken Dobson the re-elected Lib Dem councillor for running a clean campaign. I’d like to sincerely thank all my supporters who have been fantastic in everything they’ve done, and I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me. You sent a message that things are changing here and you’re at the forefront of that change which will soon become reality. The Conservative picked up council seats all around Manchester, two more in Salford increasing their total to 12 – in Manchester there are still none, effectively a one-party system still reigns here. Surely change should come very soon.

When so many people have told me that they were happy with the work I was doing, and its so important to them to have representation at the town hall by someone who is part of city life, I feel that I should stand for election again this year. The Lib Dem councillor who will be up for re-election this time also does not live in the City Centre Ward. Someone had asked me in my campaign, when I talk about how New York is a safer city and more attractive in its residential areas, Berlin is so much cleaner, Milan so much greener, why don’t I just go live there. Well, that’s at the  heart of the problem, I could do, and so could many other people who live in the city centre, but surely we don’t want that? People don’t live in the city centre because the housing is cheap, or because they grew up there, its a choice, and one that is aspirational. Its about how we want the city to develop, you would never buy a very expensive flat on a dark street with burned out buildings thinking that was the final story, we expect it to get better, and need people with experience of city life and the vision to drive it forward. That’s why I will keep campaigning in the city centre.