Gordon Birtwistle & Burnley Liberal Democrats» News http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk Fighting for real change for Burnley and Padiham Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:17:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Birtwistle welcomes assurances on Burnley Pension Centre http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/08/25/birtwistle-welcomes-assurances-on-burnley-pension-centre http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/08/25/birtwistle-welcomes-assurances-on-burnley-pension-centre#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:01:27 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=596 Burnley and Padiham MP Gordon Birtwistle has welcomed an assurance from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that there are no plans to close the Burnley Pension Centre in Simonstone.
Mr Birtwistle visited the centre last month to see the work they do first hand. He wrote to Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith setting out the case for preserving the centre.
Gordon said:
“This centre is doing an excellent job in providing services to pension and pension credit claimants. The legacy of the Labour government to all of us was to double the national debt and we’ll be paying the price for that for years to come. However, it would make little sense to close a centre that has recently opened and I’m glad to receive an assurance that this is not the case.”

Burnley and Padiham MP Gordon Birtwistle has welcomed an assurance from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that there are no plans to close the Burnley Pension Centre in Simonstone.
Mr Birtwistle visited the centre last month to see the work they do first hand. He wrote to Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith setting out the case for preserving the centre.
Gordon said:“This centre is doing an excellent job in providing services to pension and pension credit claimants. The legacy of the Labour government to all of us was to double the national debt and we’ll be paying the price for that for years to come. However, itwould make little sense to close a centre that has recently opened and I’m glad to receive an assurance that this is not the case.”

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/08/25/birtwistle-welcomes-assurances-on-burnley-pension-centre/feed 0 Apprenticeships will deliver the people of the future, doing the jobs of the future http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/06/18/apprenticeships-will-deliver-the-people-of-the-future-doing-the-jobs-of-the-future http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/06/18/apprenticeships-will-deliver-the-people-of-the-future-doing-the-jobs-of-the-future#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:49:38 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=582 Gordon Birtwistle, newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Burnley continued to press the Government about apprenticeships during a debate on ‘Building a High Skilled Economy’.

Drawing on his experience as an engineering apprentice 50 years ago, and as leader of Burnley Council in trying to attract high-skill jobs to Burnley, Gordon highlighted the need to invest in new developments and in the people to deliver them.

Following the debate he said, “The last Government had this idea that over 50% of young people should go to university, this has meant that there is now a dearth of well qualified young people who have been trained through apprenticeships for hands on jobs such as manufacturing. Quite often big jobs are sent abroad as we can’t supply enough skilled labourers, I want to see apprenticeships and vocational college courses become as highly regarded as the top university degrees and think that the young people of Burnley deserve the opportunity to have plenty of options to chose from when leaving school.’

Gordon Birtwistle has also been speaking to newly appointed Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable about the apprenticeships scheme and is due to meet the Apprenticeship Director of the Business & Skills Department at the end of the month to discuss how the apprenticeships will be delivered in Burnley.

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/06/18/apprenticeships-will-deliver-the-people-of-the-future-doing-the-jobs-of-the-future/feed 0 Compensation for Burnley’s Equitable Life victims is long overdue – Gordon Birtwistle http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/05/30/compensation-for-burnley%e2%80%99s-equitable-life-victims-is-long-overdue-%e2%80%93-gordon-birtwistle http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/05/30/compensation-for-burnley%e2%80%99s-equitable-life-victims-is-long-overdue-%e2%80%93-gordon-birtwistle#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 11:00:49 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=573 Victims of the Equitable Life collapse can finally expect compensation as Liberal Democrat MPs push forward new legislation.

Liberal Democrat MP for Burnley, Gordon Birtwistle described the announcement as a “massive relief” for the millions of people who lost up to half their pensions in the collapse.

The Equitable Life Bill, which was outlined to the House of Commons yesterday [Wednesday], will give the Treasury the authority to make payments to policyholders or dependents who have been fighting the Labour Government for compensation since 2000.

A previous Liberal Democrat motion to get compensation for the millions of people involved was defeated in October 2009.

Gordon Birtwistle, Liberal Democrat MP for Burnley said:

“The previous Government continually ignored the millions of people who lost their savings.

“People in Burnley lost up to half their pensions in the fiasco yet Labour failed to act, ignoring Liberal Democrat advice, ignoring the High Court and ignoring an Ombudsman report.

“This Bill is a massive relief to thousands of pensioners and is long overdue.

“I am delighted that something the Liberal Democrats have been calling for can now finally happen. We are using our position in Government to give policyholders the money they deserve.”

The full text of the written statement to the Commons is available here:


]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/05/30/compensation-for-burnley%e2%80%99s-equitable-life-victims-is-long-overdue-%e2%80%93-gordon-birtwistle/feed 0 COUNCILLOR’S DEPARTURE A TRAGIC LOSS TO BURNLEY http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/14/councillors-departure-a-tragic-loss-to-burnley http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/14/councillors-departure-a-tragic-loss-to-burnley#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:21:30 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=435

Bill Bennett

County Councillor Bill Bennett, much loved for his dedication to communities in Burnley, died in hospital on Saturday morning, following a brief battle with cancer.

After a career that included army Signals, Lucas and more than twenty five years service with the Royal Mail, Coun Bennett had dedicated his life to supporting many groups across Burnley. He represented Burnley residents on two local authority councils and supported Burnley Civic Society, Burnley Boys Club, Barden Lane Nursery and the Royal British Legion.

Coun Bennett’s family have expressed their sincere thanks to people from Burnley and across the county for the kindness and support that they showed to Bill during his stay in hospital.

Coun Bennett’s wife, Cathy, said, “Bill loved being a councillor. He loved helping people. He was always in the front, getting involved in everything. He was determined when he joined the County Council to make the two local councils work together and I hope that work will be carried on.”

Burnley Council colleague Darren Reynolds said, “The family have asked me to say that they were amazed by the overwhelming numbers of people who had been in touch.

“The family are very much in everyone’s thoughts. Cathy welcomes the kind offers of support people are making and is happy for anyone to get in touch at normal times of the day.

“Cathy showed me the massive stack of cards and letters that Bill had been sent whilst in hospital. Messages came from as far afield as an expatriate in Germany, but the most touching messages were those from local well-wishers. It really came home to me just how widely he was appreciated when I was working outdoors in our Queensgate ward. So many people kept asking me how he was doing that I could barely remember them all when passing their wishes on.

“Bill was an amazing man. He stayed positive right through to the end. He still had his mobile telephone switched on in his hospital bed, taking calls from people in need of help. It is so sad, and so unfair that we have lost him.”

Councillor Bennett was aged 61. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/14/councillors-departure-a-tragic-loss-to-burnley/feed 0 REVIEW TOLD: RE-OPEN BURNLEY’S A&E http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/02/review-told-re-open-burnleys-ae http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/02/review-told-re-open-burnleys-ae#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:42:51 +0000 Darren Reynolds http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=423

Cllr Darren Reynolds

Queensgate Councillor Darren Reynolds

Burnley’s councillor responsible for health service scrutiny will tonight bluntly tell NHS officials they must fully re-open Burnley’s Accident and Emergency unit.
Coun Darren Reynolds, who chairs Burnley’s Liberal Democrat party and sits on Lancashire’s health scrutiny committee, will deliver a devastating critique of a review of Burnley’s Urgent Care Centre, and insist that re-opening Burnley’s A&E is the only solution to the failures in Blackburn.
The review is taking place after Pendle’s Gordon Prentice MP secured the intervention of the Prime Minister and met with the Secretary of State for Health. It is being conducted over a two-day period this week. But the officials conducting the review have been instructed not to consider re-opening Burnley’s A&E, leading some to claim that the Labour-inspired review is a whitewash before it has started.
Coun Reynolds will say:
“Burnley people will never accept that routinely travelling to Blackburn for emergency treatment is better than receiving treatment in their own hospital.
“This review is looking at all the wrong things and is based on false information and untruths.
“The review makes a starting assumption that Burnley people asked to have their hospital downgraded when they chose between the options put out for consultation. There were only two options to choose from, and both of them involved closing Burnley’s A&E to emergencies. I’m sorry, but people are not that stupid.
“It is also a starting assumption that the changes had nothing to do with money. This is despite the fact that I’ve been given a copy of the minutes of the meeting which decided to press ahead with downgrading Burnley’s hospital. In them, it is declared that, ‘The option of Burnley General focussing on emergency care was considered but the amount of investment required to redesign the Burnley site to make it viable as the emergency site is unaffordable.’
“No other explanation for the closure to emergencies is given.

“Finally, it is a starting assumption that outcomes have not worsened for patients as a result of the changes. But no proof is offered. There is no comparison with other hospitals. The only group of patients that ever get a mention are cardiac patients, who are generally doing better anyway across the country thanks to improvements in medical technology. There is nothing to link this narrow set of improvements to the reconfiguration, and there are wholesale gaps in the claims for all other groups of patients.

“The review is set up only to consider Burnley’s Urgent Care Centre as it stands. They have not been told to look at the problems in Blackburn but they have been told not to consider re-opening Burnley’s A&E. Given that this is the only solution to the problem, we are at stalemate. The system is broken.”
]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/03/02/review-told-re-open-burnleys-ae/feed 0 Gritting Chaos http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/01/11/gritting-chaos http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/01/11/gritting-chaos#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:31:43 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=389 Last year we had a Labour run County Council and they didn’t grit the roads properly and refused to refill some grit bins.
Now we have a Conservative Council, and again there was chaos as some roads weren’t gritted properly and they refused to refill grit bins.
“We could have avoided this” said Cllr Charlie Briggs, the leader of the Lib Dems on the County Council.  “Last year Lib Dem County Councillors proposed a £690,000 boost for winter gritting but Labour and Conservative Councillors teamed up to vote that plan down.”
“Conservative Councillors gambled that we wouldn’t have a severe winter.  They lost and we are all paying the price.”

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2010/01/11/gritting-chaos/feed 0 KNOCK IT DOWN! http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/12/01/knock-it-down http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/12/01/knock-it-down#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:51:20 +0000 Darren Reynolds http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=376 4144318135_df1b1e0bde_b

A Council is threatening to force a family with mobility difficulties to knock down the porch they built to store their mobility scooter and wheelchair because it is too close to the street.
But in a first use of new powers, Lib Dem councillors are seeking to intervene to get planning permission granted instead.
In an email to Queensgate ward Coun Darren Reynolds, a planning officer says that the porch is “not acceptable” and that it is a decision for council officers, not councillors.

Another planning officer has told Coun Reynolds that planning permission is required for any development within two metres of the highway. She said that the porch was too big, and should have been built out of stone instead of PVC.

Mr Frank Davies, who lives with his wife, son and daughter, said of his son, “William hasn’t been able to walk since he caught TB and meningitis at the age of two. We’re not supposed to store the electric scooter in the house because of the fire risk, and anyway there just isn’t room for all the equipment.
“I did ask whether I needed planning permission before the porch was built and I was told that I didn’t. I also asked all my neighbours and they were all happy with the idea.
“But now someone has complained and the Council are saying that I shouldn’t have built it. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We spent a lot of money on the porch. It was well-made by a local firm and I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Coun Reynolds said, “I can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with this porch. It’s not blocking anyone’s window, it looks pretty enough, it’s built entirely on Mr Davies’ property in his small front yard. This is the only place it could go.
“But this is about more people than the Davies family. Accross Burnley, many people with mobility difficulties live in homes of a similar size. Often scooters or wheelchairs are kept in a corridor behind the front door because getting them any further into the house can be difficult. This creates a risk of minor injuries and falls when someone trips over them.
“Burnley Council has changed in recent years and is now doing a much better job at using common sense and listening to the town’s residents. The porch is helping this family with their mobility. Planning permission should be granted and I hope there will be a chance to change the officers’ minds.”

Coun Reynolds is hoping to be the first councillor in Burnley to use new powers to force such decisions out of the hands of officers and give them to a committee of councillors. This would allow the public to speak about the planning application at an open meeting in the Town Hall.

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/12/01/knock-it-down/feed 0 Burnley Council Makes New Demand for Hospitals Review http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/22/burnley-council-makes-new-demand-for-hospitals-review http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/22/burnley-council-makes-new-demand-for-hospitals-review#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:21:46 +0000 Darren Reynolds http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=352 Burnley Council tonight called on both the government and the local Hospitals Trust to set up an independent expert review of how emergency hospital care is provided in East Lancashire.
The call comes after Pendle MP Gordon Prentice secured the intervention of the Prime Minister in addressing problems with East Lancashire’s inadequate Emergency Department at the Royal Blackburn Hospital.
At a full meeting of the Council, councillors of all four political parties voted unanimously to support a motion put forward by health scrutiny member Coun Darren Reynolds asking both the Trust and the Secretary of State to have outside experts give a second opinion on whether Burnley should have its own Accident and Emergency department.
Councillors wanted to know why smaller pairs of towns elsewhere in Lancashire and Yorkshire had independent units that are able to keep to their budgets, meet government targets and win national recognition for providing the best treatment for patients. Councillors poured scorn on suggestions that Blackburn was big enough to provide a service for the whole of East Lancashire, saying that the evidence time and again proved otherwise.
Coun Darren Reynolds said, “The hospitals bosses have said publicly that they respect the democratic process. I believe it is now for them to prove that by accepting the unanimous request of Burnley Council and setting up the review we have been demanding since the chaos in Blackburn began, two years ago.

“It may prove that only extra money will permit Burnley to have its own facilities. If so, then the government needs to respond. Burnley people and their local representatives will always prioritise public health over illegal foreign wars, useless ID cards and disastrous defence procurement projects. This money must be spent instead on helping people to stay fit and healthy, and that is what we expect our government to do.”

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/22/burnley-council-makes-new-demand-for-hospitals-review/feed 0 Time for an inquiry over Burnley A&E http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/14/time-for-an-inquiry-over-burnley-ae http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/14/time-for-an-inquiry-over-burnley-ae#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:46:45 +0000 Campaign http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=339 Now is the time for local hospital bosses to hold a truly independent inquiry into the closure of Burnley’s A&E unit.

“We now have a new Chair and Chief Executive of the local hospitals trust”, said local campaigner Gordon Birtwistle.  “Now they can start to undo the mistakes made in recent years.”

The Trust’s new chief executive is also the Chief Exec for two successful A&Es in Halifax and Huddersfield.  These serve two towns closer together and with a smaller population than Burnley and Blackburn and show that it is possible to have an effective solution with two A&E units.
Gordon led the fight against the Labour government’s plans to shut Burnley’s A&E unit and recently presented a petition signed by over 9000 local people calling for it to be re-opened.

Sign the petition today

]]> http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/14/time-for-an-inquiry-over-burnley-ae/feed 0 Hero cops have injury pensions slashed says Chris Huhne http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/07/hero-cops-have-injury-pensions-slashed-says-chris-huhne http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/2009/10/07/hero-cops-have-injury-pensions-slashed-says-chris-huhne#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:29:35 +0000 Burnley Lib Dems http://www.burnleylibdems.org.uk/?p=329
Thousands of police officers forced to retire after being injured in the line of duty face having their injury pensions cut back to minimum levels, research by the Liberal Democrats has found.

Previously, officers were allocated an additional sum each year to compensate them for the injuries they received, even when they reached retirement age. However, since Home Office guidance was issued in 2004, many forces have reassessed officers when they have reached retirement age and reduced their injury awards to the lowest possible level. The Government’s recent response to a consultation on this subject suggests that this practice is about to become more widespread.
Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne has written to Alan Johnson to demand that he put an end to the practice of police injury pensions being changed retrospectively.

Commenting, Chris Huhne said:

“The thousands of police officers who have been injured in the line of duty are a reminder of what a dangerous and difficult job it can be.

“As a result of Home Office guidance, many have had their injury pensions slashed and even more are at risk after the Government endorsed the policy in a recent consultation.

“When ill health forced them to retire, they were promised that they would be compensated for the rest of their lives. It is unfair to move the goalposts now.

“There is an exact parallel with the military covenant, and it will prove just as embarrassing to the Home Office as it was to the Ministry of Defence.

“Hero cops who put their bodies on the line in the name of the public safety deserve to be more than just a victim of budget cuts.

“These brave men and women are now faced with a hefty drop in income once they reach retirement age and a very uncertain future as a result.

“This is another example of the Government breaking promises to those that choose to serve.”

A copy of Chris Huhne’s letter to Alan Johnson can be read here.

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