Gordon Birtwistle & Burnley Liberal Democrats» campaign

Burnley’s Liberal Democrats welcome 20mph announcement

Burnley Lib Dems — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:44:37 +0000

Lancashire County Council have announced plans to make all residential roads in the County into 20mph areas by 2013. The changes are estimated to cost £9million, and will roll out around schools initially.
Burnley Liberal Democrats have welcomed the announcement, and have a proven record of campaigning for 20mph limits across the whole of Burnley and Pendle.

‘Sound investment’ – Coun Martin Smith

Coun Martin Smith said, “I’m delighted with this. This is exactly what the Lib Dems called for first in 2007, then again in February last year. All the residential areas in Burnley need these speed limits applied. The County Council is right to start with schools.

“Even where the new limit applies there will still be accidents. Not everyone will comply with the limit. There will still be accidents on our rural roads, too.

“But this is a sound investment.

“The Department for Transport has estimated that an accident causing serious injury costs around £178,000. That covers investigations, ambulances, hospital treatment and so on. They estimated that cost of someone being killed was over £1.5 million.

“With the estimated £9m cost of the new limits being spread across the whole of Lancashire, you can easily see how the investment in signage will be repaid. That’s without even trying to place a value on the lives lost, which is incalculable anyway and comes over and above the savings.”

The area’s roads are the responsibility of Lancashire County Council, but since 2007 Burnley Council has been requesting improvements to road safety in residential areas, particularly around the town’s schools.

The move comes after a Lib Dem motion to Burnley Council in 2007 calling for the limits to be introduced. At the time, the call for blanket limits was blocked by Labour who instead wanted to see traffic calming, road-narrowing bollards and parking restrictions.

The new limits are to be introduced gradually over the next few years, starting with roads through residential areas near schools.

BULKY COLLECTION CHARGES TO BE SLASHED

Burnley Lib Dems — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:25:13 +0000

Liberal Democrats on Burnley Council are demanding an end to the high charges for collecting bulky items which the previous Labour administration voted for in January 2006.

Coun Linda White, who represents residents in Brunshaw, said that many of the people who live in her area simply cannot afford to pay such high fees. At the moment, all the Borough’s residents must pay £17.95 for up to four bulky items, such as a wardrobe or a mattress, to be removed. For fridges and freezers, this charge is paid per item.

Coun White said, “If you have to pay £17.95 just to get your bedside cabinet removed because it won’t fit in your wheelie bin, that’s nearly the price of a small skip!

“When there’s so much uncertainty around about jobs and money, every charge the Council makes has to be looked at for savings. Surely this charge doesn’t reflect the true cost of collecting a sofa?”

Other councillors have said the Council should use Freecycle to improve re-use rates. Freecycle is a service that allows people with unwanted but usable goods to find someone who can make use of them. Coun Karen Heseltine, who represents Rosehill and Burnley Wood, said that the cost of sending goods to landfill was up to £50 per ton. Coun Heseltine said she would like to see some of the goods collected by the Council passed on to someone in need instead.

The matter is set to come before the Council’s decision-making body in the coming weeks. Coun Charlie Briggs, the executive member responsible, said, “I agree with Linda and Karen. These charges are too high and we have to look at a way of bringing the costs down.

“It’s made a bit easier because recycling rates in the borough have almost tripled since the Lib Dems took over running the Council. We’re keeping a lid on waste disposal costs because instead of paying to put rubbish into landfill, the Council earns money by selling clean rubbish to scrap dealers.

“On the other hand, our contractor charges us the equivalent of about £30 for each bulky collection, which is nearly double what we currently charge to residents.

“The exact price the Council can cut the charge down to for a bulky collection is still being worked out, but I’m determined we must pass all savings on to taxpayers. We should cut the charges as low as we can get them without it impacting the Council Tax, even though budgets are already very stretched.

“If we can get the charge down to £10 and do that without putting Council Tax up then I think everyone will be delighted. I’m going to ask officers if they can find a way to do that on a three month trial basis and see where we go from there.”

The final decision rests with the Council Executive.

Editors Footnote: Burnley and Pendle Freecycle is now known as Burnley and Pendle Realcycle, and can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/burnleyandpendlerealcycle/

We have been asked by the Labour Party to clarify the statement in the first paragraph of the above story.

Labour-run Burnley Council decided in January 2006 to introduce charges for the collection of bulky waste. At that time they voted to introduce a charge of £10 per collection (£11.75 including VAT) with plans for it to rise to £15 (£17.62 including VAT) for the 2007/8 financial year.

This policy was followed when the 2007/8 budget was set (Labour at this point had been voted out of running Burnley Council by local people)

There was an inflationary increase of 1.8% under the Lib Dems to £17.95 for the financial year 2008/9. As the article above makes clear the Lib Dem-run Council has since reduced this charge to the current £11.75 (inc VAT) which is well below the level intended by the previous Labour administration.

The opening paragraph has been redrafted to make this clearer. For transparency it is recorded that it originally read “Liberal Democrats on Burnley Council are demanding an end to the £17.95 charges introduced by the previous Labour executive for collecting bulky items.”

We are happy to provide this clarification.

‘HOSPITALS CHAIR MUST NOT BE HOODWINKED’ – BIRTWISTLE

Burnley Lib Dems — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:00:48 +0000

Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Coun Gordon Birtwistle is demanding the re-opening of Burnley’s Accident and Emergency after discovering that the new East Lancs hospitals chief executive believes that two A&Es are needed even for a smaller population than that supported by just one A&E in East Lancashire. And Burnley Council is set to pass a motion making its own demands at its next meeting. Led by the Lib Dems, the Council will insist that the decision to close the Burnley service be re-examined by outside experts, repeating the calls made by both Burnley and Pendle councils in February 2008, and echoing calls made recently by former hospital governors Ian Woolley and Peter Pike. The moves follow the delivery of petitions by Coun Birtwistle to the hospitals trust and to NHS East Lancashire containing a total of over 15,000 signatures. But incoming hospitals chair and former Labour County Council leader Hazel Harding said, “The Trust does not share the view that a further independent external assessment of emergency care is necessary. A further external assessment will not be commissioned by the Trust.” The trust that manages Burnley and Blackburn hospitals has both a new chair and chief executive, and the Lib Dems believe this represents the best opportunity to get the A&E re-opened that Burnley is likely to have for several years.
	Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Coun Gordon Birtwistle said, “The new chair and chief executive were not part of the decision to close Burnley to emergencies. They bear no responsibility for it. There is no reason for them to insist on keeping it closed and they have nothing to lose by ordering a review of the decision.
“The new chief executive also runs hospitals at Halifax and Huddersfield. Both these hospitals have an A&E but they are just 5.2 miles apart, much closer together than Burnley and Blackburn. These Yorkshire hospitals have no trouble meeting the A&E waiting time targets, the books are balanced and a national audit said these hospitals had the best probable survival outcomes for patients suffering major trauma, by which they mean things like traffic accidents. “Burnley should have what Huddersfield has – the best outcomes for patients. “The new chair needs to be bold and to meet the aspirations of the people who both pay for and use the service. She must not let herself be hoodwinked by what remains of the old management at the Trust.” The Trust’s new chief executive splits her time between East Lancashire and the Halifax and Huddersfield areas. Former trust governor and fellow Lib Dem Coun Darren Reynolds added, “The hospitals at Halifax and Huddersfield provide two A&Es for a population of around 435,000 people, but in East Lancs we have a single Emergency Department for over half a million people. “It’s not just Halifax and Huddersfield that do better. Chorley and Royal Preston hospitals both offer an Accident and Emergency department. They are less than 14 miles apart, less than the distance between Burnley and Blackburn hospitals. The Chorley and Preston hospitals only cover 370,000 people, less than two thirds of the number of people in East Lancs. “No-one is suggesting that these other areas would do better if one of their A&Es were shut. “It is perfectly obvious to me that Burnley was downgraded for financial reasons. Board meeting minutes show that having an A&E at Burnley was not thought viable because it was too expensive. There are two reasons for that. “One is poor management at the Trust. The breast cancer scandal does nothing to improve public confidence in the trust management, nor does the money wasted on the scrapped Foundation Trust bid, which should never have been started. “The other reason is that we have a government that continues to prioritise killing people in foreign countries over saving people here. How can it be right to spend billions on new nuclear missiles when our own hospitals aren’t up to scratch?” “This is unfair on Burnley. We’ve just as much right to the best health care as anywhere else in the country. “But none of this can be blamed on either the new chair or the new chief executive. If they can get a grip of the situation and turn things around, the people of Burnley will be delighted.”