Last week – a not so brief review

Monday saw a meeting of the environment select committee, which covered reports on the Twin Bin Scheme, EMAS, Beacon Council Status, and the public toilet strategy. Some interesting points raised, but still quite a bit of concern over the new twin bin schemes which will be starting at the end of May.

I also received an update about the works on the shops at Winster Mews (see picture left), which as anyone visiting the shops in the last few days will have noticed, appear to have stopped.

The reason for this is that they have stopped (for a few days at least) due to the contractors doing the work, apparently going bump ! Fortunately, a new contractor has now been appointed, and should be on site on Tuesday, with works expected to be completed by the end of the month.

On Wednesday, I attended a meeting of the Tameside Local Transport Group at Ashton Town Hall.

The local transport groups, which are run by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, offer an opportunity for local residents, councillors, voluntary groups etc to meet with both the decision makers on transport within Greater Manchester, but also the various bus and rail companies that provide these local services.

Now the reason why they allow High Peak BC to send a representative, is due to a lot of our bus services and the rail service, starting or finishing within the Greater Manchester Area.

A useful meeting, but unfortunately on this occasion it was missing a representative from Stagecoach who up to the end of this month, still provide a lot of the services in the Glossopdale area.

Wednesday also saw this month’s Glossopdale Branch meeting, which had an interesting discussion on issues around the education bill, which received its second reading on the same night.

Thursday contained a meeting of the High Peak Labour Group, which reviewed our performance at last months council meeting, along with a few items on forthcoming work in the week’s ahead.

Friday, and with no meetings, I had a visit to the cinema to see V for vendetta. An interesting and very well put together film, with perhaps a relevant message for the current time, on the theme that the people should never be afraid of their Government, but the Government should be afraid of its people.

This theme (but not the methods used in the film) is perhaps a lesson that the current Party leadership need to bear in mind with some of their more interesting policy idea’s.