Development Control - Glossop Special

The next meeting of the council's development control committee, next Monday (7th November) could almost be billed as a Glossopdale special given that out of the 5 applications for consideration 4 are from Glossopdale.

The first is for the development at the former Samas Roneo site (and we will come back to that in more detail shortly), the second for a residential development on the site of the former bus depot at York Street in Old Glossop, followed by advertising and listed building consent for signage at the Gatehouse in Glossop, and finally the application to keep portacabins at All Saints School in Old Glossop.

Two of applications are recommended for approval, and two are marked with a recommendation for refusal, but as to whether they will end up in line with the officer recommendation, you'll have to wait till next Monday to find out.

Glossop Shopers Surgery

Glossopdale’s Labour Councillors are giving local residents a chance to question their councillors whilst out shopping this coming Saturday at a unique new surgery venue.

The chance comes from their first combined councillor’s surgery at the front of Glossop’s Market Arcade across from Norfolk Sqaure.

The surgery which is running this Saturday (24^th September) from 10.00am until 11.30am features Councillors Colin Waude and Godfrey Claff who represent Howard Town, Graham Oakley from Whitfield, Bob Mckeown from Hadfield South and Anthony Mckeown from Gamesley.

Deputy Leader of High Peak Borough Council Cllr Anthony Mckeown said “Local councillors are always looking at ways to improve how we can get in touch and we know the Market Arcade is quite busy on Saturday’s, so instead of you coming to us we will be there to answer any questions, comments or queries that you may have for us”

Councillor Mckeown added “Councillor’s aren’t just available at surgeries and across Glossopdale, we are trying a range of methods to get and keep in touch. If you can’t attend on Saturday, we still want to hear from you and there’s a variety of other ways you can get in touch and let us know your concerns.”

You can see details for Labour Councillors on our website at www.glossopdale.labourhighpeak.info or alternatively on the borough council website at www.highpeak.gov.uk

Regeneration Select – Glossop special

Tuesday evening saw the second trip of the week over to Buxton.

This time for a meeting of the Regeneration Select Committee, which although taking place in Buxton the agenda for the meeting consisted largely of items about Glossop, with reports on the design and place making strategy, and the review of Glossop parking.

Image via Wikipedia

The Glossop design and place making strategy, started off proceedings and essentially this document is the condensed views of the various folk that attended workshops earlier this years to give their views on the general direction of Glossop in ‘planning terms’ no doubt (the cynic in my thinks) as it fits into the view from the consultants hired to put the strategy together.

The reason the cynic in me thinks this, is to a certain extent the end output of this process is get a document that will be used as ‘supplementary planning guidance’, so to a certain extent, aside from the specific details relating to location etc, a certain amount of the details relate to more generic planning terms, rather than a clear general vision for Glossop.

Anyway the next step is for the ‘strategy’ is to go back out for public consultation, and it will be interesting to see, how many of the folk who attended the earlier workshops will view the ‘strategy’ as having met the views they fed in.

This next stage of the ‘consultation’ will be mainly online with copies of the strategy being sent to those who attended the workshops along with various local, regional and national organisations.

If you want you can get an early preview, of the strategy by viewing the committee report which was circulated as part of the agenda and includes a copy of the strategy at : http://www2.highpeak.gov.uk/council/agenmin/regen/part1/20110118/05.pdf

One element a number of the Glossopdale members in attendance (well the Labour one’s anyway) flagged was the need for the two ‘missing’ or not ready yet reports covering the Glossop Town Hall Complex and Wood’s Mill to be circulated amongst Glossopdale Councillor’s for comments before going to be ‘rubber stamped’ for approval by the executive, rather than the original recommendation which was for the executive member to approve them without other Councillor’s having seen them.

Next up was a consultation on the draft Derbyshire Local Transport Plan from 2011 to 2026, which to some extent for any actions to improve local transport in Glossopdale essentially relies on the Longdendale Integrated Transport Strategy (sometimes referred to as bypass 2.0) as put together by Tameside Council to by passed and implemented for anything to happen with limited explanation on any measures that the County Council will take to make improvements in the Glossopdale area should the LITS plan not go ahead or have it’s funding reduced.

Also missing on a slightly wider High Peak view was any consideration of measures to implement many of the issues that were identified for transport improvement as part of process we went through to consider the failed Greater Manchester Congestion Charge Process, a number of which (in my view at least) could well be implemented in these difficult financial times at little cost to either of the council’s.

Also as part of the local transport plan were the proposals for the Gamesley Station, which again unfortunately along with most of the actions for Glossopdale seems to have being left to Tameside Council and the LITS process to solve rather than a proactive lists of actions from the County as to how they will take steps to try and get any of these actions to happen.

Last up on Glossop night, was a report on the Glossop Area Parking Review, which aside from highlighting that on the whole there is enough car parking spaces available in the centre of Glossop owned by council, didn’t really tell you that much, it did however give the opportunity for several Councillor’s to raise concerns with issues tied into parking but necessarily directly under the control of the council, mainly around problems with taxi parking outside some of the taxi offices in the centre of Glossop.

Save our Chimney !

Just for the avoidance of doubt for anyone, that has heard me say it, I am in no way responsible for the save the Ferro Alloy's Chimney letter in this week's Glossop Chronicle.

Although I have on occassions joked that at some point we would see a save the chimney group being formed, I did'nt think that anybody would be serious about it, because whilst in it's way it dose provide a connection to some of Glossop manufacturing past, the connection is at most 40 years old and is it really the best way to remember that link ?

It will be interesting to see what the response will be and if there was some group that came together what the council's response would be, because in all likelyhood if any suggestions to get the chimney listed or protected in any way were successful the cost of future maintance of the chimney would most likely fall to the council.

Warm welcome to new Mayor

Congratulations to Whitfield Labour Councillor Graham Oakley who was elected as Mayor of the High Peak on Tuesday.

Graham who has been a councillor for Whitfield since the 2007 elections has previously servered as a councillor in Simmondley and was until his recent retirement a teacher at the Duke of Norfolk School in Glossop.

Environment Select – Special Winter Maintenance Meeting

Last night (Tuesday) saw a special meeting of the council’s Environment Select Committee take place to consider issues around the theme of winter maintenance, the ‘offical’ phrase for issues around gritting and bin collection amongst other issues.

As well as the usual officers from the borough in attendance, Ian Stevenson the strategic director for Environmental Services from the County Council to answer any comments or concerns we have in that direction.

The meeting saw a proportionally higher number than you would normal expect from the committee’s membership of Glossopdale Councillor’s in attendance with several Glossop Councillor’s substituting for other’s not able to attend along with one or two extra’s.

A wide range of concerns mainly were raised before I spoke, but interesting nothing about the pavements in Glossop even though a number of Glossop councillor’s spoke before I did. There were however useful and valid points that I hope the county will address around ensuring the when road’s such as the Snake Pass are shut, signs details the road are shut, are placed far enough away (ideally at the end of the M67) to ensure HGV vehicles etc don’t reach the bottom of the Snake Pass where there is not enough room to turn around essentially blocking the road further making access difficult for both local residents and gritters !

For my own contribution to the meeting I started off with concerns other the lack of road gritting around the estate, including the absence of a snow plow until quite late on in the weeks of snow. The problems that this lack of gritting caused along with the apparent poor communication with local bus companies that meant Gamesley (although not as bad as parts of Hadfield and Tintwistle) had a number of days without buses.

I flagged up concerns with school closure information with the county council’s website referring you to a BBC website for details of school closures that was Derby based and didn’t include in particular any details on schools in Glossopdale, and limited information on the High Peak.

Moving on to High Peak issues, I flagged up concerns with the speed of the response to starting gritting, the mixed messages in some of the media releases that were made, such as the early statement saying no pavement gritting would be done by the borough, which people from outlying areas of Glossopdale would have seen in the papers, yet if they went in to the centre of Glossop the pavements were been gritted.

I also flagged the need once the borough had made arrangements to start pavement gritting for the county for a clear approach on gritting been needed, to cover all areas in the council’s ownership and not passing the buck by saying the council have no responsibility on areas within the management of High Peak Community Housing.

Bins were next with like most other members in attendance an initial thanks to the frontline staff doing the work and trying to keep the service running, but a need for clearer feedback on information on how the service is running, and better updates on when there are delays how things will be caught up, I flagged this because towards the end of the period the Council were advising local residents to put green boxes out as normal but it was several days after the normal date when they were actually collected, and it would have been better to revise the schedule and advise local residents accordingly then just keep the advise boxes etc should be left out until they would be collected.

I flagged up concerns over the steps to the co-op which whilst several in attendance commented that they are owned by the co-op and as such not the council’s responsibility, it was the council’s scheme to do them up and there are a well used route through to the station, that shouldn’t have been left so long before any effort’s on gritting them were made.

I also expressed the concern that now almost a month on since the end of the snow, the steps are still full of the grit that was put down, and haven’t been cleared up making the area not look as intended which is apparently again due to the issues over ownership, but something I hope will be tidied up whilst work on resolving those issues is ongoing.

I finished with questioning that when the county council made the review, what consideration was given to how the service would be provided once the original arrangement for the borough to do pavement gritting had ended, and was October / November when the review took place really the best time to be considering changes to winter arrangements.

Many of the issues I raised were noted, however the response over what arrangements had been put in place to provide the service was ‘woolly’ at best with no clear answer been given that any arrangements had been put in place, there was however agreement that perhaps the review should have been considered at a different time of year !

The meeting continued with a whole host of other issues been raised including more on the paths in Glossop, with a general view that the paths in Glossop Town Centre are more than just a winter maintenance issue, along with issues around grit bins and people steeling grit, questions over why community payback / service people weren’t been used to clear the paths, and the general issue around whether people should be clearing the own paths / shops fronts and if the can get sued for it.
So what comes next – Tuesday’s meeting was a useful opportunity to raise the various concerns and issues we had, which I hope will be taken on board by the officers from the borough and the county despite in some cases there been a view that the technology in place for monitoring some things was more reliable than what people had actually viewed happening on the ground.

For the county there will be a review of performance around the gritting network, a review of grit bins, but they expect no additionally routes other than those already covered will be gritted.

For the borough a winter maintenance policy will be put together and will come back to the environment select committee in the summer covering such issues as what pavements will be covered and there priority, arrangements for salt and grit supplies, issues around the ‘bin’ service, grit bins along with how all of this will be communicated to the public.

Do you use the 236 / 237 ?

If you use the 236 / 237, from Glossop to Ashton Under Lyne (and at certain times of the day to Manchester), then a survey being done by Stagecoach Manchester at the moment will be of interest to you.

The survey is in response mainly to concerns over timekeeping east of Ashton Under Lyne (i.e. through Droylsden and Ancoats) which has the potential to increase as the works for the Metrolink go on during forthcoming months.

The survey is asking for your views around the punctuality of the service as it is at the moment, along with asking for your views on the following suggestions :

a) observe a limited number of stops but not all - if so which ones should still be used?
b) run non-stop between Ashton and Manchester in both directions to allow greater flexibility to vary the route according to prevailing traffic conditions?
c) keep the present route and stopping arrangements?

The survey finishes on 11th February is available on the stagecoach website at the following link : http://www.stagecoachbus.com/236%20237%20consultation.aspx

What’s the best way to consult ?

At the recent pre Christmas full council meeting, one of the reports considered and approved by the council was the Joint Consultation and Engagement Strategy.

Within the document it details the plans for a review of the area forums which I commented was much needed with the last meeting in Glossopdale seeing 2 or 3 real member of the public and in excess of more than 20 officers, councillor’s, police and assorted other ‘official’s in attendance.

My comments were picked up by the Buxton Advertiser and reported here : http://bit.ly/7oUUSM and I hope to see details of the review been firmed up in the next few weeks.

As such I would be interested to hear your views on what would make the ‘area forum’ system work – is it more powers to make decisions ?, better topics, venues or something else – any views please let me know.

Gritting (part rant / part considered)

Over the Christmas period and in recent days there have been a number of problems and complaints raised with me (and the other Cllr Mckeown) with regards to the gritting that has been done locally.

This year the general theme of these comments has been on how poor the service has been with at least up on Gamesley there been a number of days where there appears to have been little or no gritting on the estate with the knock on effect of this been that on a number of days over the last 3 weeks there have been no bus service locally.

In addition to the problems with the road gritting, there has also been the problems with footpath gritting which the borough used to do some of, but in an apparent season of good will gesture to the county the following press release was issued where the borough abandoned all responsibility for it and handed it back to the county :

“Highways officials back in charge of all gritting

Date: 22/12/2009

Derbyshire County Council has resumed responsibility for gritting roads and pavements across High Peak.

For several years, the Borough Council had gritted some roads and pavements for the county council, as well as clearing certain road gullies.

However, a service review by both councils has resulted in a recent decision for the county council to take the entire gritting service back in house. The borough will continue to clean gullies for the county.

The decision was taken before the recent severe weather started.

Requests for gritting should be made by telephoning the Call Derbyshire contact centre on (01629) 533190 and following the menu of instructions.”

Now my problem with this is that the decision for the council to abandon the service back to the county has been done without been reviewed through the select committee process (at least as far as I can see from the environment agendas) with the last time the issue of winter maintenance was discussed been in November 2008.

With the report that was discussed in November 2008, been essentially the same one that has discussed by the committee several times before (Nov 2001, Nov 2003, Nov 2004, and Feb 2007) detailing what streets the borough council would grit since 2001 when the former highways maintenance agency run by the borough council (and in turn locally run gritting) was handed back to the county.

Now whilst knowing the process doesn’t necessarily help with understanding where things have gone wrong this year. In terms of what the county does their website still lists that various routes (including in theory the locally bus routes that should be done as a priority) but it doesn’t include details (at least so far) on what’s gone wrong this year and in terms of the borough it doesn’t explain why we’ve stopped the imperfect (but at least something) system of pavement gritting and what the staff who would have done it are doing instead.

It also doesn’t explain to residents outside of the centre of Glossop how they can be paying the same council tax as residents in the centre of Glossop and be reading in the papers that the borough is doing no gritting but seeing in the centre of Glossop the clean team and associated staff gritting the pavements of central Glossop, all of which or at least the borough part (at least) I hope to hear a greater explanation on at the next meeting of the Environmental select committee where I’ve asked for issues around winter maintenance to be put on the agenda.

Perhaps looking at in a bypartisan way, it dosen't bode well for the new Conservative management at county, who along with there Conservative allies at the borough next want to run the country.

Do something amazing – give blood

Or at least that was the plan, to get part of Christmas (in a sense) off to the ‘best’ of starts by doing something nice.

The plan anyhow was to overcome my general fear of needles and give blood, so in the run up to Christmas I planned to attend the blood donor’s session that was running at the Glossop site of Glossopdale Community College on Wednesday 23rd December.

Now as most folk will remember that day was still quite snowy but the road’s were passable and after checking the blood donor’s website and seeing no mention of cancelation I set off to an earlier appointment elsewhere (which took an age to get to with the snowy delayed public transport) and then trekked to the top of Glossop to get to the venue.

Now elsewhere I’ve flagged up my occasional annoyance with the use of the Glossopdale College for these types of ‘public events’ not because there is anything wrong with the site, but because both the Glossop and Hadfield sites are in general a bit out of the way from there respective town centres and public transport (ok I know the 237 goes past the Hadfield one) and there is at least in Glossop a number of more centrally located venues.

Anyway back to the subject and after arriving at the site it looked discouragingly closed, and after heading to another entrance it still looked closed and seeing several other people scouting round for an entrance it appeared the site was closed and the session must be cancelled, but there were no notices to say that, the only thing anywhere about been a big banner advertising that the blood donor service where there today were two sessions one in the afternoon (that I was trying to attend) and the other in the evening.

So given there was a number of folk trying to attend the session I rung the number and queried whether it was still on, and after a long time on the phone they advised the session had been cancelled due to the weather, which was quite annoying particularly as there was no notice anywhere on site advising this.

Even more annoying was when I finally got back home and had another look on the internet just to check I wasn’t mistaken from this morning and as you can see from the picture above there website still shown the session at Glossop as been on, which for anyone planning to attend the evening one would have been quite annoying.

Anyhow despite the general annoyance over this failure in helping people to do something wonderful, my rant on the topic is now finished and if you can you should give blood. Further details on how to do this are available at www.blood.co.uk with the next session in Glossop ‘supposedly’ taking place on Sunday 7th February, and who knows I may even go myself !

Glossop Mountain Rescue

Whilst it’s good to hear of the mentions from the Glossop website and BBC News of the good work of Glossop Mountain Rescue, several local residents have commented that it was a shame to hear that they weren’t able to fit the streets of Gamesley into to the annual tour around Glossopdale with Santa.

Centerbus Tweet

Well done to Centerbus of who local operator Bowers are part of, for their practical use of twitter to provide up to date information on how their services are running.

I’m not necessarily sure of how many of their passengers locally are making use of the service, but I noticed it today and it was flagging up updates throughout the day, with regards to how its 393 circular service (and other journeys elsewhere) were running throughout Glossop.

A useful service if you use that or any of the other Bowers routes which you can sign up to or view more details on at : http://twitter.com/Centrebus

Glossop Caravans

GlossopCaravans 005
Originally uploaded by AnthonyMck.


As many local’s will be aware at just after 8.00pm yesterday (Monday), the emergency services were called to a fire at the 7 acre Glossop Caravans site at Brookfield on the A57.

Initial reports were that a warehouse on the site was on fire, but on arrival crews discovered other building in the same area of the site along with some caravans were on fire, with at least one of the building’s having a number of LPG cylinders within it.

The A57 between Cottage Lane / Shaw Lane and Wooley Bridge Road was closed and at its height around 45 fire fighters from station including Glossop, Hyde, Stalybridge, Ashton Under Lyne and other within Derbyshire were in attendance.

I became aware of the incident at around 10.00pm from a local residents status on Facebook, and the various photo’s on www.flickr.com/photos/anthonymck were taken around that time.

From details picked up elsewhere and from what I could see of the site, it appears the damage has been limited to the rear section of the site (across the river) with several building’s been damaged, and around 20 caravans’s been destroyed.

The A57 remained closed until Tuesday afternoon causing various issues with traffic, but as far as I am aware throughout the whole of the incident no one has been injured.

Following a few calls this morning from local residents with regards to concern over black dust / residue and bits of debris that has been scattered following the fire – I checked with environmental health for health concerns and was advised providing local’s do not consume the snow there should be no lasting health ramifications.

At current no details have been advised as to the cause of the fire, with an investigation due to start once the site has been made safe.

In terms of what happens next I’m hoping that that damage will not cause any loss of employment and whilst the site is obviously closed at the moment a notice on the Glossop Caravan’s website advises that the site will reopen on Sunday 27th December at 10.00am.

No say for tourism

When the area forums were setup a few years ago, the intention behind them was to provide a forum for local residents to discuss issues of concern and get more involved in local decision making.

Following recent stories in the paper’s and a range of comments locally around the theme of tourism, and in particular the closure of Glossop’s Heritage Centre and Tourist Centre I thought it would be a useful idea to discuss issues around tourism at the next forum and allow all the issues and concerns over the recent closure to be raised.

However despite suggesting the area I was advised that the topic of Coping throughout the Recession and planning community events won’t leave any time to discuss an issue that to my mind could at least help or provide some assistance to both of the themes for the area forum.

That said I still think the area forum will be worthwhile even if it is covering the same topic as was discussed at the recent central area forum.

Councillor’s surgery - housing growth options consultation

This Saturday sees the second and final councillor’s surgery during the housing growth options consultation. As with our normal surgery it will take place from 11.00am until 12.00noon at the Gamesley Residents Association Office on Winster Mews.

As with the previous surgery, the main focus is on the current housing growth options consultation that is ongoing and that comes to a close on the 1^st October.

Copies of the council consultation along with further information and details on the consultation will be available on Saturday morning, additional details are also on the council’s website www.highpeak.gov.uk.

In addition there are also details on my website www.anthonymckeown.info, including a short survey just asking for your views on the Glossopdale options that you can complete online, if you can, please take the time to complete the survey as your views are important.

Tourist Information

Last Friday saw the Heritage Centre and Tourist Information Centre in Glossop close their doors for the last time at their Henry Street base.

I think overall this is a shame, and that the council response whilst welcome in terms of looking at a review of ‘visitor services’ across Glossopdale dose appear to be slightly tardy coming as done after the existing premises have shut down.

Now whilst I think there may have been a lack of clarity about when, why and what was happening overall which may have prevented such a review for taking place earlier I do hope the review will take place as quickly as possible so that options can be considered as soon as possible, I also think that it would be a worthwhile topic for consideration at the next area forum due to take place in October.

In terms of my own view, whilst the ‘interim’ measure of having leaflet’s in the Town Hall is welcome, at least until the review is complete urgent attention should be given to making sure leaflets are available elsewhere such as somewhere within the Market, because a time when many visitors tend to come is weekend, when the Town hall is shut, making it a fairly useless interim solution.

When the review dose come, for my own money I think greater consideration should be given to looking at the unit on Glossop Rail Station that has in the past been a shop and taxi office, but would surely make a perfect place at least for tourist information services.

Housing Growth Options Consultation

As noted previously High Peak Borough Council is consulting the public on where to put about 3,500 new homes before 2026.

Within Glossopdale there are six options up for consideration.

For further information on the proposals for Glossopdale click here

To respond to the proposal’s for Glossopdale via a quick survey please click here

You can also view the full proposals on the council’s website and comment via there system by clicking here.

As is noted in the pages on the main site the council has an exhibition about the growth strategy in the Glossop Market Arcade on Friday, September 4 from 11.00am - 3.00pm and displays at local libraries.

In addition you can also collect information on the proposals at our councillor’s surgery on either Saturday 29th August or Saturday 26th September both from 11.00am until 12.00noon in the GRA Office on Winster Mews.

Councillor’s Surgery

Saturday 29th August from 11.00am until 12.00noon will see this month’s councillor’s surgery taking place.

As usual the surgery will take place at the Gamesley Residents Office on Winster Mews and whilst we haven’t set a theme as such it will be one of two surgeries taking place during the consultation period for the ‘growth options’ consultation of the ‘Joint Core Strategy’ which is due to start on the 27th August.

The consultation which I expect will have a lot of local interest is looking at what land should be set aside for Glossopdale’s share of the 3500 new homes that accordingly to the regional plan need to be built in the period until 2026.

Further details on this will be available here in the next week or so.

Glossop Tourist Information / Heritage Centre

There has been much ado in the local papers about the fate of Glossop’s tourist information centre and heritage centre, with various parties questioning the commitment etc to providing a service in Glossop as opposed to what the council provides in Buxton.

Now whilst I’m pleased to hear of a review of tourist services in Glossop, I am slightly concerned that there appeared to be an emphasis in the executive members recent press comments on providing services without an actual tourist information centre, which I don’t think would be a good thing for Glossop.

One voice however that doesn’t seem to having a say on the issue is Cllr Jean Wharmby the council’s representative on the heritage centre’s management committee, because surely these issues haven’t just appeared and I would hope that the Council’s representative would have been working with the council as soon as these issues were flagged up rather than (from the impression in the report in local papers) it apparently coming as a surprise to the council.

School holidays

Depending on which of the local schools you may have children attending, this week sees either the first week back after or the second week of the Easter Holidays.

For those who are still off, there is still a range of events taking place across Glossopdale including a number of activities taking place on or around Gamesley including a session at the 'Roman gardens' between 1pm and 3pm on Wednesday, a trip to the science museum on Thursday along with boxing in the evening and a parent and toddler chocolate hunt on Friday.

Further details are available from the (Gamesley events) Sport and Community Centre on Melandra Castle Road, (all Glossopdale events) www.Glossop.com or by phone on (Gamesley events) 01457 869145.