Last night I attended a meeting to discuss the Local Community Plan. This plan, which is available from he council and libraries etc details all the improvements that the Area Partnership (Council and agencies ie Police, NHS etc) want to make over a 3 year period.

The current plan was agreed back in 2008 and runs until 2011. Now as a local councillor I like many people get frustrated that it often seems to take forever to get things done. So it was very pleasing last night to find that so far – with a year to go 44 out of the 68 actions have been achieved, thats 2 out of 3, and 8 are still progressing.

Prestwich Festival of course is one of the big successes along with farmers markets to help boost local business etc.

Critically part of our plans for improving business involved delivering a blue print for redevelopment of the precinct. Whilst we now have an excellent blueprint for Prestwich Town centre, the actual project itself now needs pushing to be implemented

Obviously there is still plenty to do generally, and with over a year to go there were  several issues around Parking, crime and health related issues that stand out as requiring attention on which we will now be focussing our efforts, but it was pleasing nonetheless to see that we are making real progress in Prestwich.

It is likely that we will be charged with assembling a new community plan for Prestwich next year and as such we will have to re-focus our attention on the areas and issues of most concern as part of that process we must ensure we really engage and fully consult all aspects of the local community.

We must find ways (as councillors/council) of working better and more efficiently with our partners in the police, NHS, voluntary sector etc, if we are to be more effective in addressing issues in a shorter timescale. Things seem to work well at the top, but by the time you get to local community level ie Prestwich things begin to fracture.

Prestwich Area Partnership meets tonight at 6.30 at The Maccabi Sports and Leisure Centre, Bury Old Road, Prestwich (near The Woodthorpe). All welcome