Manchester Labour ‘has a fanatical obsession with posh flats’

The Liberal Democrats chose to tap into a running argument within the lead Labour group over affordable housing in the city centre, giving it to the leadership with both barrels.

While welcoming plans to bring empty properties back into use as affordable housing, new Lib Dem councillor Richard Kilpatrick referred to the council’s ‘shameful record in the provision of affordable housing’ and enforcement of ‘106 agreements’ on developers, the deals that are theoretically supposed to squeeze money out of them for cheaper homes.

Referring to the refurbishment and restoration of the town hall, he added: “It is utterly reprehensible that the council spends £350m renovating its own home while allowing developers to get away with failing to develop affordable housing that this city needs.”

He added: “This, coupled with the fanatical obsession to approve executive high rises in our city with no enforcement of affordable housing there within only perpetuates Manchester’s ‘buy to leave’ crisis.”

Such a scenario was fuelling a London-style ‘bubble’ in the city centre, he added.

Council leader Sir Richard Leese, who had already responded to Lib Dem leader John Leech on the same issue a few minutes earlier, was typically cutting in his answer.

“As I stated previously, the record on affordable housing in Manchester is one of the best in the country and will get better,” he said.

“I think the occupants of the so-called executive high rises in the city centre in the local elections gave a clear view on the Liberal Democrat view of where they live, in that they clearly rejected it.

“If you were to visit anybody living in these high rises you will not find them full of executives. You will find some executives, but you will find teachers, you will find nurses, you will find people who work in bars and hospitality in the city centre.”

Adding that the flats provide housing for many Mancunians as well as people in other parts of Greater Manchester, he added: “What the Liberal Democrats want to do is deny housing to these people who are helping us grow the economy of the city.”

The Lib Dems have a deputy leader

(Image: Manchester evening news)

Starting off his point about affordable housing, Coun Kilpatrick inadvertently caused much merriment among his political foes.

“Thank you for the chance to make my first contribution since the people of West Didsbury elected another opposition voice for our great city,” said the new member, one of two Liberal Democrats on the council, the other being group leader John Leech.

“It is fitting that my first contribution as deputy leader of the opposition...”

He struggled to get any further with the sentence, however, thanks to howls of laughter from the Labour benches.

The city has a new bee

Deputy lord mayor Carmine Grimshaw presented the city with a special gift in memory of the 22 people who died in last year’s Arena attack.

The handcrafted gold and silver bee - made by Coun Grimshaw himself - came with a touching message to Manchester.

“It’s my way of doing something after seeing the hurt that was suffered in this city and seeing people’s reactions,” he said.

“It became hope, it became inspiration and has shown the best side of humanity for me.”

Manchester is getting a new biomedical centre and it’s a really big deal

The meeting signed of an investment of up to £21m by the council in a brand new cutting-edge research facility on Oxford Road, which will ultimately look into bespoke cancer cures that will be given to local patients first.

Lib Dem leader John Leech said it was ‘simply unacceptable’ that he had had less than 12 hours to scrutinise a decision that carried ‘significant’ financial risk to the council, arguing he was being ‘railroaded’.

But Sir Richard Leese hit back.

Acknowledging that the report had been released late due to a ‘technical’ issue, he said due diligence had been carried out, calling the plans for biomedical firm Qiagen’s new base ‘probably one of the most important and exciting proposals that has ever been before this council’.

He said it was the potential to put Manchester at the ‘forefront’ of this sort of science, adding that it would also allow new treatments to be pioneered in a part of the country with particularly poor health.

“Occasionally if you want to bring about those sorts of changes in a place you have to have a few guts,” he said, accepting that there was a financial risk to the council in investing in the venture.

“You have to be bold. You need to be prepared to take these risks. One of the reasons we have been able to rebuild the economy of this city - why we’ve turned this city from as it was 30 years ago from a city people wanted to get out of to a city people want to live in - is because we have been consistently able to make these brave decisions over a long period of time.”

He added: “This is one of those brave decisions.”

The council wants the university to deal with the ‘environmental vandalism’ of its students...

The M.E.N. reported last week on a vast dump of rubbish left on a street in Fallowfield by students moving out at the end of the academic year.

Asked about the issue in today’s council, Rabanawz Akbar - executive member for neighbourhoods - said there had been an ‘unacceptable’ rise in such waste.

He told councillors that more skips would be provided in the area, but that ultimately that would not solve the problem, adding that only prevention and prosecution would stop such behaviour blighting Fallowfield.

Slamming the situation as ‘environmental vandalism’ and ‘selfish behaviour’ that shows ‘a complete lack of respect’ for residents, he pointed out that landlords are also making money from letting out the properties.

“Will require stronger measures,” he said, including a ‘stronger university campaign explaining to students about responsibilities for taking their waste away at the end of the academic year’.

He said the council was exploring with universities whether students who dump rubbish can be dealt with through their disciplinary processes, as they already are where anti-social behaviour is concerned.

Patrols could also be brought in for the last weekend of the academic year, but he said the council would be unable to do that alone and would need support from the universities.

...and the airport to crack down on ‘cowboy’ parking companies

Coun Eddy Smith gave a passionate speech about the blight on parts of Wythenshawe caused by people parking on its housing estates under dodgy schemes, before flying from Manchester Airport.

Calling those behind the schemes ‘cowboys’ and ‘rogue meet-and-greet firms’, he said they advertise their services online to holidaymakers, who then leave their cars there for days or weeks.

The law is weak in terms of dealing with the issue, he said, but noted residential roads are ‘not intended to be places of business’.

“It is our residents who live nearest to the airport, who experience a negative direct impact on their quality of live each and every day,” he said, adding that they don’t like the noise and pollution, but that ‘by far the biggest problem’ is the use of residential streets as a ‘giant car park for the airport’.

People living in Woodhouse Park had also struggled to deal with the firms directly over their ‘outrageous’ behaviour, he said, telling councillors that ‘men with clipboards’ also often move the cars around in the middle of the night, causing more noise.

“When local residents complain they are met with at best disinterest and at worst intimidating abuse,” he said.

He continued: “Woodhouse Park is not a car park for Manchester Airport...These rogue meet-and-greet firms are cavalier with the cars they purport to park securely. They show total disrespect - total disrespect - to the people of Woodhouse Park.

“The council is working to look at ways to tackle this blight effectively and robustly despite the weakness of legal powers. But the airport has to do more, much more.”

He added: “The airport needs to make a serious commitment, including a financial commitment.”

His angry summary of the way residents are being treated earned a round of applause from the council and support from Sir Richard Leese, who has said he will raise the issue with the airport, which is part-owned by the council.

Manchester has twice as many asylum seekers as the whole of the south east

This is an issue that has come up many times before - the M.E.N. did an extensive investigation into it in 2016 , particularly looking at the impact on communities in Oldham and Rochdale - but Manchester is still housing a disproportionately high number of asylum seekers thanks to the government’s so-called ‘dispersal policy’.

Coun Bev Craig, executive member for adults, said the city remained ‘welcoming’ and ‘compassionate’ even in the face of years of austerity.

But she said the fact remained that government was not keeping up its side of the bargain.

“Manchester is currently home to over 1,000 asylum seekers,” she said.

“In our taking this issue seriously, I think it’s fair to say we’re doing a lot in Manchester, but historically there’s one party that hasn’t been upholding their end of the bargain - and that’s in many ways the UK government.

“This government and successive governments have been critiqued over how asylum seekers are placed around the country.

“I think it’s fair to reiterate at this point that Manchester is home to more than 1,000 asylum seekers and that’s more than twice the amount of all of the south east authorities combined.”

She added: “So for me there’s a fundamental point of fairness.”

Noting that Manchester is providing support through its social services department for people arriving and needing help, including for unaccompanied children - of which Manchester has one of the highest numbers in the country - and people with no recourse to public funds, she noted again the unfairness in the system, adding: “But that doesn’t stop us from doing the things that we do.”

The council claimed it only had four complaints about road resurfacing last year

This answer was the result of a series of questions from Lib Dem leader John Leech, who has repeatedly raised the issue of shoddy road repairs having to be redone by contractors.

“How many complaints were received regarding the quality of road resurfacing work during the 2017/18 resurfacing programme?” he asked.

Coun Angeliki Stogia, executive member for highways, replied: “The complaints team have checked their records and the complaints that are formally logged under the complaints, compliments and suggestions section are: one for this year so far and four for last year.”

Coun Leech was dubious, calling those numbers ‘fantasy numbers’. A number of people on Twitter were also surprised, all claiming to be the ‘one’ person who put in a complaint since April.

Clarifying, Coun Stogia said her initial response had related to the ‘official’ figures compiled by the council through its complaints portal.

“Members of the public, as well as some councillors, they do circumvent the system and they don’t use the system,” she said, adding: “We have had around about 50 complaints that relate to the work.”

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