Merger with Preston

[Cllr Michael Green]

Dear All

May I first of all thank everyone for the comments they have posted.

To clear up any confusion I can confirm that at last night's Full Council, the decision was made NOT to proceed with the merger with Preston City Council.

I promised not to express my views on the merger on this forum until last night's meeting, as I genuinely wanted to hear everyone's points of view. However, now I will set out my views :-

1) As a school governor at a number of local schools, I was concerned that the merger would have threatened the quality of education offered to the children in our schools

2) The green belt would have been threatened and one report stated that over 22,000 new homes would be required in the Preston and South Ribble area.

3) At the first meeting on 30th August, no figures whatsoever were given as to the cost to the local council tax payers of the proposed merger. An academic study has suggested that a merger like the one proposed may cost the average family in South Ribble an extra £350 every year, on top of other tax rises. I asked those Councillors in favour of the merger to either accept that figure or otherwise to produce their alternative figures of the extra cost involved. No figures have since been produced!

4) Preston has a population 24% larger than South Ribble's and a budget which is 82% larger. I feared that the 'merger' would have amounted to a takeover of South Ribble by Preston.

5) As a Leyland Councillor, I was also concerned that Leyland would be pushed to the southernmost edge of the merged Council's area, with the centre of the new Council moving towards Preston. This would have had a negative impact upon employment and consequently the life and business community in Leyland.

At the first meeting in August, the Labour and LibDem Councillors unanimously supported the merger and agreed to spend upto £60,000 of tax payers' money on 'making the case' for the merger. I opposed this, along with my Conservative colleagues. We demanded that the public's voice be heard.

Since then, I have helped to deliver newspapers to every home in South Ribble and additional leaflets to the residents of my Ward, asking for their views. I attended all four public meetings, to gauge the views of the local residents. May I thank everyone for attending the meetings and for all their telephone calls, letters and e-mails. The public's opposition to the merger was overwhelming.

Ultimately, the voice of the public was heard, as at the very last moment, the Labour and LibDem Councillors performed a u-turn and decided to abandon the proposed merger. I will leave everyone reading this to draw their own conclusions as to why they did this, given that they were still proclaiming the merits of the merger just a few days ago.

Sadly, they have yet again wasted thousands of pounds of public money on this ill-conceived idea, have caused massive disruption at South Ribble Borough Council, have made the staff worry about their future employment and have damaged the Council's relationship with its neighbours.

Ultimately, I am pleased that the residents of South Ribble have won a huge victory and that I was able to assist in the campaign to stop the merger with Preston.

Yours faithfully
Michael Green
Councillor for Moss Side, Leyland

[David]

Noel; I didn't get it wrong, perhaps the LEP got it wrong, I simply copied and pasted that post from the webpage of the LEP just this morning. I don't know what the actual paper said, only what they spout on their web page, hence the [?][?][?]
I lived in Walton le dale, so I guess I would have been on the South Ribble side too []

[Spitfire]

Cllr Green, Thank-you for your final comments regarding the outcome of the meetings. As a resident of your ward , I appreciatate your contribution to this forum.

[noel]

Wow yes thankyou Cllr Green, I couldn't have put it better myself.[:p]

[chrisjames]

I would like to add my vote of thanks to the councillor for his reply. Maybe this form of communication will set a trend in future.

[David]

Certainly the 'local' internet would be a good outlet for communications to the people on subjects such as was on the agenda in South Ribble. That is why I am still somewhat mystified by Mike Green's posting of Dec.6 when he purports to tell you that he doesn't want to tell you his views on the subject. WHY ?
Was he playing the fence until he got a 'feeling' from the community as to how 'they' felt ?
Certainly his posting of Dec.8 made it quite clear that he did in fact have his mind made up as to how he was going to vote, or was that political rhetoric after he was well aware of how the community felt on the subject ?
To me it was a typical politicians reply.
Yes Noel, I'm with you, you can never trust a politician.

[Spitfire]

As I mentioned earlier David, I cannot see what your views are supposed to achieve on this subject - being an American. I think it`s fair to say that (to my knowledge), nobody has critized the elected local politicians in Pomana nor would they presume to have the right to do so.

[David]

Jim; In British law, once a Brit always a Brit. I am a card carrying British subject, try to get that into your head.
I was born and raised in Preston and lived there for many years, I also lived in South Ribble, I still have family living in both boroughs, I spend at least a month a year in Preston, and visit Leyland quite often, so perhaps I have more interest in what is going on in those two boroughs than you have. Or would you prefare I bury my head in the sand and ignore the goings on in my home town ?
Making politicians aware of their own shortcomings is a very good practice, no matter which side of the Atlantic they reside on.
I'll stick by my comment about Cllr Green's handling of the merger report.
I'm a registered Democrat Jim, Tories aren't my type.

[Lynne]

I am afraid that I find your response to Spitfire rather patronising David to say the least.
In my humble opinion Councillor Green was right to open up the topic for discussion without giving his personal views first.
It's refreshing that he asked for general feelings on the matter at all in an open forum.
Good for him!

[noel]

Personally I thought the way Cllr Green conducted himself was impeccable. He restored some of my belief in local politics, a pity more couldn't be like him.