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Area Forum decisions rejected

Date published: 08 February 2010

What is the point of the area forums? A question being asked by Castleton residents after their democratically agreed and voted on decisions on improvements to the Village, with funds allocated to the area forum, were overturned without consultation with the Forum.

Castleton Forum decided to fund the following projects at their meeting in December:

Installation of a bench on Manchester Road on the canal bridge.
Two notice boards to be sited on Manchester Road outside the Community Centre and on the canal bridge.
Paint Heywood Road allotment palisade fencing green.
Two Castleton village signs.
Three solid planters.
Environmental improvements and landscaping.

The majority of these improvements will not now be implemented.

Frank Salt, who will be standing as an independent candidate in the May local elections, spoke to Rochdale Online of his anger at the ward action group overturning the democratically arrived at decision.

Mr Salt said: "The manipulation of the rules of the Forum, seemingly to have the wishes of the councillors implemented against the majority of the Forum members, is leaving people wondering whether it is worth attending the quarterly meetings. I understand that the 'ward action group vote was 3 against 1 abstention and 1 councillor not attending.

"A less charitable person could conclude that the replacement of the bollards and the railings to Lawnswood had been promised by the councillors earlier in the year without the knowledge of the Forum."

"I hope that future Forum meetings are attended by more Castleton residents and that they are not put off by this blatant dismissal of the Forum's aspirations."

Comments

Mr. Salt, I wish you all the best in your endeavour to oust one of the sitting Councillors.
Councillors in Castleton are really a mixed bag. I do not know which Councillor did not attend your forum, but it is obvious the majority must be what the Councillors want and not the constituents.

The Area Forums are a con to give us the illusion of democratic accountability whilst simply diluting and stifling at source any independent opposition on the estates.

I have no idea which items have been rejected by the ward action group, but I do know that the allotment society catagorically stated that they neither asked for or wanted to have their fencing painting. This is a galvanised steel fence that does not require paint. The committee were aghast when informed that money had been allocated for paint that they do not want. I don't know who proposed this idea, probably in good faith, but they should have checked with the gardeners first.

Many thanks ‘eyeballs’.
In fairness the councillor was at the Forum but not at the Ward Action Group, which was held at the twelfth hour on 30 December, although it was called a couple of weeks before the deadline.
Streetshack, I sincerely hope this is not the case and democratic accountability can be improved in Castleton in May.

The notice boards were rejected because of lack of money to repair vandalism. And the fence owners did not want it painting in the first place!
It seems that if the action group had not met to re-allocate the money to other schemes then over £4,000 would have been lost to other wards!