Letter from Parliament

Firstly, can I thank everyone who attended Rochdale’s first ever Climate Change Conference last week.  The event at Richmond Hall was incredibly useful and the topics we discussed will help us enormously in identifying some crucial things that we can do individually, as a Council, nationally and in Europe. 

I would like to thank Ali Abbas and Frank Kennedy from Friends of the Earth who were a great help in organising this event. 

There was a variety of speakers and attendees, this was very much an interactive conference and we will be releasing the results of the workshops in the next week. 

It was good to see councillors taking part too, including Deputy Mayor Councillor Peter Evans, ouncillors Robert Clegg, Rosemary Jones, Zulfiqar Ali, Wera Hobhouse and many others. 

 I was really impressed with the presentation given by Jason Addy from the Save Spodden Valley Group.  We are lucky in Rochdale to have environmental campaigners like him.

This week I’ve joined the Mayor Councillor Jean Hornby, Consort Barry and Councillor Irene Davidson in Lviv, Ukraine for the 750th Anniversary of the Cities’ Charter.  Lviv is one of Rochdale’s twin towns and back in 1992 as Leader of Rochdale Council I was proud to sign the first twinning agreement with a city in 'Free Ukraine.'

Rochdale has a small, but committed Ukrainian Community who came to Rochdale after the Second World War.  Many dreamed of returning to a free Ukraine and in 1990 they got their wish when the break up of the Soviet Republic was granted. 

I am grateful to Anna Kecyk of the Rochdale Ukrainian Association for all her hard work in keeping the twinning link going.  After joining the celebrations on Sunday I travelled to Ukraine’s Capital, Kiev, for a meeting with Paulo Kachur, now an MP but in 1992 when I first visited Lviv he was Deputy Mayor.  He was until recently a Minister and as a member of the UK parliamentary delegation on the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, I am concerned that democracy in Ukraine continues to take hold.

After that I’m due to meet Mike Farrar OBE who is the Chief Executive of the North West Strategic Health Authority.  Mike was born in Rochdale, his parents still live in Wardle and he was in the same class at school as Councillor Ashley Dearnley (like Ashley he still has that youthful exuberance) I intend to make him aware of the very real anger felt by Rochdale folk at the plans to downgrade our A&E. 

After that I’m meeting a solicitor to discuss a judicial review about the decision. 

Next Wednesday at the council meeting we’re planning a lobby of the council so that everyone can say how upset they are about the decision.  Be there at 5pm outside the Town Hall and stand up for Rochdale!

Finally, can I put on record my thanks to Rochdale Businessman Ali Asghar, we hosted the visit of the new Prime Minister of Kashmir Sardar Atiq Ahmed Khan last week.  I know the Prime Minister was delighted come to Rochdale at the invitation of Ali and was impressed with the welcome and people he met in Rochdale.