Outsiders playing "politics" with our town!

Posted By: Greg Couzens
Date Posted: 28/05/2009

A couple of weeks ago, I invited the Parliamentary Candidate for Rochdale to a meeting with myself and Council officers to discuss our plans for the future of our town. I informed him about many of the major projects with have planned such as the £200million for the rejuvenation of our town centre (which will include a new town centre library and leisure centre), the new bus station which will be complete by 2011 and also about the new metrolink line which will be coming to our town centre in 2014. When I asked him why he is constantly talking down our town centre he simply replied: “That’s politics.”

Well I am afraid this simply not good enough and Rochdale deserves a lot more from its politicians.

As a council, we realise that we have an important role to play in making sure our town centre businesses receive the support they need and we have done this in a variety of ways. For example we are currently holding a series of free events from ‘how to promote your business online’ to ‘how to become self employed.’ These workshops, along with the many others we are holding, are aimed at providing town centre businesses with useful tips on how to survive or even grow.

The Labour candidate calls for two hours free parking at anytime. This would be completely unmanageable and would cost far too much money. Our proposal will see parking charges scraped after 3pm which we hope will encourage many in Rochdale to visit after they have collected the children from school or finished work.

However, whilst we in Rochdale continue to support small businesses in every way we can, it is our government that continues to let us down. Their recent budget was, in my opinion, just another case of window dressing. For example, they put forward £3million for local authorities to help them reopen those shops that have unfortunately had to close. However, this is the equivalent of just £22 per shop across the country The government’s priorities continue to be wrong. Whilst they can put billions into bailing out our failed banks they ignore the businesses that really matter to the people of Rochdale.

I am also a trader in the town centre and have been for over 27 years, in that time I have witnessed a decline through lack of investment and high taxes.

For over 25 years our town centre has been run by the Labour Party, and now they take this mordacious approach. The Liberal Democrats have only been in control for two years and yes we are aware of the problems.

What Rochdale needs now is for its politicians to be coming together and making decisions that will benefit out town centre. It does not need a parliamentary candidate, who has only just moved to Rochdale, using our town centre as a political football for him to kick around in this Victor Meldrew style of Politics.