Susan Smith
Labour Party
West Middleton Ward
This last year has been one of the most difficult in living memory due to Covid. I hope you have been able to stay well, and I hope you’ve not lost anyone you care about to Covid. Sending you my most sincere sympathy if you have been sick or had a bereavement.
Obviously, because of Covid restrictions I am not able to visit as many people as I normally would in an election campaign, so apologies if I’ve not been to speak to you during the campaign.
Your local Labour Team of myself, Neil Emmott and Phil Burke have still been working for West Middleton Ward despite the limitations of Covid.
- We have secured an extra £25 million to resurface and repair roads and footpaths in the borough over the past 5 years. We know there are more to do, and we will keep pushing on month by month with this repair programme.
- We have supported the massive improvements to Truffet Park led by the excellent volunteers in the Friends group.
- Working alongside Riverside Housing Association, we have been able to start a programme of removing many muddy grass verges on Langley and providing more parking spaces for residents. This will be an ongoing programme until most roads will have better on street parking.
- We have secured the future of Bowlee Park Sports Centre by accommodating Middleton Gymnastics Club there which will be a centre of excellence for Middleton kids to learn the sport of gymnastics.
- We now have successfully defended our libraries on Long Street and on Langley from closure due to government cuts.
- Whilst SureStart Children’s Centres have been closing all over Britain, we have made sure our SureStart centre for Langley has stayed open for local families.
- We fully supported Andy Burnham in his drive to re-regulate bus services which will bring back bus services to some of our outlying communities which previously lost their bus services such as Birch and Bowlee.
- Again, we totally support Andy Burnham in bringing MetroLink to Middleton.
Fly tipping is a blight on our society and locally Labour is cracking down on fly tippers:
- We fine fly tippers with a fixed penalty of £400 for dumping rubbish.
- We impound and crush any vehicle we can prove was used in the act of fly tipping.
- If any resident can provide photographic evidence of someone fly tipping, we will give that resident a discount on their council tax.
I hope you will support me with your vote this year so I can continue to work for Langley, Heber’s, Silver Birch, Birch, Bowlee, Barleyfield and the Durnford/Mellalieu Street area.
Thank you for reading my pitch on Rochdale Online.
Regards
Susan Smith
