JAM TOMORROW

Five years ago Salford City Council produced a snappy little cardboard booklet called The Magnificent Seven - `our pledges to the people of Salford to make Salford a magnificent city'…
1) We will improve health…
2) We will reduce crime…
3) We will raise education and skills levels…
4) We will…support children and young people in achieving their full potential
5) We will tackle poverty…
6) We will ensure…good jobs and a thriving economy
7) We will ensure…decent affordable homes…

The booklet ends with the words, in big white letters…Read. Remember. Respond.

Five years on, maybe people have forgotten because the new `Community Strategy', which will be published in May by Partners In Salford*, pushes the same stuff – only they're not `pledges' this time, they're `aims and objectives' and `visions' and `themes'. And the goalposts have been moved to 2024 – that's 15 years away, when most of us will probably be dead because life expectancy here is so low…

However, within all the guff about becoming a `beautiful, welcoming…highly skilled, healthy' city, there's a horrific picture of where Salford is now – a divided place where those who live in some places have well reduced life chances.

Example: Whilst nearly 90% of young people achieve 5 GCSEs graded A*-C in Cadishead, less than 40% do the same in Little Hulton

Example: When deprivation is considered just in terms of health outcomes, 65% of Salford's population live in the fifth most deprived areas.

Example: If you live in the Irwell Riverside area, which includes Duchy, Islington and Pendleton, you're 7 times more likely to be a victim of theft and robbery than if you live in Boothstown or Ellenbrook.

The Strategy explains that "A similar story can be told about the cultural, creative and sporting opportunities in the city". And, for the first time, the authorities admit that big public money gobbling schemes like The Lowry, Media City and the Triathlon have excluded Salford's community…

Quoting the above schemes the Strategy states…"Opportunities for fulfilment and engagement within sport and the arts should be part of life for lots our residents. However, there is more work to do to ensure that the people of Salford think of those big assets as belonging to the city of Salford…we need to do more as a partnership to empower local people and connect them to the cultural and leisure opportunities that are already here."

The document also admits what Fred Engels was writing about Salford 150 years ago, that poverty is the main cause of all the city's problems…"Our ambition is to ensure that wealth is no longer the primary driver of health, wellbeing, quality of life, access to services, housing and employment, and a whole range of other outcomes" it states in Section 2.

So are the great and good planning a socialist revolution in the city or what? In yer dreams!  The Strategy is all full of good intentions but it's just a vision. Indeed, Kevin Brady, Salford Council's Assistant Chief Exec, writes in his intro that the document  "does not provide detail about how it will be delivered".

So how can we trust the Strategy when we've heard it all before?  Easy! Come back in 2024 and they'll show us.

In July last year there was a `Future Search' consultation conference where representatives from the community were invited to have inputs into the strategy.  Now the plan is to invite everyone back in 15 years time to `celebrate' the results…

"The partnership hopes to invite the Future Search participants, particularly the young people [presumably because anyone over 50 will be dead by then as the life expectancy here is so low – ed] to get back together in July 2024 to celebrate the achievement of these objectives".

Meanwhile, after years and years, and millions and millions of pounds of public money being thrown at Salford, the place (to quote Salford Council's ill conceived PR campaign a few years ago) is still One Shocking City - promising `jam tomorrow'…

Partners In Salford is a partnership which includes Salford City Council, Salford Primary Care Trust, the Police, University of Salford and representatives from Salford's Community Committees.  More details at www.partnersinsalford.org 

Salford's Sustainable Community Strategy: Connecting People to Opportunities
2009-2024 will be published at the end of May