MARY BURNS AWARDS
DAY 17

THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 1

We all know that Salford's community gets a huge say in the future of their area, don't we? So much so that we've decided to do three Community Consultation of the Year awards…

The first MARY winner has seen over five years worth of consultations, including DVDs shoved through people's doors, questionnaires, drop-in events, more drop-in events and more questionnaires costing bucketloads of public cash. People have been consulted to death on the tarting up of their area. So it's all perfect isn't it?

Ladies and Gentlemen. THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 1…goes to…

Please do a drum roll and click here…

SALFORD CITY COUNCIL - FOR ITS FAB WORK IN PENDLETON

Salford Council is in the midst of a massive £100million+ plan to sort out Pendleton via PFI (Private Finance Initiative), and has been consulting the community at every step of the way.  The latest was in November when three bidders who want to get their hands on the dosh gave presentations on how they would tart up the area. 

It sounds great - except that all the community consultations for various `stock options' (ie housing) on the future of Pendleton only counted for less than 25% of the final decision!

A massive 40% of the decision was based on `Finance', which would include whether the developers would get on board. Another 25% was based on what they call `Technical and Masterplanning, including Strategic Vision'' – in other words the Council's own `vision' for the area. And the final 10% of the decision was given to a secret `Evaluation Panel'. 

Even the 25% of the decision that went to `Consultation' was broken down into `community' - `and stakeholders', which would include developers etc. 

With such brilliant community power, it's no wonder that the Business Case that went off to the Government to get the PFI grants stated that the final plans for Pendleton "will lead to a dilution in the current concentration of economically inactive households" (that's poor people) by "young professionals and individuals who wish to live in Pendleton" – professionals associated with "Mediacity:uk" and the "University of Salford". 

It's all being done "in order for Pendleton to position itself to play a key role in the housing needs of this increase in population". Pendleton, of course, is on the doorstep of Mediacity:uk and Manchester town centre.

So now, they're going to "dilute" council house dwellers and break up "the narrow socio-economic composition of the area" by demolishing almost half of all council owned property in the PFI area. Those council house dwellers who are still in the area after PFI will have new private landlords – despite community consultations coming back showing that `the community' wanted the Council to be their landlord.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Wave your BBC licences in the air for winners of THE COMMUNITY CONSULTATION OF THE YEAR AWARD PART 1…

SALFORD CITY COUNCIL

Applause…

If anyone from the Council would like to make a speech please fill in the Comments box below