MARY BURNS PAGE

CAN WE CONTAIN OUR JOY IN SALFORD?

Oh my word! Oh my Lord! Oh my gosh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!!! I nearly wet my knickers when I received the latest update from MediaCityUK… Yes, a company that isn't backed with wads of cash from North West Development Agency is actually going to move into the place!

So which company is moving into MediaCityUK? Is it Google? Is it Disney Studios? Is it Pixar? Nah… To quote my MediaCity News bulletin "WHSmith is to open a kiosk"… How can we ever live with such excitement?

MARY BURNS PAGE

SALFORD COUNCIL CAN'T EVEN SPELL `SAFEGAURDING' NEVER MIND DO IT!

So, after all that happened last year – and the year before, and the year before that and the year before that etc – over the shocking state of Salford City Council's dire attempts to safeguard our kids, the subject is still `HIGH RISK' according to the latest Council `Strategic Risk Register'.

Not surprising really because the Council can't even spell "safegaurding"…Oh, and confidential Child Protection reports are being left on the streets too!

MARY BURNS ON THE PRECINCT

Salford Precinct, spiritual shopping homeland for proper Salford people, has been flogged off to secretive Isle of Man developers for £40million.

The last owners, Prime Commercial Properties, couldn't wait to get the place off their hands when plans for a huge Tesco superstore based across the road were announced last year. So why the sale?

Come with this cynical old fishwife, gaze into my crystal ball and see the future of Salford Shopping City – to give it its posh name…

From MARY BURNS PAGE…

BBC LAUNCHES NEW JOBS WEBSITE…IN TEESSIDE

The BBC launched its new jobs website for Salford MediaCityUK yesterday at its Connect and Create Conference at Teesside University to an audience of "academics and students"…

You might have thought that the least they could have done was launch the site in Salford – hope this isn't a sign of things to come…

SALFORD STAR MARY BURNS AWARD WINNERS

Salford City Council, Hazel Blears and Peel Holdings have been declared the undoubted `winners’ in the Salford Star Mary Burns Awards 2009 – affectionately known as the MARYS.

Salford’s longest ever live awards ceremony, which began on the net before Christmas and finally concluded today, saw 40 awards given out for “stupid statements, dodgy dealings and iffy activities over the past 12 months”.

MARY BURNS

£140,000 TO SORT SALFORD'S SCHOOLS OUT!

The Council can't close St George's and don't seem to be able to add up when it comes to the other Salford schools, so what does it do now? Yep, chuck around £140,000 at the problem by employing outside consultants to clear up the cack…

MARY BURNS

SO WHERE'S THE BBC JOBS FOR SALFORD?

The BBC has announced that only 45% (234 out of 519) of its rank and file staff – those earning between £18,000 to £50,000 – have decided to make the move to Salford, in line with around 45% of its top earning luvvies who decided earlier in the year to move north. That sounds like loads of jobs for Salford people….er, maybe not.

Click here for full story.

21 Salford Primary Schools To Be Shut?

Going…knowing they’re going…or gone. Salford  Council’s fab new proposal for `Every Child Matters’ is to bulldoze or merge a quarter of the primary schools in the city…based on figures that are “an art rather than a science”, according to the Council’s own Assistant Director of Resources, Mike Hall. And there’s some really weird art being created…surreal, cubist…definitely minimalist!

Incredibly, the report of the Lead Member for Children’s Services to a meeting (which was not open to the public) states that the “projected effect” of the proposals in the first five years would lead to “potential overcrowd” in Weaste, Seedley, Langworthy and Ordsall. Well it would do if you shut five schools in the area and replace them with two new ones. Derrr…

VIDEO FUN IN GHOST TOWN

There’s an ace new video just been released promoting Media CityUK…

£££££££s In The Park

When Chris de Burgh steps out at Buile Hill Park a week on Saturday (12th September) for the BBC Proms In The Park perhaps he should be singing The Council In Red, as I can reveal that this year's Proms event is set to lose Salford Council over £140,000…

EDUCASHUN…EDUCASHUN…EDUCASHUN!!!

You couldn't make it up! 

And this is absolutely true...

`Disreputable' Student Gives Testimonial For University

The University of Salford recently drummed out lecturer, union rep and PhD student, Gary Duke for `bringing the University into disrepute' and making "malicious" and "damaging remarks". So what better way to promote the University than to use Gary's testimonial saying that studying there is "stress free and a continuing pleasure"?

Hmmm…

Hazel’s Seat To Be Declared `Marginal’ By Labour

A Labour Party insider tells me that Salford has nowbeen declared “a marginal constituency” for the first time in…well, ages! People say you could stick a red rosette on a donkey and it’d get elected in Salford, but it seems that the Labour Party itself no longer thinks so. …

MARY BURNS ON THE LEAST BIGGEST SURPRISE IN SALFORD!!!

Amidst all the current scandal surrounding Hazel Blears, the latest revelation will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone in Salford…

Oh dear!  People have been dragging up Hazel's past and kind of chucking it in her face. So here's some more, courtesy of Mary Burns

Poor Hazel's digging a deeper hole every time she opens her gob. Today she's launching a new document "supporting those communities where the most severe poverty…persists."

Obviously not her tv room then.

No missus, don’t laugh…Noooooooo…
Beirut is the latest place that’s talking about getting a media city.

MediaCityUK is lobbying like mad to have the 2012 London Olympics coverage based in Salford…

Following news this week that Salford Council has the highest average overall sickness rate amongst Greater Manchester Councils, council tax payers will be pleased to know that this morning the Council will really be addressing this problem – or maybe not…