Parliament has now broken up for the summer recess, which means I’m away from Westminster and back working in my Bolton West & Atherton constituency full-time over the next few weeks.
That doesn’t mean I’ll be taking things easy or having an extra-long holiday – it simply means I get to be home and out and about spending more time speaking to and meeting people in the area.
One of the first things I did was attend the last meeting of the Atherton Residents’ Association. As usual, it was a great turnout at the Atherton Arms with a good representation from all the different political parties. I’m pleased to say that there was unanimous cross-party support for the Association’s campaign to regenerate Atherton town centre.
Atherton has a lovely town centre with great businesses – from the great pubs to the fantastic cafes and shops, there is always a lot going on. However, over the last few years or so, we have seen resources shut down or taken away and moved to Wigan.
We need to see more investment, including a full re-think about parking and the one way system. During the General Election campaign, I pledged alongside the Leigh Conservative candidate Cllr James Grundy to fight for this investment and reverse the decline of our town centres.
I’m pleased to say that at the Atherton Resident’s Association meeting, it was reported that a strategic Masterplan has now been approved on this very topic. Not only that, but Atherton has been listed as the top priority for investment in the plan – it perhaps suggests the lack of investment from Wigan Council over many years. I’m told that this plan will look at how we can attract more businesses – and therefore investment – and how we can improve and increase people’s appetite for shopping locally and drive up footfall.
At the moment when you drive through Atherton, you see that the car parks are full to bursting and people are having to park on nearby residential streets. Unfortunately, many of these people are parking up in Atherton to get public transport to Manchester. We need to improve Atherton’s parking capacity so that we do not deter people from visiting to shop here locally. A task group is being established to work on this project and I’m optimistic that we’ll start to see some much-needed investment in Atherton soon.
It was great to see Jo Platt MP at the Atherton Resident’s Association meeting – we share representation of Atherton, with the Leigh constituency including the southern half of the town – after she was recently elected to represent the area. With the representation of women in politics and equality of pay in the news, I am glad to see that the Wigan Borough is leading the way in challenging it since three of the four MPs representing the borough are women.
I have been informed by the Department for Work and Pensions that, from 27 October 2017, Atherton Jobcentre will close its doors.
It’s sad to see another service disappear from Atherton. However, with an improving job market and a record number of people in employment, I understand it has become more and more difficult to justify keeping one in the town. In the Atherton ward, there were just 375 people claiming out of work benefits in June this year (the latest figures we have) – a decrease of a third in the last few years along. Whilst there is still more to do to reach our goal of full employment, these figures are really promising – and they are even better for the reduction of youth unemployment.
The Department for Work and Pensions has told me that work coaches will support those who require the service during the transition period and that they are able to reimburse travel costs for customers who now have to travel down the road to the Leigh Jobcentre – do speak to them if you need help with this.