The other week, I spoke in a House of Commons debate about planning and used the opportunity to tell the Secretary of State about some of the concerns raised with me by local people.
Whether it’s new houses, limited school spaces or pressure on our transport infrastructure—and they’re all linked—planning is the one issue that seems to crop up on a daily basis in my conversations and correspondence with constituents.
There are currently plans for thousands of houses in and around Atherton, including on green fields. ASPECT have been fighting the plans for over a thousand houses to the South of Atherton for years and, just north of Atherton, at Chequerbent roundabout, there are plans for 3,000 new houses which would have a massive impact on our roads in our town. If you think the local roads are bad in the morning now, just wait until we have an extra 6,000 cars trying to get to work or doing the school run.
One of the things I mentioned in Parliament was the failure to construct the A5225 bypass. If you go to the Guide Dogs Training Centre in Atherton, you’ll see concrete blocks barricade over one turning on the roundabout. This is where the bypass was meant to continue and daily we are seeing the problems that its absence creates. The proposals to build thousands of houses at Chequerbent would see the proposed route of the A5225 bypass being concreted over with houses. Last week, I presented a petition signed by over 2,000 people, including plenty of people from Atherton, calling for these proposals to be scrapped. The A5225 bypass is essential for the amount of housing we currently have. To bring more people and cars into our towns and not even have this road in place is ludicrous.
We’re also seeing these problems around Atherton Train Station—another regular complaint I receive from local people. With everyone trying to commute to Manchester to work, the car park is overflowing and commuters are now parking their cars, often dangerously and inconsiderately, on residential roads that aren’t built to withstand so many people using them. We see it right across the area: the pace of housebuilding is consistently outstripping the pace of investment in infrastructure.
It’s not just about infrastructure, however. If we’re not careful, this could also see the loss of distinctive local identities, with Atherton merging into Tyldesley, Westhoughton and beyond until we’re all a sprawl of suburb on the edge of Manchester. We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
We’ve also had some good jobs figures released in the past few days. In Atherton, the latest figures show that last month there were just 330 people claiming out of work benefits. Nationally, employment remains at a record rate of 74.5% with 31.8 million now in work, while unemployment remains at just 4.9% - the lowest for over a decade.
This is fantastic news and shows that, despite the scaremongering after the Brexit vote, our economy continues to remain strong.
There is, however, more to do which is why I was pleased to hear that the government has announced a roll out of the Jobcentre Plus Support for Schools scheme. This will give tens of thousands of young people help in taking their first steps into the world of work, as part of our plans to make sure every young person by next year is either earning or learning. One thing I often hear from businesses is how school-leavers aren’t always as prepared for the world of work as they could like to be. I hope that this scheme will go some way to addressing this issue.
And finally, this Saturday (29th October), I’ll be at Dorset Road Community Centre in Atherton for a drop-in advice surgery. If there is anything you would like to see me about, whether a personal problem or a concern about any local, national or international issue, I’ll be there from 10am until 11am – feel free to pop in, there’s no need to make an appointment.