THE humiliating withdrawal of Bury Council’s 2011 core strategy submission at its pre-hearing stage on May 13 has to be the most convincing proof yet that there is something fundamentally wrong at Bury Council’s senior management level.

Bury Green Party took a keen interest in the development of the core strategy when we spotted a letter published in the Bury Times on September 9, 2010. The letter warned readers that the Gin Hall triangle within the Green Belt between the A56 and the motorway slip road to Ramsbottom had been earmarked for industrial or commercial development. Members of Bury Green Party joined Walmersley residents’ vigorous campaign against the development. As a result of the campaign, Gin Hall was taken back into the Green Belt and we secured an invitation to the final hearing.

Predictably, the revised core strategy failed to comply with mandatory regulations regarding consultation with residents directly affected by any proposed development, the period of notice for community involvement at the planning stages of the strategy and public notification of the hearing itself.

In addition, and in spite of Inspector J Pratt’s strenuous efforts to find “a way forward”, the council faced potential legal challenges in the High Court from Peel Holdings Ltd, Tesco and Walmersley residents themselves. The hearing proceedings never went beyond item 1.3 of the legal and procedural matters. Bury Council’s otherwise bullish legal department had no alternative but to advise planning officer Paul Allen to withdraw the document altogether.

That the work of a team of officers should end up being kicked in the long grass at the first hurdle should ring alarm bells. Although Inspector Stephen J Pratt was happy to allow as much time as necessary for elected members to consider all the options, the decision to withdraw the core strategy submission was made exclusively by the legal department and the chief executive. When pressed by the inspector, Paul Allen confirmed that there was no need for anyone from the council to be consulted.

Bury Green Party believes that it is time our elected members started managing their senior staff rather than be managed by them. They have to take them to task and make them accountable for their actions.

At a time of budget cuts and the need for transparency, one would think that at the very least their salaries and additional perks should be made public and posted on the council’s website.

Equally, we believe that the old and moribund top-down area boards should be scrapped. What Bury has always lacked and desperately needs is a proper community development and engagement policy with new and meaningful ways of engaging with tenants and residents right across the borough. As models of good practices, there is no need to look much further than Tameside Council which has delegated £11 million of its budget to eight district assemblies or Bolton Council’s highly- praised community engagement policy, implemented for many years across 11 of its neighbourhood management areas.

Whether the Labour group has the capacity, imagination or, indeed, the will to deliver such a policy and the kind of participatory structures the people of Bury deserve is doubtful. But who knows? Newly-appointed leader Mike Connolly may still surprise us all!

Nicole Haydock Bury Green Party