Post by Mitch on Feb 10, 2006 13:09:39 GMT
“A NEW MOVEMENT STIRS…
POWER TO THE PEOPLE IS THE CALL”
By Richard Catlow,
(undated – found in a collection of articles from the Burnley Express in the early 1970s).
People power came to Burnley this week when members of nine local residents and tenants’ associations decided to unite to form the Federation – a sort of unofficial town council.
The decision was welcomed by council planning chief Coun. Tom Bradley, who feels it marks a growing public interest in local affairs.
It comes as a climax to months of activity, when action groups have been springing up all over town, to tackle issues like industrial nuisance and motorway blight, and to protest about slum clearance areas and other council schemes.
NUMBERS
The Federation, which will hold monthly meetings, is to have 18 members – two from each of the constituent associations.
Representatives are likely to be elected by the individual associations, making them unofficial ‘councillors.’
Federation member Mrs Rosalind Williams, secretary of Stoneyholme Residents’ Association said: ‘This is a great day for Burnley. The Federation is the best thing that has happened for years.
‘It’s obvious there is strength in numbers, and when we come to fight a certain issue councillors can no longer ignore us. They will have to sit up and take notice.’
‘Our Federation will enable us to help each other. I suppose we are likely to become an unofficial council. It might seem a bit ambitious, but I’m sure it will come off.’
‘We want to press the corporation to appoint an officer who will deal with people’s problems: things like housing and the environment, at a central office where everyone can go and see him – a sort of local ombusman.’
‘We want people to know what is being planned for their homes and for the areas in which they live. We want them to have more say in what happens there.’
‘The Federation will mean that, for the first time, minority interests in Burnley are going to get a look in. This is what I’ve wanted for ages’.
One of the first things the Federation intends to do is to make recommendations to the town council’s Performance Review Sub-Committee, which is about to make a review of public participation in planning in Burnley.
The decision to form the Federation was taken at the Mitre Hotel, Burnley on Tuesday evening, when 42 committee members from the various groups were present.
Already it has been promised help and advice by a subsidiary of the housing charity Shelter, the Noise Abatement Society and the Planning Aid Service of the Town and Country Planning Association.
The associations taking part, the Clough Street Residents’ Action Group, Fulledge Residents’ Action Group, Godiva Street Residents’ Association, Partridge Hill Tenants’ Association (Padiham), Stoneyholme Residents’ Association, Tentre Action Group, Trinity Residents’ Action Group, West End Residents’ Association and Whittlefield Residents’ Assoication, already have more than a thousand members from all parts of the Burnley district. They are expecting many more people to join.
What are the reasons behind all this activity? Mrs Williams said, ‘I honestly believe that we have not got the good old councillors we used to have with the enthusiasm they had for their wards.
‘They have used money on silly projects and allowed houses to be run down and areas to become derelict. To form associations and the Federation was the only course left’.
Coun . Bradley, who is chairman of the council’s Planning and Environment Committee, said: ‘In the past it was a common complaint that the public weren’t interested in local government, but that’s not the position today when week by week they are voicing their opinions.’
‘I welcome this change, because it is a necessary stimulant to keep councillors and officials on their toes and interested in all problems, large or small.’
‘It’s essential that the council, and residents with problems, can discuss them on a constructive basis. The attitudes of ‘them’ and ‘us’ winners and losers, must be eradicated from our thoughts. Together the councillors, officials and residents can go forward to make the Burnley district a happier and better place to live in’.
……….AND THE MAN BEHIND IT
SIX months ago a young Liverpool University graduate, Ian Christie, came to Burnley, to begin an experiment in community action.
He found a worried town. Hundreds of people were living in the blighted areas in the line of the proposed M65. Others lived near to noisy or dusty factories. People were threatened by slum clearance schemes and others faced having their homes uprooted to make way for industry.
They were forming action groups to attempt to deal with these problems. Ian helped some of them to draw up petitions, to obtain legal advice and to get professional expertise to back their arguments.
Now the groups have joined together to form the Federation and Ian will be helping this organisation to overcome its teething troubles.
Ian is one of five members of a new body called SCAT – the Shelter Community Action Team – financed by the housing charity Shelter. His colleagues are doing similar work in Carlisle, Sunderland, Bradford, Nottingham and Newport.
He said: ‘When SCAT was formed we decided to go to wherever people asked us for help’.
DEVELOPMENT
Ian met a group of people protesting about the proposed M65 and through them came into contact with the Cough Street Action Group, people fighting a council plan which could have meant their houses making way for industrial development.
Later, Ian met other groups and decided to stay in Burnley.
He has been helping Trinity Action Group to find out what people there want to happen to their area, so that evidence can be presented to the council, which is to produce an action area plan for the district.
At Whittlefield he has been helping members of the residents’ association to get their homes taken out of a slum clearance area.
At Fulledge he has aided the local action group in its attempt to combat an alleged noise problem caused by the Northern Diecasting factory.
Ian said, ‘SCAT only provides the advice, all the work and the drive behind these campaigns comes from the people themselves. I am only the catalyst’.
At the receiving end of many of these campaigns has been Coun. Tom Bradley, Chairman of the council’s Planning and Environment Committee.
Coun. Bradley said: ‘The petitions and documents Ian has helped to produce are extremely professional. I feel that he is working in a constructive manner and would appear to be a man of great ability.
‘He understands the subject and I feel that he is playing his part in helping communications between the residents and the council’.
Ian is staying at the Scott Park Road home of Susan Ewens, one of the editors of a new publication, the Burnley Voice, which has recently appeared on the streets for the second time.
The magazine, which carries features about many local residents’ groups and is sold by many group members, is one of the ways in which these groups keep in touch with one another.
Miss Ewens said, ‘I think the development of this magazine and the action groups goes hand in hand. People feel more remote from the planners and their lives are constantly being changed by grandiose projects like motorways, new shopping centres and demolition schemes.
(TAKEN FROM THE ‘HEADLESS’ ARCHIVE. MORE TO FOLLOW. RETYPED WITH AFFECTION TO THOSE WHO TEACH US MUCH FROM THEIR ACTION IN THE PAST – IN CASE YOU THOUGHT WE HADN’T BEEN HERE BEFORE!!)
Mitch
POWER TO THE PEOPLE IS THE CALL”
By Richard Catlow,
(undated – found in a collection of articles from the Burnley Express in the early 1970s).
People power came to Burnley this week when members of nine local residents and tenants’ associations decided to unite to form the Federation – a sort of unofficial town council.
The decision was welcomed by council planning chief Coun. Tom Bradley, who feels it marks a growing public interest in local affairs.
It comes as a climax to months of activity, when action groups have been springing up all over town, to tackle issues like industrial nuisance and motorway blight, and to protest about slum clearance areas and other council schemes.
NUMBERS
The Federation, which will hold monthly meetings, is to have 18 members – two from each of the constituent associations.
Representatives are likely to be elected by the individual associations, making them unofficial ‘councillors.’
Federation member Mrs Rosalind Williams, secretary of Stoneyholme Residents’ Association said: ‘This is a great day for Burnley. The Federation is the best thing that has happened for years.
‘It’s obvious there is strength in numbers, and when we come to fight a certain issue councillors can no longer ignore us. They will have to sit up and take notice.’
‘Our Federation will enable us to help each other. I suppose we are likely to become an unofficial council. It might seem a bit ambitious, but I’m sure it will come off.’
‘We want to press the corporation to appoint an officer who will deal with people’s problems: things like housing and the environment, at a central office where everyone can go and see him – a sort of local ombusman.’
‘We want people to know what is being planned for their homes and for the areas in which they live. We want them to have more say in what happens there.’
‘The Federation will mean that, for the first time, minority interests in Burnley are going to get a look in. This is what I’ve wanted for ages’.
One of the first things the Federation intends to do is to make recommendations to the town council’s Performance Review Sub-Committee, which is about to make a review of public participation in planning in Burnley.
The decision to form the Federation was taken at the Mitre Hotel, Burnley on Tuesday evening, when 42 committee members from the various groups were present.
Already it has been promised help and advice by a subsidiary of the housing charity Shelter, the Noise Abatement Society and the Planning Aid Service of the Town and Country Planning Association.
The associations taking part, the Clough Street Residents’ Action Group, Fulledge Residents’ Action Group, Godiva Street Residents’ Association, Partridge Hill Tenants’ Association (Padiham), Stoneyholme Residents’ Association, Tentre Action Group, Trinity Residents’ Action Group, West End Residents’ Association and Whittlefield Residents’ Assoication, already have more than a thousand members from all parts of the Burnley district. They are expecting many more people to join.
What are the reasons behind all this activity? Mrs Williams said, ‘I honestly believe that we have not got the good old councillors we used to have with the enthusiasm they had for their wards.
‘They have used money on silly projects and allowed houses to be run down and areas to become derelict. To form associations and the Federation was the only course left’.
Coun . Bradley, who is chairman of the council’s Planning and Environment Committee, said: ‘In the past it was a common complaint that the public weren’t interested in local government, but that’s not the position today when week by week they are voicing their opinions.’
‘I welcome this change, because it is a necessary stimulant to keep councillors and officials on their toes and interested in all problems, large or small.’
‘It’s essential that the council, and residents with problems, can discuss them on a constructive basis. The attitudes of ‘them’ and ‘us’ winners and losers, must be eradicated from our thoughts. Together the councillors, officials and residents can go forward to make the Burnley district a happier and better place to live in’.
……….AND THE MAN BEHIND IT
SIX months ago a young Liverpool University graduate, Ian Christie, came to Burnley, to begin an experiment in community action.
He found a worried town. Hundreds of people were living in the blighted areas in the line of the proposed M65. Others lived near to noisy or dusty factories. People were threatened by slum clearance schemes and others faced having their homes uprooted to make way for industry.
They were forming action groups to attempt to deal with these problems. Ian helped some of them to draw up petitions, to obtain legal advice and to get professional expertise to back their arguments.
Now the groups have joined together to form the Federation and Ian will be helping this organisation to overcome its teething troubles.
Ian is one of five members of a new body called SCAT – the Shelter Community Action Team – financed by the housing charity Shelter. His colleagues are doing similar work in Carlisle, Sunderland, Bradford, Nottingham and Newport.
He said: ‘When SCAT was formed we decided to go to wherever people asked us for help’.
DEVELOPMENT
Ian met a group of people protesting about the proposed M65 and through them came into contact with the Cough Street Action Group, people fighting a council plan which could have meant their houses making way for industrial development.
Later, Ian met other groups and decided to stay in Burnley.
He has been helping Trinity Action Group to find out what people there want to happen to their area, so that evidence can be presented to the council, which is to produce an action area plan for the district.
At Whittlefield he has been helping members of the residents’ association to get their homes taken out of a slum clearance area.
At Fulledge he has aided the local action group in its attempt to combat an alleged noise problem caused by the Northern Diecasting factory.
Ian said, ‘SCAT only provides the advice, all the work and the drive behind these campaigns comes from the people themselves. I am only the catalyst’.
At the receiving end of many of these campaigns has been Coun. Tom Bradley, Chairman of the council’s Planning and Environment Committee.
Coun. Bradley said: ‘The petitions and documents Ian has helped to produce are extremely professional. I feel that he is working in a constructive manner and would appear to be a man of great ability.
‘He understands the subject and I feel that he is playing his part in helping communications between the residents and the council’.
Ian is staying at the Scott Park Road home of Susan Ewens, one of the editors of a new publication, the Burnley Voice, which has recently appeared on the streets for the second time.
The magazine, which carries features about many local residents’ groups and is sold by many group members, is one of the ways in which these groups keep in touch with one another.
Miss Ewens said, ‘I think the development of this magazine and the action groups goes hand in hand. People feel more remote from the planners and their lives are constantly being changed by grandiose projects like motorways, new shopping centres and demolition schemes.
(TAKEN FROM THE ‘HEADLESS’ ARCHIVE. MORE TO FOLLOW. RETYPED WITH AFFECTION TO THOSE WHO TEACH US MUCH FROM THEIR ACTION IN THE PAST – IN CASE YOU THOUGHT WE HADN’T BEEN HERE BEFORE!!)
Mitch
