UKIP Response

Last week, Bury Action Group sent out a request to all candidates to answer a number of questions on where their party stands on a number of issues, and how they would approach them if elected.

UK independence Party - Peter Redstone
Constituency - Pilkington Park Ward

I write to you not as a Tory but as Chairman of Ukip Bury Branch.

Following discussions on our manifesto with colleagues I list below how voting for Ukip initially at local level and then at national level would be of massive benefit to the people of Bury and the nation as a whole

There can be no magical formula by which we receive less money from Government, but services are all maintained, as you have explained in the circular some cuts are necessary, because of the fact that the Council has received £14Million less this year from the Tory Government than anticipated.

Can I point out that probably in excess of a Million Pounds has been wasted by this Council pursuing failed legal challenges against its female employees.

That alone would have been sufficient to maintain weekly bin collections.

We believe that young people are the future of our Country , two senior executives of the Council have recently been in receipt of Salary increases allegedly circa £50,000 each . Not implementing these obscene increases would pay for a number of Youth Service jobs.

We believe that the former Area Boards were a serious forum for Council Tax payers to meet their Councillors and discuss relevant local issues.

The Local Area Partnerships were clearly very expensive and did not always attract many local residents, we would have returned to the old Area Board meetings, alternatively where local issues require public airing then the Councillors will have a small annual budget to call ad hoc meetings.

School Crossing Patrols are sacrosanct axing them is not only stupid but our school children will face real danger when crossing the road.

Parks are an essential amenity, however all of the above issues are more pressing and where cash is in short supply it may be that a cut back in expenditure may prove necessary, perhaps this does not mean cessation of services but Parks and Gardens could come under scrutiny.

We agree that the role of individual Councillors has been severely diminished within the last few years. This has come about because in our opinion the officers are making the major decisions and Councillors seem to be sidelined, it is down to the leader of the Council to ensure that the dog wags the tail and not as some perceive the other way round.

Only strong leadership can restore the equilibrium

Within the main parties voting is usually on a whipped system, and so Councillors tend to vote the way that they are instructed by the Leadership and of course budgets have to be set, however from a UKIP perspective we would have no difficulty voting against a budget that we thought would balance financially but was unfair to the residents of our borough.

This year Bury will receive from Government about £14 million Pounds less than anticipated, coincidentally we will also pay about £14 million Pounds in Landfill Taxes to Europe, this is money spent to put our own rubbish into our own land.

If the Government was to allow a referendum on membership of Europe undoubtedly the British people would vote to leave.

Hundreds of Billions would be saved, some of this could be used to pay down the national debt, the balance to be restored to Councils and would easily pay for the services that have been taken off us