Rochdale Green Attends Area Forum

The Rochdale Valiant founder's attendance at a local area forum in Rochdale are documented here. This is useful for Planet Faculty readers who could get a clearer idea of what things may be discussed at a local area meeting conducted by a council. The interest in this meeting was to benefit Rochdale's local Green Party.

The summertime Kirkholt local area meeting commenced as planned and opened with advice from two community focussed police officers who also took questions.

Security cameras were discussed, and the part of the area taken into consideration was Balderstone Park. The library has had an extension built and not only is it useful for public meetings, but it is also serving the purpose of being a meeting utility for the council’s primary interests regarding the Kirkholt area. A point to note is that the library facility is of interest for arranging interactivity with Rochdale Hornets local rugby league.

The plan seems to be to bring rugby back to Balderstone Park as I remember that up to and over twenty years ago, it was common to see locals playing rugby on the park field. In the part of the park where rugby used to be played often, there were rugby goalposts at either end of the park field.

I would assume it is a plan to restore these. There is a relatively new outdoor skating rink on one side of that field now, and Councillor Meredith would like an event organised relating to the skating rink for youngsters.

One of the police officers at the meeting had mentioned damaged bus stops and how there were attempts to avoid incidences by creating meeting points for teenagers, however, the previous plans seemed to have a reverse effect to what was intended. Vandalism was also brought up by one or two people that had attended.

I mentioned that the promotion of football usually keeps youngsters occupied with the right kind of activity and the police officer praised Kirkholt for having lots of places where it is possible for young people to play football games.

I praised recent work that had been done to develop beauty spots on Kirkholt, such as Rhodes Ravine, but pointed out in relation to vandalism that it is usually the information signs at the entrances of these beauty spots that are the first thing to be vandalised and park entrances could be monitored.

The speaking police officer discussed the re-introduction of neighbourhood housing officers. Such housing officers have been missed by locals as they are no longer so often seen. I myself remember how important these housing officers were when I previously held social housing accommodation in the area.

The police officer explained that various community police officers are assigned to the area at different times. One officer will be brought in to work on something for a set amount of time and another police officer will be brought in to work on something else and so on.

Regarding the local housing officers, I remember that they would tend to be very friendly and helpful, and locals would bond with them and really appreciate their work.

The local council have taken back some control over social housing in the area and around Rochdale. The pre-existing Rochdale Boroughwide Housing Association that once took properties and stock from the council still seems to be an entity in operation and still owns the housing stock. A topic for discussion could be the status of RBH tenants and employees in their joint ownership. Some locals may possibly prefer the council to have further ownership and control, whilst others will prefer the tenants and employee ownership arrangements.

I brought up the topic of private landlords in the discussion in order to see if neglect of issues relating to RBH buildings could be addressed where issues may affect private landlords who own a long lease on a flat, but RBH owns the actual building. Concerningly growing issues may have affected a string of tenants one by one.

It seems like the council is genuinely putting in the work to make Kirkholt very attractive. One of the ideas is the planting of flowers and shrubs around treasured parts of the area. Councillor Meredith is keen to help the way the youngest people feel in the local area, and he believes that they are very proud of the area around them. He wants to maintain this and believes it is the best time now to make the biggest differences as I mentioned at our Monday 6th June committee meeting explaining this and how the area has improved vastly recently. Councillor Meredith sees the same thing as do the police officers and each attendee at the meeting also agrees.

The council seem to care about greener policies including climate change as Councillor Meredith mentioned and a clean and tidy maintained local area as well as clean air in relation to parking. The subject matter was brought into the conversation with reference to an issue a local resident has brought forwards about parking congestion around Hartley Lane by Sandbrook Primary School. This is of course a genuine issue I have noticed myself as I live in this part of the area. It is also a safety concern. There are no easy solutions although one that has been proposed is to make Hartley Lane a one-way road. I asked Councillor Meredith if priority would be given to residents who are exiting the area and he confirmed so.

Further, in relation to roads, the council are proposing resurfacing work on Queen Victoria Street, Hartley Lane, and Great Gates Road. Attendees to the meeting feel strongly about Queen Victoria Street and I’m sure that this is because of cherished old memories of the road as it is situated by the former Balderstone School site, and it connects the lower part of Kirkholt to Oldham Road.

With schools in mind, particularly the primary school on Hartley Lane, Sandbrook Community Primary School, and upper Great Gates Road’s Holy Family Roman Catholic Primary School, Councillor Meredith rightly insists that the areas should be extra pedestrianised to tackle congestion and to help keep the local air cleaner.

Councillor Meredith mentioned that concrete debris has gathered in the road gulleys on Great Gates Road and when rectifying this, more extensive resurfacing work should be done.

One attendee raised the matter of voter turnout and helping potential new voters as voter turnout was abysmal. In my opinion, we could take advantage of this as we reach out to people around Kirkholt and visit homes or deliver leaflets. We as Greens could be the local task force to introduce locals to their ability to register to vote and give them an idea of who they should vote for and why.

The next area meeting will take place as planned at Kirkholt Community Church on 29th September 2022 at 6:30 PM.