Question from Councillor Whitmore to the Leader of the Council

Councillor Whitmore
Following his receipt of a petition signed by over 3,100 Levenshulme residents and presented to him by a delegation from the Friends of Levenshulme Group on the 18th May and his assurance of a written response to the serious concerns expressed about the local area, would the Leader of the Council summarise the terms of his response or of his proposed response to the Friends of Levenshulme Group. These issues raised being of such great importance to the Levenshulme Community.

Councillor Leese
I am delighted that we have representatives of the Friends of Levenshulme (FoL) in the Gallery because it means that Levenshulme is represented in the Chamber, which it wouldn’t otherwise have been. I have known Councillor Whitmore for over 20 years and he is fairly unusual in the Liberal Democrats because he argues consistently for putting Manchester first and he needs to be respected for that, its just unfortunate that he very rarely wins those arguments within the Liberal Democrat Group which always puts self interest first rather than the City. I have to ask Lord Mayor whether Councillor Whitmore and his colleagues put Levenshulme first, a number of us have been to Levenshulme and Gorton South in the recent past, and we have seen there what appears to be a policy of deliberate neglect from the local Liberal Democrat representatives. The meeting that I had with FoL, which generally avoided party political issues, but again confirmed that the (elected) representatives of that area over a long period of time simply have not been doing the job of representing Levenshulme. I think that over the period of time that I have been Leader of the Council I have spoken to Councillor Whitmore on very very many occasions, we have spoken about European affairs in which we know that Councillor Whitmore has a great interest, we have spoken about transport issues to do with GMPTA work, and other things, but over that period of time since I have been Leader of the Council, Councillor Whitmore has never ever spoken to me about anything to do with Levenshulme. By contrast Gerald Kaufman MP writes to me and other Executive Members several times a day on issues concerning Levenshulme, indeed, we have a members of staff a large part of who’s job is dealing with issues that Gerald Kaufman addresses to do with his constituency. I also have unelected people, Julie Reid is one example, who raise issues more often than Councillor Whitmore has ever done, and I will say this as the FoL are here, that I will in the terms of that meeting that I had previously with them, and the conclusion of that meeting was that I agreed to a further meeting to be convened by Gerald Kaufman, that I would meet with FoL again in Levenshulme, and that when that meeting was arranged I would respond to them in writing prior to that meeting. That was the conclusion of the meeting, my response to FoL will be directly to them through Gerald Kaufman. Councillor Whitmore has lost any right over the years to be a conduit between me as Leader of the Council and FoL, I will do it directly. I will do it through Gerald Kaufman but I will not do it via Councillor Whitmore.

Councillor Whitmore
Lord mayor, I have to say that I am very disappointed that the leader has chosen to respond in a political manner to what ahs been a non-partisan campaign, but I am grateful that he has undertaken in future to be my casework monitor and certainly I will ensure that that he is personally involved in casework rather than involving officers in the future. Would the Leader agree with me that it is only within the past 12 months that we (Liberal Democrat Group) submitted a Notice of Motion regarding our serious concerns concerning the closure of Levenshulme Community Centre, and that was referred to scrutiny and we took the issue through the Scrutiny Committee. I would ask, despite what he said, is the Leader prepared to work with the democratically elected councillors for the area of Levenshulme. We want to see the issues resolved, we want to see a new community facility for the area. Is he prepared to work with us, we are the voice of Levenshulme and have been at every single election for the past 28 years, and only two months ago were elected yet again with over 50% of the vote within that area. Now, if the leader is going to deny the democratic voice an active participation in this I do regard that as something very serious and I would like to ask the Leader is he going to work with us on these issues, because certainly we want to work together, and he did actually give an undertaking to FoL that he would actually respond in writing by the end of June, as I understand it, and it is now July.

Councillor Leese
Not sure how many supplementaries there are there Lord Mayor, but I will try to answer them all. It is actually true that at the Lord Mayoral inauguration in 2006 that the Liberal Democrats in Levenshulme acted in a quite outrageous way by trying to hijack that meeting for narrow political interests, absolutely true Lord Mayor. And I will confirm the absolutely disgraceful behaviour of Councillor Commons and Whitmore at that Council meeting. I will also confirm Lord Mayor that if Councillor Whitmore has been the voice of Levenshulme for the past 28 years, then it has been a very quiet voice because it has not been heard in this Chamber or in the Committees of the Council with respect to Levenshulme. I also confirm Lord Mayor that we have witnessed the policies of the Liberal Democrats in places like Levenshulme and Gorton South, which is to do nothing and then to blame us (Labour) that nothing has been done. It is quite disgraceful politics Lord mayor and that is why I have given an undertaking that I will talk directly to FoL, I will confirm that undertaking, and I will also confirm that I will do it directly to them. I will not do it via Councillor Whitmore