Letter from Parliament – Simon Danczuk MP

Simon Danczuk MP

After the local and European elections passed without too much drama in Rochdale, we saw a surprise political twist this week in that the leader of the Council was replaced at the Labour Group AGM. In what represents the most significant political change in Rochdale in the last four years, Colin Lambert was replaced by Richard Farnell after he failed to win sufficient support among fellow councillors.

I am hoping the new leader will be just the fillip the Council needs after it's endured a torrid time of late. There are big challenges to get to grips with in Rochdale and sadly we haven’t seen enough progress. Sometimes it’s looked as though the challenges the town faces just overwhelm the Council. This is extremely frustrating for all. We will soon have a new chief executive as well, so there is a great opportunity for the Council to turn over a fresh page and start anew. There will be no honeymoon period though. Richard Farnell will have to hit the ground running.

Rochdale needs to make sure its children’s services department continues to undergo reform to ensure that standards are much higher. Child protection has to be a major priority in the Borough. We also need to make progress on town centre regeneration, decide what’s going to be done with the town hall, do everything possible to secure a safe future at the old T&N asbestos site, face up to historic child abuse, which has left a stain on our town, and decide the future of the market. There’s certainly a very busy ‘to do’ list to be getting on with.

I’m confident, however, that once some of these challenges are met and we manage to establish some momentum we can put the problems of the past behind us and make sure Rochdale starts hitting the headlines for the right reasons. Our town has a proud and rich history from John Bright to the Rochdale Pioneers and Gracie Fields. In fighting for a better future for our town, we should draw inspiration from this history.

In a week of change we also saw Councillor Carol Wardle elected the new Mayor. I’m sure she’ll be a great Mayor of Rochdale and I’d also like to thank the departing Mayor, Councillor Peter Rush as well as congratulate the new deputy Mayor, Councillor Surinder Biant. Peter was very popular and was also a very good ambassador for the Borough.