JAMES DALY: Not 1 brick laid of Bury Market flexi-hall 3 years on

In August 2023 the cutting-edge multi-million pound terminal was opened.

Competent management by the local council and partners has delivered the promised facility within time and is expected to add around £357m to the local economy.

This example from Portsmouth shows how projects can be delivered for the benefit of local residents in a competent, efficient manner.

Something taxpayers are a bare minimum should expect. At the other end of the spectrum is Labour-controlled Bury Council.

In the same month as Portsmouth, October 2021, our local authority was awarded the maximum £20m grant to build a new flexi-hall and regenerate the area surrounding the historic Bury Market.

The leader of the council said at the time: “We can now move forward at pace and ensure that our historic market is in the best place to thrive, modernise and meet the challenges of today.”

However, three years later not one brick has been laid of the proposed new flexi-hall and the regeneration of the area around the market has not happened.

Portsmouth has managed to construct a cutting-edge new terminal for its port in a shorter period than it has taken the council to put one brick in the ground.

It is ridiculous and it is this continued level of incompetence from Bury Labour that continues to harm our town.

There are excuses, alleged reasons why this has not happened in the time frame required by the government but there always are from Bury Labour.

Bury North MP James Daly (Image: James Daly)

It is always someone else’s fault, the repeated failures of the Labour-led council are blamed on everyone except those who are truly responsible, the Labour politicians who have destroyed the council’s finance and overseen years of failure and inertia.

Ask yourself this question, can you honestly point to just one thing that Bury Labour have done or enacted that improves the lives of our fellow residents?

Instead, we have costly vanity projects, such as the preposterous cyclops junction outside the town hall and the unfathomable desire to encourage congestion in the town centre through the lane alterations on Angouleme Way.

However, this culture of waste is also epitomised by our Labour mayor. The latest example of this is the £4.9m being spent on rebranding buses with bright yellow Bee Network livery.

Among other things the Conservative Party has provided £20m to regenerate Radcliffe town centre and a new high school will be built in the town

Two new SEND high schools, the first having been constructed.

The money to save Gigg Lane and the creation of a local investment zone which will potentially bring 30,000 jobs with it.

For the sake of our town please vote Conservative in the local elections. We can not endure more Labour failure.