Aren't you glad you voted for this numpty?

[Guinness]

Is our MP for real?

When there was talk of merging constituencies..he kicked and screamed because it might have affected the gravy train that he is on. Now he thinks its a good idea to merge local councils to save money.

MP?s super-council plan comes under fire - Accrington Observer

I've suspected for some time that Jones has a god complex, but now I'm convinced that he's touched in the head and totally lost the plot.

Lets take a quote of his...

“In times of austerity we have to think about working collaboratively. We have six finance officers and six heads of legal service, plus chief executives, plus a whole host of bureaucrats down at Preston.”

Let me fix that for him....

'In times of austerity we have to think about working collaboratively. We have umpteen MP's representing East Lancashire, plus umpteen associated hangers on, plus umpteen private secretaries, plus a whole host of bureaucrats down at Westminster'

Hey Ken..what do you think of your hero now that he's attempting to stab his own local party councillors and constituents in the back?

Anyone of ANY political persuasion that puts an 'X' against this self serving buffoons name next time is certifiable. He is to the electorate of Hyndburn what Venkys are to the supporters of Blackburn Rovers or what Pol Pot was to the Cambodians...an abomination!

[lancsdave]

Lets face it we already have a merged council, it's called Lancashire County Council. They can make decisions about Hyndburn that the local council can't do anything about.

[Guinness]

Originally Posted by lancsdave

Lets face it we already have a merged council, it's called Lancashire County Council. They can make decisions about Hyndburn that the local council can't do anything about.

Nah! Thats like saying we already have a government that can make decisions about Hyndburn that the local council can't do anything about.

Some decisions are meant to be made at local level.

[cmonstanley]

back in the early 1990s i remember something about the plan to build in between blackburn and ossy to join them up and to make hyndburn a suburb of the city of blackburn .

[accyman]

maybe he dosnt want his job next time around hes done his stint and will get a nice pension for the rest of his life

he wasnt a voice for hyndburn anyway so lets just see his term in office as a practice run for not having representation.Unless of course more people dont want a referendum and the top worry of the people of hyndburn is whos taking all the thrown out washing machines etc away faster than the council can

[accyman]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

back in the early 1990s i remember something about the plan to build in between blackburn and ossy to join them up and to make hyndburn a suburb of the city of blackburn .

yeah blackburn really wants that city status thats why they keep trying to nick rishton.I have family in rishton and some of their letters say rishton,blackburn and i think i noticed even royal mail seem to think rishton belongs to blackburn when i used their postcode finder

[gynn]

Originally Posted by cmonstanley

back in the early 1990s i remember something about the plan to build in between blackburn and ossy to join them up and to make hyndburn a suburb of the city of blackburn .

....and that plan was fiercely resisted by everyone in Hyndburn. It was one of the few issues that united everyone - Labour councillors, Conservative councillors, Liberal Democrat councillors (well councillor, Yvonne Stars) and the local MP. Everyone locally fighting to KEEP things local in the face of threats to merge us with Blackburn.

How times change. When the local MP can't be trusted to fight Hyndburn's corner at Westminster, what hope is there?

And how long is Graham expecting these 'times of austerity' to last? Any decisions about the future format of local government have got to be long term. The last thing we need is long term solutions to short term problems.

[Judith Addison]

Postal addresses have never been aligned with the "new" post-1974 local government boundaries. For example, Hyndburn is not a postal address, purely the name of a local government area. Altham, Church, Clayton-le-Moors & mainstream Oswaldtwistle all have postal address ACCRINGTON - these are BB5 postcodes. Great Harwood, Rishton and some outlying parts of Oswaldtwistle, e.g. Belthorn and Knuzden, have postal address BLACKBURN. These are not BB5 postcodes - Great Harwood is BB6 and I think Rishton, Belthorn & Knuzden are BB1.

[accyman]

my point was that despite been part of hyndburn the royal mail put rishton blackburn where as it should be rishton accrington like baxenden is baxenden accrington or clayton lemoors accrington when posting

anyway blackburn isnt a city despite its cathederal so blackburn will have to go without the extra cash that goes with been a city because thats all its about them wanting city status

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by Judith Addison

Postal addresses have never been aligned with the "new" post-1974 local government boundaries. For example, Hyndburn is not a postal address, purely the name of a local government area. Altham, Church, Clayton-le-Moors & mainstream Oswaldtwistle all have postal address ACCRINGTON - these are BB5 postcodes. Great Harwood, Rishton and some outlying parts of Oswaldtwistle, e.g. Belthorn and Knuzden, have postal address BLACKBURN. These are not BB5 postcodes - Great Harwood is BB6 and I think Rishton, Belthorn & Knuzden are BB1.

That's not strictly true. When Hyndburn was first created I remember everyone was told to add Hyndburn to the bottom of our addresses. There were letters from the Council about it but after a while I think they just gave up.

If you look at Rossendale which was also a made up name they persisted and everyone recognises it as an area.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by accyman

yeah blackburn really wants that city status thats why they keep trying to nick rishton.I have family in rishton and some of their letters say rishton,blackburn and i think i noticed even royal mail seem to think rishton belongs to blackburn when i used their postcode finder

Both Rishton and Great Harwood have Blackburn Post Codes accyman but that was entirely down to the GPO when they set the post codes

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Gayle

That's not strictly true. When Hyndburn was first created I remember everyone was told to add Hyndburn to the bottom of our addresses. There were letters from the Council about it but after a while I think they just gave up.

If you look at Rossendale which was also a made up name they persisted and everyone recognises it as an area.

Think your right there Gayle I know when I lived in Rossendale, Rossendale was recognised as part of the Postcode, never did take of in Hyndburn though, Haslingden Rossendale seems to have the right feel to it whereas Oswaldtwistle Hyndburn doesn't, its far better Oswaldtwistle Accrington

[jaysay]

Think it was in the 90s that Hyndburn had the chance to become a unitary authority like Blackburn, in other words opting out of the two tier system, I was quite in favour of that, but not with joining in with Blackburn, it always sounded good to me knowing that every penny raised in Hyndburn would be spent here where as at the moment on around 19p in every pound is guaranteed to be spent here, and that's HBCs 19%, but the county council waged a strong no campaign using council tax payers money to keep to county gravy train moving, still think being in charge of your own financial destiny is better, but doubt it will ever happen

[susie123]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Think your right there Gayle I know when I lived in Rossendale, Rossendale was recognised as part of the Postcode, never did take of in Hyndburn though, Haslingden Rossendale seems to have the right feel to it whereas Oswaldtwistle Hyndburn doesn't, its far better Oswaldtwistle Accrington

Rossendale as an area name has been around for a very long time. My dad worked at Haslingden even though we lived in Accy and he always referred to Rossendale. Whereas Hyndburn only really came into being when the local authority was created and before that was just the name of a river, and a mucky one at that. It's much more of an artificial creation and hasn't really been around long enough to be thought of as an area.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Think you are right in your assessment there Sue.
I worked in Rawtenstall in the early sixties and it was always Rossendale back then.
I never really liked the name Hyndburn......and if asked where I am from I always say Accrington.