Pure propaganda - Roy Oldham "aware of the beautiful countryside on his doorstep"

One of our contacts has passed us Roy Oldham's latest election leaflet for the local Council Elections, and it's a gem.

You can see the full leaflet here and here. Note that the only line about the Bypass is a solitary sentence - "In Longdendale, the Bypass is going through its procedures", which makes it sound like it's some kind of independent sentient being. We're willing to bet that behind closed doors, Roy carries on conversations with the Bypass - for all we know, he may even believe he sleeps with it, which perhaps may go some way to explaining his dogged persistent devotion to the "idea" over the years.

Equally bizarre though is the small series of vignettes which illustrate how Roy is 'working for you', and in particular the one on the left. Apparently, Roy is very aware of the "beautiful countryside on his doorstep". The problem is that Roy wants to introduce his jealous lover Bypass to the beautiful countryside -  it's one of Roy's sick, twisted fantasies - and we know how it's going to end folks don't we? Yes, the perverted Bypass will have his wicked way with 'beautiful countryside', making her tired, ugly and degraded - a shadow of her former self.

Now you would have thought that a perfect backdrop to illustrate Roy's love for the countryside would be - the countryside of Longdendale! The only problem with that is that many of the views you could pick would be spoiled forever by the Bypass. So Roy's played it safe and posed against the park at the junction of the A57 and A628 in Hollingworth.

We think this is no small accident: for politicians like Oldham, the mitigation for projects that entail environmental degradation and the destruction of open spaces in the countryside is the provision of dead, paved, ecological deserts such as the park in the photograph. We know which we prefer.

We hear that Roy's facing a showdown with Kieran Quinn on May 16th, only 9 days after the results of the Council Elections. He may have plenty of time to spend in his park after that.

Ruth Bergan - don't mention the Bypass(?)

Now in this post we're not going to do any transcribing of the interview Saddleworth News has made with the Green Party candidate for Stalybridge & Hyde, Ruth Bergan. The reason being is that there's no mention of the Bypass.

We're not entirely sure why this is, but we'll posit some possibilities:

1. The interviewer didn't ask. So, far, the only other candidate who has not been asked about it is the Nazi David Jones, but you would have thought it was the ideal question to ask a Green candidate. But it's a strong possibility.
2. The interviewer did ask, but Ruth refused to answer and/or asked to have her words deleted from the interview. Seems highly unlikely, but a possibility.
3. Ruth thought it was best not to mention it. Although there were chances to raise the issue herself, in relation to transport for example, Ruth thought better of it for fear of 'losing votes'. This is also a strong possibility.
4. Ruth thinks it's irrelevant - she simply doesn't think it's an issue in Stalybridge and Hyde. Inconceivable.

Historically, Green candidates in Tameside - and even Tameside Green Party itself - have been fainthearts in relation to this issue: it's simply not been an issue that they have taken up at a political level in the area. Indeed, at the Public Inquiry, a representative from Friends of the Earth in Stockport was the only person from a mainstream Green organisation to be combative about the issue and subject the promoters to scrutiny. In her local election address in this week's local papers, the prospective Green Party Council candidate for Longdendale - Melanie Roberts - makes absolutely no reference whatsoever to Bypass 2.0.

Politicians of all stripes are usually more than keen to tell us both what they are for and what they are against. You would have thought that the issue of a road scarring the beautiful landscape of Longdendale & Glossopdale, promoting more traffic and attendant pollution would be something a Green candidate would have something to say about. But not in the case of Ruth Bergan and Tameside Green Party.

UPDATE 5th May 2010: Ruth Bergan has responded personally to this blog post, and you can follow the discussion by going to the comments. We have offered her an opportunity to make clear her opposition to Bypass 2.0, and she has now taken us up on the offer - you can read the blog post about it here.

John Cooke's Truck Driver Divorce

Who cares what UKIP think about the bypass? Or anything else for that matter? Well, you can't accuse Saddleworth News of being inconsistent (although there's no mention of the bypass in the interview with the Tameside BNP Führer and Gollum soundalike David Jones), so he asks Tameside's UKIP afterbirth John Cooke (aka "Rubber Duck") what he thinks. So let's be even handed and give the bloke five minutes shall we?

Well, it's a very short interview and the bit about the bypass is even shorter.  So short we'll simply quote in full rather than leave it to the end. C'mon Rubber Duck:

Erm, I'm 100% in favour of the Mottram Bypass, erm, I used to run a transport company. It's possible for a lorry to get across to Sheffield in 45 minutes, erm, except for the traffic jams. The traffic jams need to be got rid of, it's doing nobody's health any good having thousands of vehicles sat ticking over, belching fumes into the air, so I would like to see the Mottram Bypass completed as quickly as possible.

Appropriately, Cooke's interview appears to have been conducted in the street, and the sound of traffic is constant. Anyway, at this point, there's precious little else to write about, so here's some lyrics from Frank Zappa's Truck Driver Divorce which seem apt:

Truck driver divorce!
It's very sad
(Steel guitars Usually weepall over it)
The bold & intelligent MASTERS OF THE ROAD,
With their Secret Language,
And their GIANT OVER-SIZED MECHANICAL TRANS-CONTINENTAL HOBBY-HORSE!

Indeed...

Rob Adlard's "rural feeling"

Another candidate for Stalybridge and Hyde interviewed by Saddleworth News is the Tory Rob Adlard. As you'd expect, our interest lies with what he has to say about the Bypass, and once again, we've produced an mp3 from the edited interview and have also transcribed it - both of these appear below.

As with Jonny Reynolds, there appears to be precious little comment from Adlard about the Bypass in other media. Even his own website's transport policy section has no specific mention of the Bypass. So Saddleworth News has done a good job of dragging what little these politicians have to say about the issue out of them.

And what does he say? Well, he's definitely for a bypass, although most of the time is spent attacking Roy Oldham's failure to deliver the road, which is in tune with the approach taken by Longdendale Conservatives. But his words about the 'majority' wanting a bypass concur with the perorations of other politicians - i.e. uninformed and without presenting any empirical evidence to support this assertion.

Adlard's record on the matter also speaks for itself: he did not write to the Public Inquiry to support the Bypass, nor schedule an appearance to speak in favour at said enquiry. You could say he's shown absolutely no interest in the matter, other than to play political football with it at election time: the same could be said of the Tory candidate for Longdendale Peter Hayes (whose fence-sitting blather about the bypass can be read here) - another one who thought the issue was so crucial to the people in the area that he decided not to register an opinion at the Public Inquiry. It's called having your cake and eating it.

Still, in a constituency that's been Labour since 1945 it's unlikely Adlard and Co. will ever get to the main course.


Interviewer:

Now one other erm issue that's important locally is erm the issue of the Bypass which is one that's erm rumbled on for a long time? Where do you stand on that?

Adlard:

It's an interesting and enormous issue, I mean, erm, you know it's something that's been going on for 30 years and it certainly divides the community here, erm - the majority of people want to have some kind of bypass. Erm, the village just up the road from me, Mottram, is absolutely split in two, er, by the problem with the roads right now and they're very upset about it - the majority of people up there want it, apart from the people who live on the outskirts, on the more sort of - erm - rural feeling, areas and they're very much more against it, er, and to be honest there are good arguments on either side.

When I started, erm, having a role to play in politics in this area, started to research, er, again the beginnings of the bypass and all the things that had gone on, we started by having a campaign to trying to get, erm, Roy Oldham the Council leader here to be more open and we were calling for more honesty erm on the issue, and use that as a starting point, and it was interesting when we began to do that, and we found that y'know there was a sort of spike in activity and promises about the bypass at election times. Recently he's just been holding -erm - consultations across all the villages in Longdendale, erm, y'know it's very very close to an election time er after the scheme fell through and he claims that it was because the Highways Agency, you know, withdrew the money and it was all their fault, and all the rest of it, and it was to do with the environmental campaigners, and it's not: I mean he never really had an argument to satisfy the environmental campaigners and just, you know, treated them as if they didn't have a point to make, and they clearly did have a point to make because, er, a lot of people were upset about that and it did cause ructions, but actually, that wasn't what stopped it. What stopped it was that the Highways Agency said it had the least strategic fit, it was the least suitable plan, the least well thought out plan, and the money went elsewhere, to other road schemes.

So, we need to start again, I think we need to look at it, erm, again from scratch - the scheme that Roy Oldham's proposing right now, we just shift the problem a little bit further down the road, away from his house in Mottram, and down into Hollingworth.

Jonny Reynolds interviewed about Bypass 2.0

Whilst it seems that any public pronouncements backing the Bypass in print from the Stalybridge and Hyde candidates are thin on the ground, the Saddleworth News website has been carrying interviews where it has been mentioned. Most interesting is their interview with Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds which appeared on their site recently.

Now the sound file for this interview is rather large, so we hope the editor of the site doesn't mind that we've altered it to save our readers/listeners the hassle of downloading it and wading through the other bilge to get to the relevant bit - the edited mp3 can be heard on the player below, along with our transcription of Reynolds' words.

But what's really fascinating about this interview is how much Reynolds gives away about the true reasons for this road. He makes a pitch aimed at the local electorate using the conventional justification about 'relieving locals of traffic' (although Bypass 2 is now only 'helping' Mottram), and wraps this around the true aim: that the bypass is part of a strategic route improvement, ultimately aimed at facilitating the motorway network, as part of a trans-European route (you may remember that we have written extensively in the past about the plans Tameside had for a North European Trade Axis).

Other interesting points are:

• How Reynolds corrects himself when talking about opposition to the original bypass plan - changing it to the well-worn myth propogated by the local roads lobby that it was "opposition outside the area".
• How Reynolds calls the new Bypass proposal 'Bypass 2' - a term first used on this website which now seems to have entered the official lexicon.
• How thoroughly middle class Reynolds is (and likely to become ruling class by May 7th if he's elected).

Interviewer:

Now one other erm issue that's been rumbling on here for er em really rather a long time is the issue of the Bypass, erm, where do you stand on that?

Reynolds:

I used to live on Mottram Moor in Hollingworth, I'm the Longdendale Councillor, so you won't be surprised to know I'm very much in favour of the Bypass. You know I'm not someone who believes that building roads is always the answer to traffic problems but if you look at the unique situation that we have with two motorways pointing towards each other, everything that I've seen, you know, there's not an easy public transport solution to this, and some of the more sort of, erm, distinctive ideas like a roll-on roll-off railway don't seem to have been a starter at all, er, in order to solve the traffic problem.

What annoys me the most as a Longdendale Councillor is the way that, you know, the funding allocations have come about in such a way as to, you know, be assigned in a way at a regional level, and I understand why across the North West for certain transport projects that makes sense, but really this is, you know, an essential piece of road infrastructure on the edge of a region - it's a national project because it links two regions together and it's something which has come about really through the National motorway network, creating the unique problems that we've got in Longdendale, and I think the government - all governments - going back many, many years should have recognised this and given us the funding, and we've got the busiest A-road in the country and we've got levels of pollution in Hollingworth outside the primary school which are in excess of anything that's recommended by, you know, the medical experts.

So, the funding should be given - I appreciate the original Bypass plan caused a lot of opposition because of, sorry a lot of opposition outside the area, because of what was perceived to be some sort of damage to the Peak Park as it came through at the end, that was a small piece of the, er, wider bypass that was proposed. At the minute what we're looking at is really what's been called Bypass 2 or a smaller initial option that would just bypass Mottram and come back across and use the Glossop Spur back to Woolley Bridge from the M67. That's still going to require a solution for Hollingworth, and road calming and maybe an HGV ban can be part of that, but I need to know in terms of being both a local Councillor and, er, a possible MP for the area that Hollingworth's going to get a solution as well as Mottram, and I'm very much committed as someone who lives in the area as well to getting, er you know, a system in place which relieves the residents of the traffic because what they're being asked to put up with at the minute is not acceptable at all.

High Peak Hustings - Bypass 2.0 is for "cars powered by wind turbines"

Yesterday saw 3 of the candidates from the main political parties contesting the General Election take part in a 'hustings' event on High Peak Radio. NMB audio faeries whipped out their copies of Audacity to make a recording, and we've edited the 'lowlights' of the proclamations of the three candidates - i.e. the bit where they reveal their plans to trash the environment of the High Peak in numerous ways - and you can hear this at the foot of this post on the mp3 player.

We'll be back soon with a fuller analysis, but for the time being, we'll leave you with Alistair Stevens' (Lib Dem) bizarre The Day Today-esque response to a question we posed (which begins at 7:14) - the Bypass he wants to build will be for "cars powered by wind turbines". Whatever next...

Normal service will be restored shortly...

If you're visiting, you may notice that things look a bit funny at the moment - after more than 3 years, it's time to update the design of the blog to make it more flexible and user-friendly, and easier on the eye. So please bear with us in the meantime...

UPDATE 16/04/2010: new design is now complete - we hope you enjoy it!

A future free from the Bypass?

Now we don't pretend to have done a full survey of all the election literature circulating both Longdendale and the High Peak, but from what we have seen so far, it seems remarkably free of mention of Bypass 2.0.

In the High Peak, in leaflets mailed and posted by the successor to Tom 'Shiteman' Levitt - Caitlin Bisknell - there's no mention the Bypass anywhere. This is also the case in the examples of literature delivered on behalf of Andrew 'Tweedledumber' Bingham (we will try to post scans of these leaflets when we have time).

But the most interesting case is that of the Labour PPC in Stalybridge & Hyde, Jonathan Reynolds. A website has been erected for his campaign this week, by the looks of it in a rather hasty fashion. Here's what we noticed on a cursory glance:

1. It seems to contain rather a lot of press releases about James Purnell - in fact, it appears to be Purnell's website with a makeover - a bit like Reynolds himself.
2. Reynolds 'About me' spiel on the website makes no mention of Bypass 2.0, although there's plenty of talk about 'better transport by road and rail'.
3. Politicians and other folk publicly backing Reynolds on the site DO NOT include fellow Councillor Sean Parker-Perry (wonder why?) and, crucially, Tameside Council leader Roy Oldham.
4. As we've already said, this website appears to be James Purnell's redirected to a new domain name, and in the haste to get it online, Reynolds seems to have overlooked the fact that it does not contain his agent's details*, but does contain those of the General Sectretary of the Labour Party (Ray Collins) at the bottom (as a Labour MP's website often does). Those more well-versed in electoral law than ourselves may want to see if anything illegal is taking place.

Whilst we haven't seen Reynolds campaign literature yet, it seems clear that many of the major political parties in the area do not consider the Bypass to be a campaigning issue. How long this lasts for after the election remains to be seen.

*UPDATE, 22/04/2010: a recent article in Tribune magazine carries a description of what seems like internecine civil war within Stalybridge and Hyde Labour Party, being heavily critical of Reynolds and his 'backers'. It makes clear that Reynolds was struggling to find an election agent, but has now secured Mike Kane, who some may remember replaced Mike Doherty as James Purnell's Office Manager when Doherty was sacked for writing to the press to back Purnell without declaring that he worked for him. Reynolds website now names Kane as his agent, although bizarrely he seems to have been  re-named 'Michel'.

Jonny Reynolds - entering a world of pain...

Tameside Eye and Tameside Mafia are both breaking with the news that Councillor Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds has been selected as the Labour PPC for Stalybridge & Hyde. Just over a week ago, we reported how Reynolds' campaign was promising to deliver Bypass 2.0 for Longdendale.

In the words of Walter Sobchak, we'd like to say to Jonny that he's about to enter a 'world of pain'. Our advice: drop Bypass 2.0.

3 years young today

On the occasion of our third birthday, we'd like to thank those who still read our increasingly occasional blogs. Let's hope Bypass 2.0 bites the dust soon and then we can all pack up and go home.

Purnell, Hoon and the Longdendale Bypass - multiple FAIL

Amidst all this talk of reinstated road plans and re-electing politicians and parties, we'd like to contrast fantasy with reality. So here's a homage to failblog - and a re-hash of an image we used once before in a different way, updated to remind readers of the fate of Geoff Hoon, James Purnell and the Longdendale Bypass

Jonny Reynolds as Stalybridge & Hyde MP? - all mouth, no trousers...

Since we last blogged, there's been a lot of bad blood flowing around Tameside Labour Party. Our old friend, the supreme fuckwit that is Sean Parker-Perry, has been doing his best to smear his rival, fellow Councillor Jonathan Reynolds. We'd have loved to have had the scoop on this story, and we would have thought that Parker-Perry would have learned something from his stupid little games on the internet which lost him his job some time ago. Nevertheless, his accusations look interesting and deserve to be followed up...

In the meantime, reports of the struggle facing Reynolds to get himself onto the local PPC candidate list have reached a national level. The Times has reported that Peter Mandelson intervened to ensure Reynolds was re-admitted to the candidate list, after initially being excluded, which provoked accusations of this being a breach of the rules.

So for the Stalybridge and Hyde Labour Party, now there's a choice between a self-publicist GP with some wacky views about the NHS, a think-tanker, a Blairite, a racist former immigration minister and little Jonny, the local (from the North East) wanabee lawyer, a party hack.

And now look what the wind has blown into our hands. Above you'll see Reynolds' campaign leaflet for the PPC post. Look more closely and you'll find the following:

Local Transport - we need significant investment in transport in Stalybridge and Hyde, and especially in the Mottram Bypass.

Should anyone take Reynolds seriously on this issue? We think not. After all, as we pointed out at the time, Reynolds joined both his fellow Councillors in Longdendale in utterly failing to make an appearance at the Public Inquiry. He clearly does not have the courage of his convictions, failing those in favour of a bypass in his constituency who were looking to him to represent their views. But he now expects them to take him seriously again!

Regular readers will know better than to expect us to show the time of day to any politicians, of any political stripe (even those campaigning against the bypass, who don't stand a cat in hells chance anyway) . We're not going to go into why, as there's plenty of other articles we've posted that expound our politics. But clearly, an outsider would be a more effective choice for Stalybridge and Hyde Labour Party - because they wouldn't have a track record of utter failure in representing them over the Bypass.

**UPDATE - the Times is now claiming that the think-tanker and the racist have pulled out, because of Mandelson's intervention.

Purnell quits: exit Faction Man - enter Action Man?

This blog is the last place you'll hear it today, but the big news is the announcement from James Purnell that he will be standing down as an MP at the next General Election.

There's not much we can say about this that hasn't been said already all over the internet anyway. We're wholly unsurprised that this southern chancer has decided to duck out now before Labour take a beating next time.

But who will replace him? Well, the talk is that it's likely that the Longdendale Councillor Jonathan 'Jonny' Reynolds will be chosen by the CLP as a candidate, and we all know his track record regarding the bypass. But then there's also another factor: Reynolds is the Secretary of the Tameside Co-operative Labour Party, a faction which is backing Kieran Quinn to be the new leader of TMBC and led the revolt against Roy Oldham.

If Reynolds is chosen as the PPC for Stalybridge and Hyde, it's inconceivable that he won't publicly back the bypass, particularly as the Tory PPC has already done so. But like all politicians, what these people say in public is not necessarily the same as what's going on behind the scenes.

Reynolds can be assured that if he does stand for MP and wins, we'll be paying very close attention to him in future.

Anthony McKeown's thumbs-down for Bypass 2.0

Regular readers will know that we've always paid a certain amount of attention to the self-styled blogging High Peak Borough Councillor, Anthony McKeown. Readers will also know that  McKeown has always been a steadfast supporter of plans for the Bypass (although seemingly not enthusiastic enough to either formally express his support in writing to the promoter, nor do so at the Public Inquiry), faithfully backing the line of the Council, be it under Labour control, or more recently Tory.

He's also in the past been a bit of a cheerleader for the MP Tom Levitt - but all of that started to change around the time of the MPs expenses scandal, when McKeown became the first in his party to formally criticise Levitt's behaviour.

With a new blog the other day, it now seems that McKeown is inching away from support for a Bypass. Have a look at this quote (emphasis added):

"Now my initial thoughts on the proposals is whilst I still support the idea of full bypass between Mottram and Tintwistle, I’m not sure on the basis of the information so far that the proposals suggested will have enough of an effect for the cost, and that alternative options such as supporting the building of a new station at Gamesley may be a better way to go."

Firstly, let's put aside Ant's dewey-eyed words about the original bypass plan: surely only Roy Oldham now supports the original bypass plans, and a belief in that discredited idea is about as sincere as the faith the captain of the Titanic displayed in the integrity of his ship's hull. Have a closer look - yes, Ant is saying that alternatives are preferable to a road.

But the best bit is perhaps reserved for the next paragraph in his blog:

"I’m also aware that whilst various bits are suggested within Glossopdale so far neither the County nor the Borough Council’s have been fully consulted / involved in drawing up these proposals."

That's pretty devastating for any bypass believer, and clearly illustrates the lack of continuity between the old Bypass plans and Bypass 2.0. Given that McKeown is the Secretary of High Peak Labour Party, it looks like a sea-change, albeit a change in the views of the current opposition. Will the new Labour PPC for High Peak follow suit?

Roy Oldham's Downfall - is Bypass 2.0 in freefall?

Some of our readers may have noticed the story on the Manchester Evening News website that Roy Oldham is not only facing a challenge to his leadership of Tameside MBC from fellow Councillor Kieran Quinn, but that his local constituency party in Stalybridge and Hyde is supporting Quinn.

Now this is not 'new' news, and was actually reported at the end of January by Tameside Eye (with the hilariously apposite video above added to the post). But the fact that the MEN are using the story brings it out into the open.

What can it mean for the Bypass? It's well known that the original Bypass and the new Bypass ('with Bumps') 2.0 are Oldham's babies. As we hinted in our blog last night, there's a strong chance Oldham's end will spell the end of the road.

There's more to this story than meets the eye, so stay tuned over the next few days for more.

Roy Oldham drops the bomb on Longdendale

As a taster, here's a little sneaky peak at the real substance of the report prepared by TMBC about the 'Longdendale Integrated Transport System' - RoyOldham/Colonel Kurtz has scrawled his solution for Longdendale. Our sources are telling us that there is a Tameside equivalent of Captain Willard waiting in the wings to stick the knife in at the right moment, but will he take up Oldham's priorities and methods, or are they only the property of the old goat?

We need motivation to adopt our old blogging habits, but an exposition of the whole sorry, pathetic affair will appear here at some point (yes, we know we promised it before!).

TMBC call Bypass 2.0 meetings - but don't give any dates

Some of you may have the seen the rather strange half-page adverts placed by TMBC in last week's Reporter/Chronicle newspapers. Billed as a 'public consultation' about the (almost semi-mythical) Longdendale Integrated Transport System (i.e. Bypass with speed bumps), Tameside have wasted a whole wedge of local taxpayer's money because the notices contained no specific dates. Also strange is the decision to not place similar adverts in the local free papers, which have a much wider circulation. Upon phoning the phone numbers provided, callers are told that the dates are 'to be finalised'. Do they actually want anyone to attend one wonders?

Well word has reached us that said meetings will take place in Hollingworth, Mottram, Broadbottom and Glossop, and today we have learned the dates for Hollingworth - the venue is Hollingworth Church (they need all the help they can get, even though Roy's going to hell) on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th February. More dates/cynicism as we can get it/can be bothered...

UPDATE 28/01/2010: two days after we publish this blog, and Tameside's website bursts into life with info about the LITS. There's now a dedicated website here, and we'll repeat the dates/times for the 'consultations' in all venues/areas:

Saturday 6th February - Mottram Community Centre, Church Brow, Mottram-in-Longdendale, Hyde SK14 6JJ (10 am to 5 pm)
Monday 8th February - Broadbottom Community Centre, Lower Market Street, Broadbottom, Hyde SK14 6AA (2 pm to 8.30 pm)
Thursday 11th February - Mottram Community Centre, Church Brow, Mottram-in-Longdendale, Hyde SK14 6JJ (2 pm to 8.30 pm)
Friday 12th February - St. Mary’s Church, Hollingworth, Market Street, Hollingworth SK14 8NE (12 pm to 8.30 pm)
Saturday 13th February - St. Mary’s Church, Hollingworth, Market Street, Hollingworth SK14 8NE (10 am to 5 pm)
Friday 19th February - Bradbury Community House, Market Street, Glossop, Derbyshire SK13 8AR (12 pm to 8.30 pm)

2010 predictions

It's now a tradition of this blog to make some sort of predictions for the coming year, and despite our absence and the relative quietness of the past 6 months, we feel the need to carry on with this convention.


Firstly, as usual, lets look at how successful we were last year:

Right

More Public Inquiry delays. It was delay, delay, delay - even the act of shutting it down was protracted. So we feel that was right, although it was hard to get this bit wrong.

The economic situation worsening. Again, another no-brainer. But this had the maximum effect of making 4NW drop the Longdendale Bypass from their spending plans early in the year.

Wrong 

Everything else! Unfortunately, Roy Oldham has not stood down - although a little bird tells us that he may stand down as the leader of TMBC in 2010 to concentrate on trying to bring about Bypass 2.0. And of course, Geoff Hoon could not act on the bypass because he resigned as Secretary of State in June last year.

Predictions for the coming year:

Whoever is the next High Peak MP will back the bypass. Yes, thanks in no small part to the sterling work done on his expense claims over at the Tom Levitt's Expenses blog, Tom Levitt has decided to call it a day before he lost out to the Tories anyway - we don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Levitt may be made a peer, but expect it's more likely he will land some corporate post, perhaps connected with a developer, since he has done his best to concrete-ise the High Peak. Will a new face as the Labour candidate mean they retain the High Peak seat? Whatever happens, we expect the winner to back the bypass (we've already blogged about the Tory candidate Andrew Bingham). We'd expect James Purnell to retain his seat, but with a much reduced majority, and we know that the prospective Tory PPC is pro-bypass anyway.

Little progress with Bypass 2.0. Despite all the hullabaloo about this project since the demise of the Highways Agency project, we feel that the emperor has no clothes. TMBC have promised public consultation next year, so expect lots of 'artists impression'-style images of a quiet traffic-free Mottram, but no images of the hell this will cause elsewhere. We plan to do an extensive article about Bypass 2.0 in the New Year.

And that's your lot.

Review of 2009

Contrary to what we said last year, it DOES seem rather a long time since we last compiled our review of the year. Perhaps that's because we've not been blogging much, but it means that this will be a rather truncated review. So here goes.

January

As has been customary, January started with our predictions for the coming year, and we'll be doing a little follow up on that in about 24 hours or so. We also took a little look at Tom Levitt's predictions too, or 'Mystic Lev' as we christened him.

We looked at Persona Associates a couple of times this month: first to muse on why their portfolio of Public Inquiries seemed rather slim, and second to wonder why the Programme Officer Chris Banks had moved on. At the time, it seemed more of a conspiracy than it does now.

Our old nemesis Sean Parker-Perry popped up in this month too. He'd been complaining about the introduction of fortnightly bin collections in Tameside, and we used to opportunity to take a look at the real motives behind the move towards this trend.

This month also saw a decision about Heathrow's third runway, and we took a swipe at Geoff Who?/Hoon, who at the time was the Secretary of State for Transport. We also criticised Tom Levitt who used the Heathrow decision as an opportunity to demonstrate his contradictory views about the environment - this time, he hailed the decision to discharge even greater volumes of CO2 into the atmosphere as having entirely the opposite effect.

It was in January that dark clouds started to appear on the horizon for bypass supporters. 4NW were running a consultation on spending priorities for transport, and they had handily pointed out that they were currently 35% over-budget. We worked out the Longdendale Bypass represented that 15% of the total budget, a fact which could expose it to being axed in future.

February

This month could be divided in roughly two ways - politicians and money.

Regarding money, the big news was a leak from the blog of Jim Dixon, Chief Executive of the Peak District National Park Authority, revealing that 4NW had decided not to fund the Longdendale Bypass in their budget to 2015. A week later, the media was beginning to pick it up.

Regarding politicians, we first stopped to look at the curious moves of Derbyshire County Councillors Wilkinson & Wilcox, who called for the Public Inquiry to be stopped early in the month. We also looked at Denton MP Andrew Gwynne's trip to Svalbard to have a look at the effects of climate change, clearly trying to get away from the M60 at Denton, which is a big contributor to it. Lastly, we focused on another politician who loves such contradictions, Tom Levitt MP, who decried 4NW's decision to drop the bypass funding.

Along the way we also had items on TMBC's latest bit of greenwash and an article from John Hall about how the local press prevents criticism of politicians.

March

March was about death and resurrection. It appeared this month that the Bypass was dying, and a mortal wound was inflicted when the Highways Agency decided to withdraw from the Public Inquiry. It looked increasingly like euthanasia too, with the emergence of the full 4NW report labelling the road as having the 'weakest' strategic justification, although it would be an expensive funeral, with the quango reserving over £1 million to preserve the corpse for the time being.

We also decided to call it a day, given the news about the Highways Agency, but we spoke too soon, and decided on a resurrection 3 days later after AGMA announced their plans for what we were the first to dub 'Bypass 2.0'. Also resurrected were the crusty old zombies of Longdendale Siege, on the warpath after the double-whammy of 4NW and Highways Agency decisions. Perhaps our blog taking the piss out of Mike Flynn had reverberations beyond the grave?

Prior to the news about the Highways Agency, earlier in the month, we'd spent some time looking at the politricks taking place at the Department for Transport, with the revelation that the then Minister Lord Adonis was the decision maker about the road. What we think was our best 'lolprats' photo accompanied the blog.

And the month would be incomplete without pointing out yet more contradictions in the public utterances of Tom 'Shiteman' Levitt MP.

April

Early in the month, we looked at the ridiculous bureaucracy which meant that the Public Inquiry was still rumbling on, despite the promoter or the scheme stating their intention to withdraw from it weeks beforehand. We also had our hands on a Freedom of Information request obtained by John Hall in which the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate seemed to criticise the way the Inquiry had been run. Later in the month, we once again noted that the Highways Agency were still dragging their feet in formally withdrawing, and that the Inspector was reluctant to get tough. We also noted how accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers had landed on the blog after searching Google for the Inquiry and mused that a thorough audit wouldn't go amiss.

April also brought more news about Bypass 2.0. There were more detailed discussions about it at TMBC's 'Executive Cabinet' (sounds so vainglorious, doesn't it?), and we'd mused about possible routes for the new road prior to these developments. We also noted that something seemed wrong with the sequencing of the traffic lights through Mottram, which may not be entirely coincidental.

We also took a little time to look at the Tory Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (and likely next High Peak MP), Andrew 'Tweedledumber' Bingham and his essential non-difference from Tom Levitt regarding the Longdendale Bypass.

May

Only 3 stories this month, and a sign that the days of blogging every few days was over, as well as having something to write about.

There were more revelations about the cost of the (now failed) Bypass - £1,176,000 between November 2008 and April 2009, which worked out at more than £7,000 per day. The costs accrual didn't seem to affect the sloth-like approach of the Highways Agency, and John Hall sent us copies of emails between Persona Associates and HA project leader Alex Bywaters which illustrated this.

Finally, we reported on a more-or-less secret meeting between the various bodies promoting the bypass to progress to 'phase 2' of the Bypass project, following AGMA's announcement about transport funding priorities.

June

This month we had more or less come to the conclusion that the blog should remain on hiatus for the foreseeable future, unless there were any major developments worth reporting.

July

We obviously couldn't ignore the big news this month, and it formed our only blog for this month - the news that the Highways Agency had brought the Public Inquiry to an end, 3 months after their announcement that they were withdrawing. The PI had sat for only 15 days out of the 757 that it had been officially running. We mused at the time on the likely costs of the whole farce, but there have been no revelations about this since we wrote.

August

We popped back very briefly this month to inform the world about TMBC issuing a tender for the new name for Bypass 2.0 - 'Longdendale Integrated Transport System'.

And that wrapped it up for the year.

Bypass 2.0 - is work in progress?

Now we were hoping to get another detailed post together about the whole 'Longdendale Integrated Transport Strategy' currently being hyped by Roy Oldham and Tameside MBC here there and everywhere, but we'll put that to one side to bring you some breaking - but linked - news instead.

It seems that TMBC are seeking interest for a tender in the construction of Bypass 2.0, and the evidence can be seen here on the publictenders.net website.

Note the details - the deadline is the end of September 2009, and the sum under the contract is £90 million.

So far, in many people's minds, it's been a little hard to take all of the pronouncements about Bypass 2.0 seriously, but this development is a big 'heads up' to all involved...