THE FIGHTBACK BEGINS...

Broughton, Kersal and Charlestown
Salford Against The Cuts Meeting
The Star Inn
Mon 28th February 7pm

Save Irlam and Cadishead Library Protest
Outside Cadishead Library
Mon 28th February 4-6pm

DAY X DEMO
Outside Salford Council Civic Centre
Wed March 2nd Noon

With Salford City Council about to ratify its £40million cuts, there's meetings and demos all over Salford, and beyond, coming up – starting today in Cadishead and tonight in Broughton.

MOSAICS OF THE MIND

The Start project in Salford produces brilliant art works. But its artists are people who use creativity to help counter things like depression and anxiety.

John Edge catches up with Start's Time Out, Arts On Prescription group that has just finished a commission to provide art works for the Children's department at Pendleton Gateway.

SALFORD'S SMOKY TOPS

One out of every three people in Salford smokes but now the NHS has launched a new online Personal Tracker to help motivate anyone who wishes to quit. It counts how many cigarettes are not being smoked each day and how much money is saved over a period.

It's all part of NHS Salford's Legends campaign which is inviting everyone in Salford to become a `Salford Legend' by stopping smoking. There's also going to be a big event for No Smoking Day on March 9th at Salford Precinct.

Bamber Bridge 2 Salford City 2

SALFORD FIGHT BACK

Two goals down at half time, Salford City fought back with two goals to earn a point at high flying Bamber Bridge on a swamp-cum-sand pit of a pitch.

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY EVENTS - 100 YEARS

The Vagina Monologues + debate
with Jill Halfpenny and Ranvir Singh
Tues March 8th 6:30pm £10-£50, Manchester Town Hall

Strictly Come Dancing Star, Jill Halfpenny, plays host as local women perform The Vagina Monologues, while BBC North West news presenter, Ranvir Singh, chairs a debate afterwards on the exploitation of women.

The event is at Manchester Town Hall and is in aid of The Birdhouse Fund, V-Day and the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.

100 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Striking A Light
Sat 5th March 2pm free
Working Class Movement Library, Salford

For the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, hear the story of the famous Matchwomens' strike of 1888 and a talk on where womens' trade union struggles are at today.

ORDSALL LIBRARY CLOSURE PROTEST

What was supposed to be a `consultation' about the closure of Ordsall Library and its relocation to Fit City Ordsall turned into a protest yesterday.

Kids with placards marched through the meeting shouting `Save our library' and singing `We shall not be moved', while outside the building they'd mounted banners and more placards. Inside, representatives from Salford City Council and local councillor Peter Dobbs, were left in doubt about the feelings of the community…

SWAMPED WITH HONOUR

Years since Swampy and co occupied the stunning forests around Manchester Airport to try and stop the second runway being built, six campaigners have been sentenced for forming a human chain around the wheel of a Monarch Airline jet in protest at further expansion of the airport.

The Government has scrapped plans for a third runway at Heathrow, and it looks like Manchester Airport - part owned by Salford City Council - will be expanded along with other regional airports instead – with all the eco fall out that brings…

SALFORD CHILD POVERTY AT 60% AND SEVERE CHILD POVERTY AT 20%

"In 2009, the wealth of Britain's one thousand richest people rose by one-third to more than £333 billion. And yet, in the fifth wealthiest country in the world, 1.7 million children live in severe poverty" Save The Children

Figures released by Save The Children today show that 20% of Salford's kids are living in "the most severe poverty". This is on top of official Salford Council figures last July which showed 60% of our kids living in general poverty.

Save the Children is now calling on the ConDem Government to draw up an emergency plan to tackle severe child poverty – although this Government's spending cuts seem set to make the figures worse…

SALFORD COUNCIL DRAGGED BEFORE COMMUNITY TO EXPLAIN SALFORD STAR `DISCRIMINATION'.

The Salford Star funding row is still rumbling on as Salford Council was forced to explain its `discrimination' to the East Salford Community Committee recently.

Now we can reveal that Salford Council has funded all other `community media' in the city with well over £300,000 during the past few years. While, of course, stuffing hundreds of thousands of pounds into its own Life In Salford magazine.

Salford City 1 Ossett Albion 0

A ONE - NIL THRASHING FOR OSSETT

Salford City got back to winning ways with a total pummelling of Ossett Albion. But the only goal of the game came from a penalty coolly converted by Steve Foster in the second half.

BY 2014 SALFORD YOUTH SERVICE AND ADULT SOCIAL CARE WILL BE SHOT…

When Salford Council announced £40million of cuts and 600 job losses this week it was only for the year 2011-12. Salford Star has now seen savings for the following two years…

…And by 2014 a total of over £10.5million will have been wiped from Adult Social Care spending, while our Youth Service will be decimated with over £3million worth of cuts – despite findings from Salford Council's own `budget consultation' which showed these were the two departments that the community said "Do Not Cut: It is very important that this service remains as it is now"… 

SALFORD UNIONS' "CONSIDERABLE OBSTACLES" TO AVOID STRIKES

Trade Unions representing Salford Council employees have responded to Tuesday's £40million cuts announcements by threatening a ballot for industrial action on scrapping essential car user allowance for staff, and slating Salford Community Leisure for pushing through library closures "without putting these proposals on the table when we have met with them".

Whilst welcoming the Council's `indication' that there will be no compulsory redundancies this year within the 600 job losses, Ray Walker - joint secretary for Salford unions UNISON, GMB and UNITE - states that "we still have much to do" to "avoid a requirement to consider a ballot for industrial action"…

COUNCIL CAR PARKING SET TO RISE BY UP TO £3.50

Councillors next week will be asked to approve huge increases in charges on Salford City Council car parks which in some instances will rise by £3.50.

The car park outside the Civic Centre in Swinton, which is currently free for the first two hours, will see charges imposed of £1.50 for the first two hours and £3.50 for over two hours. The Council car park in Monton Village, which is also currently free, will see the same charges applied. All other charges will rise by 30%.

JOHN MERRY ON THE CUTS, THE BIG SOCIETY AND THE LACK OF POLITICAL OPPOSITION
Part 2

"The Big Society is a joke" John Merry

With £42million cuts announced by Salford City Council yesterday, where's the political opposition and accountability in Salford coming from? Certainly not the Lib Dems and Tories, whose government is imposing the cuts. And the unions remained deadly quiet yesterday too*

Meanwhile, in the midst of the cuts, volunteers are being brought in to `help' run museums and art galleries, while voluntary sector organisations are being asked to take over fitness centres, despite 15% cuts to their funding. Cameron's so-called Big Society is already showing its ugly face in Salford.

JOHN MERRY ON THE SALFORD COUNCIL CUTS
Part 1

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra £3million cheque in March – why?
Chief Exec salary untouched – why?
Salford Council Life magazine stays – why? 
Lifelines cut for the most vulnerable - why?

In the wake of the £42million cuts announced yesterday, Salford Council Leader John Merry talks to the Salford Star…

CARNAGE AT SALFORD COUNCIL!

Over 600 jobs to go! Libraries merged with sports centres! Homeless hostel closed! Little Hulton hammered! Poverty alleviation pounded!

As exclusively revealed on the Salford Star website last week, the young, the vulnerable and the deprived are going to be hit hard by the £42million cuts which were officially announced by Salford City Council this morning.

SIGNING ON IN 2011 - A REAL LIFE STORY

`I'm then told to sit on a couch and wait for another advisor who will make an appointment for me to see ANOTHER advisor on another day. I wait. And Wait. And wait. Eventually, a man, who looks like he hates absolutely everybody, shouts my name….'

As the Council prepares to shed jobs and with the unemployment rate set to rise in the city, we present one Salford girl's personal experience at the Job Centre and beyond…

UNSTONED AT THE STAR INN

No Turn Unstoned
Friday 18th February 7pm free
Star Inn, Broughton

The No Turn Unstoned team return with an open mic night at the Star Inn next Friday. Featuring Mike Skeff and Barnyard Chirpa it promises a night of sounds, tall tales, poetry, comedy and "anyone else we can drag up, so bring your spoons".

THE RETURN OF EMBRYO
Emryo 64
Friday 18th February 8-11pm £5
Studio Salford, King's Arms

Salford's creative community comes out to play again with the return of Embryo next Friday at the King's Arms. It's a night where anyone can try out ten minutes worth of work in progress material in front of a live audience. Expect everything from comedy, to scripts to music to films.

SALFORD'S GOAL OF THE SEASON

Salford City 1 Bamber Bridge 2

Wayne who? The player's name on everyone's lips at Moor Lane was Tommy Turner who hit a glorious volley to open the scoring for Salford City, after a fabulous flowing move by the Ammies…

SALFORD INVITED TO KNUTSFORD
Queue Outside George Osborne's Constituency Office
Saturday 19th February 12noon Free
Manchester Road, Knutsford

A week tomorrow, Salford people are invited to a protest queue outside chancellor George Osborne's constituency office in Knutsford in the leafy suburbs of Cheshire.

HAZEL BLEARS `EXPENSES ONLY'

Yesterday, Salford MP Hazel Blears helped launch, what she called, "a new programme of paid internships, offering working class people the chance to work in Parliament and reverse an increasingly elite culture in Westminster".

Very noble. But in December an advert appeared on a Parliamentary website for "a highly motivated individual with a keen interest in politics and current affairs to work in Hazel Blears MP's Parliamentary Office in Westminster". The pay? Er, there wasn't any…

A Salford Star Exclusive

COMMUNITY SAFETY, KIDS AND MOST VULNERABLE TO BE HAMMERED IN SALFORD COUNCIL CUTS

Documents seen by the Salford Star on proposed cuts by Salford Council show that projects which support school children and the community, and those aimed at reducing crime and other social problems, are going to get decimated when the cuts are announced officially in March.

Also on the agenda is a £1.77million cut in `culture, sport and leisure', the closure of Swinton market and the fortnightly recycling service to go monthly. And this is just the start…

SALFORD `CUSTOMER SURVEY' SPENDING HITS £150,000

Questions whether Salford Council provides `good value for money for the council tax that residents pay' were included in an opinion survey that was part of a £150,000 contract with pollsters Ipsos MORI.

The huge contract was awarded by Salford City Council and NHS Salford to research "the views and experiences of Salford citizens"…

NEW BUS TO MEDIACITYUK TO BE UNVEILED 

A new bus between Salford Crescent Rail Station and MediaCityUK is to be launched which will be free for students and £1 for everyone else.

Papers from the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority reveal that the operation of the bus service was based on data on "student movements" and the needs of "BBC staff", while there's no mention of Salford's community needs – even though Salford City Council is paying the majority of the costs.

FREE MEDIA COURSES WITH SCMP!

Salford Community Media Partnership, or SCMP, is about to start free media courses for people living in Salford. On offer are Web Design Made Simple, Radio DJ Skills Training, and Marketing and Branding.

All have a focus on the community, and anyone can sign up as long as you're over 19 and living in Salford. Plus it's all free!

RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS COME TO SALFORD 

Robert Tressell Centenary Exhibition
Working Class Movement Library until March 10th

Robert Tressell, author of the most gripping socialist novel of the last century, died 100 years ago this week. His famous book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, about working class life and struggles, has been published over 150 times around the world.

"It characterised class divisions at a time of extreme poverty and mass unemployment" says Dennis Skinner MP "but its message lives on today in Britain…"

OUT IN SALFORD 

LIBERATION!
Sat 12th Feb 1:30-4pm free
Working Class Movement Library

EVERYBODY OUT!
Sat and Sun 18th/19th Feb 10am-4pm free
Mechanics Institute, Manchester

Yep, it's time for LGBT history month. LGBT hasn't got anything to do with bacon butties but stands for `lesbian gay bisexual and transgender'. And there's a whole series of celebrations based around the theme.

The two events we've picked out are about the militant side of the struggle to overcome LGBT oppression.

SALFORD COUNCIL HOMES TO FACE 6.6% RENT RISE

Salford's council homes face a whopping 6.6% increase from April, over £15 a month, while tenants also face a 5.1% increase in service charges.

Meanwhile Salford Council has approved a budget for Salix Homes, its arms length management organisation, that sees more being spent on management fees than housing repairs.

The rent rise has been slammed by a tenants association…

CONNEXIONS TURNED MY LIFE AROUND…

"They try and encourage young people to get a job or do something, and then they're taking everything away from them…It's horrible and unfair" Danielle, 18

Salford Council looks set to make a huge 46.5% cut to Salford Connexions which gives information, advice and guidance to Salford's young people.

It's reckoned there'll be a loss of 28 jobs, with Connexions outlets in Walkden and Eccles closing too. But it's not just about the job losses. Here a young  mum from Swinton tells her story about how Connexions has helped to get her life back on track.

HOPE MATERNITY UNIT SCRAPPED

"There will be chaos – ambulances chasing across Greater Manchester looking for somewhere for women to give birth" Hazel Blears MP

The long fight to keep Hope Maternity Unit open was lost this morning. Despite all the opposition to its plans, the Board of NHS North West voted unanimously to close Salford's baby unit.

The last hope for Hope now remains with a judicial review to be launched almost immediately to try and stop the closure.

PROTEST AGAINST THE CLOSURE OF HOPE MATERNITY UNIT
Wednesday 2nd February 2011
Meet 9am outside Piccadilly Train Station (top of the ramp)
Bring placards, banners and babies!!!

"Now we see starkly that the consultation was a sham, and the closures a foregone conclusion" Keep Hope Maternity Open campaign

The final decision on the fate of Hope Maternity Unit takes place tomorrow at the NHS HQ near Piccadilly Station. It looks to be a foregone conclusion that they will shut the Unit, despite all the evidence to keep it open. Staff at Hope have even been given the date of the closure before the decision has formally been made.

But Salford people aren't giving up the city's maternity unit without a fight.