Council leaders come together to launch new alliance

Date published: 05 January 2010

The Leaders of Bury and Bolton Councils have announced the formal launch of the new strategic alliance between the two authorities.

The AGMA meeting held in Bury on 18 December provided the perfect opportunity for Councillor Bibby and Councillor Morris to formally launch the new alliance, which was approved by both Bury and Bolton Councils earlier in the month.

The alliance is designed to help develop partnership and joint working opportunities across the two authorities. It is anticipated this will lead to the provision of more efficient and effective services to the council tax payers of Bury and Bolton.

Councillor Bob Bibby, leader of Bury Council, said: “This joint working initiative builds on the work we are already doing with other public sector services in Bury as part of Team Bury and with other local authorities in Greater Manchester.

“The results of this initiative will allow us to produce benefits for the local community which are beyond what we can do as an individual authority. We want to make sure that the two councils share intelligence and key data so we can learn together how improvements can be made to services. This is an exciting project for Bury to be involved in and I look forward to working closely with my colleagues in Bolton.”

Councillor Cliff Morris, leader of Bolton Council, said: “We realise that there are benefits from both councils for sharing and potentially combining information, skills and efforts to deliver on the priorities for both Bury and Bolton. We know that partnerships are successful and significant benefits can be delivered to the local population by ensuring that there is joined-up thinking between different organisations. From working with Bury we want to take this one step further and develop a relationship which has positive and innovative outcomes for the residents of both boroughs.”