Once, we were a world-beating Lancashire Pennine mill town as a result of damned hard work, common sense and thrift.

Rather than become some bland part of a Manchester 'city region' that will waste billions of pounds and get us all deep into debt, we should go back to the future.

As the recession bites we are all tightening our belts. We are not borrowing more cash to pay for fancy schemes for our houses, leisure and transport so why is Rochdale Council, the RDA and the GMPTE doing so with our money?

Rochdale is broke. It needs fixing. Here are a few solutions:

Town Centre. FREE PARKING. Rochdale would become a honey pot. As it stands, we have no chance of competing with Bury, Bolton and other markets. Take a leaf from the supermarkets and out-of-town outlets. Free Parking brings folk in. That is a start and would have more impact than anything else.

How do we pay for this and make Rochdale more distinctive?

Scrap the ridiculous £250,000,000 town centre regeneration redevelopment . These schemes are already failing all over the country. It would be an albatros round our knecks. Higher rents and more empty shops elsewhere. Smaller traders- the ones who make a town special- will be lost.

Lets do simple things- encourage a permanent fish, meat and local veg market. Look at Bury, the demand is there .

Scrap the crazy plans for a £70,000,000 new council office block "Yelloway House" . Keep the smaller regional offices (we all use email nowadays) as these connect with local communities. Why sell off the civic silver to pay for a huge new concrete PFI lump by the river?

Make do and mend. If RMBC needs more office space in the Town Centre then take over the near empty Taxand Social Security offices at Newgate. Refurbish the black box. It is a good building inside it is just the outside that is ugly. To be distinctive do what the CIS did in Manchester- re cover it in solar cells. It looks great and sends out a 'positive message' so beloved of the spin doctors. '

On that thought, scrap the spin doctors. RMBC alone spent £2 million on them last year. What about the other 'service providers' that waste out tax money on 'positive messaging'. How many glossy brochures and questionaire have you received recently? GMPTE asking loaded questions about congestion charging. The PCT asking what we want for our health yet does what it wants anyway (selling Birch Hill for housing, downgrading our Infirmary, scrapping A&E bluelight services). How many glossy RMBC "Local Matters" do we need? In Soviet Russia it was called Pravda and told the population the good news about potato and tractor production. If the services are good we will know. We don't need patronising propaganda paid for out of our hard-earned tax money.

Scrap the Metrolink extension. Then we wouldn't need to spend £20 million moving the bus station 50 yards (so the trams don't need to cross the old covered bridge). That would be our contribution to cost cutting so that a congestion charge is not needed. Transport improvments. Better trains (Oldham loop and mainline) longer carridges. Free shuttle buses to the station. Free park and ride and free car parking. it is not rocket science but would transform our town.

Instead of daft advertising signs saying "Rochdale is booming" lets have Rochdale BLOOMING. Redevelop the town centre and riverside by grassing it over and having more green open space for us all to enjoy for free. The best features in our town centre are the parks surrounding our town hall.

What has really failed Rochdale? Empty business parks, mad schemes that cost millions, glossy brochures that are now an embarresment. Failed projects. Soluution -scrap the Rochdale Development Agency. It hasn't been fit for purpose.

Whilst we are at it, why do we have a PFI 'service delivery partner' running many council services and charging an arm and a leg for the privilege? There is a near revolt with many hard working council officers because of the extortionate internal charges billed by the Impact Partnership. Ultimately we all pay for this ridiculos rip-off and commercial layer of bureauracy.

Regime change where the real local power lies. Sorry Mr Ellis. As Chief Executive you have been part of the problem and not the solution. Too many unaccountable deals and decsions have been done in the past decade that has set this town for failure. Time to go. And please don't be excessive with your golden hanshake. We have seen too much of that from senior executives.

Give our hard working police more resources. If we had zero tolerance against thugs, drug dealers and mindless drunken morons then the decent, hard working citizens of this town could return, feel safer and enjoy a chav free environment.

So free parking, common sense public transport, better policing and more central green space paid for civic thrift by scrapping a billion pounds of white elephant projects and an entire tier of spin doctors and over paid and failing executives.

It is time for a big change. Rochdale does deserve much better.

   A.Carter says it all. This is the type of person we need on our council or indeed to run the town. Rochdale is economically on it's knees. The pull out of the Revenue from Newbold House is another million quid a year lost to the local economy. Instead of new white elephants why not look at cleaning the asbestos out of the ground from the TBA site in Spotland? An ideal site for mass manufacture but who will move there in the state it is in?