Bent Lane Post Office Meeting

A public meeting is to be held this afternoon regarding the future of the Post Office on Bent Lane, Leyland.

The meeting to be held at Wright's Fold Community Room at 5pm will be attended by South Ribble MP David Borrow and Councillor Matthew Tomlinson who will hear residents' concerns.

Councillor Tomlinson and David Borrow have been working hard to ensure local residents' voices are heard during the consultation period.

However, a spokesman for Post Office Ltd stated that it is not numbers of objections received but 'valid rationale' put forward which will help to persuade Post Office bosses of why a particular Post Office should not be closed.

Have your say on the future of your local Post Office. Consultation ends March 3rd 2008.

Working to improve your environment

Local resident and Councillor for the area Fred Heyworth was amazed at the amount of water that collects at the bottom of Kingsway and Queensway when we get a lot of rain. It prevents people getting in and out of their homes. County Councillors Anne brown and Fred Heyworth have brought the matter to the attention of the authorities. It is believed that the necessary work will be fairly substantial.

They will press for the work to be done as soon as possible.

Golden Hill Lane & Fox Lane

Both Golden Hill Lane and Fox Lane have benefited from extensive re-laying of the footpaths.

Labour’s Anne Brown said:

"I know that the Western Drive and the Cedarwood Drive areas are also in need of work. Some has been done but I will not rest until pedestrians can walk along our streets with pride".

Drinking in Public

The issue of drinking in public on the Wade Hall estate is something that is regularly brought up by residents at Wade Hall Forum. They do not like it. Ways and means of addressing the matter are being considered. Your local Labour Councillors will make sure that it is not forgotten.

Rocks in their heads!

As Northern Rock is going through the process of being put into public ownership, the blame game rages on.

The government itself seems to be unfairly taking most of the flak for it. Yet it is the government that has had to step in to rescue a horrendous market failure.

Typically, the Conservatives have engaged in irresponsible, opportunistic flip-flopping on the issue.

Elsewhere there has been much media and other expert commentary on the whole subject.

Some have criticised the time it took to get to this stage. However, this period of time since the government first stepped in last September has been spent trying to find a private market-based solution. Yet again the market failed to put a rescue package together which would prevent the taxpayer from bearing huge costs while the shareholders gained all the benefits.

Indeed, some large shareholders to benefit would have been those that have swooped on the bank since the crisis hit hoping to make even more money from the crisis.

Various punditry on the matter blames the shareholders of Northern Rock for not holding the management board of the bank to account for its risky business model.

Though it has to be said that Northern Rock's practices and the complexity of the financial products (called 'collaterised debt obligations' apparently!) in the American 'sub-prime mortgage market' (lending money to poor people to buy a home who couldn't then afford the repayments) that lay behind the Rock's problems doesn't lend itself to close scrutiny or understanding.

Which brings us to the next candidates for blame -the regulatory authorities, mostly notably the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Many questions will be asked of their role and whether they could have done more to prevent the crisis. However, all the financial institutions are regulated by them but it is Northern Rock's specific business model which left it particularly vulnerable to the difficulties it has landed us all in.

Then, of course, there is Margaret Thatcher. Her government and party's policies set the larger context and forces for this to be possible in the deregulation of the financial markets back in the '80s and the whole 'greed is good', loadsamoney philosophy. At the same time the Conservative goverment oversaw the de-industrialisation of Britain and encouraged a heavy reliance in the economy on the financial sector. Profit-making was the primary aim regardless of the wider public good. There was no such thing as society.

The current crisis arose out of the buying and selling of debt and risk as things in themselves in order to make a profit. Those dealing in financial markets took, some have argued, reckless risks with these financial instruments whilst making vast amounts of money.

Credit ratings agencies in these markets also rated these products as safe when many were warning that they patently weren't.

It is important to note that the Conservative MP John Redwood continues to advocate even more deregulation.

The list of other villain candidates include Adam Applegarth, chief executive of Northern Rock, Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve in the US from 1987 to 2006 and those poor folks who just wanted to buy a home for their families.

And so the government had to step in to clear up this whole sorry mess. There is widespread agreement that they are doing the right thing. For this it should be given, pardon the word, credit.

Use it or Lose it

Bus number 112 now connects Croston, Ulnes Walton, Longmeanygate with Leyland and Preston Via Sainsbury’s.

When it was rescheduled your local County Councillor Anne brown suggested that it should run down Leadale Road. She remembered that the old minibus that ceased some years ago was missed by residents.

Some local residents from the Broadfield area, find it a long way to walk to a different bus stop. The 112 will stop on demand. Ring Traveline on 0871 200 22 33 for details of timings.

At present it is not well used and we will find it difficult to justify its continuation if it is running empty.

Councillor Profile: County Councillor Anne Brown

Anne Brown has been the County Councillor for the western half of Leyland since 1997.

This covers the wards of Lowerhouse, Seven Stars, Moss Side, Earnshaw Bridge and Golden Hill. The area includes the industrial estate of Moss Side and the large residential areas of Wade Hall and Broadfield.

Councillor Brown is active locally, supporting local schools and has been a Governor of Wellfield High School for 30 years. She is a member of the Community organizations within the area, Moss Side Community Forum, Broadfield 2000 and Wade Hall Action Group.

Within the County Council Anne has special responsibility for Resources and Performance. She is the first woman ever to hold this post in Lancashire County Council.

See full contact details

Anne Brown in action:

Working to improve your environment, On the Buses, First Lady, Supports good works, Local news and action, Working hard for your local environment, On Question Time, Giving Cold Callers the Cold Shoulder

Who believes in equality

The first 3 Labour women MPs, Susan Lawrence - 1923, Dorothea Jewson - 1924, Margaret Bondfield - 1923

The 6th of February marked the 90th anniversary of Royal Assent to the Representation of the People Act 1918.

This Act gave most women over the age of 30 the right to vote. Women finally achieved the same voting rights as men ten years later. The Equal Franchise Act 1928, which gave women the vote on the same terms as men, received Royal Assent on 2 July 1928.

Read more here

The Conservatives have 17 female MPs.

Labour has 97 ...still not enough we should be working towards 50:50.

At Lancashire County Council, County Councillor Anne Brown was the first woman to deliver the important budget speech as Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance.

Setting the record straight (after it has accidently been knocked)

The Health & Safety Executive is fighting back against the 'health & safety gone mad' myths often peddled which cloud the proper business of managing risk.

Each month they shatter a popular H & S myth on their website.

With some humour, dispelling another rumour that they possess none, for September 2007 they tackle the life-threatening issue of playing conkers in school...

"This is one of the oldest chestnuts around, a truly classic myth. A well-meaning head teacher decided children should wear safety goggles to play conkers. Subsequently some schools appear to have banned conkers on ‘health & safety’ grounds or made children wear goggles, or even padded gloves!"

Realistically the risk from playing conkers is incredibly low and just not worth bothering about. If kids deliberately hit each other over the head with conkers, that’s a discipline issue, not health and safety."

Read more fun myths here ...go on fall off your chair laughing.

• February 2008 Myth - If a pupil is hurt, the teacher is likely to be sued

• January 2008 Myth - Safety Experts’ New Year resolution is to make the life of business people as miserable as possible

• December 2007 Myth - Every possible risk needs a safety sign

• November 2007 Myth - Workers are banned from putting up Christmas decorations in the office

• October 2007 Myth - Children were banned from riding at a donkey derby

• September 2007 Myth - Kids must wear goggles to play conkers

• August 2007 Myth - Egg boxes are banned in school craft lessons as they might cause salmonella

• July 2007 Myth - All office equipment must be tested by a qualified electrician every year

• June 2007 Myth - New regulations would require trapeze artists to wear hard hats

• May 2007 Myth - Risk assessments must always be long and complex

• April 2007 Myth - HSE has banned stepladders

Poles Apart

The story as reported by the Lancashire Evening Post, 7th February, 2008

Margaret Smith, the Conservative Leader of South Ribble Borough Council and councillor for New Longton & Hutton East, thinks the objections by locals in her ward to a recent advertisement written partly in Polish are 'understandable' even though Councillor Smith admits their concerns are based on 'fear of the unknown'.

The mobile advertising board for a recruitment agency was placed outside the former Post Office on Chapel Lane, New Longton for less than 24 hours during which time the council received 45 complaints.

Though the advertisement was not placed illegally it was still forced to move as a result of the complaints.

Another local resident could not understand all the fuss about the recent ad.

She did not want to be identified but told the LEP:

"As far as I know no-one has complained about it being there, there is nothing illegal about it being parked by the side of the road and there are a lot of similar sized signs in the village, so I cannot see the problem".

She also said that the same sign had been positioned on the corner of Strand Road and Marsh Lane in Preston for months without problems.

It seems then that it was the Polish element of the sign which drew the objections.

Councillor Smith explained to the Lancashire Evening Post the context of her constituents' reaction:

"Obviously there are sensitivities relating back to last year's planning application which has put this issue in the front of people's minds and, when they see something like this it, understandably, concerns them."

"People are concerned about what is going to come and this degree of the unknown does make a situation slightly awkward".

Last year a plan by the local owners of the property to turn the former Post Office into a hostel for agricultural workers in the area was turned down after other villagers angrily objected. Some were concerned about how the workers, likely to be of Polish and Latvian origin, would affect the "upmarket and quiet" village.

However, further up the road, Tarleton has long hosted and valued the contribution of such workers from abroad.

One resident who has lived in Tarleton all her life said, "I have never come across any problems at all with immigrants in the village,"

Another resident from nearby Little Hoole said of his Eastern Europeans neighbours:

"They are a lot friendlier than English people...They are polite and hard-working. They have made every effort to integrate round here and there have been no problems at all."

Across the river Preston North End has signed the much-coveted Polishman Grzegorz Szamotulski as goalkeeper.

While PNE fans are quite pleased will Councillor Margaret Smith encourage her constituents to be as welcoming if he decides to buy a property in New Longton?

Weather Forecast

The sunshine has made a welcome return to Leyland and its environs after the wet and wild weather of recent weeks.

Elsewhere across the globe, China has just seen its worst weather conditions for 50 years. One traveller caught up in the weather chaos described the scene:

"The railway stations in Guangzhou are a scene of horror, with countless thousands of desperate and freezing people besieging them...." Read more..

In America on Tuesday some of the worst tornado clusters in US history ripped their way through 5 states killing at least 31 people in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama.

Parts of Australia have been particularly drought-stricken over the last decade which it is believed is due to climate change. (It has also pushed the price of wine up!)

.

Whilst it is difficult to pin any one weather event on global warming the increasing number of extreme weather events seen around the world is in line with the predictions on climate change. And while a minority dispute the precise extent and balance of causes of the changing climate the degree of consensus on the evidence that it is happening and we need to do something is overwhelming.

The challenge is how we prepare for the full consequences and try to minimise our own impact.

Even in the arch-capitalist United States of America some influential businesses together with environmental groups last year formed the United States Climate Action Partnership to demand tough national legislation from the federal government to require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Back in Leyland our very own Matthew Tomlinson, Labour councillor for Golden Hill Ward and County Councillor, is showing leadership by example. He has pledged to reduce his own carbon footprint by going to work less by car and using other forms of transport more such as buses, trains and bicycle.

Matthew Tomlinson in the Leyland Guardian, 16th January 2008.

Post Office Consultation

There is still time to participate in the consultations about Post Office closures.

**Consultation ends March 3rd 2008**

Click here to access the full list of consultation documents and scroll down to the area plan for Lancashire and Fylde with Southport.

There is also available to view/download a map and 'Branch access report' which shows access and service details of nearby alternative branches to those proposed for closure.

Postwatch the independent watchdog which looks after the interests of postal service customers has handily crunched some numbers and provided some background and reasoning to the proposed changes to the Post Office network.

Have your say on the future of your local Post Office!

Nice brick work!

Some toy fads come and go. But Lego is still alive and well after 50 years.

50 years ago today Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for what became an icon of the childhood toybox and bane of hoovering mothers everywhere, the lego brick.

Check out the work of brick artist Nathan Sawaya

A holiday to Remember

A petition at the government's online petition site is calling for a new National Holiday

It reads...

"By comparison to many other European Countries, Britain has fewer public holidays and none at all for a period of some three months between the August public holiday and Christmas. Moreover, Britain does not have a "National" day. So what better way to celebrate our Nation than to have a National Remembrance Holiday falling on the second Monday in November each year to reinforce Remembrance Sunday which falls on the second Sunday in November? Such a holiday will serve to emphasise our commemoration of The Fallen who gave their lives to save Britain and also the on-going importance of the survival of our Nation. The National Remembrance Holiday will further serve to break that period between late summer and Christmas when there is currently no public holiday."

Sign up here. Closing date 18 April 2008.

Read about another notable 'Grand National Holiday' (for a whole month!) once advocated. Sadly the closing date for this one was August 1839.

A heart-warming story about Coal

13 years after the Tories tried to take away miners jobs, life and community at Tower Colliery on the grounds that the pit wasn't 'profitable' the last lump of coal really has been finally mined.

In 1994, Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, Margaret Thatcher then Prime Minister and British Coal bosses told the miners that they and their pit were no longer of use.

Labour MP Ann Clwyd went underground with the miners to stage a sit-in. She emerged dusty-faced carried on the shoulders of the miners. She recalls Michael Heseltine saying to her at Westminster that she should tell the miners to throw in the towel. "I replied: 'Tell them yourself,'" she says.

The miners knew better and used their redundancy pay to buy their pit which they have since run successfully.

On Friday 25th January 2008 they worked the pit for the last time and marched away on their own terms with their heads held high, a triumph of the human spirit over ideology and greed.

Read the story here and here.

Watch interviews with the miners on their last day on YouTube

North West MP obvious choice for Culture Secretary

North West MP Andy Burnham has been appointed Culture Secretary. Part of his new job will be to oversee the 2012 Olympics.

Perhaps now we will finally see Black Pudding Throwing elevated to an Olympic sport.

The World Black Pudding Throwing Championship is held at the Royal Oak Pub in Ramsbottom each year.

The object is to throw Black Puddings at Yorkshire puddings placed on a 20ft high platform to try to knock them down. The person who knocks the most Yorkshire puds down is declared the winner.

It is thought the tradition represents the hostilities between Lancashire and Yorkshire during the Wars of the Roses when it is said that the rival armies ran out of ammunition so engaged in a giant food fight, pegging their respective puddings at each other.

Watch footage at the Manchester Evening News website.

Also see loads of fantastic photos here

Former Toad in hot water

Yesterday the Leyland Guardian reported on the anger of Bosal workers at Councillor Barrie Yates', comments sticking up for the company's bosses over redundancy payments.

Councillor Yates' comments were reported in the Leyland Guardian last week after he spoke at South Ribble's Full Council meeting in defence of Bosal's management.

Bosal, the exhaust manufacturer based at Walton Summit, had announced 94 redundancies in November 2007 and subsequently, it has been reported, refused to pay the full redundancy packages due to the workers. An agreement had apparently been reached three years ago to pay three weeks' wages for each year of service for redundant workers and are now offering much less.

At the council meeting, Councillor Yates, who is also a Bosal employee lucky enough to keep his job, used a speech in the chamber to defend the company to the amazement of Labour councillors.

Labour group councillors called a point of order and attempted to put the workers point of view forward until stopped by the Mayor. But the group reiterated its point of view that Bosal management must honour previously agreed redundancy packages.

Councillor Yates said:

"Bosal is a good employer that pays good wages. I feel sorry for the people that have gone, but glad for the ones who have survived. We've got to say the management is working hard for the future of the everyone still at Bosal, people are quick to slag employers off, but sometimes they deserve some praise". He also said that they were 'doing all they can'.

Workers beg to differ.

Worker Kenny Scott said "There never were any talks. Barrie's comments are the management's opinion and they have not gone down well on the shop floor."

Unite union senior shop steward, Steve Peters, was also dismayed:

"I couldn't believe Barrie came out with those statements, I am still in touch with the lads, some of those who have stayed and that is not their point of view.

There's never been any negotiations and we just feel after all these years for them not to honour the agreement is stabbing them in the back."

Councillor Yates has also caused further astonishment to his former Idle Toad colleague, Tom Sharratt, at abandoning him to join the Tories.

In a timely comment, given Councillor Yates' position on Bosal, Councillor Sharratt told Leyland Guardian:

"Well I think it is unbelievable....I've had no notification from the chief executive, there's been no announcement and the last I heard from Barrie was when he told me he was becoming an independent. There was nothing said about joining the Tories.

All I can say is seven days is a pretty short time to travel from socialism to capitalism."

By contrast, Labour Councillor Tom Hanson has been instrumental in setting up support for the sacked workers.

He said: "As soon as one of my constituents came to see me about what was happening, I spoke with the council's economic development officer, notified the job centre and arranged a meeting with the shop stewards".