The latest community engagement brief from West Lancashire Borough Council can be accessed by clicking here.

Topics include:

• West Lancashire Leisure Access Card Membership
•  Warm & Welcome Spaces
•  Funding Opportunities – Cost of Living Support Hub
•  Local Council Tax Discretionary Energy Support Scheme
• Discretionary housing payments
• Energy Bills Support Scheme – Beware of scams!
• Winter vaccinations – boost your immunity this winter
• Coronavirus update
• Better Health – Every Mind Matters
• Lancashire Adult Learning
• West Lancashire Borough Council’s Website Translation Service

Lancashire County Council is asking for residents’ views on Lancashire’s highways and transport services – from the condition of roads and footpaths to the quality of cycling facilities.

The council’s highways team are encouraging people to complete the National Highways and Transport (NHT) survey, which measures public satisfaction with services across different local authorities. You can have your say on your roads and transport locally by completing the short survey.

The results will be compared with the views of other members of the public across 111 local authorities in England & Scotland. It will help the county council make future decisions on where to prioritise their resources, share best practice and identify further opportunities to work with other authorities in the future.

This year, the council have made marked improvements to reduce the impact of their work on the environment and are set to achieve a 15% carbon saving in our carriageway capital programme. They recently received a national award in recognition of their Highways Decarbonisation Strategy, which includes the use new lower carbon materials and techniques for road maintenance.

Find out more about how the team are working hard to improve Lancashire’s roads and complete the survey at Road maintenance – Lancashire County Council

Have you had your say on #LancsRoads and completed the National Highways and Transport (NHT) survey?

@lancashirecc is asking for residents’ views on their highways and transport services – from the condition of roads and footpaths to the quality of cycling facilities.

The results will be compared with the views of other members of the public across 111 local authorities in England & Scotland to help them make future decisions on where they prioritise resources.

Complete the survey at https://www.nhtnetwork.co.uk/isolated/data/scorecard/new/bespoke/122

Scarisbrick Parish Council’s annual garden competition made a welcome return this year after an enforced break due to the pandemic.

Judging took place on Saturday 23rd July in the following categories:

• FRONT GARDEN
• REAR GARDEN
• HANGING BASKETS/WINDOW BOXES/CONTAINERS AND POTS
• MOBILE HOME GARDEN
• WATER FEATURE/GARDEN POND
• NON-DOMESTIC PREMISES
• BEST ENTRY FROM A NON-PRIZE WINNER IN PREVIOUS YEARS

The judges were impressed by the high standard of the entries and the Council would like to thank all those that entered the competition. Well done everyone!

The presentation of trophies and certificates will take place from 7.00pm on Monday 5th September at Scarisbrick Village Hall (prior to the start of the parish council meeting).

A selection of photographs from the winning gardens is presented below.

Front Garden:

Rear Garden:

Hanging baskets/window boxes/containers/pots:

Mobile home garden:

Water feature/garden pond:

Non-domestic premises: 

Overall winner:

Highly commended:

Highly commended:

Speed indicating devices (SpIDs) were deployed this week in Scarisbrick for the first time. Scarisbrick Parish Council has purchased two solar-powered units which can currently be seen at each and of Smithy Lane. The units will be rotated around the parish on mounting posts that have been installed in Smithy Lane, Turning Lane, Pool Hey Lane, Bescar Brow Lane and on Heatons Bridge Road. There may be opportunity to extend the scheme in the future if funding permits.

Speeding is a perennial problem particularly in rural parishes and Scarisbrick is no exception. It is the most common complaint received by the parish council and a working group was set up to discuss ways of addressing the issue. The recent distribution of wheelie bin stickers was the first initiative with the deployment of SpIDs being a more hi-tech response.

The devices also have the ability to collect traffic data in the form of traffic volumes, vehicle speeds, and times of the day when problems are particularly prevalent. This provides useful information for Lancashire’s Road Safety Partnership when they are deciding where and when to deploy their mobile enforcement cameras. Click here for the accompanying post about the Road Safety Partnership which includes details on how to report your own concerns regarding speeding in Scarisbrick.

The Lancashire Road Safety Partnership is the coordinating body for Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool which aims to reduce road casualties through the management of speed, enforcement, engineering, emergency response, driver education and training and through developing collaborative approaches to education, awareness, engagement and other measures. All the partners are committed to working together to reduce casualties on Lancashire’s roads and make people feel safe.

The Partnership’s website has a lot of useful information and can be found by clicking here.

A particularly useful feature is the facility to submit concerns about speeding in your area which can be found by clicking here. 

Please note that any isolated dangerous incidents should be reported to the police on 101 or report it online to Lancashire Constabulary.

Speed enforcement locations for the month can be found by clicking here.

PROPOSED SCARISBRICK VILLAGE HALL PLAYGROUND UPGRADE – CONSULTATION WITH RESIDENTS

Funding has become available through Section 106 planning contributions and the Council is supporting the Village Hall Committee in exploring the possibility of replacing/upgrading the playground equipment at the Village Hall.

The Council would like to know if the community would support this project and would be grateful if you could provide answers to the questions found at the end of this article.

What is Section 106 funding?

Under the provisions of Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990  contributions can be sought from developers to be put towards the costs of providing community resources. The purpose of these contributions is to enable communities to provide and improve open spaces, sport, recreation or outdoor facilities. The level of contributions is negotiated between developers and West Lancashire Borough Council during the planning application process. Funds are allocated to parish projects through a grant system. Section 106 money may only be spent on facilities where the new development has, at least in part, contributed to the need for the facilities. Funding is available for capital projects only and cannot be used to fund general running costs. Funding will normally be invested in the same parish in which the contributing development is located. However, if we fail to come forward with a suitable project it is likely that the funds will be allocated elsewhere within the Borough.

Why do you need my opinion?

Applications go through a detailed assessment process at West Lancashire Borough Council. Evidence has to be put forward that an assessment has been made of local community need, including public consultation. Failure to demonstrate that there is public backing for the project will ensure that the bid fails. Your response is therefore extremely important to the outcome. So that your views can be taken into account please could you respond to the following questions:

1)   What is your postcode?

2)   Do you have children who use the existing playground?

3)   If so, roughly how often do you visit the existing playground?

4)   Do you support the use of S106 money to refurbish the SVH playground?  Yes or No

5)   If No – what are your main objections to the proposal?

6)   Do you have any suggestions of where the money could be spent instead?

Please comment via this website or email your response to these questions to scarisbrickpc@outlook.com

Further information can be obtained from the Parish Clerk.

Thank you

Lancashire Constabulary are dedicated to making the roads of Lancashire as safe as possible and wish to create an atmosphere where people do not drive in a careless or antisocial manner.

They are introducing their secure online portal for reporting and submitting digital evidence of suspected moving traffic offences witnessed by members of the public. This is part of their response to the increasing submissions received from members of the public in relation to safety issues on our roads.

“Op Snap” provides a real and practical opportunity for members of the public to do their part to help keep their communities and roads safe by reporting unacceptable driving. The material submitted to the police must fit several criteria, which can be found on their FAQ page

If you believe you have witnessed a road traffic offence and have digital footage of this incident, this can be submitted to the OpSnapLancs team by visiting https://unitedkingdom1cpp-portal.digital-policing.co.uk/lancashire/appeal/public-dashcam-submission

The police respectfully ask you not to contact them on 101, 999 or online as other departments will not be able to advise you on the status of your submission.

SCARISBRICK AGAINST SPEEDING CAMPAIGN

The Parish Council receives many complaints from residents about speeding vehicles on our rural roads and the dangers that this causes.

We have been working hard to address this and are now ready to commence with Phase One of the campaign. This will include:

• The purchase of 2 Speed Indicator Devices (SPIDs), which will be deployed around Scarisbrick, has been agreed. These will alert motorists to their speed and will also collect data that can be used to provide evidence for passing to partner agencies (such as Police and Lancashire County Council) for further preventative measures to be investigated. The data can also be published on the Scarisbrick Today website and speeding hotspots will be identified.

• Providing households in Scarisbrick with speed sign wheelie bin stickers. This method has been introduced in neighbouring parishes where is has worked well at alerting motorists to the speeding issue. The stickers are currently on order and to make this initiative a success we are looking for volunteers who would be willing to deliver these around Scarisbrick. If you would like to get involved please email the Scarisbrick Parish Clerk at scarisbrickpc@outlook.com

Phase Two of the campaign will be the purchase of more SPIDs so that more local roads can be covered. If you have any suggestions for other actions against speeding please get in touch at scarisbrickpc@outlook.com or come along to our Scarisbrick Parish Council meetings (please see Scarisbrick Today website for details).

Lancashire’s public health report for 2021/22 has been published and can be accessed here. The report analyses the issues affecting people’s wellbeing and explains the health inequalities between different communities.  It also highlights the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on people’s lives and livelihoods.

Some of the main findings of the report include:

• Life expectancy has decreased overall during the last two years. Males living in the least deprived communities live 10.3 years longer than those in the most deprived. The gap is 7.8 years for females.
• The overall health and wellbeing of children in Lancashire is worse than England as a whole when comparing local data with national averages.
• The percentage of people who “often or always” felt lonely during the pandemic in Lancashire was reported to be 6.1%. For certain districts this figure was as high as 13.5%.

Some positive issues outlined in the report include:

• Lancashire’s carbon emissions reduced by more than 32% between 2005 and 2019.
• Health assessments and reviews with new mothers and babies continued throughout the pandemic, with thousands being assessed over the last two years.

Specific neighbourhood level intelligence at a district and ward level can be found here.