I LOVE TO GO A-WANDERING PART II
20/9/04 Those of you without cars, or reluctant to use them, probably imagined a winter sitting in Lancaster, cursing the fact that public transport to nice rural areas ceases to exist on Sundays in winter. No more! The Carnforth Connect scheme, already doing sterling service running rural bus services in North Lancashire, is starting a bus service on Sundays from Lancaster University, Lancaster & Carnforth to the Arnside & Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It tootles round the district, from one beauty spot to the next (including Leighton Moss, where the modest £3/£1.50 for kids bus ticket also gives you free entry), and can be stopped anywhere en route by simply waving your arms about. It runs from 26 September to 21 November, and is something of an experiment, so it pays to support it, otherwise it won't be there next year. A timetable and map of the route are available here or by phoning 01524 734311.

I LOVE TO GO A-WANDERING...
18/9/04 Local walkers will wake up tomorrow morning to find whole new areas of the Bowland Fells available for them to get their feet wet in. The new Open Access laws come into effect in the “Lower North West of England” (now there's an administrative area I bet you didn't know you were part of...) on Sunday 18th September. Sadly, this doesn't mean you can wander anywhere at will, like you can in many European countries, but it does mean that the Bowland Fells are no longer anyone's personal fiefdom. Some areas along the coast near Bolton-le-Sands and Hest Bank are also opening up. The new opened area still have restrictions; no bicycles, no horses, no camping and (in a lot of the areas) no dogs. New Ordnance Survey maps are being published showing the new access areas, and you can also check online at www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk. Let's hope it's fine tomorrow!

WHITLEY BECK FLOODS UPDATE
17/9/04 Steven Booth reports. Ray Bennett and Gordon Maclean, representatives from Lancaster City Council and the Environment Agency, attended the Ellel Parish Council meeting held in Dolphinholme on Monday night (13th September 2004). Residents from Salford Road who had been affected by the flood also came along.
It was announced that Whitley Beck, the stream which overflowed on Friday 20th August, is to be upgraded to a ‘critical ordinary water course’. This opens up access to better funding to try to deal with its problems. Following other incidents, four rivers are to be classified thus in the Lancaster area - including Ou Beck (also responsible for floods in the Galgate area) Burrow Beck, flowing through Hala Square, and a stream in Carnforth.
Comments were made about the cause of the recent Galgate floods, with some residents blaming a concrete foot bridge up Stoney Lane. It was admitted that the rainfall from a three quarter of a mile length of the M6 motorway runs off into the two Whitley Beck tributories. Some of the residents blame the recent development work at the university for increasing the run off into Whitley Beck. While it is true that houses in Chapel Lane Ellel, were flooded near the Jarvisversity building work, the Whitley Beck disaster has nothing to do with the uni, and is the result of the run off from the hills and the motorway. Some farms near Quernmore were also flooded. Turkeys were drowned on one farm, and a wall knocked over at another. The Environment Agency described the uni’s system of ponds near the ugly ‘Infolab’ complex, used to attenuate run-off during peak rainfall periods. Most of these drain into the River Conder, however, dismay was expressed at the fact that one of these is said to drain into Ou Beck.
What can be done? was a question everybody was asking. The floods are the result of the change in weather patterns brought on by Global Warming, with sudden and very heavy downpours. In this instance, heavy rain began at 5 O’ clock, the beck began to rise at 6 and the fire brigade were called at 6:30. The Environment Agency propose to model the stream using the ‘Hexraz’ computer simulation. It is thought the stream bed could be dug out around two more feet as it passes through the residential area. It is also proposed to fit one way flaps in the walls at both sides of the River Conder bridge in Salford Road, to enable the floodwaters to escape, should the beck burst its channel again. Utility service pipelines reducing the width of the culvert underneath the houses and the New Inn cannot be removed.
After the meeting residents felt sceptical about the proposals, and did not believe that enough was being done. The houses in Salford Road are likely to be uninsurable. Two of the residents, one of whom has lived there all her life and another since the late 1950s, said that the Beck has not flooded like this for many years, up until eight years ago when the recent water troubles began. Yet more evidence of climate change, but we need to have a more concerted effort to deal with this and this requires political will and money to be spent.

MORE PLANNING NEWS
THE NAVIGATION - People who campaigned unsuccessfully to prevent to demolition of the picturesque canalside Navigation Pub will be bemused to discover that the developers that the land was sold off to are planning to build - a pub. In addition Kendal-based Merewood Group Ltd want to build offices, a 100-space carpark and 139 residential units on the land formerly occupied by the Marton Street depot. The application is recommended for
approval at Monday's planning meeting, over the objections of numerous neighbouring residents.

THE WAREHOUSE - At the other end of the city centre the former popular Warehouse Club has stood empty since 2001. Lancashire Constabulary were thwarted in their attempts to restrain the activities of the nationally owned chain clubs by their top-notch legal representation and forced to restrict their interventions to the locally-owned enterprise. (see report) Around £1 million police expenditure and an over-the-top madly violent and hystrionic raid by the police that alienated half the community resulted in 3 convictions, from which the most serious sentence imposed was 180 hours of Community Service. The affair resulted in the closure of the only dance club in Lancaster with no record of violence.
An application has been submitted by Tudor Whelan Property Holdings to replace the building with another restaurant.

KINGSWAY - Liberty Properties have announced that the Kingsway Site is all set to become home for PC World, Pizza Express and 2 more well known national big box retailers who haven't been named yet. Read more on the background on this development.

LANCASTER MARKET - A disasterously ill-thought-out deal with market landlords Edinburgh House is costing Lancaster City Council £300,000 a year in rent on the Lancaster market building. Prior to the fire that destroyed
the old market building Lancaster had a vibrant and bustling market with a great variety of stalls. However the new deal which involved the site being sold off and then rented back by the City Council has meant that traders now have to pay rents and rates up to 3 or 4 times as expensive as traders in the neighbouring markets of Morecambe and Preston and the site has never achieved 100% occupancy. Poor design has not helped - placing the fish section at the hottest south-facing end of the building and creating a two-story design (replacing the original ground-floor market) along the same lines as one already found wanting in Preston. Some say that the reason for
the two storey design is because it can then be re-used as a department store should the market 'fail'. This suggestion has always been strongly denied - by the Council at least. And plans put forward by Edinburgh House to reallocate the ground floor space to a store and relegate the market traders to the 1st floor were rejected by the council last Wednesday. Just how exactly the council will dig the market and the council tax payersout
of the fiscal hole it has buried them in remains to be seen. Whose stupid idea was it anyway to sell of the market site and then rent it back at a rate that could never be recouped through its intended purpose?
Read more about the market difficulties

MMR: STORM IN A TEACUP!
17/9/04 Lancaster Cafe Scientifique is hosting the first of this season's “Storm in a Teacup” debates, at 7.30pm on Monday September 20th, in the Sun Street Cafe (food from 6pm). Guest speaker is the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, whose new book MMR: Science and Fiction explores the scientific and political controversy surrounding the Measles, Mumps and Rubella jab. People interested should email s.weldon@lancaster.ac.uk, to give the organisers some idea of how many people are likely to attend. See http://biol.lancs.ac.uk/cafe_sci/ for more info on the science, and the menu!

NEW CATON RECYLING BANK
17/9/04 Lancaster City Council has found a new site for Caton's recycling bank. It's in between the library and the health centre on the main road in Caton. So now you know!

CITY COUNCIL LOCAL PLAN ONLINE (IF YOU'RE LUCKY)
17/9/04 The Local Plan for the district was adopted by Lancaster City Council on 16th April this year, and has not been challenged in the high court, so looks like going ahead. If you want to have a look at what's planned for us, an interactive plan is now available on the council web site at http://www.cartoplus.co.uk/lancaster/, but only if you've got a PC, are running Internet Explorer 5 or above (you know, the one that even the US government says not to use because it's full of security holes) and have Java installed. Not recommended if you've got an expensive dial-up connection either. If you want to see a paper copy, you can see one at Morecambe Town Hall, or in your local library. If you want to buy a copy, it'll cost you £50.

LANCASTER ACTIVISTS DISRUPT UNI CONFERENCE
15/9/04 Activists protesting against large corporations moving into academia staged a protest last Friday at the Corporate Venture Conference in the George Fox Building at Lancaster University. The protesters unfurled banners during the opening speech by Lord Sainsbury, given before an audience consisting of delegates from such companies as The Carlyle Group, BOC (suppliers of poison gas to Huntingdon Life Sciences), BAE Systems, Alvis, GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, DuPont and Shell. They were protesting against arms manufacture, the destruction of the environment, GM crops, animal testing and human rights (I guess that only at a gathering of multinationals do you get to protest against so many things at once!) Ejected from the chamber by security guards, the protesters blew whistles and banged drums in the foyer for a while, before moving outside to give out leaflets. The police arrived and one protester was manhandled a little before being handed a fixed penalty notice of £80 for causing a breach of the peace.

NURSERIES TO CLOSE DESPITE PROTESTS
15/9/04 Despite protests and a complete lack of support from locals (less than 3%, when the County Council consulted them!), Greaves Park Nursery and Willow Nursery are to close, following a decision from the County Council's education scrutiny committee. Green County Councillor Jonathan Sear, whose constituency includes both nurseries, said he was "apalled."

MOTHERS TO IMPROVE CORONATION FIELD
15/9/04 A group of mothers wishing to improve the play area on Coronation Field are getting together to raise money and hopefully initiate other community projects in the future. They are meeting in the Community Centre, Willow Lane, on Sunday 19th September at 5pm. Everyone is welcome to join in!