PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION RESULTS
LOCAL COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTION RESULTS

ELECTION: WALLACE TAKES LANCASTER,
SMITH KEEPS MORECAMBE
6/5/05: Conservative candidate Ben Wallace has trotted past the post with a 4000+ majority to become Lancaster & Wyre's new MP. While the Tory vote has barely changed since the last election, the Labour vote took a hefty 8% cut, as even the local Labour party struggled to warm to their unfamiliar candidate from an all-woman selection panel and many previous Labour voters took a step away in protest on issues ranging from Iraq and civil liberties to a basic dislike of Blair-style government.
Wallace, the controversial 'Bush babe' who works for part Carlyle-owned 'defence' corp Qinetiq was slated by Labour for his record of anti-gay voting - although in fact he did once speak in favour of gay marriage (perhaps he was intending to make it compulsory?). Swinging both ways is not uncommon for a posh bloke in this day and age though (He did tell us by email that he lived in 'Horny'). How Mr Wallace will divide his parliamentary time between taking care of Qinetiq business and taking care of his constituents remains to be seen.
Morecambe and Lunesdale's Madonna of the Sands Geraldine Smith glided to a slightly more comfortable victory. C4's Campaigning MP of the Year has always been well known for her hands-on approach to constituency matters with appearances in practically every issue of the local press since first being elected. A high-profile change in stance from pro-war to anti-war and anti-Blair has also paid off as this once-Tory seat has barely wavered in an election where Labour has lost 47 seats nationally so far.
The Liberal Democrats have increased their share of the vote by around 5% locally and the Green vote is up by 1.4%
Margaret Chadwick (Labour) was elected as city councillor for John O'Gaunt ward.
Arms and the man: Ben Wallace & Qinetiq
Click here for County Council Election Results
2001 Parliamentary and County Council Election Results

LANCASTER & WYRE
	Name	Party	Votes	%	+/- %
	Ben Wallace	Conservative	22,266	42.8	+0.6
	Anne Sacks	Labour	18,095	34.8	-8.3
	Stuart Langhorn	Liberal Democrat	8,453	16.2	+5.9
	Jon Barry	Green	2,278	4.4	+1.4
	John Mander	UKIP	969	1.9	+0.5
		Majority	4,171	8.0
		Turnout	52.061	64.5	-1.4
MORECAMBE & LUNESDALE
	Geraldine Smith	Labour	20,331	48.8	-0.8
	James Airey	Conservative	15,563	37.4	+0.1
	Alex Stone	Liberal Democrat	5,741	13.8	+4.6
		Majority	4,768	11.5
		Turnout	41,635	61.4	+0.3

MORECAMBE: CLEAN BEACH AWARD - AGAIN!
5/5/05: Morecambe South beach has won an ENCAMS Seaside Award for the quality of its beach for the second year running. Beach clean volunteer groups and the provision of facilities have won praise from the Tidy Britain Group. And let's face it, who could fail to feel uplifted just by being there?
It is greatly hoped that this year may also see reversed last year's failure by the Marine Conservation Society's Good Beach Guide to recommend the local beaches for immersion sports because of sewage bacteria found in water samples. This has been blamed on pollution running off agricultural land (see previous report). Morecambe Bay Partnership has worked hard organising regular beach cleaning events and this has made a great improvement to our local coastline.
Photo by Ian Casement of www.Accolade-Photography.com

OVERTON GALA DAY
5/5/05: What a fantastic day - Everyone turned out and brought their community spirit with them - Overton hasn't had this much fun for years - the event raised over £1700 on the day for HOPPA (Help Overton's Play Park Association) and with bits and bats of money still coming in the final total looks certain to top the £2000 mark!!
Delighted HOPPA Treasurer Joanne Levey heaped praise on everyone who took part in the events and to the organisers too. "Special thanks must go to the staff and governers of St Helen's school who generously loaned the field and school hall for the day, also to Lunebank Riding Centre for their ponies and handlers, the team who ran the six-a-side football tournament and to everyone who put aside their own holiday afternoon to run a stall or marshall at the fun run the whole day was a huge success.
"HOPPA will be staging more events throughout the year including a Grand Raffle Draw which will be held at our night of Midsummer Magic on 25th June in Overton's Memorial Hall and a Viking Invasion on the first weekend in August - Watch this Space!!
For information about HOPPA go to
www.st-helens.lancsngfl.ac.uk/html/hoppa.html where the
school have been kind enough to give us a page on their website!"

WEST END BUS DEPOT SITE PLANS

3/5/05: Andrew Stannion of First Base Homes revealed their plans for the Morecambe West End Bus Depot development site to a packed meeting at Sefton Road Church Hall last night. It includes a large 4-storey block of over 40 small 2 bedroom flats facing on to Heysham Road (see illustration on our website) with approximately 30 narrow 3-storey 3-4 bed mews houses on the 2-up design further back. The final number may depend on the amount of land finally available with plans for around 80 currently submitted to the planning department for
consideration.
Local residents pointed out that there was no shortage of high density flats in the area - and that to bring in another 80-100 utility de-facto social housing units which could be rented out by private buyers would fly completely in the face of the Regeneration Masterplan, which specified high quality, low density, sustainable development for this site (s7.44) and an overall reduction for the area in rented flats.
Mr Stannion explained that a high density development was the only way to make development of the site financially viable as contamination needed to be cleared. This cost £140 per ton to remove. The flats would retail at between £70,000 and £150,000 each (at today's prices). He said that nobody would want to pay more than that to live in that area. Investment-wise it made better sense anyway to buy local terraced houses and do them up.
It was pointed out that many people who currently rent out their properties, or part of their properties in the West End face compulsory purchase, with a stipulation that the properties can only be sold on to owner-occupiers. Many local people are losing their homes, businesses and livelihoods for the sake of the Masterplan - and yet here was a development plan in absolute contravention of the Masterplan to bring in 80-100 new high-density utility flats designed for buying to rent at prices few local people could afford.

Andrew Stannion of First Base Homes

Mr Stannion explained that the site had always been known to be contaminated and that high density development had always been the only commercially viable way to develop it. Also the government encouraged high density brownfield development.
A further objection was that there were no play facilities included in the plan. Mr Stannion suggested that the children could go off and play on the beach - at which most of the mothers in the room nearly choked. It was further pointed out that the local schools and health centre are oversubscribed and turning away new people. Mr Stannion explained that this was a matter for the planning committee to consider.
Another local resident asked about the look of the development - the Masterplan had stipulated a consistent palette of colours that new developments would adopt to maintain the 'flow' of the architecture locally and give vibrancy to the regeneration. Mr Stannion said the building would be rendered in white.
And so on and so on and so on.
You can view the First Base Homes plans at Lancaster City Council Planning Dept, Palatine Hall, Dalton Sq, Lancaster.
You can download a pdf copy of the West End Masterplan here.
(You will need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this which you can download free here)

CALL FOR GUANTANOMO JUSTICE
AT CIVIL LIBERTIES RALLY

3/5/05: Civil Liberties were the theme of this year's May Day TUC rally last Saturday as a number of speakers addressed the assembled crowd on the difference the new anti-terrorist legislation is already making. Anti-terrorist laws now make it legal for the police to detain anyone they suspect of being involved in terrorist activity, without charge or phone call. Civil rights groups have called this a 'blank cheque' for police powers. Abroad it is still unclear how much of the torture practices uncovered in British army run prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq were actually carried out under field orders, copying US techniques.
Some participants in the rally dressed as inmates of the notorious Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp bearing signs listing the hard-won civil rights that have been withdrawn under New Labour.

PHOTOGRAPHER ARRESTED AT HEYSHAM
2/5/05: RedEye, the North West England Photography Network, reports that on 23 January a photographer waiting to meet his granny off the Isle of Man Ferry at Heysham Port, near Lancaster, was detained under the Terrorism Act - and is urging others to be aware of new legal restrictions on photographers.
Jack Lloyd, a landscape and fine art photographer, told how, as he was early, he began to take photographs of decaying tracks, fences and walls at the old port and train station for an exhibition he is planning. He was warned by a security guard that one area was "restricted", so moved to a different area, a train platform, from where he was subsequently taken away by three police officers - and his granny left stuck in the waiting room. You can read the full disturbing story here.
BBC news 1 May 2005 - man arrested for photographing Houses of Parliament.
Thanks to the Seacontainers website for their lovely arial shot of the harbour. Their site also provides measurements of the facilities, for the benefit of potential custumers.

TAKING LIBERTIES
2/5/05: The George Fox 6 have received further support from Labour parliamentary candidate Anne Sacks who addressed the TUC rally in Lancaster's Market Square last Saturday, on the theme of Civil Liberties. Anne Sacks joins a growing list of local groups and individuals, including Lancaster Green Party and the Lancaster Quakers who are calling on the University to drop its prosecution of the 6 students who demonstrated against a corporate conference last year because many of the corporations involved were implicated in major human rights violations and unethical business practices.
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