Previous stories: 1 - 31 December 2006
Next stories: 16 - 31 January 2007

MORECAMBE ON THE UP
13/1/07: The February edition of InsideOut magazine, on sale now, stimulated by the ongoing refurbishment of the Midland Hotel, has tunred its spotlight on Morecambe has described the town as the nascent “Brighton of the North” .
Councillor Ron Sands, cabinet member for tourism, has heralded the lavishly illustrated article as further evidence that Morecambe is poised for a dramatic turnaround in 2007.
"This influential national magazine, published by the Sunday Times, is aimed at property buyers who are moving up the housing and business markets for homes, shops, restaurants and guest houses.  
“Morecambe is featured in the “About to Boom” section of the magazine," he adss, "which seeks to identify undervalued situations in the property market.  
"I think that this will draw further attention to the fact that many of the resort’s central seafront shops are either vacant or are not fulfilling their potential, given the breathtaking beauty of our natural surroundings.  Furthermore, feels Ron, "As the weather improves, the vast quantities of soft golden sand laid on the main beaches will prove an irresistible attraction to thousands of families who will be visiting Morecambe for the first time," feels Ron. "These families will become the regular visitors of the future”.

SEARCHING FOR LOCAL RELATIVES
13/1/07: Belgian VL reader Romain Bernaers is searching for family - Pilkington & Vrancken - in England. They were married in Hasselt and then moved to England, probably to Lancaster and Preston at the beginning of the last century.
Bernaers has records which show that Henry Pilkington was born on the 14 July 1902 in Trinity. His parents were Joseph Pilkington and Ellen Towers. Henry's daughter is called Marie Therese Pilkington, born on the 3rd May 1946 in Hasselt, Belgium. "Now I am searching for the adress of this daughter and her husband," writes Romain, "If she married and had children. I'd loved to know more about this if anyone can help me find anything about her."
If you think you may be related to Romain email at: Romain.bernaers@pandora.be

HAVE YOU LOST THIS CAT?
10/1/07: This young tabby cat, about five months old was found at the BP garage on Owen Road on Tuesday 9/1/07 and is now being fostered by Lancaster and Morecambe Cats Protection.
Recent mild weather means many local rescue centres - including Lancaster's Animal Care -- are full up, creating even more problems for animal welfare groups with more animals breeding.

MORECAMBE TOURIST INFO CENTRE REOPENS
- WITH NEW NAME
4/1/07: The refurbished Morecambe Tourist Information Centre (TIC), located in the Old Station Buildings adjacent to The Platform, officially re-opens to the public at 11am on Tuesday 9 January 2007. This follows a £48,000 refurbishment during November and December. The Old Station Buildings, which celebrate 100 years of use this year, have housed the tourist information centre since 1992 and the volume of use by local residents and visitors has almost tripled in that time.

The centre, which among other things sells gifts, makes transport, theatre and accommodation bookings and regularly serves more than 150,000 customers through its doors each year. Staff also answer around 25,000 telephone and email enquiries annually. Twice in the last three years it’s been named ‘TIC of the Year’ by the Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board and has also been nominated in the regional finals.

With the re-opening of the Midland Hotel next year, as well as other proposed developments in the town, the number of people visiting and contacting the centre is expected to rise considerably.

The TIC, now renamed as the Visitor Information Centre, in line with other larger TICs at major destinations, will be officially re-opened to the public by the Mayor, Coun Janey Kirkman.

TOURISTS ASK THE STRANGEST THINGS...
4/1/07: After the national press reported some of the strange questions asked of tourist offices across the country this week, including "Is Wales closed in the Winter?" and " What time of night does the Loch Ness monster surface and who feeds it?" Virtual-Lancaster wondered what questions were asked of Lancaster and Morecambe's Tourism offices.
Well, it's clear they get their fair share of the strange, and answer them with a mix of patience and the usual forthright responses you'd expect.
The Tourist Office has details of over 300 strange questions asked in 2006, but a selection of their favourites includes "Is Morecambe north or south of Pontefract?", "Do you need a passport to go to The Isle of Man?", How do I stop my telephone bill while I’m on holiday? I live in West Yorkshire." and "Does the ferry go right into the port?" (No, it ditches you in the sea!)
Other general questions included "Is the beach open?", "Can you put me on your mailing list for shows in Manchester?" and "Have the guided walks been stopped because of the petrol shortage?"
A display by the Red Arrows in Morecambe provoked some strange questions. "When the Red Arrows come, will you be opening The Platform doors to let them in?" asked one bemused visitor, while another asked "Where will the Red Arrows be?" (In the sky, hopefully - and they were, as anyone who watched the impressive show last year will recall.)
Major events such as Lancaster's Fireworks Night generate plenty of questions. " What time are the fireworks?" asked one Lancaster customer. "About ten o’clock," replied the dutiful Tourist officer.
"Oh," pondered the visitor. "Is that at night?"
Morecambe's location seems to confound some visitors. Several visitors ask questions about Blackpool rather than our local seaside town, one asking for a list of Blackpool churches and tourism figures for Blackpool Pleasure Beach. One asked for a list of hotels which was immediately supplied. "Oh great," came the enthused response. Then: "And they’re all close to Robin Hood’s Bay, are they?"
Sometimes, Tourist Information has to refer visitors to other offices. When one tourist was advised they should visit the City Council's Arts and Events office to answer their queries, the visitor responded "Have they got a door?"
The best answer to a question has to be the response to the poser "What does the Eric Morecambe statue on the promenade weigh?"
"We he he!" replied the staff member, aping one of Eric Morecambe's famous phrases. Yes, we can just picture the blank face of the tourist who got that response.
The Tourism offices deal with thousands of visitor queries a month, so you'd expect some oddities amongst the many sensible ones. But there are some that stump even the best brains on Castle Hill or the Platform offices. One worried caller rang to ask "My catheter is leaking. What should I do?"
"Have you tried your doctor?" replied the officer, helpfully.
"Yes, but there was no reply," said the caller, "So I thought I would try you.."
Other Questions:
- Where can I buy Baxter’s shrimps? (In Baxter’s shrimp shop Sir!)
- What’s the cycling position on the promenade? (Head down - bum in the air!)
- Can you tell me the time of the last bus out of Lancaster please, oh and the one before that, oh and what about the one in between?
- Is there a car boot sale this weekend? (Yes there is one at Westgate). Oh! Right! Have I been there before?
- What time does the tide come in these days?

COUNCIL CONSIDERS CREATING FREEWOMEN
2/1/07: It's just over 30 years since the Equal Opportunities Act was passed and Lancaster City Council is finally getting around to thinking about revamping some of its ceremonial policy so that the honour of becoming a Freeman of the city may be extended to women also. Currently only men are eligible for this award, which is made annually. The fact that this has not been done already has reflected very poorly on the council, and Virtual Lancaster has previously declined to report on the award and ceremony because of the intrinsic weak-spiritedness that denied women the same opportunity, which in our view devalued it.

Other changes in the ceremonial pipeline are:
* the introduction of a weekend long community festival during May each year in place of the current mayor-making ceremony and Mayor’s Sunday, moving the Annual Council meeting, at which the Mayor is elected from a Wednesday to a Friday. Each year the new Mayor will decide whether to hold a formal meal, buffet or other alternative on Annual Council Day and consideration is to be given to how members of the public can be included in the event.

If the proposal for a weekend-long community festival proves feasible it is likely to be introduced in 2008 at the earliest although some elements of the changes will be evident in 2007. The report also recommends the re-establishment of a Town Crier, and the cost and feasibility of this is to be investigated.

Other changes should be easier to introduce and are more likely to be seen in 2007. these include:

* the outgoing Mayor making a report of their Mayoral year to Council.

* A multi faith ecumenical service at the Priory, with support from representatives of other faiths invited to take part.

* Changes to the way the Mayor is selected so that no Councillor will be offered a second term of office until all Councillors have had the opportunity for the first time.

* Measures to widen the appeal of other existing Mayoral receptions, for Parish Councils and students for example.

Another proposal is to set up a Mayor’s Award for individuals or groups who go out of their way to help others and their community – for this it is intended that the public will be asked to nominate people for this award through the local media.

KERBSIDE COLLECTION TO RECYCLE PLASTIC BOTTLES
2/1/07: From September 2007 all householders on the council’s wheeled and recycling box collection scheme will be able to leave out their plastic bottles for kerbside collection as well.

Lancaster City Council’s Cabinet gave the go ahead for a roll out in 2007/8 to the remaining 10,000 households that aren’t on the scheme in the Lancaster area in and the remaining 7,000 properties in Morecambe and the rural areas of the district in 2008/9. Furthermore, it was also agreed to provide every household in the district with a collection of plastic bottles. Already in areas that have the new collection arrangements people can recycle a range of items including cans, bottles, paper, card, textiles and garden waste

Cabinet Member Coun Jon Barry said: "Ever since we introduced the new collection arrangements people have asked us when we will start to recycle plastic - so I’m delighted that we are now in a position to be able to at least recycle bottles. From an environmental point of view, the new challenge is to create local facilities where these can be recycled and then re-used.”

LANCASTER CITY COUNCIL BIDS FOR UNITARY STATUS
2/1/07: Lancaster City Council is continuing in its bid for unitary status. This means that responsibility for provision of many of the services currently provided by the County Council would devolve onto the new unitary authority. The City Council has circulated the following list of FAQs about the proposed changes and you can also read more at www.lancaster.gov.uk/unitary.

Q. Why has this bid come about?
A. The Government has recently brought out a White Paper on the future of local government which, among other things, invited councils to make proposals for future unitary structures. All five political groups n this council strongly support a bid for a unitary council on existing City Council boundaries.

Q. So what is Unitary Local Government?
A. It means a single local authority responsible for providing ALL local government services - currently residents here are governed by two councils, ourselves and Lancashire County Council. There are, of course, also Town and Parish Councils.
Unitary status would bring all the different services currently provided by the two councils under ‘one roof’, giving local control of important services. Residents of Blackburn and Blackpool have already benefited from such changes and we see no reason why residents here shouldn’t benefit in the same way.

Q. What are the benefits of becoming unitary?
A. Recent research conducted by MORI revealed that in this district there are some key things which residents expect from local government:
· Good quality services provided at a reasonable cost
· A council which is open and accountable to local residents
· A listening council which is responsive to the wishes and priorities of the community it serves
Unfortunately, under the current arrangements, this isn’t always what people experience. Working arrangements can be confusing, wasteful and inefficient.
For example, at the moment we are responsible for waste collection, but the county is responsible for waste disposal. We provide sports centres, swimming pools and holiday play schemes, but the county provides libraries and youth services. Both provide economic development support and both have museums in Lancaster. County provides and maintains highways, but we clean them and the list could go on.
In a unitary authority all these services would be provided by one single, new organisation with the flexibility and efficiency to provide a much sharper focus on local needs.

Q. What’s wrong with the way we work now?
A. Both the city and county councils spend a lot of Member and officer time making sure that the two-tier model works in the best way it can, but inevitably there is duplication of effort. We know that residents find it hard to grasp which council delivers what service.
Lancashire County Council covers a vast geographical area. It is one of the biggest authorities in the country covering 1,156,000 people. With the best will in the world, it cannot possibly have a sustained focus on the needs of so many diverse communities.

Q. Does unitary local government work?
A. Unitary governance in Lancashire is not new and is a tried and tested model. Blackpool and Blackburn are already unitaries, as are many other councils up and down the country. In Scotland, every council operates as a unitary.

Q. Are there any disadvantages to unitary status?
A. All change is disruptive to some extent, so we will be relying on the support, input and co-operation of staff, elected Members and the public, as well as other people and partners. However, we would not even consider pursuing unitary status if we were not absolutely confident that this is the right thing to do for the future for the residents of this district.

Q. Will the size and shape of the district change?
A. No, we are making the bid based on our current boundaries.

Q. What are the cost implications? Will the Council Tax go up?
A. Before we decided to make a bid for unitary status, we engaged independent advice to be sure our bid would be affordable and make financial sense for our residents.
Any transitional costs of change will be rigorously examined by the Treasury and have to be recovered in five years. We are confident we can recover our costs more quickly than that and, therefore, that a unitary Lancaster City Council is affordable as well as desirable.

Q. What about Councillors – how will they be affected?
A. The biggest difference is that there would be no County or District Councillors representing this district. It would be a ‘new’ council of sixty Members and elections would be held in the usual way.

Q. How will all this affect Lancaster City Council staff?
A. We can be guided by previous reorganisations in local government that have led to the creation of unitary councils elsewhere.
In these cases, the vast majority of employees simply transfer to the newly created body. This is to be expected because the work will need to continue as seamlessly as possible. Everyone would have the usual protection.

Q. Would a successful bid have an adverse impact upon the Lancashire Sub-Region?
A. We believe that a successful unitary bid would actually strengthen Lancashire with a mix of urban based unitary councils and a more rural two-tier. The residual two-tier area would still be bigger than most other county councils, so a reduced size county council is a viable option.

Q. Can a new council really deliver everything?
A. The new council would ultimately be responsible for everything, including education and social services, but that does not mean we would suddenly be doing everything. Unitary status would give us the flexibility to commission services from whoever can deliver them in a way that best meets the needs of our district.

Q. What happens next?
A. We are preparing our bid with the support of the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV) and this needs to be submitted by the 25th January 2007. We should hear later in the Spring whether the bid has been shortlisted. We will keep everyone informed of progress.
The City Council wants everyone to be clear about the enormous benefits that this can potentially bring and then get behind our bid!
If you have any comments, observations or feedback you would like to make the City Council would like to hear from you. Please send them to any of the following:

Richard Tulej - Head of Corporate Strategy - rtulej@lancaster.gov.uk

James Doble - Principal Democratic Support Officer - jdoble@lancaster.gov.uk

Liz Stokes - Corporate Performance Manager - lstokes@lancaster.gov.uk

Gill Haigh - Communications Manager - ghaigh@lancaster.gov.uk

Previous stories: 1 - 31 December 2006
Next stories: 16 - 31 January 2007