Previous stories: 1 - 30 June 2008

FINAL CALL TO OBJECT TO CENTROS
CANAL CORRIDOR PLANNING APPLICATION
25/7/08: Centros have resubmitted their application for the canal Corridor development and you have until 7 August to submit your views to the city council. See below for details how.
Changes to the application include a little less retail space, a supermarket and a little more housing. The Miller group have parted from Centros, their similar proposed development in Dumfries has been axed, their development in Portsmouth faces challenges in the High Court relating to alleged concealment of negative impact reports and council corruption and is being resubmitted, and they are having to renegotiate many of their development deals in the light of falling profit forecasts.
It is difficult to know why, with a major economic recession developing, any town would choose to extend its retail offer as significantly as Lancaster, with its plans for retail developments at Kingsway, Lawson’s Quay and a new Booths at Scotforth as well as the Centros behemoth.
Perhaps it’s because they hired the surveyors Donaldsons to prepare the retail study that reported (in direct disagreement with other recent retail studies) that Lancaster should increase its retail offer to prevent ‘leakage’ of shoppers to other markets such as Preston, Kendal and Manchester. They reckoned leakage would be solved if Lancaster had a Debenhams and lots of other big high street names. Tie Rack, and so on.
By an amazing coincidence a company Donaldsons has worked with on countless other developments (and still was, and is), Centros Miller (CM), happened to stumble across Lancaster. They asked the City Council about the Canal Corridor site and the council sent them off to talk to Mitchells, who owned part of the site. CM signed a deal with Mitchells and came back to the Council with their scheme for a new town centre with a new Debenhams, somewhere well away from the old one, with its demographically unappealing shoppers, its annoyingly local businesses and higgledy-piggledy shopfronts, that could be privately owned, properly standardised, managed from the British Virgin Islands and, of course, privately policed. On a 250 year lease.

What should the council do? Fortunately they turned to Donaldson’s, who with their greater experience were able, as hired consultants, to help them save the trouble and expense of putting the development out to tender and instead advise them in negotiating their secret development deal with CM. The fact that Donaldsons were actually in partnership on other schemes with CM at the time fortunately didn’t compromise their integrity because otherwise such a cosy arrangement could be classed as unacceptably flawed.
Not long after that Donaldsons merged with DTZ (formerly known as DTZ Debenhams, so there’s a match made in heaven) and are now known as DTZ.
The scheme’s most vociferous supporters on the council have been the Labour Party, with solid (but lower profile) support from the Conservatives and Lib Dems. Against the scheme are ranged the Green Party and the It’s Our City campaign group.
Another interested party must be Tim Bowdler, Chief Executive of Johnstone Press, which owns the Lancaster Guardian, and non-executive director of Centros.
And CM have acknowledged the favour. In addition to their fabulous, expensive, multi-page advertising spreads in the local press, in the week before last years council elections CM commissioned a £16,000 telephone survey of the entire Lancaster & Morecambe administrative area (including the Upper Lune valley, Galgate, etc, etc). Callees were give the impression that the survey was a Council one and asked where they shopped. Anyone who shopped at all outside of Lancaster City centre was classed as leakage. This included residents of Morecambe, Heysham, Arnside, Carnforth….. Within minutes of the survey results being released the local Labour party had leafleted Bulk ward (The canal corridor ward) with them. However as if that wasn’t enough labour hacks had spun the figures even further – with the result that their pie chart percentages added up to 106%. And as we know, the Green Party won this former labour stronghold by a landslide.
Another interested party must be Tim Bowdler, Chief Executive of Johnstone Press, which owns the Lancaster Guardian, and non-executive director of Centros.
And CM have acknowledged the favour. In addition to their fabulous, expensive, multi-page advertising spreads in the local press, in the week before last years council elections CM commissioned a £16,000 telephone survey of the entire Lancaster & Morecambe administrative area (including the Upper Lune valley, Galgate, etc, etc). Callees were give the impression that the survey was a Council one and asked where they shopped. Anyone who shopped at all outside of Lancaster City centre was classed as leakage. This included residents of Morecambe, Heysham, Arnside, Carnforth….. Within minutes of the survey results being released the local Labour party had leafleted Bulk ward (The canal corridor ward) with them. However as if that wasn’t enough labour hacks had spun the figures even further – with the result that their pie chart percentages added up to 106%.  And as we know, the Green Party won this former labour stronghold by a landslide.
Since Centros lodged this its latest application Gareth Webb, chairman of the Lancaster and Fleetwood Labour Party, announced his ‘Save Our City' slogan (declaring Centros as his personal saviour) at an area local government committee meeting, with the formal backing of prospective MP Clive Grunshaw, which is good news for the tories.
Since Miller left the CM partnership it has been revealed that their share of the liability for the development deal, for which they are a guarantor, has been stripped to £100. The other guarantor, Centros, is conveniently sheltered in the British Virgin Islands.
In the new proposal Centros have yet again failed to come up with any solution to the traffic chaos that all impact assessments predict for the scheme. Plans include an 800 space carpark – current city capacity is 300. They suggest routing traffic via Parliament Street so it stinks up the opposition at Lawson’s quay instead.
There are lots of helpful links to the scheme, the proposals and what they mean at the Its Our City website at www.itsourcity.org.uk. They have produced a handy leaflet on how to lodge an objection (closing date is 7 August 2008) and if you take a look at the council website you’ll see why they had to.
You can also find it all on the council website here.
Thousands of people objected to the last applications, by cards, email, online and in the polling booths.
Click on www.itsourcity.org.uk and sort it out.

SUMMER PLAY / ACTIVITY SCHEMES
25/7/08: Wondering how to keep your children active and happy during the school holidays?
Why not take advantage of Lancaster City Council's free playscheme provision or range of exciting courses, sports and trips out included in this year's Children's Activities programme.
Playschemes run from Monday, 28 July – Thursday, 21 August from Monday to Friday at the many venues and welcome children between the age of 8 and 11 to take part in activities such as arts and crafts, sports and games as well as exciting trips out.
If you’re interested in your child attending a playscheme this year, you can either call in at Morecambe Town Hall to collect the registration forms or telephone 01524 582827 to request one. Forms are also available from the council’s website - www.lancaster.gov.uk/whatson.
Playschemes are free but donations are welcomed.
A wide variety of sports and arts activities are on offer again this summer for children age between 4 and 16 . Throughout the programme you’ll find a tempting choice of half and full day sports and arts activities at a variety of exciting venues such as mountain biking in Whinlatter Forrest, Mountain Boarding – Surf the Turf at the Lakeland Maize, Sedgwick and Kayaking at Lakeside’s Outdoor Centre, Windermere.
Arts activities on offer this year include Drum Making, Flower Making, Boogie Bodies, Dance Fever and Pottery Workshops. Some of the arts activities are provided free of charge through partnership work with the Family Learning Facility at the Adult College in Lancaster. These activities are for children age 4 to 7 only.
A copy of the activities programme and booking form is available on Lancaster City Council's website – www.lancaster.gov.uk/whatson or from Salt Ayre Sports Centre, Lancaster and Morecambe Town Halls, Lancaster and Morecambe Tourist Information Centres and the council's community pools at Hornby, Carnforth and Heysham.
Places can be booked and paid for at Salt Ayre Sports Centre, Monday to Friday from 10am to 4pm (from 10am to 7pm on Wednesday) or by contacting the booking information line on (01524) 842493, between the same times.

THE VISION
25/7/08: The long-awaited ‘Transport and Vision Strategy’ commissioned by the Lancaster and Morecambe Vision Board, Lancashire County Council and Lancaster City Council proposes a range of measures for Lancaster City Centre, Morecambe, Carnforth and the outlying areas of the borough.
The report relies heavily on the establishment of Park and Ride schemes to ease congestion.
However in June any hopes for Park and Ride schemes suffered a setback when the Government told Lancashire County Council to remove the Park and Ride plan at J34 of the M6, from the Council's bid for funding of the controversial Heysham M6 Link road scheme.
Faber Mansell, authors of the report, emphasise in the introduction that, “Within our brief for this work, it was stipulated that the Major Scheme proposal – the Heysham to M6 Link Road, which links Junction 34 of the M6 motorway to the existing Lancaster - Morecambe Bypass (A683) was taken as a fixed element of the evolving strategy for the District.”
Kevin Riley, Project Director for Faber Maunsell, explained: ”The proposals are certainly not anti-car…”
You can read the report at www.l-m-vision.org/reports/transportstrategy/home.htm.
David Gate of anti-bypass campaign group Transport Solutions for Lancaster & Morecambe said:
”The big question is: where is the money coming from to pay for the district's congestion relief in these tough economic times? The Link road would cost at least £185 million without the Park and Ride, and all it would do is attract more heavy goods vehicles into the district and destroy our Green Belt.
”There is a big transport funding issue for our district: the authorities are not tackling the main problem, congestion. The County Council should drop the underperforming road plan and use the money on a package of less damaging alternative measures designed to combat congestion and be of benefit to the area as a whole."

ANIMAL CARE ON THE TELLY
25/7/08: Vets On Call - Channel Five - From 4th August 2008
Vanessa Walling of Animal Care tells us that recently Channel Five were following Animal Care’s vets Bay Veterinary Group which involved some filming at the centre near Blea Tarn, so check it out. Obviously with tv you can't guarantee how much of the filming will make it onto the show but hopefully you may see some vet checks and happy endings they filmed a few weeks ago. They filmed everything from kittens to cockerels, ferrets to dogs and all sorts in between so it should give people a little more insight into the desperately needed work done at Animal Care.

GREEN FLAG FOR COUNCIL CEMETARY
25/7/08: Lancaster's Williamson Park and Torrisholme Cemetery in Morecambe have received a prestigious award that celebrates the best parks and open spaces in the country.
The cemetery and park have each been awarded a Green Flag by the Civic Trust.
It is the first time that Torrisholme Cemetery has received the award and it marks the culmination of years of hard work by Lancaster City Council and the Friends of Torrisholme Cemetery.
Approximately 100 burials a year are carried out at the cemetery and it is regularly visited by relatives and the general public.
The grounds have been developed to meet the Green Flag criteria of a well managed and welcoming site that aims to conserve its heritage and improve biodiversity.
Recent achievements include:
* New heritage and woodland burial walks
* Wildflower areas
* Habitat areas for wildlife and insects
* Ongoing improvements to buildings, paths and fences
Cllr David Kerr, cabinet member for environmental health, said: “I would like to congratulate all the cemeteries staff and members of the Friends Group for all their hard work over the last two years, along with the councillors who made up the Cemeteries Task Group, that were the catalyst for the cemetery improvements that made this award possible."

SECOND SANCASTLE FEST COMES TO MORECAMBE
25/7/08: Grab your bucket and spade and head down to Morecambe's glorious stretch of golden sand on August 10 for this year's Sandcastle Festival which will be centred on the stretch of beach to the south of the resort’s newly reopened 1930s art deco Midland Hotel.
Last year's festival attracted a host of excellent entries for the competition and was amazing to see.
This year there will be three categories for team entries; one for adults and two for children of different age groups.
Each team will be allocated an 18 foot square plot and three hours to complete their artistic creation, starting at 11am. There will be a cash prize of £100 for the winning adult team and gift vouchers awarded for the best children’s entries.
Winners and runners up will also receive commemorative certificates.
Registration is between 9.15am and 10.45am and the competition itself will take place between 11am and 2pm.
Other entertainment will include:
* Delightful 1920s bathing belles who will be leading beach drill and synchronised bathing hut manoeuvres
* The Amazing Strangelings' Ancient Mariners
* The Beach Variety Theatre, who will present regular Punch and Judy and Poppets Puppets Seaside Shows.
* Superb sand sculptures to provide inspiration for the competitors
For further details on the event, an entry form and competition rules, contact Lancaster City Council on the Bucket and Spade hotline on 01524 582810.
A free Sandcastle Festival programme, including competition guidelines, is available from Morecambe Visitor Centre, Lancaster Tourist Information Centre and various district attractions.

SOAP STARS COME TO MORECAMBE!
19/7/08: Famous faces from the world of TV soaps are ready to show off their soccer skills in Morecambe later this month.
Soap fans will get the chance to see their favourite stars at Morecambe Football Club when a team drawn from Coronation Street and one or two other famous soaps play in a charity football match.
On Sunday 27 July, the Soap Stars will be playing against the Bay Radio All Stars a team which could see the silky skills of some of the station's DJs on display at Christie Park.
The event has been organised by CancerCare and Heysham Power Stations with all proceeds going to CancerCare.
Helen Hartin, CancerCare’s senior fundraiser, said: "We are delighted the Soap Stars team has agreed to play in the game which I'm sure will be of interest to many people.
“I know in previous years we’ve had lots of stars from the show and thousands supporting the game. We are also grateful to Morecambe FC and Heysham power stations for all their support in this game.
"CancerCare is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and so we have a number of high-profile events planned including this game, the Cross Bay Half Marathon and Cross Bay Walk both happening on Sunday 10th August.”
The Soap Stars team, will be announced before kick off once their filming schedules have been confirmed, but the crowd will be guaranteed a grandstand view of their TV favourites.
"It should be a great day out and a real chance to see some famous TV folk up close and in shorts!" added Martyn Butlin, of Heysham power stations, “and the real winner will be CancerCare, as every penny raised on the day will go to helping support local people with cancer, their families and their carers, and those bereaved by cancer.”
• The gates open at Christie Park at 12 noon, with the game kicking off at 1pm. Admission at the turnstiles for the day is £5 for adults and £3 for children and £12 for a family.

Previous stories: 1 - 30 June 2008