The next meeting of Downholland Parish Council will therefore take place on Tuesday 9th June 2020 at 7.30 pm using ZOOM and the agenda will be published on the website downhollandpc.org.uk at least 3 clear working days before the meeting is due to be held.
Parish Council Chair Mike Wainwright and Lancashire County Councillor David O’Toole have arranged with West Lancs to get a community skip on the car park next to the park on Wednesday 13th May 2020, from 9.30am until 2pm…
Don’t tip it, Skip it! With many of us spending more time at home this can often mean we have more waste. We are providing community skips in different areas on different days between 9.30am and 2pm to help residents dispose of some excess rubbish to prevent fly-tipping as Lancashire County Council has closed the household waste recycling centres.
These skips are for all residents, not businesses, and are for getting rid of excess domestic waste and small amounts of garden waste rather than furniture or other large items. Please remember the whole community needs to use these skips when thinking about how much rubbish to dispose of in them. The following specific items cannot be put in the skips: oil, paint, tyres, fridges, freezers, gas bottles, asbestos.
Anyone who has large items to dispose of can use our bulky household waste collection service. We are sorry but this service can only currently be booked online.
Please stay safe when bringing waste to the skips and remember government social distancing guidelines. Stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times. Residents will be expected to put rubbish in the skips themselves.
Items that CANNOT be disposed of in the skips are:
West Lancashire Borough Council, in conjunction with all local health and community partners supporting West Lancashire, have launched a new Local Support System, West Lancs Together, which will offer support to those most vulnerable within the borough.
We understand these extremely vulnerable people may not have a support network to rely on and West Lancs Together will pool together resource to be able to provide support with food, medicines and social contact during this phase of isolation.
Please be aware that we will be prioritising those who will not be able to rely on family and friends for practical support while they remain at home. If anyone is feeling vulnerable you can contact the service so we can understand your needs and what level of support we could provide.
If anyone would like further information on Coronavirus, the main Government website is kept up to date with key information: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
If you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 and feel you cannot cope with your symptoms at home, please visit 111.nhs.uk – only call 111 if you are unable to get help online. For life threatening emergencies call 999 for an ambulance.
To help protect our employees the Parish Council has stopped emptying the bins on the park and ask all residents to help us out and take your rubbish home.
Following direction from West Lancashire Borough Council and Government advice the children’s play area on Haskayne Jubilee Fields Park has been closed.
The rest of the park remains open for now but please exercise common sense, observe social distancing guidelines and avoid crowds.
Downholland Parish Council is committed to providing equal access to its services and resources. To aid this commitment we have recently added several features to our website to ensure it’s is easily accessible to everyone.
By clicking the blue and white icon in the top left of any page you can access a number of features to help you.
Over the last few years the Parish Council has undertaken a program of addressing resident’s concerns regarding speeding. To this end we worked with Lancashire County Council (LCC) and identified seven locations for the placement of a Speed Indicator Sign (SPID).
Consequently, the Parish Council purchased a moveable, battery powered sign and LCC put up six brackets for us. We move the sign round and swap the battery over every 10 days or so. The statistics from the sign show that they do slow drivers down and the average speed has fallen as a result. It’s not perfect but it’s something.
The seventh location is on the bridge on Delf Lane near the Kings Arms, but LCC won’t allow us to have such a sign in that location due to safety concerns, and the volume of traffic would drain the batteries in a few hours.
There is however, an unused sign post poll, with an electricity supply, just over the bridge. So how about using that supply…
1. Apply for permission to erect a permanent electric sign. 2. Find out the power consumption of the sign, per activation. 3. Find out from LCC that the average number of activations (i.e. vehicles speeding) is 3000 per day! 4. Work with LCC engineers to establish verified unmetered power consumption (a few pounds a year) 5. Apply to SP Energy for a supply number with unmetered supply data. 6. Try and get the hedge cut back sufficiently to expose the hidden sign post. 7. Find an energy supplier… No one wants such a small supply contract. 8. Repeat step 6 and 7 until all will to live is lost.
Update
Turns out there are Steps 9, 10, 11 and 12 involving electricians, cables and hedges (again)……
Downholland Parish Council is delighted to announce that Haskayne Jubilee Fields Play Park has won “Best Playing Field in Lancashire”, in this year’s Lancashire Best Kept Village Competition.
Mike Wainwright, Chairman of Downholland Parish Council said
“The award is a testament to the hard work put into by the Parish Council, Fran
Dean who keeps the park clean and tidy, and to Rawsthorne Landscapes who
maintain the grounds to a very high standard. The “Orchard & Wild Flower
Garden” was also 3rd in the Public Gardens category.
Elsewhere in the Parish, a concerted effort by the Residence Association, doing litter picks and tidy ups in Haskayne also resulted in a “Highly Commended” in the Small Villages category.
And not to be outdone, the Downholland Community Association won “Highly Commended” in the Public Buildings Category for Haskayne Village Hall.
All round it goes to show that community involvement and hard work can pay dividends, and I pay tribute to all involved.”
I’ve just been in touch with Gerry O’Leary, the MD of Arriva Northwest to find when the buses will be back on now that there’s a traffic light system through the emergency sewer works in Lydiate and his reply was “We are sending our buses through from now”..
