Lancaster & District Green Party

Appletree Nursery & Children’s Centre on Milking Stile Lane threw open its doors on Thursday 8th May for a Vision Day. People from the local community were invited to come and look around the newly extended and refurbished building and add their voice to the vision of the new children’s centre.

Green County Councillor Chris Coates Said after his tour “The facilities here are superb. The classroom in the nursery is equipped with the highest quality play equipment and the sensory room is a real treat.”

Appletree has extended it range of services and is hoping to expand further in the future with plans for a community garden on land next to the nursery.For more information see the Appletree website.

Green Councillors in Scotforth West ward are calling on Lancashire County Council to install a pedestrian crossing near the Greaves Park children’s play area before a fatal accident occurs. A 10-year old girl was knocked down and injured last week while attempting to cross Greaves Road. Councillor Emily Heath has asked County Council officers to take a preventative approach to road safety concerns and to review the need for safe crossing facilities.
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The go ahead was given for cyclists to ride against the traffic along Brook St, at the end of Dallas road in Lancaster this week. Speaking after the scheme was approved at the Lancaster Locals meeting Green County Councillor Chris Coates said “ This is another small link in the districts cycle network. I hope that cycle contraflows will become accepted as normal by all road users, especially on quiet residential roads.” The scheme will be carried out over the next year.

Developers Centros have been back in town showing the latest version of their plans for the controversial redevelopment of the Canal Corridor area of town to local councillors and interested parties. Planning applications for this version of the scheme are due to be submitted in the 2nd week of June.

The new Centros proposals can be downloaded here:

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John O’Gaunt Green Party councillor Jude Towers is trying to re-roof a Bus shelter on Bowerham Road. The issue was highlighted by residents of Bowerham Road to Cllr Towers who said ‘Those of us regularly using public transport are very familiar with Lancaster’s pretty unique weather, so roofless bus shelters are a real problem. The bus shelter, maintained by the County Council, has been roofless for several weeks, but is now on the County’s list of repair jobs.’

One resident did ponder though whether no roof made the bus shelter smoking ban null and void!

Plans by British Waterways Marinas Ltd (BWML) to redevelop the canal basin at Glasson without putting in any planning application were ruled to be out of order by the Government Office for the North West. Chris Coates,Green County Councillor for Glasson said “…this is what everyone has been calling for from the start. The marina company have been arrogant and somewhat foolish in pushing ahead without taking into account the views of local people.” (more…)

Lancashire Green County Councillor Chris Coates was the guest speaker at the regular meeting of Scottish Greens in Castle Douglas in Galloway last week. Cllr Coates spoke about the success of the Green Party in Lancaster and there was a lively discussion on how that might be repeated in South West Scotland.
Also speaking at the meeting was Cllr Kieran Wild from Glasgow Green Party.

Plans to build a car park at Lancaster Priory have ended up in a legal muddle. Planning permission was granted without the Council being aware that the land was protected by the Open Spaces Act. Local residents who objected to the scheme applied for Town Green status for the area and it was at the hearing that the Open Spaces designation was uncovered. The legal team at the council is now trying to unravel the situation. But, for the time being at least, no work should start on the car park.

Lancashire Care NHS Trust have selected the greenfield Royal Albert Fields site, in Ashton Road, as their number one choice for a multi-million pound mental health unit in North Lancashire.

The trust claim they have given careful consideration to “Site surveys, site conditions, planning advice.” and now intend to move on to applying for planning permission. (more…)

At the annual County Council meeting budget Green County Councillor Chris Coates proposed that a huge saving in costs and carbon emissions could be made by turning off selected street lighting between the hours of midnight and 5am.

Cllr Coates said “My first reaction to this idea was that there were serious implications for road safety and anti-social behaviour, but trials in other parts of the country don’t bear this out.” (more…)