Welcome to Winning Back Morecambe's West End

As part of the Local Democracy week Lancaster City Council and Winning Back Morecambe’s West End hosted the popular Pupil Power event at Sandylands Primary School.

On Thursday 19th October, 60 children from Year 6 had the opportunity to play ‘Pupil Power’, a game based on Pokemon cards, except in this game the cards represent council services.

Split into groups the children were given a budget of £12 million to buy a variety of council services, but as in real life, there wasn’t enough money to buy all the services. A mock-budget meeting was arranged with the youngsters who debated which services they needed or wanted the most and which they thought they could do without. After the debate, a vote was taken to obtain a majority decision. They were helped in their deliberations to balance the budget by elected members and staff of Lancaster City Council and Winning Back Morecambe’s West End.

As part of the challenging but fun day all the children completed a card ‘What I would do if I were in charge of Lancaster City Council for a Day,’ and drew a picture or wrote a poem about the Mayor. Three winners received a Atlas to take home. All of the children received a certificate for taking part and a goody bag.

Commenting on the event the Mayor of Lancaster, Coun Janie Kirkman said: ‘I am delighted that we are continuing with this excellent initiative in my mayoral year. This is a most enjoyable and rewarding event for both councillors and children.’

The West End Partnership has agreed to spend £50,000 on improvements to Regent’s Park in partnership with Lancaster City Council.

The Council is also providing £50,000 and is looking to attract other, external, sources of funding.

Number Two Bowling Green is to be completely upgraded with all the infrastructure needed to support floodlighting should that prove possible. Tenders have been drawn up for a new play area and many other improvements are in the pipeline.

The Partnership has already funded the demolition of the two unsightly huts and some general tidying up of the park.

This is the first stage in creating a recreational space of which we can all be proud.

An initiative to clampdown on crime and grime in the district produced some excellent results.

‘Clean Sweep’ is a four-week scheme which started in the West End and brings together a host of agencies to work together on issues dealing with crime and the local environment. The first ‘Clean Sweep’ has exceeded all expectations and has had an excellent effect on the neighbourhood.

There were 21 arrests for drugs related offences and two separate raids on a number of properties that had been under surveillance by the police.

There were 54 failure to appear warrants executed by the Police and Court Warrant Officers amounting to £10,000 in fines.

Ten people were prosecuted for failing to have a TV licence.

Twenty-five fixed penalty notices were issued by the Community Support Officers, on behalf of the police and Lancaster City Council, for offences such as littering, dog fouling and cycling on the pavement. These results show how all agencies are committed to helping each other in achieving their objectives.

A Street Warden issued a £75 fine for littering after witnessing a young man tear down a notice off a door, which had been subjected to a drugs raid, and throwing the notice on the floor.

Two eviction notices were served on anti-social tenants living in Westminster Road.

The Police and the Fire and Rescue Service gave several warnings after unsatisfactory licensing inspections which will be followed up in due course.

Lancashire Constabulary also ran ‘Operation Boswell’ with the help of DVLA, HM Customs and Excise, the Environment Agency and the Vehicle Inspectorate to clamp down on vehicle crime.

Chatsworth Road was given a ‘deep clean’ by Lancaster City Council’s Direct Services which involved dredging the gullies, repairing pavements and drains.

Talking about the scheme, Sgt Jim Edmonds said: “The police, along with the other agencies were delighted with the results achieved by Operation Clean Sweep. We had some excellent feedback from the community and we are confident that this is a scheme that can be rolled out across the local area with similar success.’’

The Crime and Grime initiative is not resting on its laurels and will be targeting other neighbourhoods around the district. The next Clean Sweep will be taking place in Poulton during November.