Grass cutting has now ended for 2019. Despite it being a particularly wet summer, it has been a successful season with teams performing above target for grass cutting completed on schedule. Work on highway verges using the tractor flail has also been completed with the team carrying out the 4 required cuts throughout the season.

If you have concerns about an area of grass you believe still needs cutting please contact the Streetscene team, requests will be dealt with a on a case by case basis taking into account requirement and ground conditions. Grass cutting will start again in March 2020, subject to weather conditions.

The grounds maintenance teams will now concentrate on winter work such as hedge and shrub pruning, tree works, edging up, gritting when required, and removing fallen leaves.

As in previous years street sweeping schedules will be suspended until January so the team can concentrate on areas with high leaf fall and the subsequent increased requests we receive at this time of year. If you have any street sweeping requests then please report these through the council’s website.

From 1 October residents will be able to recycle clean plastic pots, tubs and trays along with plastic bottles in their blue recycling bins. This includes items such as yoghurt pots, margarine tubs, ice cream tubs, meat trays and fruit trays.

Stickers promoting the change will be placed on blue bins during the next few weeks and there will be information in the local press and on social media.

In response to demands from residents we are also investigating the potential for recycling of drink cartons and Tetrapak.

These changes will help to increase the recycling rate which has levelled off in recent years reflecting a national trend and is currently at 42.7%.

The Council has recently established an Overview and Scrutiny Task Group on Developing the Council’s Green Agenda.

In order to help with our inquiry, the task group is requesting information from our partners and stakeholder groups on the things you are currently undertaking to address the issue of climate change and to understand what we as a council can do to help you be more environmentally sustainable.

Any information would be greatly received and will be of significant benefit to the task group.

If you have any comments please submit these to Nina Neisser on nina.neisser@chorley.gov.uk

Chorley Council entered our brand new 65 bed Primrose Gardens Retirement Living development into the prestigious Inside Housing Development Awards competition in August for the category for ‘Best Older People’s Housing Development (50 +homes)’. Inside Housing announced the shortlisted entrants on Tuesday, 17 September 2019 and confirmed that Chorley Council has been shortlisted.

Primrose Gardens Retirement Living is an ideal candidate for this award as the development was specifically designed to meet the industry standard ‘HAPPI’ (Housing our Ageing Population panel for Innovation standards) required by Homes England. There are 10 key design criteria for HAPPI which include good natural light, ventilation, room to move around and future adaptability and we selected specialist architects to help us achieve this. If you have visited Primrose Gardens, you will see things like the entrance atrium, large glass panes in the corridors, balconies and patios and large areas of outdoor space – all of which were purposefully designed to meet these standards.

Further, because of our commitment to retaining our two local dance schools and the historic sprung dancefloor located at the former St John Ambulance Hall, we demonstrated creativity by designing-in a purpose built dancehall into Primrose Gardens. This gives our development its ‘USP’ by protecting the long term community asset and adding social value to the scheme, creating lots of opportunities for older people to keep active and to continue to feel part of the community. This is proven to keep older people active and mentally stimulated for longer, which provides a better quality for life whilst also saving the public purse in NHS costs and unnecessary residential care. The café and hair salon also provide a commercial aspect whilst also serving the residents and wider community, again to generate the sense of community and social mix, considered a key element of extra care schemes.

The awards ceremony is on Wednesday, 27 November 2019 when we will find out if we have won.

Chorley's Santa Express will be back to whisk families on a magical journey from Chorley town centre through Astley Park to meet Father Christmas at Astley Hall and tickets are now on sale.

The Santa Express will be running regularly from its new stop on Market Street in Chorley town centre, opposite the town hall, between 9.30am and 4pm every Saturday and Sunday in December from Saturday, 30 November until and including Sunday, 22 December to take families to meet Father Christmas as he takes up residence in Astley Hall's Inlaid Room in the run up to Christmas.

Every child who meets Father Christmas will receive a special Christmas gift and there will be some festive fun too.

Throughout October, canvassers for Chorley Council will be knocking on doors of those residential premises where a response has yet to be received to the annual canvass of electors. Canvassers will be encouraging households to respond and will be collecting completed HEF's (Household Enquiry Forms).

In addition, canvassers will also be encouraging new potential electors to complete the registration process by supplying their date of birth and national insurance, so that their identity can be confirmed. Completed forms can be given to the canvasser to return.

All canvassers are in receipt of official Chorley Council identification, which should be on display.

The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) were published last Thursday by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The IMD provides a relative ranking for all small areas in England based on several factors of deprivation including income, employment, education and crime.

Key findings for Chorley:
• Chorley's overall position amongst 326 district councils has improved since 2015 from 175th most deprived to 177th.
• The number of neighbourhood areas in Chorley in the bottom 10% of most deprived areas in England has reduced from 4 to 3.
• In Lancashire, Chorley remains the 9th most deprived district council out of 12. Chorley is one of only 2 district councils which have improved their national ranking since 2015.

These findings suggest that Chorley is less deprived in comparison to other areas in England than it was in 2015.

The Peoples Health Trust – Active Communities Funding Programme is due to open in October with Chorley being one of the targeted areas

They are looking to fund Local groups and organisations with great ideas to make their communities even better places to live.
The funding is for community groups and not-for-profit organisations seeking investment of between £5,000 and £50,000 for projects lasting up to two years.
They are looking for small and local projects, genuinely designed and run by local people. By small, this could mean just a small group of people on an estate, in a few streets or villages.

A health event is taking place in Mawdesley on Saturday, 26 October from 10.30am until 1.30pm.

This includes free mini health checks, health and wellbeing related information and activities and have a chat with a health professional.

Chorley Council's Licensing Team had some success at Court last month. They prosecuted a person who'd had their taxi driver’s licence revoked and who then used an unlicensed vehicle to convey a passenger, meaning it hadn’t been submitted for the Council’s rigorous “taxi test”.

Following a trial, he was found guilty of all three offences and convicted. He was fined £1000, ordered to pay our full costs of £3500 and a victim surcharge of £100.

Jonathan Evans, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has published an open letter to all public office holders on the importance of upholding public standards, maintaining high standards and implementing the Nolan Principles.