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NEWSLETTER No. 344 - February 2007
Chairmans Review - Marion Coupe Lytham has a thriving town centre which is about to have to deal with the double whammy of a Booth’s supermarket and a Stringer’s store on its edge and a health supermarket a little further out. Will you go back into town to collect your medicines? Will you shop at Booth’s for groceries then buy your fruit and veg in town? Where will you buy your toothpaste? We all want our town centres to stay the same, to be busy and safe, and not to need those horrible roller shutters which are increasingly on the march - we like to have attractive, brightly lit windows to gaze in after the shops are shut. Butchers and hardware shops are disappearing from high streets all over the land, the grand post offices have nearly all gone. All retail outlets are threatened by the rise in internet shopping however. The market might even be a little fairer in the virtual world and town centre shops could yet win the game if they adopt the technology and provide the service.
Fylde BC are carrying
out an “asset review” in order to see what they can dispose
of. We are likely to disagree over their conclusions, although happily
the Town Hall is not on the list any more. The way the review is
being written is interesting - it appears to be an analysis of what
they can get away with rather than what is good for the long term
infrastructure of the town. “A commercial operation on this key site may be resisted especially given the abortive tendering exercise that was undertaken ten years ago.” There is no mention of the £14,000 which was raised to stop development there, no mention of the opposition to the plans put forward to develop it. There IS mention of the Lytham Community Forum “which gave their approval in principle” for the proposed juice bar development. We are often told of course that this body has no importance. You will have noticed that the housing development on one of the pitches of Fylde RUFC is now dominating the end of Woodlands Road in Ansdell. It is intensive, but at least they have done a good job of re-building the cobble wall at the entrance. The scheme was called “The Poplars”, and they have quickly cut most of them down. And where are the cypresses at Cypress Point?
Lytham’s Cottage Hospital is no more. The two GP surgeries now in Church Road will be re-located to part of the hospital site, all will be new. There will be a pharmacy and newsagent there. Provision of pharmacy services in Lytham centre will be badly affected. (The Ansdell pharmacy has already closed following the opening of a new Ansdell Health Centre.) The various public meetings held by the now defunct Fylde NHS Trust had indicated that the existing pharmacies were to supply services at the new Lytham Centre. This may not now be the case. One of the main concerns of the Civic Society in all these proposals has been the effect the new PCT will have on Lytham Town Centre. The footfall generated by visits to the doctors’ surgeries and the pharmacies will be lost. Rather like a health supermarket opening up on the edge of town………. But did we just hear that government policy had changed and cottage hospitals were to be encouraged? St Annes parish councillor Arnold Sumner thinks that more sand could be extracted from our beaches and has said so in the local paper. Don Moore, chairman of Defend the Dunes, puts the case for conservation: · FBC do not sell the sand at £50 per cubic metre as is suggested, far from it. In fact they get nearer to £1 per cubic metre (roughly £50,000 annual income from selling about 80,000 cubic metres). · There are also costs associated with sand extraction which have to be deducted from the income. For example, there is the cost of monitoring to make sure no environmental damage is caused. This is something very much neglected over the years but which will have to be taken on board in future. · There are the costs of regular reviews of the sand extraction licence which were over £30,000 in the last 2 years. Then there would be the costs of improved hard sea defences all along the coast, which we would need if we reduced the beach levels. Yes, higher beaches help to protect the dunes, which are a vital part of our sea defences. On the basis of work at Blackpool and Fleetwood, improving hard sea defences would cost maybe £10M pounds a mile, and they would still need to be maintained. · I would have thought as a coastal resort we wanted an attractive coastline, not one continually blighted by open cast mining and massive civil engineering works. What would those do to our visitor numbers? · Fortunately all the beaches and dunes are designated as sites of special scientific interest. We hope this means that the beaches and dunes may continue to build up and perhaps develop into a good line of sea defences. Mr Sumner’s comments play into the hands of those who think only of short term financial gain for the town, so that their political party, whichever it is, will not be the one to be seen raising the council tax. They are merely storing up huge costs for the future.
We are fortunate in having a lovely stretch of coast all around the Fylde, a coastline that offers so much for the tourist. But it comes at a price, the risk of flooding. We have heard much lately about global warming, much that is related to the coastal defences in the country, but we have heard very little about what might happen on our doorstep. So what is the sea flooding situation like locally? In fact it is not good. If you look at the Environment Agency’s floodplain maps you will see that much of the Fylde near the coast is at risk. Floods don’t come every year of course. It all depends on whether storms coincide with high tides. Then the resultant storm surges and large waves are particularly damaging to sea defences. Our last severe storm surge in 1977 wreaked a great deal of damage in the Fylde. But we tend to forget these infrequent disasters which, unfortunately, can come again and again. The potential scale of the problem can be understood by looking at what happened in the past, for example in 1903 when the sea practically reached St. Annes Parish Church. But sea levels are rising. The most recent estimates by the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in 2001 predict a rate of about 7 mm per year around the Fylde. That means the sea will rise by about 350 mm over the next 50 years, about 14 inches. Global warming also makes severe storms more likely so we can expect more frequent storm surges and flooding. Since 2001 predicted rates of global warming seem to have got worse. So what should our Council do? Most important of all they should not forget the problem. In particular they should bear it in mind whenever they take any decisions that might be affected by it and decisions should not be short term but based on the long term implications. Floods are not a short term problem. The Government has laid down guidelines on what local authorities should and shouldn’t do in areas at risk of flooding. As a result FBC should not allow any further unnecessary developments in flood risk areas, and all involved with the proposed juice bar on the old Scruples site should bear that in mind. We have had statements from all and sundry about that proposal but no one has to my knowledge given a thought to the likelihood of sea flooding. The Fylde coastline has a mixture of man made sea defences, sections like at Granny’s Bay and at Todmorden Road which have little or no hard sea defences and a large section to the north of St. Annes where we must rely on the natural defences offered by the sand dunes. I am pleased that Fylde and Blackpool Councils have produced a joint Dune Management Plan which looks at what steps need to be taken to improve coastal defences, although I take issue on two aspects of this. Firstly, we know that sand tends to accrete on our shores. We should do all we can to encourage that and to build up as extensive and healthy a dune system as possible. In many areas beach management does not have as a top priority the encouragement of dune growth, but puts the low cost removal of litter and natural detritus first. Small changes to these cleaning practices would allow substantial natural defences to build up more quickly. Encouraging healthy dunes with a good covering of grass is the best method we have of reducing wind-blown sand and it would not jeopardise tourism in the area either. Secondly, although FBC has been extracting sand from Salters Bank since 1980 they don’t know whether or not this is affecting beach levels. It appears that our beaches are still accreting, but is accretion being slowed down by sand extraction? If this is the case, giving up the income from sand extraction is a small price to pay compared with the likely damage both to Council and private property that can result from sea flooding. It’s not all doom and gloom. We may not have a severe storm surge for several years. Let’s use those years wisely.
A service was held on 10th December 2006 in St Annes parish church to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the greatest disaster in the history of the RNLI. The restoration of the monument is urgent and we would like to get it underway this summer. CLICK HERE for further information Our talk on 22nd November was by Reg Haslam, director of development of ReBlackpool, the Blackpool regeneration company. He explained that although there is some wonderful Victorian architecture in Blackpool, the level and nature of the service given there is poor. A policy of “fleece the tourist” had been going on too long he said, and there was a serious lack of re-investment in the town on the part of those who made money there. The Talbot Road gateway to the town and the “experience” of the seafront are receiving urgent attention. Reg said that cranes and congestion were good indicators of success, and the cranes were back in Blackpool. Debenhams will be opening in 2008. This was an excellent insight into Blackpool’s problems and attempts to solve them. Please note there is a good, clean and safe (patrolled) car park there now, West St, above BHS. Others will follow. The conservation areas in the whole of the borough of Fylde need to be reviewed, and we are able to help in this. Character assessments will be done of existing ones and new areas set up. We need extra help in this so please volunteer if you can spare a few hours. There has been a proposal for a replacement dwelling at South Bank, 4 Clifton Drive, Lytham. It was for a very large, grand house with pool and other modern facilities. The application has been refused but the proposal has been interesting in the way it has challenged the traditional arrangement of the landscape. The existing house, South Bank, is situated within the original curtilage of the site of The Elms. Although some of the villas which were built here in the mid 19th century have now gone, and others have been surrounded by infill houses, the boundaries of the original sites have on the whole remained. The only site where there has been no infill and no encroachment on the gardens is Edenfield. This proposal took part of the Edenfield garden and most of its woodland on the west side into the neighbouring site. The Elms and Edenfield are divided by a cobble wall dating to 1846, the year Fairlawn was built. This proposal involved its demolition. The historical integrity of the sites would have been destroyed and the character of the conservation area badly affected. The existing trees which were preserved on the Edenfield site would require significant felling to accommodate such a large proposed residence in the centre of the application site. A previous application which proposed building flats within the wooded area was also unsuccessful. The original large houses were set in large grounds, this was not. We would very much regret the loss of the wooded gully at the western side of the Edenfield garden. This is an important link in the natural cover used by both birds and mammals, including foxes. We had thought that the area was protected by Tree Preservation Order. The gully is probably a natural feature, an important amenity in the view from the dunes. We are sorry to learn that the grotto on the Lytham side of the Edenfield site has been destroyed and that there may be a further planning application for building on this part of the site. So whereas we thought that the present conversion now going on at Edenfield would sit in all its original site, this is not the case. St Annes War Memorial Homes at Clifton Gardens
You will see these homes on the corner of Smithy Lane and Church Road, with a significant area of open green space on the Church Road side. The development was designed by Tom Mellor, a highly regarded architect who lived locally. It was built in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s and is a rare example of good quality, well detailed, post war housing. There is a small cobble faced shrine which holds the book of remembrance, a recognition of the local vernacular. The development is so significant that it will shortly be included in the new regional edition of Pevsner’s Buildings of England. This is currently being prepared by Clare Hartwell, and we have assisted with local detail.
However, the local philistines are still active. There has been a proposal to build four bungalows of extensive footprint to be used by tenants of the war memorial trust on the area of green space. This will destroy the integrity of Mellor’s layout. Needless to say the design of the bungalows will not blend in. They will remove the openness of the vista along Church Road. The officers of the council quite rightly recommended the proposal for refusal. They were overruled by your planning councillors. Only one, architect Kevin Eastham, voted to save the green space. Walkers through the wood will have noticed that the rustic furniture, made in memory of Bill Thompson, on the Lytham side of Middle Bridge has been finished. Chris Blackburn, mainly with his chainsaw, has done a wonderful job and produced a long table from a fallen beech with two long benches either side made from a fallen sycamore, with smaller logs mounted as seats.
There will be working parties in the wood each Friday morning, except when meeting on the following Saturdays: February 10th, March 10th, April 14th, May 12th, June 9th. We meet as usual at 9.30 am at the tree nursery (near Skew Bridge entrance). So, if you wish to join our volunteers, just turn up or contact Rob Wilkinson on 727611.
On November 4th a group of 15 local scouts joined some of the regular Witch Wood volunteers for a morning of activity in the wood. The scouts had already learnt quite a lot from a questionnaire they had completed beforehand which was based on information contained in the Witch Wood part of the Civic Society website, but their visit gave them the chance to learn some of the more practical skills involved in managing an area of woodland. They worked with real interest and great enthusiasm on a variety of activities including cleaning out bird and bat boxes, digging over a section of the tree nursery, collecting and planting acorns and planting up a number of young trees.
Whilst working in the wood, the scouts were also able to test their tree identification skills and they collected leaves for pressing. Both the scouts and the volunteers agreed that it had been a really enjoyable morning and many of the scouts vowed to return to watch over the development of “their” trees! We look forward to seeing them again in the near future when they receive their free pack of 40 trees from the Woodland Trust…..they will be planting these in Witch Wood for future generations to enjoy.
A much-hated job by all those involved is the updating of the Constitution so that it fully reflects the Charity Commission’s guidance on good governance. It is however, an essential task to regularly review the Constitution and make sure that it is adhered to. This has led to a laborious nit-picking of our Constitution by Marion, Rob, myself, and a very kind solicitor who donated his time for merely a cup of tea and a biscuit. We are ensuring that the new Constitution we propose is in accordance with our original founding document of May 1965, that any changes that are required are made and that any clauses of general interest are brought to the attention of the members as a whole. The new document will be circulated with the next newsletter.
Membership continues to increase and since the beginning of the new Membership Year on May 1st, we are pleased to have welcomed 15 new members. Since some categories of the Annual Subscription were raised in May 2006, membership now includes several Life Members. We are most grateful to them for their generous commitment to our cause. We are pleased also to note that most patrons continue to support us with the increased annual fee of £25. However, a few long-term Patrons have not yet increased the amount of their Bank Standing Order. Where necessary, reminders will be included in this month’s newsletter and we would be grateful if such Standing Orders could be upgraded before May 1st 2007, prior to the beginning of the next Membership Year. Once again, we are most grateful to all our members for their continuing interest and commitment to our Society and we hope that you will be joining us again next year. Please know that we welcome any members who may be interested in our committee work and that, with prior notification, you are warmly invited to observe at a meeting before making a regular commitment to join us. A reminder to all members - subscriptions are due on May 1st and a renewal form is included with this month’s newsletter. Please remember that payment by Standing Order is much appreciated by the Society for ease of Administration and saves you from unnecessary pressure of remembering to pay your subscription on time. At our January meeting, Mr Joel Firth gave an enlightened talk to the Society on the subject of sustainable building design. Mr Firth, a Chartered Architect, trained in Sheffield and London. Firth Associates, now practising in Lytham, was set up in 2003 after gaining various prestigious awards in the North West. He outlined the recent stringent government regulations and the need for sustainability in architecture due to the oncoming of global warming. The use of wind power, photovoltaic energy and solar power was discussed together with their effect on contemporary and future design with respect to our local environment.
Please note that under 'Sunday Walks at the Hall' the first date should read 'Sun 11 Mar'.
Forthcoming
Meetings and Events Thursday 8th February
- Visit to Solaris The subject of sustainability continues with a visit to the Solaris Centre, South Promenade, Blackpool for an introductory talk and tour of the building at 3.15pm. We will meet earlier at 2.15pm opposite the building, weather permitting, for those who are interested in a walk to see some of the exhibition of Promenade Art. This will allow for a 30 mins. walk (approx) and recovery/warm-up time back at the Solaris cafe before the talk begins. The former Solarium building on the South Promenade in Blackpool was originally built as a winter garden and sun lounge. It has now been renovated as part of the Blackpool Regeneration Scheme, representing environmental action and sustainability. The Solaris Centre is a multi-purpose centre, promoting tourism and environmental excellence. Light refreshments will
be served after the talk. February Meeting **DATE
CHANGE** Wednesday 14th March Wednesday 18th April Sunday 4th March Further details from Kate Cartmell (733414). Price for coach and concert ticket approx. £25-£28. If interested, please complete enclosed tear-off slip by 7th February and send SAE. Saturday 24th March Sunday 13th May -
Coach outing to Wakefield Thursday 14th June Saturday 8th / Sun
9th September Details for Sunday are yet to be finalised but may include further sights on Tyneside and a lunch stop is planned at either a Stately Home or National Trust venue on the return journey. Again, please let us know if you are interested, without making a firm commitment at this stage, as it will help with organising the weekend. Cost will be approx £150-£175
for the weekend. |
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