Tomorrow, Blackpool Council is meeting to agree rent rises for council house tenants, but it is worth remining Blackpool tenants that government minister Ruth Kelly earlier this week signalled an end to the right to a ‘tenancy for life’ for tenants that has hitherto held true. This brings added uncertainty to the lives of very
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£1m a year. That’s how much the Council pays Leisure Parcs to keep the Winter Gardens open. But is it right that the Labour Council should enter a new long-term deal so soon before local elections – the outcome of which will probably see Labour lose control of the Council? Projects such as Storm City
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Bad luck to the Seasiders and all those hoping for a trip down to Stamford Bridge on Saturday. They say the FA Cup has lost its romance, but the prospect of a match against Chelsea was certainly something worth dreaming about. Well, now there’s the old cliche that at least we can concentrate on the
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The reports in today’s Blackpool Gazette about mental healthcare provision on the Fylde depress me profoundly. I’ve spent years arguing for improved mental healthcare in this country – it really is one of the most neglected parts of our neglected NHS. It’s a disgrace, especially when you think that one in five of us is
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Today’s proposals from the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority – backed by Education Secretary Alan Johnson – I find deeply depressing. The aim is to make the school timetable more flexible, with more ‘new issues’ covered. Mick Waters, their director, says he wants the new curriculum to promote citizenship skills such as “an ability to tolerate
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I was in Cleveleys the other day visiting the new-ish Vue cinema with local councillors Alan Heppenstall and John Hodgkinson, and taking a look at the regeneration work going on in the immediate area as part of the New Wave project. Although the area around the cinema is very much work in progress, you can
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The Casino fightback has started. The Blackpool Gazette has launched an online petition here which I urge everyone to sign. But Blackpool’s future cannot just be dependent on the issue of whether or not we get a casino – it is too uncertain a path to rely on. The wider regeneration efforts must continue. ReBlackpool
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People across Blackpool will be deeply disappointed to hear that Manchester, rather than Blackpool, has been given the go-ahead for a regional casino. It is to be hoped that if the Manchester pilot is successful, the Government will reconsider Blackpool as a suitable venue for another super-casino. There is no magic wand to Blackpool’s regeneration.
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If anything is going to do for this Government, it will be their incompetence. The ongoing crisis in the Home Office, in which John Reid is left thrashing about, is a case in point – but let’s not forget other highlights such as the Child Support Agency, Single Farm Payments, hospital infections, the railways, the
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Today is RNLI SOS Day, the day when the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has its annual fund-raising push. I am sure everyone knows there is an RNLI Station on Central Promenade, just below the Tower. First established in 1864, the new station was opened back in 1998. Over those intervening 143 years, countless lives have
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