For those of you out and about over the Christmas and New Year, reliable public transport can be a godsend.

However, operators use different timetables over this period. The county council has published a useful leaflet which can be found here.

It should be nmoted that many operators are not providing a service on Boxing Day, mainly a Sunday Service on Dec 27th (which is bank holiday this year) and many are providing only a Saturday Service on Wed 28th – Fri 30th when many people may be struggling back to work.

In addition LCC Information Centres such as Clitheroe Interchange will be closed until Thurs 29th.

Residents in Ribble Valley are advised of changes to recycling and refuse collection over the festive period.

The changes are: Normal collection date (rearranged date) – December 26 (27), 27 (28), 28 (29), 29 (30), 30 (31).

There will be no refuse collections on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and no green waste collection during the week beginning Monday, December 26.

Refuse will be collected as normal during the weeks beginning December 19 and January 2.

Christmas trees will be collected from the week beginning Monday, January 9. Trees should be chopped up and placed inside green bins, or for households not on the green wheeled bin service tied up and left with blue bins or lilac sacks.

Christmas wrap, cards and cardboard can be left with white sacks, although there will be no white sack collections on December 26. Collections scheduled for December 26 will be collected on December 31. Other Christmas waste can be taken to the Henthorn Household Waste Recycling Centre in Clitheroe and the Chapel Hill Household Waste Recycling Centre in Longridge.

Further information is available from www.ribblevalley.gov.uk

Over the summer there has been an announcement from Government that gives communities and councils like Ribble Valley the chance to grow economically and become more accountable to local citizens.
 
The announcement is that from 2013 the income from business rates will be kept by local councils such as Ribble Valley, as opposed to being pooled nationally as at present. An important qualification is that no council will lose out when the changes from the current system are made.
 
This will mean that councils will collect and be responsible for some 40% of their budget on average, rather than the 20% which is the current position. Nowhere near enough, in my mind, but nevertheless an important step forward.
 
It will also mean that there will be a much closer relationship between councils and local businesses as used to be the case until the link was broken more than 2 decades ago.
 
It will also give councils like Ribble Valley an incentive to help businesses expand and new business come into the area. Instead of waving farewell to the business rates and passing them down to London we will be able to invest them in the facilities and services that local residents want.
 
After many years of councillors of all sides complaining that we had lost local control over business rates now we will have the challenge of using that control for the benefit of our local community.

I’m bloody angry and not just at the clichéd mindless thugs setting our city centres alight.

I am incandescent at those demanding that all the ills of society would be solved if only we brought back National Service – don’t they realise that most of the kids (and yes they are kids) rioting would probably not have been old enough to do national service?

I am equally angry at those who think that a few baton rounds from the army and water cannon would send all the rioters back home. Don’t they remember that little sociological experiment we have carried out over the last 40 years where we discovered the best Recruiting Sergeant that the Provos ever had was our own dear beloved British Army?

Don’t they all realise that these young people (they prefer to call them feral youth as it dehumanises the young people and gives them another excuse for not engaging with them) are all our sons and daughters?

But don’t they realise the fact they have no respect for property and authority is because we gave them none?

And don’t turn into the Daily Mail and blame single mothers – by and large the blame lies squarely at the feet of the absent fathers and all the other males in the community who did not step in and help teach these young males about respect for their community, their elders and betters. We, my friends, are all to blame.

But if you want to look for a sense of hope look at @meralhece’s tweets of how the Stoke Newington community united against potential rioters – sorry that’s Stoke Newington’s Turkish community united against potential rioters.

Lancashire County Council are to introduce 20mph zones in all residential areas throughout the county reports Clitheroe’s County Councillor – Allan Knox.

Allan added: “The scheme, which will not involve any speed bumps, is going to be rolled out across the County in the next two years.

“One of the first areas where it will be rolled out is the north and west of Clitheroe. Read more »

Liberal Democrats on Lancashire County Council are supporting the Local Government Associations campaign for a Judicial Review of a cut to the Education Formula Grant.

LibDem education spokesman at LCC, Allan Knox said, “This cut is not part of the austerity budget, but was a last minute move to fund academies in Lancashire. We believe the governments calculations are way out. Read more »

Full Result
Mary Robinson  (Lib Dem) 378
Allan Knox (Lib Dem) 330
Conservative 242
Labour 193
Conservative 184
Labour 168