Olivia Norris and Charlie Fowler made a fine Mary and Joseph
Barley Parish Council
Christmas Fayre & Carols, Thanks, Road Closure...
The wonder of Christmas came to Barley in 2023. On 10th December a lovely traditional Christmas Fayre in the Village Hall kick started an awesome event with carols around the tree, Christmas lights switch on, Barrowford Community Choir and Ava Hunt filling the air with beautiful singing, a magical sleigh brought Father Christmas with his helpful elf to a spectacularly decorated grotto (a.k.a. the bus shelter!) and lots of delicious Christmassy food and drink. The Christmas lights competition, judged by MP Andrew Stephenson, was won by the Cosway-Kirk family from the Bullion – never has a bin store shone so brightly! The day was rounded off with the true meaning of Christmas brought to life in breath taking scenes throughout the village during Barley to Bethlehem, our annual re-enactment of the Nativity with a real donkey and Christmas carols along the way.
A week later, on 17th December, the community came back together for the very special and moving Carols by Candlelight service at the Chapel. Congratulations to all the readers who delivered with great aplomb! Thank you to the congregation who sang sublimely accompanied by keyboard and cello. It was also superb to see ages ranging from 18 months to some of the more mature (like fine red wine!) members of our community come together for this service. Speaking of which, if you are over 65 then hopefully you received your gift of chocolates or biscuits with a visit from a Parish Councillor to wish you a very Merry Christmas!
Thank you to everyone who came together to make all of this happen – Events Committee, Parish Council, Chapel, Village Hall Committee, Cabin, Pendle Inn, Barley Mow and residents. There are too many individuals to mention but you know who you are. Special memories were certainly made.
Parish Council news as we move into 2024:
The Council are as disappointed as residents that the County Council has not installed the resident parking road lines on either of the two occasions they said they were coming. We did letter drops to alert residents to the works on LCC’s behalf and residents duly cleared the lining areas all to no avail.
There will be a LCC road closure on Barley New Road from 10th and 12th January to allow carriageway patching works to progress. The PC are lobbying for necessary drainage maintenance works to be undertaken during the road closure.
The PC has approved a request from the Barley Mow for customers to park on the Turning Area on Xmas day. This is a one-off arrangement as a gesture of goodwill with an expectation that no large vehicles will need the Turning Area on Xmas day but we will see how it goes
We hope you have liked the additional Xmas lighting around the village this year making it much brighter and we were delighted to find the lights that had gone missing from the Village Hall in the chapel!
On behalf of the Parish Council, I would like to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous new year and the same for 2024.