Parish News

Barley did not progress to the Best Kept Village finals. Whilst the village has looked well all year, we probably did not hit the high standards of previous years when we have won. Well done to everyone who contributed to keeping the place clean and tidy and maybe we need more volunteers to help in the future. Given the number of visitors we attract and the associated problems (parking, litter etc) it is always going to be a challenge.

The Pendle Inn has a new manager in Maggie Gold. She started in the last week of August, and she comes with experience of other pubs in the northwest where she has spent most of her life. As many are aware, the pub has gone through some turbulence since Stuart left and Thwaites let the pub run down until they sold it to the Dorbiere Pub Group. Things have been improving since then and the hospice fund-raiser last week was a good event with live bands. The Parish Council welcomes the new manager and hopes she can make the most of this community and country inn that we know has such potential.

At the time of writing, the Council has just issued tender documents to five contractors to undertake improvement works to the toilet block. We are hoping prices submitted are within our budget and we can get works underway by late October.

The only planning matter is a proposal to convert an agricultural building into three holiday cottages at Pendle House Farm at the foot of the hill. There have been several objections to the plans including from the Parish Council. PBC refused the application because of the impact on highway safety on the single-track access road and poor design having an impact on the AONB.

Within the PC we share out some responsibilities between members to try and share the workload. I have summarised how some key responsibilities are allocated for your information; each responsibility is shared with another councillor (seconder) to provide support. The main point of contact remains the clerk of the PC who administers and keeps records for the Council, she passes queries on to the relevant Councillor and chases up responses.

Up towards Pendle Hill the PC and Pendle BC have jointly funded two new double size waste bins, one at the lay-by on Barley Lane and one at the foot of the steps.

Barley Lane is a very popular layby, approximately 120m long, where many park to ascend Pendle Hill. We have had an on-going litter problem in this area, and we now at least know we do have increased waste storage capacity if the bins are used.

In the last newsletter I wrote at length about the Himalayan Balsam invasion. It has spread much further than I had thought on pendle hill. The latest outbreak is below the sheep pens at Under Pendle. A big thank you to Richard & Karen Lewis for taking machetes to the balsam; it will return next year but there will be less of it, and we can hopefully pull it out before it seeds.

The Residents children’s Christmas Party will be held on 14th December this year followed by Barley to Bethlehem and Lorraine Goldsbrough has asked people to let her have children’s names asap please. The Chapel will also be holding a craft fair on 9th November.

Please note that starting in September Parish Council meetings will start at 7pm rather than previous 7.30pm.