Inside: Free A-Z guide to council services Spring 2008 Inside: Free A-Z guide to council services Inside: Longtown A-Z of useful telephone numbers Contact details for your councillor gets moving Events diary visit cumbria.gov.uk for regular updates on the issues affecting you 19 Contents Cumbria wins the lottery Are you drinking 06 Huge cash boost for cycling in 11 yourself to death? the county Find out how Cumbria’s tackling binge drinking 12 The last post 07 Community runs its own shop Cumbria’s getting greener and post office 12 Recycling in the county is on the Your diary Give it all increase 20 Your guide to events around the Potholes county 08 More than 7000 potholes fixed Keeping you in the picture in six weeks, we show you how 15 How does Cumbria County Your A-Z it’s done Council really spend your 23 Your complete guide to you've got money? services in Cumbria Taking education seriously 19 An update on the 06 schools review Your Cumbria on CD! If you would like an audio CD of this magazine call 01228 606304 From cans to clothes, if you've got it, recycle it What’s the cost? Each YourCumbria costs around 18p to produce and deliver to your door. YourCumbria Helpline: 0845 055 1118 recycleforcumbria.org Please recycle the magazine when you have finished reading it. produced by Any comments? Please contact the editor on 01228 601008 or email [email protected] Tel: 01228 606420 Photos: Steve Barber; Stewart Carruthers. CUM 223959 Give it all a4.indd 1 18/2/08 11:59:30 YourNews YourNews Have your say... The judges have had their say but we want to know what you think of YourCumbria. In brief... Welcome to Fill in our reader survey on page 31 and Cumbria you could win yourself a hamper. Your Raising magazine the standard Since the last It’s a gold! Cumbria Cumbria County Council has Your YourCumbria has been judged to be the best newspaper or magazine in the recently adopted a new code of there’s been an North West by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. awful lot going conduct for councillors. Agreed in The judges found YourCumbria to be “a comprehensive magazine with a large February, the new code has been on – and to try variety of content in different styles to appeal to a wide audience. The team have and keep you simplified and clearly lays out the gone to great lengths to make the magazine available to hard-to-reach communities standards of behaviour you can up to-date with and have embraced new media, making the magazine’s content available online the major issues expect from councillors when and as downloadable audio files. Interesting, useful and fun content which proves conducting council business. we’ve tried to popular with residents.” cover as much Copies of the revised code are as possible in available for inspection at the offices this edition. From the important More fairtrade towns of the council at the Nisi Prius issue of saving Border TV to saving Building, The Courts, English Street, our Post Offices, you can read all Carlisle and at County Offices, The Fairtrade movement in Cumbria is continuing to gather pace. Not only Kendal from 9.00am to 5.00pm about the latest news and find out are there now 17 Fairtrade Towns in the county, but Cumbria was also how to make your voice heard. Monday to Thursday and 9.00am honoured by a visit from the leading figure in the UK Fairtrade movement to 4.30pm on Fridays. It can also Another key issue close to all during Fairtrade fortnight last month. our hearts is the subject of council be viewed on the county council’s Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, visited website at cumbria.gov.uk. tax and you can find out how your Keswick and spoke about the particular achievements money is being spent on page 15. of Cumbrian communities in raising awareness and Now on something close to sales of Fairtrade products. my own heart, you may have She said: “Fairtrade is thriving in Cumbria. heard that Cumbria County You can see it in the products stocked in Council has retained its two- guest houses and cafes around the county. star status and has been judged This achievement is the result of the work of by the Audit Commission to hundreds of Cumbrian campaigners, strongly be ‘improving its performance supported by the county council and other local across services generally, and councils.” in priority areas’. Although the On 10 March Caldbeck and Hesket council is getting better we still Newmarket received Fairtrade status, the 17th need to accelerate our rate of community in Cumbria to receive the award, improvement. We need to work Find out more... and the first in 2008. Small school more closely with our partners in Visit the StreetSafe website Cumbria received Fairtrade County status the county, so that we can drive at streetsafe.org.uk on 11 March 2006. Harriet Lamb makes a big forward significant improvements StreetSafe for you, the citizens of Cumbria. exhibition To date there have been major When asked, most of us could probably come up with a few things we’d change Find out more - visit cumbriafairtrade.org.uk improvements in the Fire about our local area. A broken street light, graffiti, gangs of kids hanging on Pupils from one of Cumbria’s Service, Children’s Services and street corners – they all sound fairly trivial, but can all build up to make the smallest schools will represent the Adult Social Care and we have neighbourhood a less enjoyable place to live. But thanks to StreetSafe, an Where’s the best place to find out about what’s UK at an international art exhibition plans in place to make further innovative ongoing project in Barrow and South Lakeland, residents are getting going in Cumbria… other than in YourCumbria, in London next month. improvements in other areas. the chance to talk about these local issues to the people that have the power to of course!? Young artists from Milburn I hope you enjoy your read and do something about them. It could be the local newspaper, radio or Internet School near Penrith will see their don’t forget to fill in the readers StreetSafe is a community driven partnership that has been running for but for thousands of people in the north of the work ‘Mother Love’ on display at survey on page 31 – your opinions approximately four years. Each home in a neighbourhood is visited by a uniformed county their first port of call is Border TV’s regional the National Theatre alongside really do matter to us – they make officer, such as police or fire officer, and at least one other representative, such news programme, Lookaround. submissions from as far afield as sure we are delivering the services as a local councillor. The StreetSafe visit allows residents to discuss problems and This could all change under ITV plans to cut back Brazil, China, Ghana and Russia. and information that you want. issues in their local area, and uses a community questionnaire to gather specific on their funding for regional news programmes. information relating to crime and community issues from each home. This raises The plan would mean Lookaround would be The exhibition runs from 9 – 27 April. Enjoy your read. awareness of the problems in the local area to the agencies involved. merged with news from Tyne Tees and there would Over 16,000 homes have been visited so far, and each occupant is then given a be less coverage on Cumbrian issues. StreetSafe ‘community bag’ which contains leaflets offering information, education or advice, preventative tools such as an ultra-violet marking pen, road safety tags, Sign the petition... key fobs, and safety colouring books. Every effort is made on the day to achieve as Competition Winner much as possible, including a visual audit of the area to assess things like graffiti and Over seven thousand people have already abandoned vehicles. signed a petition arguing against this – you can Congratulations to Mrs J Shaw from Tim Stoddard Following each operation, any immediate problems are looked at and targeted for join them by visiting savelookaround.co.uk or Hawkshead who wins a cookery Leader of action. The information received from the questionnaire is then used by the relevant writing to The Campaign To Save Border TV’s course at LucyCooks, Ambleside. Cumbria County Council authorities and agencies to identify the needs of the local area, who then set about Lookaround, PO Box 357, Carlisle CA1 9DT. making sure these problems get attention. 4 YourCumbria YourCumbria 5 YourNews YourNews Nigel Williamson Health benefits of cycling As the weather begins to improve, cycling is a great way to improve your Get involved... health. Cycling can be fitted into your Visit the website at day (riding to work, school, shops cumbria.gov.uk/longtown etc) and has real benefits for the very or call 01228 606474 modest amounts of time involved: Longtown moving forward • A 15-minute bike ride to and Right now people in Longtown are having their say on secondary school has given particular urgency to the from work five times a week the future of their town, all as part of the Longtown review. It is hoped that Longtown moving forward burns the equivalent of 11 moving forward project. The project is the result of a will provide the blueprint for a fresh start. Already the pounds of fat in a year joint review by Cumbria County Council, Carlisle City consultation is raising lots of interesting and exciting ideas Find out more..