BlogPreston

Under scrutiny: Preston council accounts available to view

Little known fact – you can view the accounts of Preston City Council before they are officially published in September. For nearly a month starting on Monday 25th July anyone on the electoral roll in Preston can go into the Town Hall and see a copy of the council’s accounts for the year end until 31st March 2011. The council’s website states the accounts are [...]

Council’s Sports Development team awarded record rating

Preston Council’s Sports Development Team has been awarded the highest rating in the country in a UK wide Quality Assurance Assessment (QUEST). The assessment monitors areas such as community engagement, customer relations and partnership working. The Council’s sports development team has been involved in getting people actively engaged in physical activities around Preston and the team were also heavily involved in Preston’s successful bid to become [...]

Contribute and suggest changes to the site

I’ve had a few thoughts for the site over the last couple of weeks, so I thought it best to share them. After all, there’s more of you than me, you’re all users of the site and it’s always been my goal to make Blog Preston as open and as collaborative as possible. With this in mind, here are my ideas for how the site [...]

Preston men and women in bottom 10% of UK life expectancy

The Office for National Statistics have released the latest figures detailing UK life expectancy, and Preston fares badly in both male and female life expectancy. Using data from the Guardian Datastore shows that men in Preston have a life expectancy of 75.5, in the bottom 8% of the UK, while women have a life expectancy of 80, the bottom 7% of the UK. There is [...]

Reminder – PACT Meeting tonight for Cadley/Greyfriars residents

A PACT (Police And Communites Together) meeting will be taking place tonight for residents living in the Cadley and Greyfriars wards. The venue is Fulwood Academy on Black Bull lane and the meeting starts at 6:30 pm. Below I’ve outlined issues raised at the last meeting and what Lancashire Constabulary say they’ve been doing to address the matters discussed. Issues Raised Priority 1 Cadley & [...]

FSA reveals Preston’s most unhygienic eateries (Mapped)

A new scheme by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published all hygiene ratings for businesses that deal in food as assessed by local councils. Businesses are assessed using a five star rating system – 0 stars indicate ‘urgent improvement necessary’ while 5 stars indicate ‘very good’. The worst businesses in Preston who scored 0 stars were Curry Cottage, Drumstix, Pak Sweet Centre & Takeaway, [...]

Weekly Crime and Police Roundup

Starting today, I’ll be gathering a weekly roundup of Preston’s crime and policing activity, posting links to Lancashire Constabulary and providing contact details if any readers can contribute information about any of the incidents listed. Police are appealing for witnesses following a serious road traffic collision at 11:00am, 25 May on Blackpool Road close to Moor Park. A Suzuki motorcycle was travelling towards Garstang Road when [...]

Domesday Book online maps Preston in 1086

The Domesday Book has been published online for the first time, and you can check out what Preston was like all the way back in 1086. Open Domesday, set up by Anna Powell-Smith, allows you to type in your postcode and find the Domesday listing nearest to you. Preston was part of the Amounderness – a hundred small territories in (present-day) Lancashire that have now [...]

Council scrap area forums, pursue new engagement strategy

Preston City Council have changed the format of their neighbourhood working arrangements. The Area Forums have come to an end (as of March 31st) and the council will instead hope to engage with residents with a smaller team of community engagement workers. Area forums will now be held around specific topics rather than more general engagement sessions like in the past. The team assigned to [...]

LIVE: Local elections and referendum

Blog Preston will be live from the Guild Hall from start to finish to bring you the very latest news and results from the local elections and referendum.

We were the first news outlet to report the fact that Mark Hendrick had been re-elected in last year’s general election, and we hope to be first again.