News | Page 22

A former Department for Work and Pensions site in Lytham St Annes is set to undergo a major redevelopment project, which will see it turned into a top-range housing and supermarket complex.

Business and public sector leaders in Lancashire recently revealed the fact that they were very close to completing an application to grant the Preston and South Ribble areas a City Deal, which, if approved, would see the two areas transformed by large-scale new investment in transport, housing and employment infrastructure, enabling more than 20,000 jobs to be created in the next decade.

Construction work on the £17m Archbishop Beck Catholic Sports College has just commenced, Willmott Dixon, the company in charge of the energy-efficient development on the former Long Lane council depot site in Fazakerley, has just revealed. The scheme is part of the Liverpool School Investment Programme and will feature a solar panel roof to generate electricity, a six-court sports hall, pitch, theatre and recording and dance studios. The school is set to open in September 2014.

Liverpool FC, Liverpool City Council and Your Housing Group have just revealed a brand-new redevelopment plan for the city, worth around £260m, which includes the redevelopment of Anfield stadium.

Work on the fourth phase in the Norris Green Village development project is about to start in the near future, Regeneration Liverpool has revealed, according to a report in the local media. The new phase forms part of a wider £100m housing scheme being undertaken by the partnership which is a joint venture between regeneration specialist Sigma Inpartnership and Liverpool City Council.

The North West recorded the highest proportion of industrial take-up of the UK regions in 2012, with 12.5m sq ft transacted, a Lambert Smith Hampton research report revealed. However, that’s down 12.4% on the previous year and the lowest since 2007, this situation being partly explained by the lack of stock and also by the relatively low performance of the SME sector, seriously affected by the buoyancy of the economy.

The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has recently revealed serious cost-cutting plans, that, unfortunately, might also involve a number of jobs being lost.

As some of UK’s banking giants promise to create thousands of new apprenticeship positions in the near future, it’s becoming quite clear that their respective time and attendance and access control solutions will certainly come under fire.

A Sixth Form college in Barrow has just started a consultation period over proposed redundancies for support and teaching staff, the main reason behind this rather undesirable situation being a steep cut in the number of students attending the year groups. The institution will be forced to reduce its spending by an impressive £360,000, which, unfortunately, will also translate into personnel being made redundant, voluntarily or otherwise. Furthermore, the college’s principal, David Batten, also

The Cumbria County Council has just revealed fresh new plans to carry out road maintenance and improvement works between the Mockerkin south junction and the Dean/Pardshaw crossroads, the total investment amounting to £500K.

The old Vicarstown School site, in Latona Street, Walney, was quite recently the scene of a theft, a heavy piece of construction equipment disappearing from the premises. According to a police report, the heavy orange forward/reverse plate, used for compaction, would have required three or more people to carry out of the former school’s area. Unfortunately, sites such as the one mentioned above are quite often the target of thieves, mostly due to the lack of any significant access control solutions on the premises.

Staff at a primary school in Blackpool have been suspended after concerns were raised about their behaviour before half-term last week. The teachers concerned were at Revoe Primary School on Grasmere Road, and police are now investigating the incident.