Barnoldswick Town & Council

[Whyperion]

Does the Town Council have its own website and easy contact or is it all hidden in Pendle ?

Can we have a subforum for guide for Earby

thanks

[Whyperion]

Part related , and I will have a moan to the correct authorities later , and somewhat in conjunction with the war memorial group.

Couple of bits about the co-op car park adjacent to war memorial area and recycling bins.

Evenings this is often used by youths for playing football , I have no objections to this as long as not excessively noisy and not damaging of any cars parked around ( after 7pm there are few ), if the War Memorial area is opened up to the car park the 'Goal' area might be lost , which may cause problems to War Memorial area if footy continues.

Secondly I have often noticed black bin bags full of debris deposited by the fence to the recycling area, I note this is actually from the street cleaners , and the bags are removed fairly swiftly by the Pendle Refuse lorry , but nevertheless they do not promote the town in a good light and could attract more fly tipping or dumping from people's cars , and even more so should the War Memorial area be opened up more. One or two local authorities for street cleaning do not use black bin bags but there own transparent coloured bags (' xyz authority street cleansing ' imprinted ) , which while more costly do avoid the impression of dumping, although I would hope a better location could be found for this activity ( maybe an area near the civic hall or fire station could be fenced off for this purpose ? )

[PanBiker]

Can we have a subforum for guide for Earby

thanks

Done.

[Tardis]

The Town Council does have it's own website, but it was abandoned some time ago.

It is the Town Council that put the money into the visit Barnoldswick site, which has cost quite a bit of money, and due to cost a considerable amount more in continuation and hosting fees as all the content is being put up by a contractor rather volunteers.

Pendle and LCC will support Barnoldswick on their own sites, and can be encouraged to use the socila media channels, though their tweets are not inspiring.

[Whyperion]

Hmm, its not easy to make generic complaints on LCC/Pendle websites ( specifics are acted upon quite promptly in action or response ). This is where OGFB scores , our love for the place can be shown by the passion arguments for and against strategy of elected and other representatives of the community. something which is lacking from the visitbarnoldswick.co.uk website. Having a paid contractor can help as service standards , required uptime etc are all part of the contract , which even the best volunteer cannot always commit to.

[Stanley]

I still don't understand why organisations like the Town Council don't avail themselves of the free forum they have on Oneguy. Join. invest a quid and have a widely read platform for free. Simples! I can't think of a better example of a 'no-brainer'.

[Tardis]

I still don't understand why organisations like the Town Council don't avail themselves of the free forum they have on Oneguy. Join. invest a quid and have a widely read platform for free. Simples! I can't think of a better example of a 'no-brainer'.

I agree Stanley, and at least you have managed to get Cllr Hartley onto the site, if not others that don't log on.

Sometimes politicians seem to believe that just because they have the money sat in a fund, they should ensure that they spend it

[Stanley]

I think the main reason is that this is an open forum that succeeds because anyone can easily make comment. All the official sites I have ever seen are more on the lines of the free sheets we get from many sources. In effect they are PR exercises and don't allow free response. The way OG works is nearer the democratic ideal where everyone can make an input. The more secure a councillor feels the better able they will be to accept this lack of control and the more respect they will gain. Not everyone sees it this way, there are times when public input, though lauded as the ideal. is actually seen as an embarrassing hindrance. What is often forgotten is that amongst the public there are some considerable experts in whatever the council is proposing. This should be seen as a resource to be harvested. Free expert consultants.

[Bryan]

The Visit Barnoldswick website was designed from the ground up to be 'user updated' this was essential so that running costs would be minimal moving forward.

To implement this has required all of the coding to be written from scratch which has enabled us to include some unique functionality, indeed I think the event schedule creation is proving to be very useful for people who need to add events that repeat in odd patterns.

We welcome any suggestions for improvements/tweaks etc..

Regards

Bryan (The Reverb Factory Ltd)

[Stanley]

Puzzling free sheet dropped theough the latter box yesterday. I've seen it before. Seems to originate in Clitheroe but no clear publisher information. I thought free newspapers were dead.

[Tardis]

I sincerely hope that it won't cost £7,000 every year.

Possibly because of the coding, it is very slow on my phone, and the old editions of Explorer at the library don't help either.

I gave up on the site when it crashed.

20,000 page hits, however, can't be sniffed at. Especially when it has only just been picked up by the bots

Must be all those links from OGFB that helped

[Whyperion]

visitbarnoldswick was slow when on show in the tent , and is not the fastest site viewed on either of my laptops , but not particulary noticably bad.

Stanley can you scan and post the Clitheroe freesheet - or let us know the title, thanks.

[Tardis]

From last night's Town meeting it would appear that the booklets cost over £10k

The website will cost the town up to £4 next year, although there is some flexibility in the budget to reapportion funds if it exceeds bandwidth contrcat limits.

Just imagine what OGFB could have done with £4 a year.

[Whyperion]

Yes that was the cost of booklets that I was advised of. I think you mean £4k for website ?