The Clitberoe Thursday, May 5th, 2005


Bins’ footy fest


PAGE 21 No. 6,198 '■ news and views from the Centre of the Kingdorn New


Mayor installed


PAGE 4


Heart transplant proves


by Duncan Smith


A HEART transplant has been carried out in the Ribble Valley ... and nobody felt a


By Julie Magee


HUNDREDS of con­ cerned Ribble Valley voters have been bom­ barding the council with calls after not receiving their polling cards. Less than - 24 hours


before this year’s General and County Council Elec­ tion, the cards had still not been delivered to a large number of residents in Clitheroe and surrounding villages. As the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times went to press, council staff were delivering some of the cards by hand., In the run-up to an elec­


tion, everyone listed on the electoral register receives a polling card. Although there is no legal require­ ment to produce this card, many people still think they must,' while others rely on it to tell them where and when to vote. Ribble Valley Coun.


Michael Ranson, who is also an agent for Clitheroe Conservative Party, said


he had received around 200 phone calls from concerned residents during the past week over the issue. ' “I had 22 messages on


• the answerphone one night - 90% of which were about this,” he commented. “Some people think they need the card to vote, while others are concerned they are not on the electoral reg­ ister. Elderly people and people new to the area who might not know where their polling station is have also been worried.” One such concerned resi­


dent, who lives at River Lea Gardens, Clitheroe,, contacted us about the matter. She said the council had


informed her that many of the polling cards had been posted first-class on Fri­ day, while others would be hand delivered from Tues­ day onwards. “It seems a bit late, and


tha t Ribble Valley Bor­ ough Council has been a bit slow off the mark. Also, is hand delivery cost effec­ tive?” she asked. I t seems other local


voters’ electoral numbers and their nearest polling


.station. "People do not need


them to vote, but neverthe­ less we are confident they MU all have been delivered by Thursday." He added: “There is no


statutory deadline for the , delivery of poll cards. Rib­ ble Valley Council is not the only local authority to hand-deliver the cards. In fact, the majority of local authorities do so.” Mr Timson denied there


had been any problems Mth printing the cards and said they were being deliv­ ered as planned. Meanwhile, council


authorities have not felt the same pressure as Rib­ ble Valley Borough Coun­ cil to deliver the cards. Burnley Borough Coun­


cil officers set themselves a provisional deadline of April 22nd and confirmed on Tuesday tha t all the cards had been sent out. Craven District Council,


which, deals with an area almost twice as big as Rib­


ble Valley Borough Coun­ cil (450 square miles in total) and has a similar population to the Ribble Valley at around 54,000, met the deadline it set too - delivering all its polling cards by April 20th.


. Ribble Valley’s legal director, Paul Timson, said: “Local authorities have a statutory duty to , issue polling cards detailing


leader John Hill praised council officers who have been working flat out to hand-deliver the polling cards by Thursday. “There really is nothing to worry about. People


’ don’t need polling cards to vote, although council offi­ cers have been working round-the-clock to ensure they are delivered by elec­ tion day.


thing! The heart in question


was the “heart of the kingdom”, which has been transplanted some 400 metres east of its pre­ vious position. News that the official


Centre of the Kingdom has moved was passed to the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times by Norman Thorpe, footpath officer for Clitheroe Ramblers. According to Ordnance Survey, the Centre of Britain plus its 401 asso­ ciated islands (GB+401) ■ was previously at Grid Reference SD 63770 56550, approximately 600 metres west of Whitendale Hanging Stones, on Brown Dyke Moss. But now the Ordnance


Survey website gives the new position of GB+401 as Grid Reference SD 64188.3 56541.43 - some seven kilometres north west of Dunsop Bridge, on Whitendale Hanging Stones, and about 400 metres further east of the previous position. •


So how could the cen­


tre move, you might ask? Perhaps if a bit dropped off the edge - maybe one of those 401 islands erod­ ed away by the battering sea - the centre would shift? , But the answer, it seems,'is far less exciting. It is simply that new and more accurate technolo­ gy has allowed Ordnance Survey to revise its calcu­ lations, leading to slight shifts in a number of key locations. Also on the move in the


Ribble Valley are: • the centre of Great


Britain mainland only, now at Grid Reference SD 72321.72 36671.1. This spot has jumped parish from Little Mitton to Whalley and is now at Nethertown, about 350 metres due \yest of the bridge taking the A59 bypass over Mitton Road. 9 The centre of Great


Britain plus its seven major islands (Isle of Wight, Anglesey, Arran, Mull, Jura, Islay and Skye), now at Grid Refer­ ence SD 68123.7 41406.29. This point lies on the eastern edge of Longridge Fell, 1.5 km. south east of Walker Fold


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