Halewood

Residents will be aware that Halewood Town Council is leading with the development of a Neighbourhood Plan for the township. There will be a series of events held in the coming weeks to begin the process of consulting on the development of this plan.

Please find the leaflet currently being delivered to household across Halewood in the link below. This leaflet can also be accessed via the council’s Facebook and Twitter sites.

Neighbourhood Plan Consultation Leaflet Halewood

We are asking anyone interested in assisting the Town Council with development of the plan to please complete a short survey. This can found in the link here: Survey The survey can be completed by any local person whether you are able to attend a consultation event or not.

Please follow our social media feeds for further updates. We thank-you in advance for your interest.

From Tuesday 22 September, new local measures are being introduced across Merseyside (including Halewood) to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

This means that from Tuesday:

• Residents must not socialise with other people outside of their own households or support bubble in private homes and gardens.
• Hospitality for food and drink will be restricted to table service only;
• Late night operating hours will be restricted, with Leisure and entertainment venues including restaurants, pubs, and cinemas, required to close between 10pm to 5am.

Residents are also advised only to use public transport for essential purposes, such as travelling to school or work and to avoid attending amateur and semi-professional sporting events as spectators.

Halewood Town Council is proud that many of its parks are well-used by the residents and families of our township. A significant investment is made to maintain these green spaces to a good standard, and to keep them free of unwanted waste and rubbish. We need your help, however, to maintain this standard – particularly when it comes to rubbish that is left after sports activities.

A number of residents have contacted the Town Council and rightfully complained about rubbish left after sports activities, in particular at Hollies Field. Whilst we appreciate many teams and individuals do their best to ensure pitches and sites are tidied at the conclusion of sporting activities, there have been a number of occasions when the field has been left with plastic water bottles, coffee cups, food wrappers etc. We are therefore making a special plea to the organisers of sporting activities to be mindful of the issue this coming weekend and go the extra mile to advise their own groups (or spectators at matches) to take away their rubbish or dispose of it in a neighbourly manner. We also make this plea to those of you using the parks for ‘unofficial’ sports activities which may range from semi-organised football matches to a simple kick around between friends.

Please help us: Keep our green spaces clean, take your rubbish away with you!

We are pleased to announce that the Hollies Road Play Area will reopen for families and children from next Monday, August 24th. The park has been closed since its temporary reopening after lockdown due to antisocial behaviour and threats made to personnel closing the provision.

The park will be open from 9.00 a.m. and close at approximately 4.30 p.m. seven days per week. we appreciate the patience and understanding of residents through this most recent closure.

Halewood Town Council is seeking Expressions of Interest from Halewood-based persons (living or working in the area) to join its Working Groups for Community Engagement.

We are actively encouraging the participation of local people in the work and the decisions of Halewood Town Council. The Community Engagement group exists to advise the Town Council on its activities and funded-projects, partnerships and its vision for making Halewood a vibrant and happy place to reside for its residents. Many of you may recall our plans to expand community engagement activities were curtailed by the Covid-19 crisis, though we are now keen to get our plans back on track.

More details are contained on the expression of interest form here: Community Engagement expression of interest form This includes details of the key contacts at the Town Council if you require further information.

The Arncliffe Centre and Hollies Hall have seen a return to hiring by a range of groups and organisations. After a quiet first week commencing Monday August 3^rd, there was a sizeable growth in the return of groups from Monday August 10^th. The groups who have returned include:

• Tai-Chi
• Elite Ju-Jitsu
• Weight Watchers
• Slimming World

We look forward to welcoming more groups back in August and early September.

To assist groups with the financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis, the Town Council has given a short free hire period to the returning groups through the months of August and early September. We are also grateful to the groups for their patience and understanding with regard to new and very different health and safety regulations in relation to Covid-19 compliance. This includes the necessity for Town Council staff to cleanse spaces after each session, restrictions on the numbers of users, stricter rules on access/egress of the settings and, more recently, the advice on the use of face coverings in enclosed spaces.

We remain hopeful that the Arncliffe and Hollies will continue to host these important activities for the benefit of Halewood people. We’re improving the knowledge base all of the time and listening to our regular hirers who, in some cases, are using a number of community settings across Merseyside and bring useful knowledge to help inform decisions. Next month will also see the Town Council run bar functions for the first time since lockdown. Our hope is that we can take learning from these events so our council settings can once again be utilised safely for important community celebrations and commemorations

Our appreciation also goes to the clients and residents of Halewood who have made the task of returning groups/organisations much easier through their understanding of the challenges faced by leaders of these groups and Town Council staff.

In recent months there have been a number of queries to Councillors and council staff about public attendance at Town Council meetings. The statement below is therefore aimed at providing the statutory and legal context of meetings.

Statement – Public Access to Town Council Meetings

Come along and join us at Halewood Town Council’s first ever Gin Festival. A ticket-only series of events in the first weekend of September. Cheers!