A fire burned there for several weeks from December 2023 to January 2024, after the company had illegally stored waste inside the building.

On the afternoon of Monday 18th August 2025, another fire was started. Lancashire Fire & Rescue attended with 3 fire engines and brought it under control in three hours.

The cause is not yet known – it is being investigated by emergency services. What is known is that several young people had been sighted on the roof and near the gantry of the chimney in the days leading up to this recent fire – and astonishingly, on the night of the fire itself, after the emergency services had left.

In their letter the Councillors say:

“We understand that the building’s internal stairway access has now been blocked and that ladders inside and outside the building have been removed. But we are still extremely concerned that young people are putting themselves in grave danger by accessing this building, which is structurally unsafe following the fire of Dec 2023. Tragically, a local 12 year-old boy lost his life by falling through a roof on the same industrial estate in August 2017, when he was playing with friends. We do not want to see a repeat of this sort of tragedy.

“Please be assured that, as your councillors, we are working with Council officers to do everything in our legal power to protect against children entering the site and potential fires starting again.”

what the Council has been doing to try and make Superskips safer for the community

1. Breach of the security fence repaired. Cllr Mandy Bannon pushed for the City Council to repair the three breaks in the security fencing that had not been properly repaired by the owners, despite the Council’s repeated requests. Legally, we had to give the owners a deadline and after that lapsed, the Council paid a contractor to repair the fence. The company that owns the building will be billed.
2. Reporting on-site trespass. Whenever we have been told by residents that they have seen or heard people in the building, we have immediately raised it with the Council’s Chief Officers who then liaised with Police and the Council’s Building Control team.
3. Increased patrols by Police and emergency services. We are pleased that the Police have responded positively to requests for extra patrols in the area.
4. Pursuing compensation from the owners. The Council had to spend around £2m to dispose of the burnt waste in December 2023 with only some of the cost picked up by Government.
5. Holding the owners responsible. The Environment Agency (as the waste regulator) was responsible for bringing the case to court. Their press release summarises:
    A 28-year-old man from Whitehaven has been sentenced at Preston Crown Court, to 16 months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and 200 hours unpaid work.
    He was found guilty of seven offences relating to illegal waste operations at three sites on the Lune Industrial Estate that led to a major fire in December 2023.
    The Environment Agency found that thousands of tonnes of combustible waste were stored in breach of permits, with operations continuing after a suspension notice.
    The fire, linked to the abandoned waste, caused significant disruption and clean-up costs of over £2 million.”
6. Challenging the undue leniency of the sentence – Ward councillors and council cabinet members are very concerned about the leniency of the sentence handed down to the defendant. Given the scale of environmental crimes committed, we have tasked officers to investigate making an appeal to the Government’s Attorney General – to ask that the sentence is made subject of a formal review.
7. Lobbying for legal changes in the future. The Council has written to local MP Cat Smith asking her to put pressure on the Government to give public bodies more powers in these circumstances.
   

What You Can Do

In the summer/light evenings/weekends, young people may be tempted to explore derelict buildings like Supaskips.

Please could parents be extra vigilant: check what children may be doing and tell them about the dangers of climbing onto roofs of buildings.

If you do see or hear anybody in the Supaskips building please report it to the Police as an emergency by calling 999. And do please also report to the council. You can phone the Council’s Building Control team on 01524 582952.

You can also contact any of your ward councillors with any information or concerns:

Cllr Mandy Bannon – mbannon@lancaster.gov.uk Tel: 07813 334018
Cllr Gina Dowding – gdowding@lancaster.gov.uk Tel: 07838 793674
Cllr Nick Wilkinson – nwilkinson@lancaster.gov.uk Tel: 07966 626446

The post Update on former Supaskips building, Luneside Industrial Estate – from Marsh Ward Councillors appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

Greens from Lancashire and Cumbria showing up on Saturday the 16th August to support the new South Lakes Islamic Centre in construction at Dalton-in-Furness, spearheaded by a group of Muslim Doctors at Barrow’s Furness General Hospital. The nearest mosque currently is over 40 miles away from the site.

There have been Islamaphobic protests, accusing Muslims of being child abusers. Racist extremists have damaged equipment on site. Last month UKIP leader Nick Tenconi filmed himself harrassing workers with verbal abuse.

In addition to security guards at the site, police patrols have been stepped up following a rise in online abuse and the spread of disinformation about the site such as false claims an application for a children’s home on the site had been turned down.

A counter-protest was organised to show that the mosque was welcomed by ordinary anti-racist people who support freedom of religion and stand in solidarity with Muslims against rising bigotry and far-right fear-mongering propaganda.

The post Greens Support South Lakes Islamic Centre in Dalton-in-Furness appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

Recently a lady who lives in Hala contacted the local Green Party. She walks her dog along the path from Bentham Road and through the cut-through into Barnacre Close and had noticed the paths were getting overgrown with weeds. Could we please ask the Council to tidy it up?

Knowing the Public Realm Department was very stretched, Green Councillors Andrew Otway and Hamish Mills, armed with spades, brushes and rakes, etc., decided to take the task on. They tidied all the path-edges and over a couple of afternoons’ work managed to fill fifteen green garden-waste bags with weeds.

The post Councillors Hamish Mills and Andrew Otway clear 15 bags with weeds on Hala cut-through paths appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

The zip wires were open for the local children (and adults!) to play on at a launch event last Friday, and haven’t stopped zipping since! You can see a video of Abi (on the right, above) and others zipping down the lines and bouncing back in a video at: https://www.facebook.com/reel/792835896479031

Abi said “It’s absolutely brilliant to see so many children enjoying the zip wires, and I enjoyed having a couple of goes at the opening ceremony! Thank you to all the funders who made this possible and also a huge thank you too to the city Council parks and public realm teams for all your support and for installing the zip wires. “

Funders were:

• Lancaster University Wind Turbine Community Benefit Fund
• Lancaster Community Wellbeing Fund
• Community donations
• Little Pebbles Toddler Group
• Bowerham Primary and Nursery School
• Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy
• Lancashire County Council’s Members Grants
• The National Lottery Community Fund

Regular users of the park may notice that some trees had to be removed to enable the installation of the zip wires – to ensure a clear and safe path for zip line riders, and create space for the launch and landing platforms.

Three new trees will be planted for every one removed, helping to preserve and enrich the park’s green space for the future.

The post double zip wire added to Greaves Park: proud fundraiser Cllr Abi Mills has a go! appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

For the benefit of the whole community of the district, we call on the University’s Senior Management to halt the compulsory redundancy process. We call for co-operative work with the trade unions, students’ union and all those bodies that represent and support the university community to build trust, share relevant information and develop alternative proposals for reducing costs and liabilities.

If this does not happen and union members vote to take strike action, NLGP will offer our support in solidarity with strikers and students. 

The post North Lancs Green Party support for Trade Unions at Lancaster University appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

Here is the internal elections portal – sign in and scroll down to vote.

You do not have to vote for all positions at once, voting is for the whole month of August, and further hustings are coming up, for executive committee positions, including online ones. which you can register for at that link.

If you missed it, you may wish to view the North West Hustings for the leader of the Green Party

There are also recordings of the National Leader Hustings with Natalie Bennett and the National Deputy Leader Hustings with Elfrede Brambley-Crawshaw

The internal elections page has information on all the positions up for election, with links to candidate statements, videos and social media links.

You may also want to check out:

Ed Poole interviews

Bright Green Interviews

Turn Left Media interviews

The post Green Party of England and Wales Internal Elections: Voting for our Leadership, Deputy Leadership, and Executive appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

Cllr Sam Riches, Cabinet Member for Climate Action, says:

‘Following an update, Lancaster’s Climate Emergency UK Scorecard has been recalculated from 64% to 69%, putting us back into top spot. It is a great achievement to lead the field even once, but to defend our title is even better! This reflects the hard work of individuals and teams across the council who are seeking ways to mitigate the effects of climate change, but it is also testament to the impact that Green politicians are having in our district.

“I’d like to pay particular tribute to Cllr Gina Dowding, who held this Cabinet portfolio since the elections in May 2023 until just a few weeks ago. Her political leadership has emboldened colleagues around the Council to take meaningful action on the climate emergency and I am really keen to continue her great work.’  

Lancaster City Council’s Climate Scorecard

Lancaster City Council: Climate Action – for what the Council is doing, action plans and progress, how you can help, latest news on climate action, and a ‘get involved’ space to share ideas.

The post Lancaster City Council is the best scoring district council in the country for climate action, for the second year running. appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

Green County Councillor Gina Dowding asked the leader of the Council at the Cabinet meeting on 10 July whether he agreed with the science on climate change. While he said he agreed with the science, he didn’t agree with subsidising renewable energy or energy efficiency measures with taxpayers’ money.

At Full Council the following week, The Cabinet Member for the Environment, County Cllr Joshua Roberts, would not give a ‘yes or no’ answer to the same question.

Cllr Dowding said:

“Reform leaders claim that climate resilience is too expensive for taxpayers – yet they are willing to allow even bigger subsidies to the fossil fuels sector, including corporation tax relief on North Sea oil and gas investments.”

Between 2015 and 2023 the fossil fuel sector received roughly £20 billion more in total Government support than renewables, i.e. £80 bn for fossil fuels versus around £60 bn for renewables. A fifth of the money given directly to the fossil fuels sector was to support new extraction and mining.”

Cllr Dowding added:

“It is not difficult to work out why Reform UK do not want to challenge fossil fuel subsidies. Their party is financed by backers with huge oil and gas interests.

“Reform must fully commit to much-needed action to make us more resilient to climate impacts, and to measures that will reduce polluting emissions from our buildings and homes, transport and industry. Warm homes with lower bills, food security and resilience to flooding would benefit all residents in Lancashire.”

The post County Cllr Gina Dowding calls out Reform UK’s climate denial appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

At the County Council meeting on 17 July, Green County Cllr Gina Dowding proposed that the Council requests the Government to introduce legislation to enable future local elections to be held under a fairer voting system.

Gina’s motion outlined the distorted and undemocratic representation that results from First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) at a local level, and the fact that in other parts of the UK fairer systems are already in place at local elections.

Gina said during the meeting that she was not expecting the proposal to be controversial given the position of all parties on the council: like the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats already support proportional representation; Labour councillors had agreed to have a free vote; the Conservatives had made a big deal at the last meeting about losing out to being the main opposition group – referring to numbers of votes rather than number of councillors they got; and most importantly Reform UK and Nigel Farage have repeatedly called for proportional representation. 

Reform’s official manifesto during the General Election last year included a pledge to hold a referendum on replacing FPTP with a proportional system, and even after Reform’s success in County elections in May this year under FPTP, Nigel Farage reaffirmed a commitment to introduce ‘an element of proportionality into UK elections.’ 

The motion did not pass, with all 53 Reform, all 9 Conservatives and 2 Labour Councillors voting against it.

Gina said afterwards: 

“It was really disappointing and shocking to hear Reform UK councillors argue that the reason this motion came forward was due to councillors being bad losers. They have ditched a manifesto pledge at the very first test, showing that they have no principles and cannot be trusted to deliver what they promised.

“The current administration consistently refer to their strong mandate in Lancashire but they received only 36% of the vote on a 33% turn out meaning they have, in effect, only around 12% support from the electorate across Lancashire.”

More analysis can also be seen on our previous article after the local elections: Lancashire: 4th worst in the country for undemocratic election results

Full Motion:

Call to replace First Past the Post voting system currently used for local and general elections in the UK

Proposed: Councillor Dowding 

Seconded:  Councillor Almas Razakazi

Lancashire County Council notes 

1.The County Council elections on May, using the First-past-the-post voting system resulted in: 

• Reform UK:  63% seats with 36% votes; 
• Conservatives: 10% seats with 21% votes;
• Labour Party 6%: seats with 19% votes;
• Liberal Democrats: 6% seats, with over 9%  votes 
• Green Party:  5 % seats with over 8%  votes.

2. Only 10 of the 84 councillors were elected on an outright majority

3. Two thirds of voters in the County did not vote.

4. FPTP resulted in many ‘wasted’ votes and distorted representation.

5. Lancashire’s results in terms of fairness of representation were the 4^th worst in the country.

6. Proportional representation voting systems such as Single Transferable Vote (STV)  is already used for local elections in Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, will introduce the ability for councils to choose their voting system between FPTP and STV.

Lancashire County Council believes that 

1. First-past-the-post voting is outdated and undemocratic.
2. Lancashire needs a fairer voting system. 
3. Proportional representation in local elections would boost turn-out, make the Council more representative of its residents, and improve quality of its decision-making, thereby benefiting all Lancashire residents.

Lancashire County Council therefore resolves to ask the Chief Executive to:

1. Write to Right Hon Angela Rayner MP, Secretary of State asking for legislation to be introduced so that Lancashire and beyond can use a fairer voting system for future local elections. 

The post County Greens call for fair voting system appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.

NLGP Exec member David Mottram gives a few personal reflections on being arrested on Saturday in Manchester under section 12 of the Terrorism Act, 2000, in a police action apparently named ‘Operation Wildflower’:

“I was one of over 100 people arrested at protests across the country on Saturday (19th July), organised by Defend Our Juries. The offence? Holding a placard saying ‘I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action’, part of the campaign to lift the proscription of Palestine Action. I was arrested at 12.30pm, and locked in a single cell at Pendleton police station by 2pm. I was finally released at 10pm, and was relieved to find a group of people volunteers from the Defend Our Juries police station support operation waiting outside to support me.

I cannot remember having been inside a police station before, let alone a cell, but the first few hours were fine. I was doing the right thing, and the adrenalin was carrying me through. Eight hours later, in a cell with no natural light, poor ceiling lighting, and denied personal possessions including a wristwatch, I was less sanguine. The experience felt increasingly disorientating, perhaps frightening.

The previous weekend, South Wales Police raided the homes of people arrested under section 12 at the protest in Cardiff. It was upsetting, held incommunicado in a police cell, to know that my partner might be about to face the police alone at home. In the event, this didn’t happen to any of the people arrested in Manchester.

Saturday will only be part of the eventual story. Draconian bail conditions for the next three months are going to have a strong impact, including being banned from entering central Manchester, and being required to ‘live and sleep each night’ at home in Lancaster.”

The post Local Green Party member reflects on his arrest for peacefully protesting against genocide appeared first on North Lancashire Green Party.