Longton

Federation themed guided tours of four of the city’s historic towns will take place this month as part of the national Heritage Open Days programme. The tours, entitled ‘The Past Shaping the Future’, will take place around Burslem, Longton, Stoke and Hanley (City Centre). Each tour will tell visitors about key buildings and places that define the history of the towns as well as future plans for their regeneration.

Firefighters from Hanley, Longton and Newcastle have tackled a house fire in Hartshill. The call was received at 9.16am reporting a fire at a terraced house on Stoke Old Road in Hartshill. The fire involved the rear extension of the property and the roof space.

Crews from Hanley, Newcastle and Longton were called to a fire at a florist on Snow Hill in Shelton at 4.30am this morning. The shop was well alight on arrival and firefighters used main and hose reel jets as well as the aerial ladder platform from Longton to tackle the blaze. A joint fire and police investigation has been carried out and the incident has now been left with the police.

6 Towns Radio, a side project that Tony and I are working on has had some good news today. We have managed to get the legendary Northern Soul & Motown presenter Mary Fox to present a show on our new station. We have been speaking with Mary for a few weeks and this morning we met and Mary agreed to join the team to present a 2 hour show each week.

Around £85,000 of improvements to Queen’s Park in Longton will be unveiled this weekend. The first part of the project, organised with the Queen’s Park Partnership, is to improve the park with £50,000 from the Big Lottery Community Spaces fund, which restores the park lakes and provides additional community facilities and enhancements for wildlife.

What is happening to Stoke-on-Trent? We have just downloaded and been reading through a copy of the Council 2010/11 Budget Book in the PnP offices. Page 5 gives a brief history lesson about the 6 towns and their federation.

The 162 year old Longton railway bridge is due to be painted this weekend. Unfortunately Network Rail have not relented and decided to give the bridge its first make over in some 50 years, but local artists and members of the public will be setting up their easels in Times Square between 1100 & 1500 this Saturday (7 August) and painting or sketching the bridge. [quote=Urban Vision North Staffs who are promoting the event say]Come down to Longton and take part in what will be a really unique

Westfield Children’s Centre and Nursery School in Longton has transformed their existing outdoor play facilities into a new natural play area. The play space, designed and built by local environmental and regeneration charity Groundwork Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire is made of all naturally occurring materials and includes features such as play hills, tunnels, dens as well as state-of-the-art sensory equipment.

Government cuts in funding have forced Stoke-on-Trent College to review it's arrangements for delivering community learning. The cuts have forced Stoke-on-Trent College to end it's contract with Community Partnership Learning [CPL] which has delivered adult courses in community centres across the six towns for the past six years. Although some courses will still run in Normacot the effects of the decision will be felt among ethnic communities across Stoke-on-Trent.