Westby-with-Plumptons is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. The parish is in Fylde district and contains the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Great Plumpton, Little Plumpton, Lower Ballam, Higher Ballam, Moss Side, Peel, and Westby. At the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 1,205. Westby and Plumpton are mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

, as "Westbi" and "Pluntun". Westby-with-Plumptons is part of the Warton and Westby ward, represented by three councillors on Fylde Borough Council. On

Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes Blackburn with Dar ...

it is part of Fylde West ward, which elects one councillor. The parish is generally low-lying, with

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

in the south and

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

in the north, which rises to above sea level at Great Plumpton in the north-east of the parish. The parish is now the home of the steel farm-building construction company J. Wareing & Son (Wrea Green) Ltd. which was for many years based in the neighbouring village of

Wrea Green Wrea Green is a village in the Fylde borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about 2 miles west of Kirkham. Along with the village of Ribby, it forms the civil parish Ribby-with-Wrea. Wrea Green has approximately 1,600 residents, many of whom ...

Moss Side

Moss Side (Grid Reference SD379302) is located in the south of the parish in between Wrea Green and Lytham with the B5259 road (Lytham Road) being the main road running through the hamlet. The hamlet has several farms, smallholdings and a lodge park most of which are on Lytham Road. The railway from Preston to Blackpool South runs through the hamlet with Moss Side railway station being located where the railway crosses Lytham Road at a level crossing. The station first opened in 1846, closed in 1961 and was re-opened in 1983. The station in the past had a stationmaster's house and signal box, both of which have been demolished. It is also close to where the Moss Side rail crash occurred in 1924 which claimed the lives of 14 people. Moss Side used to have a hospital which opened in 1902 as the Fylde Isolation Hospital (later known as Moss Side Hospital) for people with infectious diseases. The hospital closed in 1988 due to being surplus to requirements as well as changes in medical practice and was demolished to make way for new houses. There was also a small Wesleyan chapel on Lytham Road during the early 20th Century.

Peel

Peel is a small settlement on the outskirts of Blackpool, featuring Whitehills Business Park which includes several car dealerships, a B&Q store and a Premier Inn. A business park has increased in size over the years to include a variety of small businesses from lawnmower repairs, a print and design company and BMW servicing to larger concerns such as a renewable energy company and building merchants. Local theatrical group Junction 4 Productions has its home here and Penny Farm run by

World Horse Welfare World Horse Welfare is a registered charity in the United Kingdom that was previously named the International League for the Protection of Horses. Anne, Princess Royal is its patron. History International League for the Protection of Horses w ...

is also nearby. Further afield, there are several caravan parks (Pipers Height and Clifton Fields Caravan Park) situated on Peel Road. Junction 4 of the

M55 motorway The M55 is a motorway in Lancashire, England, which can also be referred to as the Preston Northern Bypass. It connects the seaside resort of Blackpool to the M6 motorway, M6 at Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is 12.2 miles (19.6 km) in ...

is located at Peel and on the boundary between Blackpool and Fylde Borough.

Ballam

Ballam is a small hamlet in between Moss Side, Peel and Lytham, consisting of a small number of dwellings, a few farms and a small church which was previously the village school. Coppice Business Park was recently built at the back of Ballam and is now home to several local businesses.

Westby

Westby is another small hamlet, towards the north of the parish, located in between Wrea Green and Ballam, just south of Preston New Road. The hamlet is notable for the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church of St. Anne's, designed by E. W. Pugin and built in 1860. The exterior is plain, in contrast to the highly-decorated interior which has an elaborate timber roof. There are two important

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows, a "

St Cecilia Saint Cecilia (), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman Christian virgin martyr, who is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, it being w ...

" and the "Millennium" window.

Fracking at Little Plumpton

Cuadrilla Resources Cuadrilla Resources is an oil and gas exploration and production company founded in 2007. It is headquartered in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, and has operations in the United Kingdom. The company intend to develop shale gas in the UK by using hyd ...

undertook its first, and to date, only, high-volume hydraulic fracturing job near Westby in 2011. Cuadrilla halted operations in May 2011 at the site due to seismic activity damaging the casing in the production zone. In June 2015,

turned down an application by Cuadrilla to extract shale gas by means of

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure inje ...

at a site at Little Plumpton. This was overturned on appeal in 2016 and the council's own appeal to the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

was lost in January 2018. In November 2017 Cuadrilla, in agreement with the government, financially compensated the local community for the disruption. A community fund of £100,000 was created, and additionally households within 1 km will receive about £2,070 and others within 1.5 kilometres will receive about £150. The cost of

Lancashire Constabulary Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Lancashire in North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, Lancashire, Hutton, near the cit ...

policing the site, since January 2017, was estimated to have been between £6m and £8m.

References