Jubilee celebrations and double cup success

Jubilee celebrations and double cup success

Last weekend we joined with the rest of the UK to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – and our borough showed that we know how to celebrate in style.

On Friday, it was fantastic to see thousands of visitors at Leigh’s Pennington Hall Park enjoying the Mayor’s Gala as part of our jam-packed Jubilee schedule, including events at Haigh Hall and Mesnes Park.

Luckily, the sun made an appearance and families and friends were able to make it a weekend to remember.

Around the borough, our communities more than played their part with street parties and it was amazing to see our close-knit communities celebrating together.

I would like to thank all of our staff, volunteers and partners who made the celebrations possible behind-the-scenes.

A further reason for celebration was the performance of Wigan Warriors and Leigh Centurions a couple of weekends ago in claiming the Challenge Cup and the 1895 Cup, respectively.

Well done to both teams and everyone associated with the two clubs.

We have recently launched our significant investment plans for Pennington Flash, too.

Producing a positive and thoughtful plan to bring people and nature together in a considered way is integral to our future vision for Pennington Flash Nature Reserve.

We are and will continue to work closely with our local stakeholders and Natural England to deliver this and position Pennington Flash as a flagship for the modern-day nature reserve, which is demonstrated in our ongoing bid to see the site recognised as a National Nature Reserve.

Nature will always remain at the heart of Pennington Flash and we would like to reassure residents that protecting our wildlife and greenspaces is incredibly important to us as part of these plans.

As one major event ends and we say goodbye to Jubilee week, we are looking to the future as excitingly for Leigh, the Women’s EUROs are fast approaching now too.

With Portugal, Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland, there are some quality match-ups for us to get behind.

Tickets for the matches are on sale now so please get them while you can and be part of a momentous few weeks for Leigh and our wider borough.

Finally, I was extremely privileged and proud to be named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list recently.

I am proud to represent my home town and borough in accepting this honour.

I feel that I am not just accepting it on behalf of myself because all of my public service through the years has been supported by my wonderful family, friends and colleagues.