Campaigns

1. A Community Sports Facility for Glenburn Field

Community Sports facilities should again feature on the former Glenburn School site. Lancashire County Council are preparing the 40-acre site for sale and the current Masterplan from West Lancashire Borough Council suggests housing on most of the land. Read OWL’s briefing . Even though more residents opposed the council’s plan for the site than supported them in the public consultation, the council is pressing ahead. The campaign is far from over. Sign our petition to the County Council. Thanks to Denny Gledhill and Phil Jenkins for the drone footage in the video below.

OWL’s Lead for Old Skelmersdale, Tom Marsh-Pritchard said, “When Glenburn was open there was community access to the sports facilities and the popular 3G pitches had thriving community use.  We even worked with Delph Side school and others to see if the 3G pitches could be transferred to the community when the school closed, as there is a shortage of these pitches in the town.“

2. Save our Pools

The Labour council were proposing to close BOTH council-operated swimming pools in Ormskirk and Skelmersdale. These pools teach more than 2800 children to swim every week. Our West Lancashire were at the forefront of the fightback, distributing thousands of flyers and writing a briefing note to help with the consultation.

The pools were saved in a narrow council vote in February 2025 – another OWL achievement.

3. Don’t reduce Derby Street bridge to one lane without a formal trial to prove it will work

OWL continue to campaign for a formal trial of one lane running on Derby Street bridge in Ormskirk. Many people believe that congestion will be made much worse by the change. Lancashire County Council need to demonstrate through a trial that the planned change is workable before making an irreversible change.