Coun Jenny Molineux

Cabinet member for health and communities

AS a new member of the cabinet, this is my first column as portfolio holder for health and communities, two areas which are very close to my heart, and which matter to us all, so I’m really pleased to be given this chance to help make a difference to the health and wellbeing of our Hyndburn community.

There’s strength in numbers and we’re working with our partners across Pennine Lancashire to tackle a range of health issues.

Hyndburn council is part of the ‘Together A Healthier Future’ programme, which sees councils, local NHS bodies, community and voluntary organisations and others working to improve health and care services across Pennine Lancashire.

The health of children and young people is vitally important, so we’re thrilled that Pennine Lancashire has been selected to receive £100k more funding as part of a national programme to tackle childhood obesity.

This area and four others have now been chosen to take plans forward over three years, receiving £100,000 per year to do so to help young people avoid becoming overweight.

Not being physically active can lead to not only obesity but also serious conditions like diabetes and poor health and wellbeing in the future.

We’ve recently had some more fantastic news that Pennine Lancashire is to benefit from potentially up to £10m in funding to develop truly innovative ways of helping more people become physically active, which in turn will have a great benefit on people’s mental wellbeing.

The funding, from Sport England, means Hyndburn will receive over £300,000 Pathfinder money later this year to test new ideas for encouraging long term physical activity, with a view to secure additional ‘acceleration’ money to build on the ideas which are successful.

Hyndburn Leisure will be leading the development of projects locally and is currently engaging with a wide range of local voluntary, community and faith sector groups to develop the Pathfinder bid.

We’ve recently celebrated Armed Forces Day, our chance to celebrate and thank our Armed Forces and show our support for all they do to protect us and keep the country safe.

So we’re happy to help support the continuing free use of Leisure Facilities for all serving Armed Forces personnel at Hyndburn and Mercer Hall Leisure Centre for another year.

Have you nominated your local sporting hero in the Hyndburn Community Sports Awards yet? There’s still time to nominate, as nominations close on July 30. Visit Hyndburn Leisure’s website for more details. And finally, as councillors, we’re proud to serve our communities and so I’d just like to close by congratulating two long serving fellow councillors who have received awards in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for their political service in our Hyndburn.

Council leader, Councillor Miles Parkinson, was awarded an OBE for his 24 years of service and Councillor Munsif Dad received a British Empire Medal (BEM) which he dedicated to his late wife Arshad Begum, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Huge congratulations to them both.