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MAJOR FIRE AT PLEASURELAND
FIRE ripped
through the old River Caves amusement ride, also known as Lost
Dinosaurs of the Sahara, at New Pleasureland, after what is believed
to have been an arson attack by children. "It was three kids
on bikes. They were seen laughing and running away from the building
just before the fire took hold." a worker at the site told
us. It is yet to be confirmed, but we have had more than one
statement like that from the site. "Lucky it is in the
derelict ride on the Promenade side of the grounds." another
worker told us as fire-fighters battled the inferno. More than 40
fire fighters from all over Merseyside and West Lancashire attended
the incident, at one point with more than eight appliances
attending. Also on location was an aerial platform, from the station
in Southport, lending valuable help to the fire fighters on the
ground as they battled towering flames to keep the blaze from
spreading to adjacent buildings. Even a command and control unit had
to be summoned from the Wirral. We have been informed that dozens of
concerned members of the public rang 999, after the blaze began at
around 7:45 - 8pm. Plumes of black smoke could be seen from all over
the town centre and surrounding area. "At one point it as like
fog out side", one business on Lord Street said. Thankfully,
no one is believed to have been hurt in the fire. The blaze was
still smouldering well into the night, leaving a trail of thick
white smoke in the night sky over Southport. If you have any
information then please call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 to pass
on information anonymously.
See lots more
photographs of this fire, taken by our editor Patrick Trollope,
by clicking here
now.
Victory for
consumers on text roaming
LOCAL Labour
Euro MP and Labour’s Consumer Protection Champion, Arlene McCarthy,
has won another battle in tackling excessive mobile phone roaming
charging by forcing the industry to cut prices for texting roaming.
Euro MPs will voted through the new law in Strasbourg on Wednesday,
22 April 2009 and it will come into force this summer and
automatically lead to cheaper mobile phone roaming in time for the
holiday period. Arlene said:- “In 2007 we
introduced the regulation on mobile phone roaming charges for voice
calls across Europe which has successfully slashed the cost of
roaming calls and consumer have reaped the benefits with 60% cuts in
costs. Consumers continue to be charged up to 10 times more than
domestic rates for sending texts. We gave industry the chance to
voluntarily reduce the costs of text roaming or face further action.
Their failure to respond means that we have been left no choice but
to legislate to protect consumers and use this law to force the
industry to reduce their charges.” Commenting on
rules included to ensure per second billing for consumers Arlene
said:- “Many operators have responded to our law on roaming
calls and cut their prices further, but some have tried to avoid
giving consumers the full benefit by starting to round up charges to
the nearest minute. This equals a 20% hidden charge for calls which
consumers don't actually use. I have raised this issue with
operators, regulators and the Commission over the last year and I am
glad Euro MPs have clearly backed my call for a fair deal and a
return to per second billing as a requirement for all operators.”
The law will also introduce a new system of transparency for
'data roaming'. Arlene said:- “There is still more to
deliver for consumers, we must also tackle overcharging for data
roaming. In a recent example a constituent had been charged over one
thousand pounds for accessing the internet twice from their mobile
while on holiday. ”
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