Formby First

New Formby Business Listings Service

I've just improved the business listings page on the companion web site to this blog - www.formbyfirst.info. If there is anyone in the Formby Business community that would like to take the opportunity to add their business details then please go to the web site, select 'Formby' and then from the drop down menu select 'Businesses' choose the appropriate category and then use the 'add a listings' function to add the details. The listings home page is here .

Yelp for Formby

I'm trying out a new service provided by Yelp. The Time web site has written about 10 essential web sites and says this of Yelp:

If it's a restaurant, shop or business, it's probably been reviewed on Yelp — an independent site with millions of user-submitted evaluations. Yelp's got a gaggle of rivals — most notably Yahoo! Local — but it's the only one that lets reviewees talk back.

I recently wrote to them pointing out that Formby is not in or part of Southport and they have responded by setting up a section specifically for Formby. My first review has just been added to the Yelp pages.

I hope that local residents and businesses find this a useful source of information including publicity and reviews.

The 2010 Budget

HM Treasury have made a full copy of the budget available in an easy to read form. The link is available here: HM Treasury

A Rare and Unexpected Visitor

This morning I was in the village about 8.30 when much to my suprise and also Kevin of the Formby Deli we spotted a red squirrel scampering along the footpath from in front of the HSBC Bank towards the village centre.

As it crossed the road and back again to find refuge it eventually retreated to this magnificent tree in front of the opticians. When I left it was comfortably settled in the top of the tree. 

I have no doubt it will still be there later today because this particular tree is sufficiently far away from the others to stop the squirrel  from moving on and as the village becomes busier the squirrel will be discouraged from coming down.

There is something quite magical about Formby when our rare native squirrel appears in the town away from it's usual habitat in the coastal woods.

FormbyLive Music Festival

Preparations are well under way for the forthcoming FormbyLive Music Festival. Yesterday I met with Pat Wordley of Cafe D'Art and Nicky Owen of Sefton MBC to go through some of the details. I must congratulate Pat and Nicky for all their hard work and other members of the FormbyLive working group.

The whole event will be as good as last year if not better, during the week in the lead up to the weekend of Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th July, a number of local Bars and Pubs will join in with a variety of acts. During the day on the Saturday we are planning for some street entertainers to enliven the atmosphere of the village. In the evening all of the Bars and Cafe's will also feature live music events.

On Sunday the focus will move to the Swimming Pool grounds for a lively afternoon's live band entertainment. More details soon.