Leyland, Lancashire: Difference between revisions

Leyland
St. Andrew's Church, Leyland
Population	40,000
OS grid reference	SD549232
District	South Ribble
Shire county	Lancashire
Region	North West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LEYLAND
Postcode district	PR25, PR26
Dialling code	01772
Police	Lancashire
Fire	Lancashire
Ambulance	North West
UK Parliament	South Ribble
List of places UK England Lancashire

Leyland is a town in the South Ribble borough of Lancashire, England. Lying approximately six miles (10 km) south of the city of Preston, Leyland has a population of around 40,000.

• Leyland Town Centre
• Broadfield - between Leyland and Moss Side
• Worden Park
• Moss Side - west of Leyland
• Midge Hall
• Wade Hall - a large council housing estate situated in south Leyland. It can be traced back to the 1960s when the South Ribble Borough Council required more homes for the working class citizens as well as 'overspill' population from other towns in Lancashire.
• Earnshaw Bridge - an area on the northern outskirts of Leyland, north of Broadfield and north-west of the town centre
• Seven Stars
• Farington Moss
• Golden Hill
• Turpin Green

It is unclear if Leyland means "flat" or "untilled land".

The town is famous primarily for the bus and truck manufacturer Leyland Motors, which between the 1950s and 1970s expanded and grew to own several British motor manufacturers, including BMC, Standard-Triumph, and Rover, culminating in the massive British Leyland (BL).

Although BL was progressively broken up in the 1980s, a series of mergers and buy-outs has seen the truck-making side of the firm survive and the truck building industry is still a primary employer in the town. In 1998 the American firm PACCAR took control of Leyland Trucks, and moved production of Foden (a brand already owned by the company) to Leyland from its original base in Sandbach in Cheshire. This new facility was built by Eric Wright Construction.

Leyland is also home to one of the UK's leading maintenance and utility companies, Enterprise Plc, also one of the leading employers in the town.

Leyland was part of the Central Lancashire New Town designated in 1970, along with Chorley and Preston.

Leyland railway station is on the West Coast Main Line, the very placement of which moved the civic centre of the town briefly, including Leyland Police Station and a marker adjacent to the old Leyland Motors Spurrier works declares the halfway point on the railway journey between Glasgow and London, some 198 miles in either direction.

John Fishwick & Son serve the town's public transport needs. They also connect the town to Chorley and Preston.

Notable features include St Andrew's Parish Church[1], built around 1200 and a stone cross thought to date back to Saxon times.

Leyland has undergone a series of redevelopments, with a series of retailers moving into the area, on both sides of the town. This has seen the demolition of old factories, and their replacement by retail facilities. For example, the old BTR Factory was knocked down to make way for attractive new studio apartments and housing in 2004, with a Morrisons store, Homebase and Argos added in June 2006.

Leyland town centre is to undergo a major redevelopment under the Renewal4 programme [2] which will include pedestrian friendly open squares, new street furniture including a fountain, the reduction of traffic on Hough Lane and closures of several streets.

The Leyland Band have also recently relocated to the town, after several years in various other rehearsal locations, and now have a permanent home in Farington Business Park.

The Wade Hall estate (Formerly Springfields), is home to Leyland St. Mary's Catholic Technology College which currently stands at the top of the Leyland schools in the Lancashire GCSE league table. Balshaw's Church of England High School is situated to the east of the town centre and ranked next in the Lancashire GCSE league table (Lancashire Evening Post - August 2010). Worden Sports College and Wellfield Business & Enterprise College are also in Leyland.

To the east of Worden Park is Runshaw College, currently ranked at 7^th place in the Lancashire A/AS Level league table (BBC Online 2006b). The college also received the best Ofsted report for any further education college in the UK in 2005.

Economically, Leyland is comparable with many other West Lancashire towns of its size such as Southport, Lytham St Annes, Ormskirk and Hesketh Bank but the rate of change Leyland is experiencing at the moment suggests that Leyland will become wealthier than Ormskirk in the year 2010, although it still falls far behind its neighbour Chorley according to research undertaken by Runshaw College.

Schwan Food Company has had its UK base on the Moss Side Industrial Estate near the former Leyland Trucks vehicle test track, known as Schwan's Consumer Brands, since 1989, where it makes the Chicago Town brand of frozen food for distribution throughout Europe, employing around 350 people.

• Leyland Motors Ltd
• Leyland police station
• Leyland railway station
• Leyland Band

• BBC Online (2006a) Schools in Lancashire, Education\League Tables, 19 January 2006 [accessed 27 June 2007]
• BBC Online (2006b) Institutions in Lancashire, Education\League Tables, 19 January 2006 [accessed 4 May 2007]
• Hunt, D., (1990), The History of Leyland and District, Carnegie Press, ISBN 0-948789-48-4
• Hunt, D. and Waring, W. (1995), The Archive Photograph Series: Leyland, Chalford Publishing Company, ISBN 0752403486
• Smith, J., (2003), Then and Now: Leyland, Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2672-9
• South Ribble Borough Council - Leyland Town Centre Masterplan [accessed 23 April 2008]

• Leyland Round Table no.665
• South Ribble Borough Council
• Leyland Lancashire - A Community website
• Leyland Online - Community news and information
• Enterprise Plc[3]
• The Leyland Project, Community support on the Wade Hall Estate