All About Care for Cleveleys – get involved!

What is Care for Cleveleys? It’s the coming together of everyone who has a vested interest in the success of our town. We’re working together, taking ownership and responsibility for where we live and work. It’s really making a difference – why don’t you get involved?

Exactly What is Care for Cleveleys?

Care for Cleveleys is the everyday name for the group of volunteers who work hard to make our town the best it can be. They’re the ones you’ll see out and about in hi-viz vests – litter picking, gardening, watering and doing all kinds of small DIY jobs.

The umbrella organisation is Cleveleys Town Centre Group. Formed in late 2022 by businesses and volunteers from the ashes of the old Thornton Cleveleys Association of Trade and Commerce and the existing Care for Cleveleys/Coastal Community Team.

• Join the Facebook Group to see what’s happening and how to help
• Get loads of information and news from the Care for Cleveleys website. Including dates for all upcoming events.
• Come along to the monthly town centre clean-ups. All equipment provided, everyone welcome.
• Come along to one of the Care for Cleveleys Meet-Ups and get involved. Everyone is welcome.

Who are Care for Cleveleys?

Cleveleys might not have a Town Council. But it does have Care for Cleveleys and a whole squad of people working together to make a difference. Plus there are groups and pockets of people who work together to do their best for the local area as a whole.

• Cleveleys Together – Town Centre Partnership is the strategic group which includes the local councils (Wyre and LCC), public organisations like the NHS, Blackpool Transport and colleges. Its aim is the overall long-term success of the town as a place to live, work and visit. Cleveleys Together looks at medium to long term goals and big projects that need big funding.
• Cleveleys Town Centre Group is the operational group (official name of Care for Cleveleys) delivering the objectives set out by Cleveleys Together. It’s a coming together of existing town centre volunteer groups including Care for Cleveleys and trader groups. The Town Centre Group enables these different groups to help each other and achieve much more than they could on their own.

It’s all about local businesses, groups, public bodies and pockets of people working together to do their best for the local area as a whole.

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The Aim of Care for Cleveleys

‘Putting People at the Heart of the Town’ is Care for Cleveleys slogan – and that’s what it means. It means all of us. Local people, visitors, shop owners, businesses, children, old people. We all have a stake in how good or bad the place is – and between us we make it even better.

We’ve got a great community in this town. We want to celebrate what you, your business or organisation is doing to keep this lovely place great – and make it even better!

Find out about businesses which actively support Cleveleys from the Care for Cleveleys website

Achievements of Care for Cleveleys

Since its inception, the group has done a lot of work in the town, to make it better than average. In 2024 Care for Cleveleys was recognised with a King’s Award for Voluntary Service, the MBE for a volunteer group.

Have a look at what we’ve done – it’s an exhausting list! Projects include:

• Consistently over a number of years, sweeping, litter picking, gardening and maintaining a clean and well cared-for town.
• Had the bollards, street furniture and clock shelter painted several times, by volunteers from HMP Kirkham. Now, the Bollard Babes create knitted pieces to decorate them and make people smile!
• Installed the new noticeboard at New Look thanks to WEC Ltd – and repainted/restored it in 2022.
• Brightened up the bus station, including the original wayfinding map. Unfortunately it was vandalised but replaced in 2024 with a brilliant new Mythic Coast mural. In 2023 new planters, bunting and Christmas lights were added and made a big difference.
• Instigated the new weekly market – there’s a story!
• Brought back Cleveleys In Bloom, going on to win Gold and numerous discretionary awards.
• On 19 July 2025, opened the Care for Cleveleys Shop – a fundraising space and community hub.
• Organised many town centre events and activities, and now look after the events space at Princess Road.
• and a whole lot more!

• Read all about Care for Cleveleys here

All for the Want of a Nail…

In the poem All for the want of a nail… just substitute the ‘nail’ for ‘a bit of thoughtfulness and taking responsibility’. It’s a perfect analogy for how doing your own little bit makes a whole world of difference! Plus, it’s much easier to take action now, rather than wait for the towns failure to arrive and not be able to do anything about a much bigger problem.

Just in case anyone wondered, through necessity work is concentrated on the town centre. Don’t forget that Care for Cleveleys is an entirely voluntary organisation with mostly older members. Although it delivers a fantastic amount of benefit it can’t do everything for everyone, everywhere. If you and your neighbours (business or residential) would like to, form a sub-group and do positive things. You’re more than welcome to join in the ‘Care for Cleveleys’ campaign.

Other Groups looking after Public Spaces

Rossall Beach Residents & Community Group look after the shingle beach beyond the end of the new sea defences and up to Rossall School. It’s a friendly group which everyone is welcome to join. They beach clean, hold meetings and do lots of different things which are community based.

Cleveleys Beach Cleaners litter-pick the central sections of beach once a fortnight. Find all their details on Facebook.

*For the avoidance of doubt. Businesses are not expected to advertise with Visit Fylde Coast to be included in Care for Cleveleys. Visit Cleveleys is not paid to promote the work of the Town Centre Group.

Here’s how YOU can get involved…

Hundreds of people support the work of the group, in many different ways. A core group have great fun doing most of the work, most of the time. Another big group are regularly involved with tasks and projects. Other volunteers work on the shop counter. Plenty of people support the group by buying raffle tickets and merchandise, shopping in the Shop or donating goods to sell. Thousands of you enjoy the events organised in the town centre.

There are plenty of ways for you to get involved and be part of the movement to make Cleveleys amazing! No matter how much time you’ve got to spare, how fit and strong you are, there’s something everyone can do.

Join us on Facebook

Do you love Cleveleys? Whether you live here or love to visit, please join the Care for Cleveleys Facebook group. Moral support is every bit as important as physical support. It doesn’t matter where you live or whether you will join events or not. If you love Cleveleys and want to see it thrive, join this group!

Find out about current activities, events and projects. This online group is where you can voice your opinion in local consultation. If you see something that could/should be put right, it’s somewhere to share it.

Our Facebook group is also a positive, can-do place! Celebrate being part of a community that rolls its sleeves up and takes charge of the world around it! As they say, we don’t have problems we have opportunities…

Join us in Real Life!

Volunteers meet regularly to look after jobs that need doing in the town centre. You can find the dates of the monthly community clean-up sessions in the Facebook group and on the Care for Cleveleys website.

Weeding, clearing out litter grot spots, unblocking grids, gardening, painting and DIY are just some of the tasks they carry out all year round. Generally keeping the town centre ship-shape and Bristol fashion. It’s also a great way to make friends and meet people, with a brilliant feeling of camaraderie and fun. If you want to join in just turn up, equipment will be provided.

There’s also a monthly meet-up where we plot and plan and organise what’s happening next. It’s a great way to start your involvement as you’ll meet plenty of people and find out a lot of what’s happening. Just come along. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable, strong or physically fit you are. If you can’t do physical work but would like to help and get involved there’s also a job for you. From fundraising to making tea, crochet and sewing bunting to digging and painting!

Get involved: Join the Care for Cleveleys Facebook Group or email jane@CleveleysTCG.org.uk

Help with Cleveleys In Bloom

The Town Centre Team blossomed out to enter the national RHS In Bloom competition in 2018, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society. The 2018 entry saw the team starting from scratch. We entered again in 2023 and were delighted to receive a Silver Gilt Award. 2024 and 2025 brought home a Gold – plus several discretionary awards.

There are opportunities for fundraising, planting, watering, weeding and a whole lot more. Plus lots of laughs and new friends along the way. If you would like to get involved please get in touch. The more the merrier!

• More about Cleveleys In Bloom

Businesses and Groups – please help!

Do you look after a group who like to help with community projects – like Scouts, Cadets etc? Or does your business/place of work help out in the community as part of your CSR policy/obligations? By all means get in touch and we can find your volunteers a job to do! From helping to clean and tidy a specific area, to a larger, single project, we always welcome offers of help.

Lots of us do lots of things in different ways that all add up to make Cleveleys great. It doesn’t matter how large or small you act of thoughtfulness is, because everything that you do adds up to make a much greater whole. Your small acts all add up to keep Cleveleys vibrant and prevent our town centre from failing.

• Do you pride yourself on keeping your shop front clean?
• Is sweeping the litter up at the front of your shop your first job in a morning?
• Have you been watering the plants in the town centre?
• Are you the ‘skip police’, maintaining order with the waste at the back of your shop premises?
• Do you pull weeds up when you see them?
• Something else?

Post what you’ve done in the Care for Cleveleys Facebook Group, or email jane@CleveleysTCG.org.uk and we’ll share your news.

And the REAL Benefit!

What Care for Cleveleys does for the town is amazing – it’s clean and tidy and looks care-for. We’ve got a vibrant event programme, glow with festive lights and people comment on the friendly vibe. But it’s how people benefit where the real benefit is.

This is a friendly, happy and upbeat group, where you join as a stranger and quickly become part of the family. It’s a great tribe to belong to and will do wonders for your state of mind! If you’re new to the area, recently retired or bereaved, or just looking for your happy place, Care for Cleveleys is for you. You’ll try new things, get up to mischief, laugh until you ache and eat more biscuits than you should 🙂

There’s all kinds of long words that could describe the benefit that you’ll get as a person – but you’ll never understand the feeling until you try it!

Where did Care for Cleveleys Begin?

Why does it matter? Why do people want to do all this unpaid work? What do they get out of it?

It was me, Jane Littlewood, your publisher of Visit Cleveleys (and Visit Fylde Coast), who dreamed up the idea of Care for Cleveleys in the first place.

Not having been involved in community work before I moved to Cleveleys, I always thought that ‘you’ couldn’t do things. That if you didn’t like something ‘they’ had to sort it out. I’ve since discovered that’s not true. If you don’t like something, you DO have the ability to change it!

Roll up your sleeves…

“When my mum (the late Chrissie Blogger) was young, people looked after where they lived themselves. Local councils didn’t do everything for everybody. So it was normal to roll your sleeves up and go and sort out whatever needed sorting out. When I was a kid, everyone swept their ‘fronts’, pulled up weeds and kept their patch looking neat and tidy. In the olden days Councils weren’t expected to do everything for everyone – people looked after things themselves.

Today, people feel like they shouldn’t take community action. They worry that everyone will look at them, that they’ll feel silly. That they pay Council Tax and so it’s ‘someone else’s job’… Let’s take that control and responsibility back, and each of us do our own little bit to make Cleveleys a place and a community to be proud of!

Someone has to do it!

Through Visit Cleveleys I’d run the clock shelter restoration campaign in 2014. It was in a terrible state and rumour was that it might be demolished. The project generated a lot of goodwill so I was wondering what to do next so as not to loose the momentum. That was before the Coastal Community Team began. So I decided to set up a Facebook Group, a sort of virtual-reality community group, with the aim of looking after our town. Initially, to try and encourage people to take responsibility for the things they didn’t like to see – like litter and weeds.

It all adds up

Like you, I have no spare time at all. Between paid work and my own voluntary activities, I literally work all the time. Much as I would like to breeze about picking litter up, talking to people and engendering community spirit, I just don’t have the time. You probably don’t either. We’re all busy with jobs, families, kids etc. So whatever we do as a community must be easy but effective. And open for everyone to feel involved, and part of a team. Lots of little acts of responsibility and care quickly add up to make a great big difference.

• We CAN pick up a bit of litter instead of walking past it.
• Take responsibility for where we live.
• We CAN talk in a positive manner about the many great things about Cleveleys.

In 2016 the Coastal Community Team (CCT) began, a group of local volunteers working with Wyre Council, to make our town better than average. It was one of many Coastal Community Teams in seaside towns around the UK. They were about encouraging local people to work together and strengthen the economy in our seaside towns. All supported by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) at central government, helped with a start-up grant.

More about Coastal Community Teams

A Coastal Community Team (CCT) was a local partnership consisting of the local authority and people from a coastal community who have an understanding of the issues facing that area. It was about working together to develop an effective forward strategy for the place.

Our CCT at Cleveleys was one of many in the UK, supported by DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government). Fleetwood, Blackpool and St Annes were all been awarded funding for Coastal Community Teams, as were most UK seaside towns. The Department for Communities and Local Government announced the award of £10,000 following a successful funding bid by Wyre Council.

This team began in 2016 but properly formed in 2017, including those who already worked for the benefit of Cleveleys. The aim was to build on the good work done so far. A Town Team Action Plan was drawn up and submitted to DCLG, taking short and longer term community priorities into account and any existing plans, looking to improve their impact. After accepting the plan, DCLG awarded a £10,000 grant in early 2017 to support the work of the team.

• See what Cleveleys Coastal Community Team achieved
• Find the original Cleveleys Coastal Community Team Action Plan here

Transforming the Town

The Care for Cleveleys Facebook Group was adopted as the Coastal Community Teams page. It’s where we discuss and decide what needs doing, plan upcoming projects, and keep up to speed with developments.

The CCT spent several years tackling the most obvious things in the town. The bollards were painted for the first time in years and the grey planters transformed from ashtrays into flower beds! The town centre volunteers got together and started litter picking and looking after the town. Slowly the town started to look loved and cared for, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Interrupted by a Pandemic…

A global pandemic got in the way and while we were all unable to get out and do things, the town suffered. Everything started to look unkempt and unloved – like it did before Care for Cleveleys began.

The Coastal Community Team project came to a natural end (and so did the pandemic), but Care for Cleveleys didn’t! The volunteers picked themselves up after the Covid pandemic and carried on where they left off. The team carried on looking after the streets, making improvements and planning activities. The aim is always to attract people to the town, to keep it vibrant in the future. The strapline ‘Putting people at the heart of the town’ says it all!

…and Stepping up the Gears!

With the pandemic along came the strategic group, Cleveleys Together town partnership board. With local government and public sector partners on board, invested in securing the future of the town.

Then in late 2022 everything stepped up again with the arrival of Cleveleys Town Centre Group. It’s the operational group which delivers the objectives set out by Cleveleys Together. It’s a coming together of existing town centre volunteer groups including Care for Cleveleys and trader groups. The Town Centre Group enables these different groups to help each other and achieve much more than they could on their own. A LOT of work goes on behind the scenes.

19 July 2025 saw the cherry go on the top of the Care for Cleveleys cake when the new community shop opened in the town centre. Quickly worth it’s weight in gold, the Shop generates a regular source of fundraising and provides a hub for events, activities and the work of the group.

Get in touch

Jane Littlewood is the volunteer who heads up the Coastal Community Team. You can get in touch by emailing jane@CleveleysTCG.org.uk