Lancashire County Council sends debt recovery agency after grieving son to collect just £345
Lancashire County Council stands down after being contacted by The Lancashire Lead
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A son coming to terms with the death of his father was chased for £345 by Lancashire County Council - who even brought in the debt collectors to recover the cash.
They declined to say how much they spent to recover the money.
Kevin’s son Matt says that his dad worked for the County Council for more than ten years - and the first contact he had from then upon his death is when he received an invoice.
It was only when The Lancashire Lead got in touch that the money owed was dropped.
Lancashire briefing
🖼️ A historic Lancaster museum could be revamped with wider content from across the district and better experiences for visitors, if a £5m heritage lottery bid is successful.
Staff at Lancaster City Museum, which includes the King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum, are working on a National Lottery Heritage Fund bid to upgrade the site, which dates back to the 1780s and was Lancaster’s original town hall.
The museum is seen as out-dated in parts and suffers problems including damp. Yet it is also popular and has huge potential for the future, supporters say. It is also seen as vital for the wider city centre economy and for promoting tourism across the district including Morecambe.
Now, museum staff are working on the lottery funding bid, backed by Lancaster City Council.
🗣️ People living in the borough of Hyndburn can now ask questions of their elected representative, after councillors voted unanimously to allow greater public scrutiny of their actions.
Under rules that have been in place since 2017, residents could previously only ask questions at Hyndburn Borough Council meetings by submitting their queries five working days in advance.
These would then be read out by the Mayor at the meeting, with no further input from the questioner. But this has now changed following a reversal in the policy agreed on Thursday (July 16).
From now on, local residents can ask their questions directly to their representatives, with only a few restrictions. But while every councillor present backed the rule change, there was some disagreement in the chamber over who could take credit.
🍺 A community pub that struggled to attract a new landlord after closing its doors to the public is set to become a new mosque.
The Hare and Hounds on Lammack Road in Blackburn poured its last pint in October 2025, after continued attempts to turn the 226-year-old pub into a profit-generating business failed.
Its newly-approved conversion into a religious building will be the final nail in the coffin of the town’s historic Duttons Brewery, as the Hare and Hounds was among the first major pubs in its empire and upon its closure, was its last still standing.
But following a meeting of Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Planning and Highways Committee, the vacant pub property has been approved for a conversion into a place of worship.
The Lammack Community Association, backed by the EG Group’s Issa brothers, worked with Urban Future Planning to submit a proposal for the empty site in January, after outgrowing their small religious premises on the other side of the road.
Lancashire County Council sends debt recovery agency after grieving son to collect just £345
By Michael Holmes
A grieving son was hounded for £345 after the death of his father - by the county council where he spent more than a decade labouring.
Kevin Winder, 62, died from a heart attack mid-August last year and, just weeks later, his son Matt received a demand from Lancashire County Council for pension money that had been paid for the rest of the month.
The debt was later passed to bailiffs, leaving Matt, 26, furious that officials were chasing what he called a “nominal amount” from an estate with no real assets while he and his loved ones were still coming to terms with their sudden loss.
“There’s been no ounce of sympathy from them,” Matt said. “My dad gave them 10-plus years of physical labour and the first thing they send me is an invoice.”
After being contacted by The Lancashire Lead, the authority apologised and said it would cancel the debt.
“We understand that dealing with financial matters after the death of a loved one can be a difficult experience, and we always aim to communicate with sensitivity and respect,” a spokesperson said.
Kevin, of Kimberley Avenue in South Shore, left the county council in the late 1990s after working his way up to head groundskeeper over the course of 10 to 15 years, Matt said.
When neck problems began to make manual work too painful, Kevin moved into IT.
After getting a degree, he was employed in data analytics at the Department for Work and Pensions at Peel Park before retiring in 2024 and taking a part-time role at Marks & Spencer at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
He was in his local pub, the Farmer’s Arms in Lytham Road, when he collapsed and died last summer.
