Belle views
Apparently - and you are going to find this as hard to belive as I do - my regular blog updates have been missed.
The latest call for a resumption comes from the press (sorry "communications") office of a local council.
Trouble is, it's a local council that is about to feel the full wrath of the Free Press readers if today's emails and letters are anything to go by.
We can usually tell how and issue's gone down with the good people of Sudbury by the amount and speed of the response we get.
On the black day that someone suggested the Highland cattle may have to be removed from the meadows for, yes you guessed it, health and safety reasons, we were inundated.
When the latest plans to tinker with Market Hill and spend yet more money on paving slabs were revealed in our pages, we were similarly deluged. So much so that the readers' response made another front page and persuaded councillors to think again.
So what's got the readers riled this time? The threat to Belle Vue House and park, that's what.
Swapping a bit of wasteland next to a bus station and a nightclub - a pretty poor place for a retirement home - for a lovely bit of parkland up the road. Babergh won't yet let on how much, how much for and how much park will become parking - the things Sudburians are rushing to ask. But I think there's a battle ahead.
Babergh says it's consulting people, but quite a few people here are looking at each other saying: "Did they ask you? No, me neither!"
More than one person has said to me this week: "What would Betty Bone have thought about this one?"
Published Date:
27/06/2008
Modified Date:
27/06/2008
More than one swallow
It takes more than one swallow to make a summer.
And on Saturday we proved it.
I saw one heading up the A134 towards Newton Green and another at Alton Water - just before the most almighty hail storm almost knocked me off my bike.
Published Date:
07/04/2008
Modified Date:
07/04/2008
He's Sudbury's greatest singer
You must have heard him by now. He's been singing solidly during daylight hours since last weekend and there's no sign of a let-up.
He's the song thrush on top of a tree at the Lloyds bank gardens by the bus station.
You can keep your BBC adverts for Andrew Lloyd-Webber's next musical and your X-Factor no-hopers - if you want to hear real singing, just get to Sudbury bus station.
Published Date:
04/04/2008
Modified Date:
04/04/2008
Does anybody back Stansted expansion?
Does anyone love poor Stansted Airport any more? Judging by the list of opponents gathered in good old Bishop's Stortford this week, no.
The problem is that BAA wants to turn it into a monster and people are saying enough is enough.
Opponents this week included: Lord Hanningfield, leader of Essex County Council and transport spokesman for the Conservatives in the House of Lords. Hertfordshire County Council Uttlesford District Council, whose deputy leader warned "It is clear that a second runway will bring catastrophic change to the character of our beautiful rural landscape. Anyone who has visited Heathrow will be aware of what could happen should this plan ever become a reality.”
Others included Greenpeace, the Woodland Trust, Liberal Democrats on the East of England Regional Assembly, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the CPRE, Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Mary Edwards, Friends of the Earth, Shadow Aviation Minister Julian Brazier MP, Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker, Harlow MP Bill Rammell (Labour), Colchester MP Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat), MEPs Andrew Duff (Liberal Democrat), Dr Caroline Lucas (Green Party) and (Conservatives) Geoffrey van Orden, Christopher Beazley and Suffolk South MP Tim Yeo who is also chair of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee. Oliver Heald MP (North East Herts) was also present.
Closing the meeting, Sir Alan Haselhurst, deputy speaker of the House of Commons no less, said: "The proceedings can be summed up in a simple three word message: NO, NO, NO to a second runway. ...Let the drumbeat of resistance sound. The organisation of SSE (Stop Stansted Expansion) is strengthening. Support at Westminster has emerged. We are determined our voice will be heard. We can and we will prevail."
Trouble is, I fear the Government has already bought into Spanish firm Ferrovil's plans for its BAA airports, having swallowed the line that the economy's doomed unless we go hell-for-leather for more and more airport growth.
Over here in Suffolk we're already seeing - and more importantly, hearing - the results of Stansted's growth. Some people have yet to wake up to the threat but the reorganisation of NATS' stacks has at last made it a hot issue on our patch, too.
There's no Free Press campaign in the offing. We'll continue to provide a platform for all the arguments - but that doesn't mean I have to sit on the fence. Anyone who loves the countryside and woods like I do has to oppose further Stansted expansion.
Published Date:
04/04/2008
Modified Date:
04/04/2008
We're on our bikes
I recently took up cycling to work - it's getting better as the weather improves - and it seems I'm in a growing band.
This week we had the news that workers in Suffolk bike to work more than the rest of the country in a bid to be green, according to a new survey.
Bike storage and environmental features scored very highly in the national study of workers by property researchers Savills.
The research found more than 12% of staff cycle to work in the region, compared to a national average of seven per cent.
Keep it up! The best bit is cycling past the 107.9p petrol signs.
Published Date:
04/04/2008
Modified Date:
04/04/2008
That county council salary
I almost feel sorry for them.
Sitting in the Free Press newscave this week, I've been overhearing one side of conversations between Suffolk County Council PR people and reporters.
The spokesman or spokeswoman must be just waiting every time for the question: "But what people are saying in Sudbury is, if you can afford to pay the new chief executive £220,000 how come you can't afford... X, Y or Z."
It's a mess of the county council's making and they deserve all the awkward questions they're going to continue to get.
See this week's Free Press for the results of the awkward questions.
Published Date:
01/04/2008
Modified Date:
01/04/2008
Tesco takeover
I have just broken off from subbing a page lead in this week's Free Press about Tesco's move on Hadleigh.
The Hadleigh Society's complaints include the extra traffic it will bring and the harm it will do to the local environment.
Now I know supermarkets are a part of modern life which most of us would find very hard to do without.
Something tells me that it's a sad day for Hadleigh - but I also know the place is split, with many people eager to be able to shop at a Tesco in their town instead of going to Sudbury or Copdock.
I think drssing the plans up in a bit of "Suffolk pink" is pretty laughable - it's going to be a Tesco, not St Paul's Cathedral, whatever some people seem to be lauding it as.
What depresses me about the whole issue is that it's yet another Tesco.
Put the word Tesco into our computer archiving system here at the Free Press and it throws up pictures and stories about Hadleigh, obviously, which is a few miles from Copdock and Sudbury, which is expanding.
It also churns out pictures of the new Tesco at Haverhill and plans for one at Halstead.
Wouldn't it be nice if just one of those stores being a Sainsbury's or something else?
Published Date:
01/04/2008
Modified Date:
01/04/2008
Making a clean sweep of it
The Suffolk Free Press is a community newspaper.
That sentence sounds like a platitude sometimes, something wheeled out to try to describe what we do.
But today we can offer some evidence to back it up.
Take a look at the video on our website of the appalling state of Northern Road, Sudbury, and the hedges aorund Tesco, both strewn with plastic bags and other litter.
Within hours of the paper hitting the streets today, with its Clean it up! headline Tesco had sent people out to clear up their patch - and many thanks to them.
News editor Ryan Goad and reporter Jonathan Schofield thought we should put our money where our mouth was, so to speak, so they armed themselves with litter-pickers and dustbin bags and got to work along Northern Way.
They were only there a short while when Babergh District Council's "rapid response" squad turned up to help. They were still there clearing up when our boys retreated to the warm, dry Free Press news bunker. It's good to see some of my council tax being spent on something useful.
Amazing what you can get done if you make enough fuss.
Hopefully, things will not be allowed to get so bad in future. Coincidentally - and I didn't know this until today - Radio Suffolk are running a campaign, aimed at stopping people throwing away litter. I can't put the title of it in this blog because the software won't let me use the word. It's almost called "Don't be a t*sser" (grow up software!)
Good luck with it. I despise litter and the crassness of people who drop it. Who dragged them up?
Meanwhile, if you have a local grot-spot or other problem in your area, give us a shout. You never know, the good old Free Press may be able to get some action.
Published Date:
20/03/2008
Modified Date:
20/03/2008