Hello,

And another busy week for all of us. Please remember that our next surgery is on on Saturday 04. October 2008 from 11 am to Midday. The Councillors from Brickhill and Queensway will be at hand at St. Mark's Church Hall to talk to you about matters of concern.

Our Council was awarded the 'Keep Trade Local Award 2008' by the Federation of Small Businesses a week ago for our work on Economic Development and as part of that, Partners in Business visits. Local Councillors visit businesses in the town to further relations.

We also attended the Veterans Presentation Evening at the Council when the Mayor honoured 142 Veterans. A very touching event for all whilst honouring those who served in the wars.

The Development Committee discussed recently the interim planning guidance for the so called 'Upper Redhill' Urban Extension. It appeared from the comments that residents who were affected in that particular area, not necessarily shared the description of the Urban Extension.There were a number of speakers at the committee who expressed their views to the Councillors present.

Residents spoke of their concern that whilst they were 'isolated' from the town of Wellingborough, that they were quite happy about that, as they had local facilities at the Ock 'n Dough area.It appeared that a lot of concerns were relating to wildlife, bats, badgers, rare birds and other species, which of course must be protected.It was interesting to hear about the archeological site south of the Harrowdens, hope to hear more about it. We do not only have the ancient site of Chester Farm, but South Harrowden also.

It was extremely interesting to hear about the ancient hedgerose (my first project when I became a councillor in 2003 was on the so-called hedge pledge this Council has signed up to) and species of trees that may have been in the areas for substantial time. No doubt they could enhance arboretum trails that are being considered in various areas. But as always, one is confident that our experts will be able to assess from the relevant background information.

A matter in the Resources Committee was to assess whether Councillors wanted to agree to weekend voting. The Ministry of Justice was consulting on moving the voting day from the traditional Thursday to the weekend. It was felt by most that it would be much more expensive with weekend staff and therefore it was resolved that the Ministry be advised that in this Council's opinion there should be no change to the traditional voting day.

Have you noticed how many old buildings there are in our town? I have not always lived in Wellingborough - being still fairly new after 21 years! So perhaps I notice them more than those who lived here all their lives. There is a lot of worthy heritage that naturally must be protected. I love the old buildings on Sheep Street for instance, the House that Jack built and so on.The entrance to the Zoo next to the Chinese Restaurant, the Tithe Barn, the Croyland Abbey, there is so much. It is always interesting find postcards and see what Wellingborough looked like years ago. What would those who designed 'improvements' to the town say now?

We are doing just the same at the moment with the Town Centre Regeneration project.
It is important that if we wish to encourage people to live in our town, that we have the neccessary facilities also. Shops, medical facilities and one of major concerns is of course the lack of an A&E facility in Wellingborough. If we have many more people in the town we need more doctors, dentists and an A&E facility. Our MP , Peter Bone, has been working on this matter tirelessly.

With the economic downturn going on, I wonder how many businesses and of course residents are being affected by this? Mortgages becoming more difficult to 'get', redundancies in many companies 'streamlining' their workforce, where is this all going to end?

I truly hope that we have a General Election very soon. I hope that a new Government will have fresh Conservative ideas (I thought I sneak that in quickly :).It is impossible to keep up with who is 'in' who is 'out'.

How does the Prime Minister himself keep tabs on it? It was such a laugh to watch Nick Clegg the other day on TV. Have they all gone to the same school learning public speaking? The guestures are just the same - the head is different. David must be doing such fantastic job, that everybody is copying!