Bee drama at Babergh resolved

Land in front of Babergh's offices

There was much excitement among Staff and Members alike in Corks Lane last week when a colony of feral bees was discovered while work was being carried out to a damaged poplar tree in front of Babergh’s offices.

We were all much reassured by the message that we received on Friday from David Pizzey, the Tree Officer:-

‘You’ll be pleased to know that the colony of honeybees in the fallen tree at front of the office were successfully moved last night. With the bees docile in the evening a piece of foam was used to block the entrance to the nest. A 10ft section of the tree was then carefully cut and lowered by crane on to a truck which then took them on a slow ride to a site in Lavenham. The bees are now free to remain in their current home or move on to other local hives. The whole operation was managed with great skill by a team from Suffolk Tree Services; all this whilst wearing bee suits over protective chainsaw clothing – not easy!’

HLF All Our Stories Project

Little Waldingfield

The History Society in Little Waldingfield has been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund ‘All our Stories’ grant to research the history of the village and its people from the early 1800’s to date.

The project is now well underway but anyone who would like to be involved in this exciting community venture is still more than welcome. Progress to date includes:

• Recruitment of a number of volunteers to assist with the underlying research;
• Local training sessions on the skills necessary to conduct research and interview willing volunteers;
• Attendance at relevant training workshops staged by our HLF partner university UEA
• Detailed recorded interviews with transcription - in progress;
• Completion of research of the Parish Council records maintained at Bury Records Office (BRO);
• Commencement of detailed research of other records held at the BRO; and
• Completion of detailed research of the village records held by the Local History Recorder.

LWHS continues to look for other sources of information, with residents already providing photographs and other memorabilia from their own family archives.

If any reader has anything that might be of interest (documents, maps, photos etc) or artefacts pertaining to Little Waldingfield or its residents during the past 200 years, the LWHS would love to borrow them for our research – all such documents would be copied carefully and returned promptly.

 Please refer to the blog pages or the website for more information on this exciting project.

Contact details:

Andy Sheppard (sheppard-andy@sky.com or 01787 247980)                                          

Diana Langford (mianddi@btopenworld.com or 01787 248298)

A day in the life of a new County Councillor

On Monday I spent my first day really working as a County Councillor, and although I started early and finished at around 10 p.m. I did enjoy myself.

The day started with a drive to Ipswich.  On the way I dropped into the Monks Eleigh Community Shop to get hold of a copy of the village magazine.  I hope to persuade the editor to include my e mail and phone number so that residents know how to contact me.  I also checked on the exact whereabouts of the school for a meeting later that day.

Then onto Endeavour House;   my new pass got me into the car park and I climbed higher and higher to finally find a space on the roof.  Seagulls were whirling and shrieking overhead. It was a reminder that Ipswich really isn’t very far from the sea, a fact I often forget.   

I needed to see one of the officers about a request for funding that I have already received and I am happy to say that the scheme falls within the guidelines to quality for a County Councillor’s locality budget.  Immediate success meant that the meeting was shorter than I had expected and so, with time to spare, I decided to have a go at accessing my e mails on one of the computers in the Members’ Area.

I sat down at the computer, and to my distress I realised that I had completely forgotten how to turn on a desktop!  I have, since leaving work, always used a laptop computer and I was completely foxed. I tried to think back fourteen years to my last job in Cork Street, working for Putnam Investments, but in the end had to seek assistance.  What an embarrassment!

I then had a meeting with the Leader of the Council,  Mark Bee at which I learned about various opportunities for further work that might be open to me in the next four years….I will write more about this in due course.

After lunch I had a meeting in Monks Eleigh concerning the village hall, which is now barely fit for purpose having been built at the time of the Coronation.

Then it was time to drive through the pouring rain to three separate Parish Council meetings, at Bildeston, Kersey and Great Waldingfield.  I was welcomed very politely by the parish councillors at both of the new villages, and it was nice to finish the evening with some old friends, who didn’t seem to mind me turning up when their meeting was virtually over and were happy to stay and chat for a while.

I think that the next four years will be quite active!

Not to be missed event!

All Saints’ Church, Acton

Sunday, 19th May

at

3 o’clock

~~~~~~~~

Acton - its Musical Connections

and Historical Corrections

but mainly

Brendan O’Brien Brackenburey

(Associate of The London College of Music)

on the organ and keyboard

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interval refreshments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No admission charge

Retiring Collection

in aid of Church Organ Fund

and Parkinson’s UK Research

An Inspector Calls

The next West Babergh Safer Neighbourhood Team Meeting is to be held on Tuesday 21^st May at Cockfield Village Hall at 6 p.m.  If you have any concerns about safety issues in your community this is a good opportunity to come and air them.   The police are always present at these meetings, and sometimes other partners, such as Highways or BDC, attend too.

I recently wrote to the new Police and Crime Commissioner, Tim Passmore, about the future of SNT meetings. Concern had been expressed by a number of people both about attendance levels and the degree to which the meetings would continue to receive support under the new arrangements.   The Commissioner himself has instigated local forums, called District Panels,  at which he meets the public, and there was uncertainly with regard to how the SNT meetings would fit in with these.  Furthermore no mention was made of SNT meetings in his recently published Policing Plan.

I am pleased to say that I have had an encouraging response from Tim.  SNT Meetings, it seems, are to remain at the heart of community policing, and renewed efforts are to be made to improve participation. 

The Commissioner’s own events are not intended to be a substitute for the SNT meetings.  He writes:-

The District Panel meetings…… are being introduced to give an opportunity for local people to meet and ask questions of both myself and local Police Commanders. The intention is that local people will gain a better idea of how the PCC will implement change in the Constabulary, as well as an overview of police initiatives to tackle crime, and current crime levels.

In addition to my correspondence with the PCC, I met our local police inspector, Paul Crick today, to discuss a number of community safety related issues.  I raised one or two difficulties that the local SNT meetings have been experiencing, in particular expressing the opinion that the numbers attending would be improved in the winter months if the timing of the meetings between September and March returned to 11 a.m. rather than 6 p.m.   Cold winter evenings do not encourage people to show up, and numbers at the morning sessions that we held previously were generally much better than the evening ones.  

I hope that this change can be made by the Autumn.

Inspector Paul Crick