Services at St Mary's Chilton 2013

Grade 1 listed St Mary's Church, Chilton, is officially designated as 'redundant'  However from time to time services are held there and this is a great opportunity to take a look inside and admire the church's bright interior, interesting glass in the vestry and some fine monuments dating back to Mediaeval times.

There is no electricity, so services by candlelight can be very atmospheric, and the events are generally well attended.

I have just received the dates of services to be held this year:

Sunday 14th April, 7 p.m. Taize Service

Sunday 9th June, 6 p.m. Choral Evensong

Sunday 7th July, 5 p.m. Songs of Praise

Sunday 11th August, 3 p.m. St Mary's Festival

Sunday 15th September, 3 p.m.  Harvest Festival

Sunday 15th December, 3 p.m. Carol Service.

Local meat comes at a price

As the horsemeat scandal broke last week I listened to a discussion on the Today programme in which a well-meaning and well-spoken woman was quite aggressively telling listeners that they must only eat meat produced close to home.  Somehow she seemed to be implying that to do otherwise would be morally wrong, and indeed it was somehow our own fault that we now find hidden horsemeat on the menu.

Safe, but how affordable?

This resonated with me because a week or so ago, in search of good local produce,  I went to Brook Farm just outside Lavenham to buy a joint of beef for a special occasion. I was slightly disconcerted to drive between serried rows of Red Poll cattle, busily eating their hay, on my way to the farm shop, which is open on Saturday mornings.  The cattle looked so appealing with their glossy coats and long eyelashes it seemed somewhat callous to be intending to turn one of their relatives into lunch.  However, this is to digress from my main point.

The beef, which is now safely in the freezer, will be very delicious and, for a product carefully reared and presented, great value, but it was also quite costly.  It was not something I could afford to buy every day and indeed it would be beyond the means of some people.  To put it in perspective the price of such a joint would absorb a meaningful proportion of the basic old age pension for example.  

Food is now something of a political and moral issue, as was demonstrated by the lecturing tone of the woman on the Today programme.  As incomes fail to rise in real terms and food prices increase what we eat will absorb a larger part of all our incomes.   It is therefore increasingly important that we can be confident about what we are eating.  Buying locally is one way to obtain peace of mind, but this is not an option for all.  We therefore have to look to Government bodies to make sure that large food manufacturers keep to the rules.

Knowing this I do get rather irritated when the well intentioned lecture about what people should and shouldn’t do.  Insistence on  ‘close to home’ food is one example, shopping in supermarkets is another.  

 It is lovely to have the time and means to shop in local food shops, and it was very sad when the last greengrocer closed in Sudbury recently (particularly since his prices were reasonable on the whole),  However, times are hard and many busy families depend on not just the lower cost but also the greater convenience offered by the one stop shop.   We should not make people feel guilty about having no choice.

Stalemate persists on Church Field Road site

Readers of the Suffolk Free Press will have noticed the comment in Thursday's edition about the unresolved planning application on the site owned by  Prolog in Church Field Road, Chilton.

There was to have been a special Development Committee meeting to reconsider the application, or, more accurately, the section 106 agreement that accompanies it, on Monday of last week.  This however was cancelled due to the fact that common ground still cannot be reached between the developers and planning officers at Babergh.

My feeling is that Prolog and its agents would have done well to spend more time in recent months consulting the local community about their application.

The Localism Bill recognises that where development may be controversial, engagement with the community at an early stage is likely to improve the outcome and speed up the process

I know that members of our community do not want to stand in the way of valuable employment opportunities, especially in the current economic climate.   I am sure that were the company to engage with the people of Chilton, particularly those living close to the site,  a less damaging scheme could be developed that would cause less harm to the built and natural environment and would fulfil Prolog’s requirements.

At present however it seems that such suggestions continue to fall on deaf ears.

For those interested in the complicated background to this issue I have added additional information on the Prolog tab above.

More True Gritting News from Babergh/MSDC

Sue Herne (not pictured!)has sent the message below.  Read to the bottom if you are interested in setting up winter gritting activities in your area.

'We have some more wintry weather on the way this week just showers today and tomorrow– not too much in terms of laying snow, but some cold temperatures come back in with an artic wind from Wednesday.  This is likely to result in icy conditions, especially on any untreated roads.

It would be a good idea to check your grit levels and if these are low, requesting a top up as soon as possible in preparedness for the later part of the week.  Call 0845 6066067 to request your grit top ups.  You can check for any weather alerts via the link below.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/

If any of you have any articles/stories to share from your experiences during the recent snow & ice please let me have them by the end of this month so that they can be incorporated into the next community resilience newsletter.

Can I also remind you that we have a few places left on the social media work shop which is open to any community volunteers involved in winter gritting teams, community plan writing/implementation or people actively seeking to start something up in their Parish.  I will be starting to allocate places towards the end of this week.

If any of you have any questions regarding the above, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards

Sue

Sue Herne

Emergency Planning Officer

Council Offices, 131 High Street

Needham Market

Suffolk IP6 8DL

01449 724851

emergencyplanning@midsuffolk.gov.uk

Community projects - funding update

Money is short at present, and local authority budgets are stretched, so it is important to keep up to date with other sources of funding for community projects.   In this connection I have just received the latest funding bulletin from the invaluable Rural Services Network.

Included in the list is the Postcode Trust which has funding available for charities and community groups ranging from £500 to £10,000.  Their criteria are quite broad and would cover a good many projects.  Additionally the Community Sport Activation Fund has grants on offer for a wide range of activities relating to sport, while the Protecting Playing Fields project from Sports England is offering sums of between  £10,000 and £50,000 for the development and enhancement of playing field land.

The Heritage Lottery Fund is looking for projects that carry out urgent repairs to places of worship, and the Sita Trust Enhancing Communities Programme is offering funding for the restoration and repair of community and historic buildings.

If you would like more details of any of these funding opportunities please get in touch with me (antillj@btinternet.com) and I will forward details to you.  While the final date for applications for some are quite a long way ahead, others would need quite a rapid response!

Theatre bus

On 26th February you can visit the Theatre Royal by bus to see Romeo and Juliet if you live in Cockfield or Lavenham.

£25 will buy you tickets for the play, travel, a programme and a drink on arrival!

The coach will leave at 6.15 p.m. from the Church in Lavenham and there will be three stops in Cockfield, McKenzie Place bus stop at 6.25, Great Green Bus Stop at  6.30 and Cross Green (opposite the telephone box) at 6.40.

You need to make bookings through the Theatre Royal Box Office before Friday 15th February and when you make your booking inform the Box Office which bus stop you will be using.

The Box Office number is 01284 764909.

Major police operation round Sudbury

On the look out.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a widespread police operation in the Sudbury area.

Members of the Safer Neighbourhood Team, together with other officers plus partners from HMRC and Babergh District Council, among others, all congregated at an early hour at Sudbury police station and then fanned out across the Sudbury area to combat a wide range of crimes and misdemeanours.

Targets included people in possession of drugs or offensive weapons, money launderers, and young people skiving off school.  Checks were made on over fifty firearms licence holders and one licenced premises was caught selling alcohol to an under-age person.

I was thrilled to be offered the chance to spend a few hours in a police car (well, I do have a weakness for fast cars!).  I found myself initially in an unmarked car that identifies the number plates of cars that may not have insurance, may be stolen or have other issues.  This was quite exciting, but unfortunately it seemed that the miscreants guilty of such offences were largely still abed during the morning rush.  What was more gripping was flagging down likely looking diesel driven cars (blue light flashing and siren wailing!),and then accompanying them to a checking station run by HMRC  up at B and Q’s car park.  Here they were checked to make sure that the contents of their petrol tank did not contain red diesel.   I understand that at least one person was caught resulting in an instant fine.

The officers who were kind enough to put up with me during the morning told me that a good deal of their time at present is spent looking out for the perpetrators of rural burglaries and thefts.  Several vehicles were stopped and checked yesterday in areas where burglaries have been perpetrated, which should serve as something of a warning.

Dipping for red diesel

I understand that on the whole the operation was a great success with a number of tangible outcomes.  In addition the message that was sent to the community that the police, along with other partners, continue to combat crime and anti-social behaviour in the area despite the effect that cuts from central government are potentially having on morale and operational effectiveness.