Village news
If you would like to contribute to Village News, write to Andy Rush, Editor, Loughborough Echo, Ark Business Centre, Office 7, Gordon Road, Loughborough, LE11 1JP or email: andy.rush@trinitymirror.com
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS SWITCH
ON. Father Christmas had a double duty to undertake when he popped along to switch on the East Leake Christmas lights on Saturday evening, with this year also having a very special extra job to do.
He was given the honour of presenting the first ever “East Leake Community Award” a trophy purchased by donations from residents of East Leake and which is now to be awarded each year in recognition of someone who has to making the village a better community in which to live.
The first recipient was local business woman Mel Roper. Mel is well known throughout East Leake as owner of The Greengrocers, and was given the award to recognise all the effort that she has put into many village events over the years, including the carnival, the Christmas lights switch on, the primary school proms and East Leake Live as well as for her undertaking roles in the parish council, the Traders Association and The Friends of Meadow Park.
In addition to the trophy Mel received a certificate and theatre gift vouchers card as a token of appreciation from the whole village.
Father Christmas then led the singing of a special surprise “flash mob” style song to say a big Thank You from all of East Leake.
It is planned that in the New Year details will be given as to how residents can nominate someone for next years award.
The switch on event itself saw Christmas and Santa Claus arrive in East Leake for what is now an event that draws hundreds of people— including a massive number of children anxious to see the very special visitor to the centre of the village whatever the weather.
Saturday, as last year, saw many hundreds of people, including a massive number of children of all ages, there to see Santa arrive on an illuminated sleigh and then perform the switch-on after the traditional countdown from 10.
In a short speech to the waiting crowd before he gave the traditional count from ten downwards countdown leading to the switch on, Santa thanked everyone for being there to greet him and wished presented a happy and successful festive period.
This was the fifth annual event and which is obviously becoming more and more popular each year and before Santa’s arrival there had been carol singing
There was a real festive feeling in the village, with the activities starting at 3pm in the village hall with a festive Craft Fair that will be offering a room full of stalls with all kinds of goods on sale, including the obviously popular Christmas-light band that many children could be seen waving around. At times it was almost impossible to get into the hall because there were so many people there.
The shops that were open late attracted lots of visitors and once the lights switch on ceremony was over many of them were crowded, including the village fish and chip shop where a long queue spread from the shop on to the outside pavement for 25 or so people who couldn’t get in the shop.
Mel Roper, joint organiser of the event with Hayley Masom -- she was busy creating a pictorial record of the event-- found time to go into the centre of the village for the switch on, but then dashed back to her Main Street shop where she was selling roasted chestnuts. And very active and entertaining MC for the event was again Tracey Waterfield, who did a wonderful job in telling the hundreds of people what was happening and even interviewing them for using over the loudspeaker system.
The village fire station is well lit for the festive period, with understandably a blue flashing light on the top of its tree on the roof.
PARISH CRITICISES BOROUGH OVER HOUSING. Rushcliffe Borough Council have been slammed by East Leake Parish Council over the five year housing land supply required by the government.
The criticism from the parish comes at a time when housing development is the leading topic of conversation in East Leake as more and more houses are appearing on the scene.
Rushcliffe has not, say the parish council, allocated sites at the urban edge of Nottingham that can be progressed in the required timescale, so policies for supply of housing in their Local Plan are considered “out of date”. East Leake’s Neighbourhood Plan, only adopted 2 years ago, is part of the local plan and so its housing policies are also deemed to be out of date.
The Borough Council initially refused planning permission for 235 houses on a site off Rempstone Road on the edge of the parish but this decision was overturned at appeal by a Planning Inspector earlier this month, meaning that the houses can be built.
A statement from the parish council given to the Echo says: “Much of Rushcliffe is protected by Green Belt legislation, including most of the other larger villages and towns, so while the bulldozers are running riot in East Leake, very little new housing is happening in Keyworth, Radcliffe on Trent, and Ruddington. Cotgrave has some but nothing like as much as East Leake.”
The Inspector who took the Inquiry remarked in his report that Rushcliffe “did not update its housing land supply position for the appeal and there is, therefore, no firm evidence before me of any progress in relation to the housing land supply since the last appeal. Nor is it demonstrated how the trajectory set out in Policy 3 will be achieved over the coming years”.
He also criticized a recently published report produced by Rushcliffe which assesses the impact on the landscape of building on various potential sites, finding the evidence supplied by the developer more reliable.
Chairman of the Parish Council, Conrad Oatey, is furious with Rushcliffe’s planning department, saying, “Rushcliffe are hanging East Leake out to dry with their incompetence.
The inspector has highlighted several failures to produce adequate evidence for the appeal. Rushcliffe are dithering endlessly about part 2 of their Local Plan, which can only be described as ‘ Too Little, Too Late’. “Who is being held to account there for all this ineptitude? The effect on our village is devastating.“
The Parish Council believes that Nottinghamshire County Council has also failed East Leake, by not having a plan for primary school places and not preparing data properly for the appeal hearing.
The inspector commented that NCC as the Local Education Authority had not formally investigated whether further capacity could be made available to accommodate the Rempstone Road site, and said “under these circumstances, it cannot be said that the schools are unable to accommodate the proposal; there is simply no evidence before me to draw such a conclusion.”
The agreement about primary school places for the site is worded so that money paid by developers could be used to expand schools outside the village, and to pay for transport to take East Leake children to schools elsewhere. Parish Councillors are horrified by this prospect.
Carys Thomas, Chair of East Leake’s Planning Committee commented, “How dare they. We are a community, and all our children need to be schooled here with their friends.
“They need to have the opportunity to walk to school. Infants as young as four could be making long journeys every day. Who is going to buy all these new houses once they find that out? And what about the people who live furthest from the schools or have just moved into the village? Their children could be the ones on the buses ”
FIVE CRIME INCIDENTS. Five crime incidents were reported to police in East Leake last month, and these are being investigated, says Pc Kelly Carlile.
Early in the month and overnight an unknown offender broke into three cars by unknown means, on Porritt Close, Hardy Way and Cosby Drive. On another occasion a suspect entered the Coop store and stolen two bottles of spirits and left without making any attempt to pay.
On October 12, whilst a vehicle parked in the Leisure centre some unknown suspects forced entry and stolen tools from within occurred between 19:3020:30hrs.
Unknown suspects entered the Quarry site and stole a large amount electric cabling. While in the final incident of the month on the 20th of the month during early evening while occupants were out unknown persons entered a property on Twentylands having forced open a window to the property and stolen items from within
CAROL SERVICES. With Christmas fast approaching East Leake St Mary’s Parish Church has the first of what will be a number of carol services when, on Tuesday next week, the Soar Valley Group of WI’s will be staging their annual Carol Service there. It will start at 2-20pm.
DEPARTED SERVICE. A special Commemoration of the Departed Service took place at East Leake St Mary’s Church. It is held annually and is to commemorate departed friends and family The service was a short one and included hymns, prayers, readings and the lighting of candles.
HISTORY SOCIETY. Chairman of East Leake and District Local History Society Mike Saunders has given special thanks to all of the various contributors involved in the publication recently of the new village history book written by Alan Hall and covering the period before and after WW1 and showing how East Leake was affected.
Mr Saunders has thanked those who contributed towards the cost of printing the book include Rushcliffe Borough councillors Marie Males and John Thurman, East Leake Parish Council, East Midlands Airport Community Fund and the Nottinghamshire Local History Association.
MESSY CHRISTMAS EVENT. St Mary’s Church at East Leake is staging a Messy Christmas event on Sunday this weekend, December 3, at 4pm. There will be advent crafts, activities and games.
FIRE STATION NEWS. East Leake fire station has broadened its horizons from fighting fires and attending road accidents to being recognised as one of two stations in Nottinghamshire to have had specialist training for its firemen in animal rescues.
And recently on two occasions crews from the station have put their skills into operations when in separate instances they were needed to help rescue a trapped horse.
The body of a horse had to be pulled out of the River Trent at Gunthorpe after it had died there. Firemen from East Leake, Carlton, Newark and Highfields stations had originally been called to try to rescue the animal from the river but when they arrived the animal was found to have died.
The East Leake station firemen led the task of pulling the horse out of the water.
In a second incident the village station were called to Quarndon nearly 25 miles away in Derbyshire where a horse and its rider had fallen into a ditch.
The animal was rescued and its rider was not seriously injured.
Peter Torr, the East Leake station manager, told the Echo that the firemen at the station had been on a specialist training course at Brackenhurst Agricultural College near Southwell when they had been shown techniques in looking after trapped animals and the methods that could be used to rescue them, such as putting straps round them and using lifting equipment to get them out of their situation.
Currently Notts Fire and Rescue Service say they are looking at new ways of working to ensure their resources are available in the right place at the right time within the financial constraints that they operate.
Mr John Buckley, the Nottinghamshire Chief Fire Officer, says they are carrying out a consultation exercise to gain comments from the publication on at least one aspect of the changes they are looking at, to allow an engine to turn out to a minor incident -- such as a small waste bin fire or a rubbish fire – crewed by less than the current regulatory number of fire officers, which is four. The move if it is accepted would affect retained stations, such as East Leake.
DERBYSHIRE HOUSE CHRISTMAS FETE. Derbyshire House on Station Road at East Leake is holding a Christmas Fete on Saturday this weekend, from 3pm onwards.
There are a number of festive attractions including a performance by the East Leake Hand Bell Ringers and a Santa’s grotto. Numerous stalls will be operating including handmade bath bombs, silver jewellery, handpainting original art pieces, crochet and knitted gifts, children’s books,toys and games, and a Christmas Photo Booth by Captcha.
There will also be a tombola and mulled wine and mince pies available. Admission is free and proceeds from the event go to the Residents Fund.
PANTO PERFORMANCES. Excitement is mounting as the date for the first of the five performances of this year’s panto - Rapunzel – for East Leake Amateur Players (ELAPS) draws near, with the show opening on Wednesday night next week, December 6.
There will be nightly performances in the village hall at 7-30 as well as a matinee on Saturday, at 2pm.
The production, written by ELAPS member Annette McQuillan and the directorship of Sonya Oates, lasts around two hours and has a cast of 31. There will be a raffle each evening in aid of funds for the group.
Support for the production is, as in the past, extremely good, and tickets for Friday night quickly went, with the ‘sold out’ tag having been announced three weeks ago, after being on sale since November 1.
Tickets for adults are £7 and £4 for concessions and are available from the Post Office, Mel’s greengrocers and the Olde Pet Shop, all on Main Street in the village.
Costock
MOVIE SCREENINGS. Costock Village Hall Committee have been working hard over the last few months organising funds and equipment to enable the showing of films to the local community.
After receiving grants from Rushcliffe Borough Council, East Midlands Airport and help from volunteers the system is now ready to start. The first trial showing will be to villagers that have been involved in the village hall over the past few years.
Village hall chairman John Collins says local cinema is very popular and a great way to provide local events that bring villagers of all ages together and they are looking forward to being able to stage events from time to time.