Objectors say jail would bring trouble to village
JOANNE HARDMAN Hardman family has raised an incredible amount for charity, last year collecting £12,500 split between North of England Children’s Cancer Research Fund (NECCR) , The Bubble Foundation which supports the sterile ‘bubble’ ward for transplant patients in the Great North Children’s Hospital, and cancer charity CLIC Sargent. They’ve also thrown their support behind the NECCR Children’s Cancer Run, which aims to raise more cash for research into cruel diseases like the one Joe is fighting. Joanne said: “We wanted to give something back: children’s cancer can be under-funded because until you’re affected by it I think you don’t know about charities like NECCR, so they need the families like us to support them. The people there work so hard, they worked through the weekend to find out what was wrong with Joe, and it’s just our way of saying thank you.
“We’ve been lucky with Joe, but other children aren’t so lucky, and more money and research can only benefit these children, now and in the future, and find kinder and more effective treatment.”
The Children’s Cancer Run is offering early bird entry rates up until Sunday, March 31 2019.
Participants can enter as a single runner, a team, as a family or with their school. Last year, the event raised £288,000 for the NECCR, adding to the £7m which has already been raised by Children’s Cancer runners over the past 37 years.
You can enter or find more details at www.childrenscancerrun.co.uk CONCERNED residents have gathered to protest against plans to build a 1,400-capacity jail near their homes, amid concerns the facility would turn their community into a “mega prison village”.
Some protesters fear the proposed development, put forward by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), would negatively impact upon the beauty and safety of the village of Full Sutton, in Yorkshire’s East Riding.
There are also concerns the new prison could increase traffic and potentially drive up drug use in the area. The village, which was recorded as having a population of 1,072 in the 2011 census, is already home to HMP Full Sutton, a maximum security facility which in March 2018 was estimated to have a capacity of 558 male prisoners.
In July 2017, the MOJ was granted outline planning permission for a new 1,017-capacity prison next to the existing jail. Since then, a fresh application has been made to increase the size of the proposed prison to 59,500sq metres in order to house 1,440 adult male inmates, sparking protests from residents. Around 100 of them gathered in the nearby village of Stamford Bridge on Saturday, singing chants and holding up banners reading: “No to mega prison.”
One protester, 70-year-old Colin Clarke, who has lived in the area for more 20 years, said of the proposed jail: “Structurally, it’s going to spoil the village. It’s going to make it a place that’s less desirable for people to want to live. Besides all that, the traffic impact of having more than 500 staff working there, and visitors, is going to impact on the local road network.
“It’s really a terrible situation, and that’s the basis of objecting to it.”
Mr Clarke has compiled a list of 16 objections to the proposal, writing at the bottom of the document: “Don’t turn Full Sutton into a mega prison village.”