Friday, May 19, 2006

Just an ordinary Friday!

Apart from the fact that it 's cold and wet, so May isn't looking very spring-like at the moment. Leaving that aside Friday's often a day for catching up on things around the ward. So this morning saw the 3 ward councillors together in one room, discussing what to do about some of the issues facing the ward. One result is that a letter will soon be winging its way to the new minister in charge of local government (including planning), Ruth Kelly, asking when she's going to start to sort out the mess left by PPG3.
Much more positively we decided to join with IBIS and some of the local groups and residents to work for the River Tees Heritage Park. Coupled with the feasibility study to be done on safe non-car routes between Ingleby Barwick & Thornaby on one bank and Eaglescliffe & Yarm on the other, this is a really positive step.
Now it's time to go and make some phone calls about other issues and see what else can be achieved.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

A month later - whoops!

And so another month flies past. I really must get the blog habit. Our mayor is putting me to shame. She dutifully files her copy every day - what a star!
To be fair, in the last month I've had other things on my mind. Brief visit of daughter and son-in-law from Oz means that we now have some of our loft back and a bit more space around the nooks and crannies of the house. 9 big crates of stuff (including nearly 200 paperback books) are now en route to Melbourne, courtesy of Pickfords NE and Beca.
While they were in the country we had a service of blessing and dedication for Emma at St Mary Magdalene in Yarm, so the whole family was together for a short time. Denis and I felt very priveleged.
Meanwhile of course the ward and the borough go on - planning applications and issues of provision for young people in the ward are still major concerns. This week brought some partial good news - the appeal against the Council's refusal of the planning application at the Grange on Urlay Nook Rd was refused. Sadly, only on the grounds of design and mass of the building and not on the sustainability element of the refusal which doesn't bode well for SPG4 in the future.