Community, Parish Council & Village
Broadband Bulletin – January 2017Since the last update here, much has happened; Phillip Edwards, Secretary of the West Bergholt Community Broadband Group, offers the following update:
Unexpected VirginMost significantly, suddenly, with no prior notification or information Continue reading “Broadband Bulletin – January 2017”
Since Christmas is coming, it’s now less than a month away (gulp), you might want to get up to date with some events (Castle, Zoo, Cressing & New Hall) and other Christmassy news (free park & ride).
Meet Santa in his GrottoColchester Museums are offering a unique opportunity this festive season. Families will be able to meet Santa in the historic setting of Colchester Castle.
From Friday 9 to Sunday 11 December and from Friday 16 to Friday 23 December, the Castle’s ancient Lucas Vaults will be transformed into a magical grotto where families can visit Santa, take in the decorated surroundings and receive a gift from the man himself.
Prices vary from £5 – £8.50 depending on numbers and whether you simply visit Santa or also follow the Children’s Christmas trail. More details online here.
Colchester Castle opens its doors for its annual Christmas Open Evening on Wednesday 14 December from 3pm – 8:30pm.
A seasonal treat as Colchester Castle opens its doors for FREE! Come and soak up the Christmas atmosphere with carols, mince pies, entertainment and an opportunity to meet Santa before his busy night.
Booking not required. Free entry to the Castle, entry to Santa’s grotto £3.50 per child. Suitable for all ages.
Colchester ZooMeet Santa’s beautiful reindeer in their stables and travel through the farmyard to meet Santa’s friends. You can join the elves and friends for a very merry Christmas party! Or why not make Christmas crafts at the Elves’ Workshop.
More details online here.
Visit from 9.30am until 8.30pm on the 17th & 23rd December! As well as fantastic daytime events you will be able to stay after dark as the festivities continue into the evening beneath the Christmas lights!
The extended opening will give you even more time to see Santa’s beautiful reindeer and take part in The Santa Experience! PLUS from 5pm you can take a ride on the Christmas train and check out special evening encounters!
More details online here. The Zoo is offering other Christmas activities as well so well worth visiting their website.
Cressing TempleGuided by a friendly elf, your group will explore Father Christmas’s busy Christmas base at Cressing Temple Barns. Learn the secrets of the wrapping machine, magic mailing systems and landing pad. After passing through these magical rooms, families go on the meet Father Christmas himself in his traditional Grotto with full size sleigh ready for photos.
Whisper your Christmas wish and then head onwards to the toy shop where an elf will help you choose the perfect Christmas gift to take away as a memento. Here your guided tour ends, but there is so much more to see! The site is accessible for wheelchairs and buggies, except for the Grotto itself which is on the second storey (although Santa will come down to visit those who can’t manage the stairs).
More details online here.
Taking place on 3rd & 4th December from 10am – 5pm, at New Hall Vineyard, Purleigh, CM3 6PN.
A winter wonderland combining a great atmosphere, Santa’s Grotto (foc), children’s craft area and free refreshments including mince pies, sausage rolls, hot chestnuts and mulled wine. A great opportunity to taste wines and stock-up before Christmas. All wine is discounted and personalised labels can be printed for free while you wait. All donations go to Maldon Carers.
Heading into Chelmsford or Colchester for your Christmas shopping? Essex County Council are offering a helping hand by making Park and Ride travel free on Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday should see many small businesses offering special deals in the spirit of Black Friday. Take advantage of the free Park and Ride offer on Saturday 3rd December.
Community Broadband Update July 2016The Community Broadband Group recently sent a letter to residents, and are now offering further information which requires attention by 1st August.
Nearly 4 months ago, after recognising that the availability of broadband services in the West Bergholt area was becoming progressively less satisfactory, Aaron Williams was invited to give a presentation to the Parish Council meeting in April and it was agreed that improvement was essential. As a consequence, presentations were subsequently made by County Broadband, British Telecom Openreach and Voneus, all who are potential providers of alternative solutions. The Community Broadband Group was established to review presentations that had been made, to consider the options potentially available to the village, and to provide an impartial and considered view of what the Group believes to be in the best interests of the community.
The Voneus presentation showed that they offered a solution that would improve the broadband speeds available in the village, but otherwise differed only in minor details from the wireless technology already in use.
The BT Openreach presentation indicated that they could offer higher broadband speeds by installing “fibre to the cabinet” (FTTC). Although this would improve broadband speeds for the majority of residents, for technical reasons improvement could be limited for those living a distance from the cabinet. BT Openreach would charge residents collectively as much as £50K before carrying out any installation work. Another important consideration is that if this option were to be taken by a significant number of residents, it would almost certainly prevent availability to the village of the latest fibre technology for broadband delivery for many years (if not decades) into the future.
The County Broadband (CB) presentation began with a brief review of how they have served West Bergholt in the past. Around 5 years ago, when no other supplier offered a high speed broadband service, CB provided a service of up to 8mbs based on wireless technology; that speed has progressively increased to 32mbs, although wireless technology still puts a limitation on the extent to which quality can also be improved. CB now plan to install a fibre infrastructure throughout the village (subject to survey) enabling them to offer a broadband service, using “fibre to the home” (FTTH), without any installation charge to the village. Apart from greatly improved quality and reliability, this would bring further advantages; firstly, any connection could have broadband speeds of up to 1000mbs and secondly that, once installed, a fibre network is effectively a future proofed technology with almost unlimited capacity for future upgrades.
After careful consideration of the options available to the village from Voneus, BT Openreach and County Broadband, the Group has unanimously agreed that the best interest of the whole village is most effectively served by supporting County Broadband’s Fibre to the Home project, although the Group supports the right of all residents to make their own choice of provider. The Group considered a number of reasons for its conclusion but believes that three key facts justify its view.
Should you not wish to take advantage of the service from County Broadband now, the existing BT Openreach service would still be available. The County Broadband system would then be available to you at a future date.
For further information, please contact [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”].
Signed Roly Buss
Chairman – West Bergholt Community Broadband Group
In the letter by ‘without any installation charge to the village’ it was referring to County Broadband requiring no funding contribution from the village as a whole. After the 1st of August the zero installation fee (to the individual subscriber) period is due to end.
All residents were sent a copy of the letter as shown above. It provides a summary of the groups discussions and its conclusion. A full assessment document, which will contain more detail such as pros and cons, will only be published shortly but only electronically due to its length & detail.
The following link is to a PDF file:
Murray Harlow – Communications Parish Councillor.
Chris Davies – Withdrew due to other commitments.
Every Year the Rural Community Council of Essex holds a competition to determine the best Village of the Year. The award is based on the activities and work of the community as a whole, not just the Parish Council:
This is the only competition of its kind in Essex that focuses on the whole community rather than on the work of the Parish Council or one particular organisation or amenity. We will be looking to reward villages of all sizes that are doing most to enhance the quality of life for their inhabitants.
RCCE Website
Teacher Alice Turburville from Colchester has a really sweet tooth but has managed to lose 2 stone and achieve her dream figure and is now helping others figure out how to lose weight and still eat sweet treats.
Alice a Mum and teacher had found it increasingly difficult to cope with feeding herself and her family healthy meals as her work life balance was completely out of kilter due to long hours and stress.
I grabbed whatever I could to get through the day; chocolate, cake, biscuits – anything for a quick fix to keep me going to the end of a long day! My own health and well-being were low on my list of priorities.
A friend of hers had lost weight with Slimming World and looked amazing so she braved going through the doors of the West Bergholt Slimming World. She was immediately welcomed and explained the Slimming World way – no food is banned, no counting calories and you can lose weight and not be left feeling hungry.
Initially she was sceptical but after losing 4lbs in her first week she realised the Slimming World way was working! She continued to attend the weekly group making new friends, having support from group and sharing delicious recipe ideas and in 8 months achieved her target by losing 2 stone.
My family love the slim new me I’m full of beans and can’t wait to play with my own children and I can keep up with the children in the classroom too, Slimming World has given me back my health and happiness.
Alice is relaunching the West Bergholt Slimming World group at Orpen Memorial Hall which runs every Tuesday at 5.30pm and 7.30pm.
Please contact Alice or drop in if you are interested.
07834 195844
www.slimmingworld.co.uk/slimatwestbergholt/
or find her on Facebook.
Local landscapers, Oak View, have recently learnt that they have received this year’s BALI (British Association of Landscape Industries) Award in the category for collaboration between designer and builder. Jason Lock, the designer, said:
We are absolutely delighted to win this award. We worked very closely with our client and contractor to achieve a truly stunning garden and it’s great to receive industry-recognition for all the hard work.
Giffords Farm is a Grade 2 listed farmhouse in Tindon End, Great Sampford, dating back to 1626. The property has a wealth of original architectural features and the owners wanted a new design for the front garden in a style that reflected the historic period of the house.
The new garden has new herbaceous borders to give year-round colour and interest and the existing pond was redeveloped to make it a more prominent feature. It has lawns and a paved terrace for summer entertaining.
Work started in May 2013 and involved extensive site clearance, pond excavation and construction. The owners said they were delighted with the completed garden and decided to put it forward for an award to celebrate what had been achieved by the two companies.
This will be the 4th BALI award Oak View have won since becoming full members in 2006.
To find out more about Oak View visit their website, to find out about other local businesses visit our Local Business page.
Acknowledgements to the Saffron Walden Reporter where this news was published earlier this week.
Andrea Dowd will be taking over The White Hart in West Bergholt on the 29th
September. Andrea has some 20 years experience within the licensed trade and has run a number of successful village pubs in the past and is returning to the trade after a break to raise her children.
Andrea’s vision for the pub is one that she hopes will embrace the whole of the village community and she is looking to fulfilling her role as a member of that community, supporting local causes and charities and being involved as much as possible.
Andrea promises good quality beer and food (including fresh fish direct from Billingsgate and roast potatoes and cheese and biscuits on the bar on Sundays), as well as entertainment, and has no wish to make any radical changes, preferring to maintain the pub as an important part of the local community and a quaint village pub.
There are two events coming up that have already been planned:
Future plans involve weekend treasure hunts for the whole family, a weekly quiz with prizes in support of local charities and a meat raffle.
Stephen Adams took over the Queens Head in mid-May after a significant revamp, the pub reopened at the start of June with the sole aim of being an integral part of the West Bergholt community and to offer a real family orientated ‘Village Pub’.
Although the revamp is not yet complete the pub is open from 11am every day and will be serving food all day as from Friday 18th July 2014. They will be doing a wholesome “Pub” menu with the majority of the food being home cooked and above all reasonably priced.
They will then open and clean up the garden putting in nice furniture catering for all during the day, night and weekends.
So far the village has been very welcoming and the revamp very well received and Stephen would welcome any comments or input that could help them as a business and the community and welcome any groups that would like to make use of the facilities.
Stephen can be contacted on 240394 or by email [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”].
If you run a local business we need your help to shape the future of West Bergholt. Please take a few minutes to complete a questionnaire by clicking on:
Your response will be invaluable to assisting the production of a Neighbourhood Plan for our village and wider parish area. Neighbourhood Plans are fairly new and you may not have heard of them yet. They form part of Neighbourhood Planning which is a Government initiative which enables local communities to produce Development plans for their areas rather than for these to be produced by District Councils, in our case Colchester Borough Council.
Neighbourhood Planning is a new right for communities to create agreed policies and proposals for their localities. For us this will be for West Bergholt and surrounding Parish area.
The plan will be used to decide the future of the development of West Bergholt including answering the following :
The list could be endless – but is nevertheless of vital importance and must be made and agreed by you.
The Plan is sponsored by the Parish Council but the steering group overseeing the plan is drawn from the wider community and comprises 20 people drawn from all walks of life. A full listing of FAQs has been assembled on the village website, look for the Neighbourhood Plan tab.
In order to inform the NP a series of surveys is being conducted. We have already conducted a household community survey and a survey of younger people’s views is under way. However we recognise that the village and wider parish area has a large number of businesses and we are keen to get a view of your needs and concerns so that we can plan not just for community needs such as housing and amenities, but also the needs of businesses.
Please complete the on-line questionnaire by the end of February 2014. If you need to find out more please contact any of the following:
Contacts: Paul Downer ([antibot mailto=”[email protected]”]) Chris Stevenson ([antibot mailto=”[email protected]”]) Murray Harlow ([antibot mailto=”[email protected]”])
We look forward to reading your responses.
Are you listed on our Local Businesses Page – contact Murray Harlow (see above) if not?