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Village news from Helen Price - 19th Dec 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Kings Bromley WI

The Women’s Institute continued their year of celebration for their 90th birthday with a splendid Christmas party on 5th December. The evening started with a seasonal talk and slide show from Kate Reynolds on ‘Tis the season to be jolly ‘, a look back in time at Christmas. Kate helped the ladies recall their childhood with Christmas memories, using props and photos, funny stories and memorabilia from decades past. We looked at Christmas cards and decorations to festive traditions and special toys. The ladies joined in with a few Christmas carols too. Merriment continued with a buffet provided by the members.

The newly formed Drop In Café at the Village Hall was very successful in November and will continue on 19th December and the third Thursday of each month from 1pm, for everyone in the village to enjoy.

The ladies have a post Christmas meal on 6th February at the Royal Oak and the meetings start in our 91st year on January 9th, a week later than usual when members are reminded to bring their subscriptions.

A Happy New year to all from the WI.

Kings Bromley Village Harmony Choir

The choir will be singing for the residents at Kings Bromley Care Home on Saturday 21st December. This will be followed by another seasonal performance at the Royal Oak at approximately 3.30/4.00 pm. All are welcome.

Kings Bromley Bowls Club Whist Drive

The last whist drive of the year will take place in the Village Hall on Tuesday 17th December and re-starts 7th January – 24th March 2020. All are very welcome, £2 includes light refreshments.
Teresa Woodward 01543 473058

Kings Bromley Gardening Guild

Allan Howard gave the talk at the November meeting on 'Tudor Cottage and George Manners'. George used to live in Tudor Cottage in Alrewas Road, but moved to Yoxall around 15 years ago. Allan started with some of the early history of the house, which used to belong to the church and could have been used as a parsonage at one time. As George was a prolific winner of trophies at the Show, Allan explained the different cups which George had won over the years, including the trophy George himself donated: the Triple Bean Shield for runner, French and broad beans. Then a number of photos of the front and back gardens were shown, which highlighted George's expertise at growing flowers in a cottage garden style and a range of vegetables and fruit.

The annual Christmas lunch at the Boar's Head at Sudbury was enjoyed by everyone who attended on 2nd December. The first meeting of the New Year will be on Monday 20th January at the Village Hall when Allan Howard will talk about 'Kings Bromley in the Best Kept Village Competition'.

Village news from Helen Price - 12th Dec 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Kings Bromley Historians

Kath Reynolds brought back some happy memories at our last meeting with a talk and slides about sweets, many from our childhood. As some of us are of a ‘certain age’, we could remember rationing and, more importantly, when sweets became ‘off ration’ in 1953. The ration was 12 oz. sweets per month; other than that it was a carrot impaled on a stick and a lot of imagination.

Bertie Bassett was a trader in sweets in 1899, which he sold in various varieties. When he dropped his tray of samples the sweets became mixed and resulted in his Liquorice Allsorts. We could all remember smoking sweet cigarettes and liquorice pipes and feeling very grown up and sophisticated! It was surprising how many sweets were produced in the 19th century such as Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles 1881 and Gums 1893, still familiar to us today.

Kath was an entertaining speaker and made it a very enjoyable evening. A week later we enjoyed Christmas lunch at the Royal Oak, which was a very convivial occasion. We will be enjoying our usual post-Christmas walk on 30th December, and the first meeting of the New Year brings us Richard Stone’s ‘Painting with Light’, a talk on stained glass, at the Village Hall on Friday 31st January at 8.00 p.m. All are very welcome.

Kings Bromley Harmony Choir

The choir performed their third annual Christmas concert to a full church on Saturday, providing a lovely start to the festive season. The programme was interspersed with solos on the flute, piano, clarinet and saxophone.

Thanks were given to Gill and Glen Wright for arranging the event and supplying refreshments, to Kathryn Pretty-Hopson for her leadership of the choir and Linda Rich for the piano accompaniment. Cash donations were divided equally between the All Saints church and Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Renal Unit.

Branston Golf Club and Lichfield Morrisons store completed a trio of fund-raising performances by the Kings Bromley Harmony choir this weekend.

LDC info - keeping your home warm in winter

See link

Cosy homes (60.7 Kb)

A38 southbound works extension

See document detailing this work

A38 works timetable A38 / HS2 works (505.8 Kb)

Village news from Helen Price - 5th Dec 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Harmony Choir Concert in Church

It is two years since the village choir gave their first public performance in church and we are delighted that they will be back to give another concert in All Saints Church on Saturday, 7th December at 4.00 pm. It will consist of carols and a variety of songs both Christmas and non-seasonal. There will be an interval halfway through and cups of tea and mince pies will be served. There will not be an entry charge but there will be a retiring collection.
Everyone is very welcome to come along and support the choir.

Kings Bromley Care Home Christmas Fete

There will be a Christmas Fete at Kings Bromley Care Home, Manor Park from 3.00 – 5.00 pm on Saturday 7th December. We have Craft stalls, Tombola, Raffle, tea, cakes and hot food plus Entertainment.
Everyone is welcome – please come and support your local care home.

Kings Bromley Bowls Club Whist Drive

Join our Whist Drive which takes place each Tuesday at the Village Hall, starting promptly at 2.00 pm. All are very welcome, £2 admission includes light refreshments.
For further details please ring Teresa Woodward on 01543 473058.

Village news from Helen Price - 28th Nov 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Harmony Choir Concert in Church

It is two years since the village choir gave their first public performance in church and we are delighted that they will be back to give another concert in All Saints Church on Saturday, 7th December at 4.00 pm. It will consist of carols and a variety of songs both Christmas and non-seasonal. There will be an interval halfway through and cups of tea and mince pies will be served. There will not be an entry charge but there will be a retiring collection.
Everyone is very welcome to come along and support the choir.

Kings Bromley Care Home

There will be a Christmas Fete at Kings Bromley Care Home, Manor Park from 3.00 – 5.00 pm on Saturday 7th December. Craft stalls, tombola, raffle, tea, cakes, hot food.
Everyone welcome.

Village news from Helen Price - 21st November 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Wednesday Club

Our November meeting began with members perusing the menu for next month’s Christmas lunch at the Royal Oak. Once decisions had been noted and payments made the Chair welcomed everyone to our Annual General Meeting. The Treasurer presented his report and copies of the accounts were circulated. The Chair then presented her report. In her review of the year Lin recalled topics covered by our speakers including Luxury Handmade Chocolates, Dragonflies, Life Behind Bars, A Mystery Tour of France and talks about the work of the Air Ambulance, Cat’s Protection and RSPCA. In addition, members had enjoyed a Bring and Share Tea, a Cream Tea at Mabel’s and Christmas Lunch at the Royal Oak as well as an outing to Stratford upon Avon. The Chair thanked the committee for their support and a vote of thanks was proposed to Lin for all her hard work over the last 12 months.

A copy of the programme for 2020 will be available next month. New members always welcome. Next meeting:
Wednesday December 11th Christmas Lunch at the Royal Oak 12.30 for 1.00.


Kings Bromley Village Harmony Choir

Will be singing at Kings Bromley Co-Op at 12.00 noon on Saturday 23rd November.

and also at

The Christmas Concert, All Saints Church, Saturday 7th December, 4.00 pm

The choir will be singing carols and Christmas songs in church, with an interval halfway through when cups of tea and mince pies will be served. There is no entry charge but there will be a retiring collection. Everyone is very welcome to come along and support the choir.

Parish Council response to LDC re housing

This is the reply made to LDC re the proposed housing off Alrewas Road

Application No 19/01526/OUTM.
After due consideration the parish council would like to make the following comments on this application.
It is felt that the building of a further 57 homes will put undue pressure on the local school, which is already over subscribed
There will be additional vehicle movements created with all these movements having to access the proposed site between existing houses fronting Alrewas Road.
The proposed site is flat and with the additional of hard surfacing in the form of roads and driveways, additional flooding is inevitable. Sections of Alrewas Road already have large areas of standing water.
The council understands that this site lies within the 'area of search' in the Staffs County Council Mineral Plan.
The council feels that providing 57 affordable homes in just one area does not make sense?
It is not clear from the application who will maintain the roads and recreational areas.

Reply from police re enforcement of turn restrictions

Below see a letter from PC Royce made in reply to a letter sent to the Police and Crime Commissioner

Click here Letter from PC Royce (40.1 Kb)

Medical car share scheme

Can you help?

Many residents do not have access to a vehicle and find visiting the doctors and / or local hospitals very difficult. For many years a car share scheme has operated and now the parish council is to administer this. The council desperately needs volunteer drivers - can you help? It would only involve around 1/2 trips per month and you will be reimbursed. If you are interested please email the parish clerk in the first instance. https://www.kingsbromley.com/Message/Clerk

Lichfield District Centre Master Plan

LDC wants to hear your thoughts. Read this document.

Click here http://lichfielddc.gov.uk/issuesandoptions

Village news from Helen Price - 14th Nov 2019

As sent to The Mercury

Kings Bromley Gardening Guild

Jeff Bates was the speaker in October and his topic was 'The Garden in Winter'.
Jeff gave a very interactive talk, involving questions and answers from the Members and identifying of plants shown in the many beautiful photos. Winter gardening is affected by temperature, shorter days with less intensity of light and the lower angle of the sun. His presentation showed many excellent winter gardens to visit, such as the Cambridge Botanical Garden, Dorothy Clive Garden, Wisley, Anglesey Abbey and Dunham Massey. Winter plants included trees such as liquidamber and maples; shrubs such as viburnum bodnantense, daphne, sarcococca and callicarpa; many plants e.g. aconite, pulmonaria, hellebore, bergenia, ivy and heather; bulbs such as scilla, narcissus and snowdrops. It was a very informative and entertaining talk.

Allan Howard will give the talk on 18th November on 'The Garden of George Manners'.


Quiz Night and Grand Draw

A very entertaining evening was had by all the participating teams on Saturday night at Kings Bromley Village Hall. The quiz was expertly organised and run, as always, by Gill and Glen Wright.

The final total from the Quiz and Grand Draw was £2216, all proceeds going to All Saints Church. Thank you to everyone who donated prizes and bought tickets to produce this excellent result.

Kings Bromley Bowls Club Whist Drive

Weekly whist drives take place each Tuesday at the Village Hall, starting promptly at 2.00 pm. All are very welcome, £2 includes light refreshments.
Teresa Woodward 01543 473058

Kings Bromley WI

Kings Bromley WI celebrated their 90th birthday with a hilarious guest speaker Pat Hall on 7th November. Pat gave a very amusing talk called ‘Life Can Be Funny’, telling comedy stories from the past and present. The room was filled with laughter and good cheer. A beautiful birthday cake was made by Kate Nicholas and we enjoyed celebratory wine and champagne in a birthday toast. There were lots of great raffle prizes to be won and it was a splendid evening with good company.

The ladies also had great news to celebrate as the Craft and Social group have been selected as the Co-op’s local community cause for this coming year. The 1% from members’ contributions will help run a monthly social group every third Thursday of the month in the village hall. The next meeting will be on 5th December in the village hall where Kate Reynolds will be talking about “It’s the Season to be Jolly”. We will have an American supper when everyone can bring a dish of their choice to share.

The ladies of the WI wish you all a Merry Christmas and good wishes for the New Year.

LDC Focus Group

For people aged over 60

Click here for info LDC focus group (61.2 Kb)

Housing needs for over 60's

LDC want your thoughts

See flier here Housing needs flier (159.0 Kb)

Garden waste sign up 2020

Sign up for 2020 garden waste collections

Keen gardeners across the district are being reminded that it’s time to re-subscribe to the garden waste service.
Registration is now open for the garden waste service, and Lichfield District Council is urging local residents to sign up again to have their brown bins emptied in 2020
The council has held 2019’s prices and it will continue to cost £36 per garden waste bin for fortnightly collections in 2020. Customers will receive a maximum of 23 collections, as the council does not empty brown bins over the Christmas and New Year period.
Councillor Liz Little, Cabinet Member for Recycling & Waste, said: “I’d like to thank everyone who signed up to our garden waste service in the last year.
“We’re now reminding all our residents that they will need to sign up again if they would like their brown bins emptied in 2020.
“It costs the same regardless of when you sign up during the year, and your annual subscription will always end in December. This is why it makes sense to register before the first collection in 2020, so you can get a full year’s worth of collections.”
Sign up for the 2020 garden waste service at http://lichfielddc.gov.uk/mygardenbin or call the shared waste service on 0345 002 0022.
“It is important to remember that your brown bin will not be emptied in 2020 unless you are signed up and have displayed your new sticker on your garden waste bin.
“We are also encouraging anyone who signs up not to cover up their 2019 sticker with their new one, so our crews know to continue to empty your garden waste bin for the rest of 2019,” added Cllr Little.
Ends



Media enquiries



Esther Epstein, Press & Communications Officer, Lichfield District Council

T: 01543 308778 E: esther.epstein@lichfielddc.gov.uk

Letter to Police and Crime Commissioner - weight restriction

Below find a copy of the recent letter

... sent to Staffordshire PCC, Matthew Ellis and a copy of his reply.
The letter is here Letter to PCC (85.0 Kb)

This is the reply

Thank you for the below e-mail and attached letter of which the Staffordshire Commissioner is in safe receipt. Mr Ellis is sorry to hear of the difficulties you have experienced around engagement with your Neighbourhood Policing Team which is not what he would expect. As Mr Ellis has external meetings throughout the week he has asked me to respond to you on his behalf in order to offer you a swift response.

As your letter relates to a number of operational matters in terms of a request for data, information around legislative powers and for force representation for a meeting, I have been asked to refer these matters directly to the Chief Constables Office to be addressed. Your dissatisfaction around the lack of response to communications with the police should also be reviewed firstly by the Chief’s Office and then potentially by the Performance and Standards Unit.

This matter was referred to the Chief’s office on the day of receipt and we would therefore trust you will received a response to all the points raised at the earliest opportunity. Should you not receive feedback in a timely manner please let me know and we will pursue the matter further.

Mr Ellis thanks you for taking the time to raise these matters with him.

Contacting the local police

If residents need to contact the police

... there are 3 options.
1. in an emergency dial 999
2. for non emergency call 101
3. Vist them at Lichfield Council Offices in Frog Lane

Village news from Helen Price - 10th Oct 2019

As send to The Mercury

Kings Bromley Historians September Outing

Although we had arranged to meet in the coffee shop at Sharpe’s Pottery Museum, Swadlincote, we were split into two groups on arrival – no time for coffee! Group 1 were taken upstairs to the ‘Magic Attic” which volunteers had opened just for our visit as they are normally closed on Fridays.

The archives there were amazing. The collection of documents, books and newspapers, mostly relating to the pottery industry or the locality filled two rooms. The oldest collection of newspapers dated back to 1725. A lot of the documentation was already computerised and still an ongoing project.

The groups changed places and we were given an introductory talk in the kiln by a pair of very knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers. They explained the process of production of the pottery and the labour involved. The average life expectancy was 46 years, children were employed from the age of 8 and worked a 12 hour day. We were then taken to the exhibition room with examples of their products and those of other local potteries. It was really interesting and we would have enjoyed spending more time there but were booked for lunch at the Bull’s Head Repton!

After some impressively huge lunches, we still managed to walk around Repton church and descend into the crypt where some of the Viking burial stones survive. It was a very varied and enjoyable day out.

Our next meeting is on 25th October when Catherine Cartwright will speak of her “Research on World War 1” in the Village Hall at 8.00 pm. All are welcome.

A38 Roadworks commence

Works on the A38 will commence in October

More details are here
A38 Roadworks - Commencing October (516.7 Kb)

Review of the Temporary Restriction Orders on the A515.

There was a meeting of the Transport Forum Working Party

.... yesterday which Steve Browne and Allan Howard attended. This is part of the promised review. A number of issues were covered.

1. Reduction in HGV traffic. The Parish Councils of Kings Bromley and Yoxall reported that HGV traffic had reduced significantly on the A515 and A513. A much smaller reduction has been seen through Draycott. The cameras which have recently been put up along the A515 are doing the count which will provide the objective evidence of the extent of this reduction. This information will be made available to the Parish Councils in the next few weeks.

2. Exemptions. The Parish Councils raised this issue and urged County Highways to make exemptions on the weight restricted turns for farm vehicles and local deliveries. They are already actively looking into this, having already had representations from the NFU. There are some technical difficulties involved but it does look as though this will happen.


3. Enforcement. While the police have been present at times at the turns and lorries have been stopped it has not been possible to get them to provide information on the extent of this and the number of prosecutions made. It was agreed that the most effective way of enforcing the ban is through direct contact with those companies seen to be flouting the law. This effort, undertaken by the Parish Councils and YTAG has been very successful with many companies such as Shell, Wincanton and Lomas committing not only to obeying the weight restricted turns but also to not using the A515 at all. YTAG have just added to this list JCB and its contractors. We encourage parishioners to send details of offending vehicles to me alan.how8@btinternet.com so that I can contact the companies involved. To help in this we are also pursuing the use of cameras on the junctions.

4. Signage. County Highways are looking at ways to improve the weight restriction signage, especially their encouraging Highways England to install signs on the A50 and A38 warning HGVs before they get onto the A515 and A38.

5. Further work. The continuing objective of the Parish Councils is to get a weight limit on the A515 between Woodend Lane and Stubby Lane. The displacement of up to 70% of the A515 HGV traffic has not caused any problems on the A38, A50 or even Eastern Avenue. The total ban seems to be next logical step since HGVs can still use the road through Yoxall which is totally unfit for them. County Highways response to this was that the problem with such a weight restriction is to do with the difficulty on enforcement, not the displacement of traffic. We do not believe that this is an insuperable problem so our next step will be to take up this issue through our District and County Councillors. We have no doubt that, failing this, the restriction order will be made permanent.

Best Kept Village

Judges comments

Their comments are here BKV judges comments (43.9 Kb)

Best Kept Village Presentation

On Friday 20th the Community Foundation of Staffordshire

On Friday 20th the Community Foundation of Staffordshire presented Kings Bromley Parish Council with the 2019 plaque to fix on the Trophy (Totem Pole) for winning the Best Kept Village Competition for the LIchfield and Cannock Chase area. After a short ceremony at the Jubilee seat, refreshments were provided by the WI at the Village Hall and a short presentation on the history of Kings Bromley's participation in the competition was given by Allan Howard. The competition has been going since 1956: Kings Bromley has entered for all but 8 years and won the District 21 times and the Trophy, which was been in existence since 1969 eleven times.

Thanks to the WI and Lynne Cole and Alison Howard who provided cakes.