Early morning commuters in Netherfield were in for a rare tweet this morning.
Over 100 starlings made a quick rooftop stop in the town this morning and their arresting chorus filled the skies.
The relaxing sounds were welcomed by commuters waiting for the 44 bus, who are more used to the noise of nearby factories, speeding trains and passing traffic.
Vicki Price was one of those who enjoyed hearing the rare sounds of birdsong while waiting for her bus.
She said: “It’s calming. With all the building work going on around here you hear the sounds of nature less and less. We need to do more to encourage wildlife and nature in our towns.”
The gym at Redhill Leisure Centre has benefited from a £74,000 upgrade to ensure it’s ‘fit for the future’.
The substantial sum has been spent on state-of-the-art equipment and improving the gym’s facilities.
The refurbishment is part of Gedling Borough Council’s
commitment to invest in its leisure facilities to support healthy lifestyles
and improve resident’s health and well-being. Calverton and Carlton Forum
Leisure centres both received upgrades last year.
A glimpse inside the new-look gym at Redhill Leisure Centre
The gym, which reopened today (September 5) now has new modern weight lifting and exercise equipment with something suitable for users of all abilities.
Advanced weight training and sport specific weight training options are available, including equipment that can load up to 500kg weights onto them, as well as machines with removable seating, which are more accessible for people with disabilities and wheelchair users.
All four of the council’s leisure centres as well as the
Richard Herrod Centre, The Bonington Cinema and Theatre and Gedling Country
Park have been given the CredAbility Kite status. This means that provisions
are in place to suit the needs of disabled customers and also their carers.
The Redhill refurbishment includes a new Boditrax machine.
It measures fat percentage, muscle mass, metabolic rate and more, to help track
a weight plan progress and identify areas which can be improved on through
specific exercises.
As well as new equipment, the gym has also had shock
absorbing flooring installed and fresh decoration with LED lighting throughout
to give the gym a brighter and more exciting look.
Deputy leader of Gedling Borough Council, Cllr Michael Payne attended the opening of the new-look gym today.
He said: “We want to make sure that our gyms meet our
residents’ needs and encourage more people to live a healthier lifestyle. The
refurbishment of Redhill Gym will give users access to the very best equipment,
we’ve also made sure that the gym is accessible to all. We want to encourage
new members to join the gym and this refurbishment will help us do that.”
Nottinghamshire Country Council is hoping a year-long study will help identify ways to prevent future flooding in parts of Arnold.
In June, the Arnold area was hit with torrential rain when 92mm fell in just three days — more than the average rainfall for the entire month.
This excessive rainfall resulted in 24 homes and 20 businesses suffering serious flooding.
With this summer’s excessive rainfall, Nottinghamshire County Council along with Gedling Borough Council and Severn Trent Water say they are now working hard to protect homes and businesses from future flood risk.
Following the floods, council investigation work revealed that on the evening of the June 12, a surface water storage area upstream of the event reached full capacity and broke its bank allowing excess surface water to run overland causing significant flood damage to properties downstream. A numberof properties were flooded internally and many gardens had garden sheds and fences damaged.
The area affected forms part of the wider Upper Daybrook catchment which has been the focus of an in-depth study lead by Nottinghamshire County Council, in conjunction with Severn Trent Water and Gedling Borough Council, after securing £99,000 of Local Levy funding in January 2018.
It is hoped that the study, which is due to be completed at the end of this year,will identify ways to improve thesurface water management system.
Councillor Phil Rostance, vice-chairman of communities and place committee for Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “We know flooding can be devastating for those affected and that’s why we are doing such an extensive study to identify how we can improve the flood management systems in place in Arnold.
“We want to reduce the risk of something like this happening again and to ensure residents’ homes and business properties are as protected as possible.”
Clearly incidents of this nature have no place in our local community and the investigation into this offence is very much ongoing.
A 25-year-old male arrested in relation to this incident has been charged with drugs supply offences and remanded in custody to appear at Nottingham Crown Court. He has been bailed in relation to the firearms incident whilst further enquiries are completed.
Gedling officers have been spending time on patrol in the Jessops Lane area providing reassurance to the community and this will continue over the coming weeks. At the moment we believe that this is very much a targeted incident. On Thursday afternoon I met with Vernon Coaker MP where we discussed how we could best support the local community following this incident.
I would encourage anyone who saw the incident take place or anyone
with Dashcam footage to contact us quoting incident 225 of 22/8/2019.
CID colleagues are also continuing to investigate the firearms discharge that happened on June 8 this year on Roundwood Road, Arnold. A 22-year-old male has now been arrested in the last week bringing a total of seven arrests so far. A 20-year-old male has been charged with possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and court proceedings are ongoing.
I also wanted to mention two robberies that took place on Front
Street, Arnold on 13th August 13, 2019. I’m pleased to report that following an
investigation into the offences a 17 year old male has been arrested and charged.
He has now been remanded in custody. This was an excellent investigation and
the Gedling Neighbourhood team supported CID colleagues by carrying out a
number of enquiries in the local area.
Thankfully the number of robberies in the Gedling Borough remains low and I’m pleased that we have been able to take positive action around these reports.
Moving on you may remember a Public Order incident involving
a number of males in the Calverton area which happened back in March this year.
The case was heard at Nottingham Crown Court on Monday, August 27.
18-Year-old Ross Hedley and a 15 year old male have pleaded guilty to affray and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. Another 17 year old male pleaded guilty to Affray. All of them will be sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court on September 26. I hope that this sends out a clear message that we will not tolerate violence of any kind in the Gedling Borough and we will continue to work together with partners to prevent these types of incidents from taking place.
Over the next month our priorities will continue to be burglary,
autocrime, violence and anti-social behaviour.
I wanted to touch firstly on the subject of anti-social behaviour: I know that this has been of concern to the local community and we have been working together with colleagues at Gedling Borough Council to try and reduce reported incidents. In the last month we have seen a further slight reduction around Anti-social behaviour which is pleasing to see given that the warm weather and school holidays tends to increase reporting.
In terms of burglary we have seen a slight rise of two offences in the month of August. Hotspot areas have been identified as Gedling, Porchester, Netherfield and Arnold. The majority of offences have taken place overnight with windows and doors broken in order to gain entry.
In terms of autocrime we have seen a reduction this month
with around 15 less offences. We are still seeing a number of vans attacked in
the Borough with 10 attacked throughout August. The majority of these have been
in the Arnold and Porchester areas with tools stolen.
August saw a very slight rise in recoded violence however across
the year ‘Violence with Injury’ has continued to reduce with 49 less victims
which is great to see.
August saw officers continue patrols around ‘Operation Scorpion’ which is a focus on knife crime and violent offending in the Gedling Borough. Officers have carried out high visibility patrols in some of our hotspot areas and I’m pleased that we are starting to see results from that ongoing work.
On Thursday, August 29 we were visited by Vernon Coaker MP
who spent time with the Neighbourhood Policing team based at Jubilee House in
Arnold. Mr Coaker joined Sgt Helen Walker and PCSO Kirsty Szeluk on patrol in
the Gedling Borough after visiting the Neighbourhood Policing teams briefing in
the afternoon. I also spent some time with Mr Coaker discussing reported issues
in the Gedling Borough and how we might work together to reassure the community.
Finally, please look out for details of engagement events on our social media. The Gedling North and South teams will be holding a number of events over the coming weeks and months.
Shoppers in Gedling borough signed up to the Tesco Clubcard loyalty scheme can get their hands on hundreds of reduced items from Monday (September 9).
The offer is set to run for just over three weeks and its
believed up to 200 items could be discounted in store and also online for
members only.
When the offer last ran back in May, branded food, F&F
clothing and even televisions were included as discounted items. With savings
of between 15 and 50 per cent.
Tesco hasn’t yet revealed much details about the latest
offer.
The promotion is expected to last until October 2.
Megan French, consumer expert MoneySavingExpert.com, said: “If you’re a Tesco shopper, this is another reason to consider getting a Clubcard.
“Even without this promo it’s a decent loyalty scheme, and if you
sign up now you’ll be ready to take advantage when the discounts go live.”
“Our analysis showed the offers generally beat the best prices at other
stores, though it’s always worth doing your own comparison before you buy.
Announcing the return of Clubcard Prices, Tesco said on its website:
“We’re celebrating 100 years of great value, and to say thank you to our
Clubcard customers for being part of that we have Clubcard Prices, just for
you.”
MPs last night voted to take control of parliament in a bid to stop a no-deal Brexit going ahead next month.
The vote was won by 328 to 301 with 21 Conservative MPs
voting for the motion, defying their own party.
The prime minister said last night that the MPs’ bill would effectively
“hand control” of Brexit negotiations to the EU and bring “more
dither, more delay, more confusion”.
He told MPs that he now had no choice but to press ahead with efforts to call an October election, saying: “The people of this country will have to choose.”
The result means the MPs will be able to take control of Commons
business on Wednesday.
That will give them the chance to introduce a cross-party bill which would force the prime minister to ask for Brexit to be delayed until January 31, unless MPs approve a new deal, or vote in favour of a no-deal exit, by October 19.
So how did our three local MPs vote on taking control of Parliament last night? Here’s a look:
People in Gedling borough say they are being targeted by fraudsters using Facebook Messenger to try and steal account details.
A number of our readers have contacted us about receiving a suspicious message from one of their Facebook Messenger contacts over the past few days which reads: “Really! Is this you in this video?”
The recipient is usually named in the scam message to make it look more convincing.
The scam message also contains what looks like a link to a YouTube video.
Those who click on the link will be taken to a fake YouTube or Facebook log in page controlled by the fraudster hoping to discover genuine log in details and take control of their victim’s account.
A spokesman for the anti-cyber scam website Hoax-slayer.net said: “The messages are scams designed to steal your Facebook account login details or trick you into installing malware.
We received several of the scam messages on our Gedling Eye Facebook Messenger account earlier today: (IMAGE: Gedling Eye)
“The messages are sent from Facebook accounts that have been compromised by criminals and used to launch spam and scam campaigns. If you get one of these messages from a Facebook friend, it most likely means that your friend’s account has been hijacked.”
“If you click the link in one of these messages, you may be taken to a fraudulent website that has been designed to look like a Facebook login page.
“A message on the site will claim that you must log in before you can see the video. In reality, there is no video. If you enter your Facebook email address and password on the fake site, criminals can collect the information and use it to hijack your Facebook account. They can then use your account to send the same scam messages to all of your friends.”
They added: “If you receive one of these messages, do not click any links that it contains. And, try to let the friend that owns the account that the message came from know that his or her account may have been compromised.”
Lucy Hickman from Arnold was one of the people who contacted Gedling Eye about being targeted by the scam.
She said: “This message really scared me. It’s designed to worry you into clicking the link because you are meant to think that you could be in some video that’s gone viral.
“The only reason I didn’t click on it is because someone at work had also been targeted and told me to delete it. I’d urge others to do the same.”
A new weekend night bus to Netherfield will be introduced this Friday (September 6).
The new N26 bus service is being operated by Nottingham City Transport and will replace the N100 night bus that ran previously.
The N100 service was the nearest night bus service to Netherfield, although it bypassed the town completely, with the nearest stop being on Colwick Loop Road.
The N26 service will now call at stops on Victoria Road, which runs through Netherfield town centre.
The new route will now also include Manor Road and Burton Road in Gedling.
The N26 buses will leave Nottingham city centre at midnight, 1.30am and 3am on Friday and Saturdays.
A new Lilac 26 and N26 service has been introduced as a replacement for the Pathfinder 100 buses.
Morrisons in Netherfield is to offer free meeting spaces to local community groups.
The retail giant’s latest initiative is designed to help community groups in the area deal with the increasing cost of booking meeting spaces in local centres, after its research revealed that local groups typically spend up to £20 an hour on meet up spaces.
The hour-long bookings available within the store’s café will be free of charge.
Helen Tordoff, head of cafes at Morrisons, said: “We’ve seen more groups use our café spaces as meet up areas so we’re delighted to formalise the offering and make it even easier for local communities to come together over a cup of tea and great food.”
Meet up areas will be available in Morrisons cafés between 9am until 11 am and 2pm until café closing every weekday.
To book a meet up area slot, groups can email their local Morrisons Community Champion with bookings taken on a first come first serve basis. You can email the store’s community champion at champion.netherfield@morrisonsplc.co.uk
