Police are warning people to be on their guard following a distraction burglary carried out during an event in Lowdham.
A mobile phone was stolen during the incident in Lowdham Village Hall during an art event on Monday, September (18) shortly before 3pm.
It’s believed the phone was left on a table and an unknown man had distracted the owner before placing a piece of paper over it and taking it.
He is described as Asian, around 25-years-old and was wearing jeans and a black jacket.
A spokesman for Nottinghamshire Police said: “Please be careful with your belongings and never leave something unattended. Report anything suspicious to us as soon as possible.
If you recognise this man or have any information that could help, please contact us on 101 quoting incident 521 of 18 September.
Police are appealing for information after a woman, walking home, was taken to the ground and robbed in Mapperley
The incident occured at around 1.10am on Friday (6) in Zulla Road. It is alleged that a bag was taken as a result of the robbery.
Officers would like to contact a man described as white, in is mid to late 20s, 5ft 11ins tall and of slim build. He has a round face and short dark hair, described as a buzz cut and a distinctive intricate blue flower tattoo on his wrist/hand. He wore a white and grey long sleeved top, grey fleece jogging bottoms and white plimsolls.
If you have any information or saw something suspicious in the area at the time please call Nottinghamshire Police on 101 quoting incident number 30 of 6 October 2017.
Despairing residents in Mapperley are planning a protest against proposals to sell off their local bowling green to developers.
People living in Haywood Road are urging others to come out on Tuesday (10) and show their support as they continue their fight plans by Gedling Borough Council to sell the land to developers to help plug a funding gap.
Protesters will assemble on the green at 7pm and those planning to join the protest are being urged to wear green and bring lanterns and glowsticks. A mass photo is also planned.
The group then plan to lobby councilors attending a meeting at the nearby community centre about the proposals.
Residents have been given until October 12 to let Gedling Borough Council know their views on plans to sell off the green space.
But campaigners now want the council to delay their decision on the future of the bowling green.
A spokesman for the Save The Haywood Road Green said: “We think at the very least there should be a delay to the proposals there has not been a sufficient consultation period or sufficient opportunity to fundraise to enable the community to buy the space.”
SAVED: Haywood Road Community Centre in Mapperley was saved from being sold by the council following a campaign
This week Gedling Borough Council said in a statement they has been working with the community to explore all options available.
The Council said: “In recent years, the Council has faced the largest reductions in its funding from central government amounting to some £5.4 million, equivalent to a 62% cash reduction. Therefore Gedling Borough Council has had to make many changes, reducing some services and introducing new ways of working to generate income and reduce spending.
“Gedling Borough Council has been considering the future of the Haywood Road Community Centre and bowling green, working with local residents to explore different options.
“The original intention for the Haywood Road Community Centre and bowling green was to sell the whole site for housing. However, after listening to residents’ concerns and identifying that the closer would result in the loss of an excellent pre-school provision Gedling Borough Council therefore agreed to transfer management of Haywood Road Community Centre to a new community organisation and to provide the sum of £20,000 to support improvements to the center.
They added: “After listening to further concerns from residents regarding the loss of green space that the sale of the adjacent bowling green would result in, Gedling Borough Council has proposed to transfer approximately one third of it to the community centre for public use.
“Given Gedling Borough Council’s financial situation, retaining the whole of the bowling green is not a viable option it is proposed that the remaining will be sold for private housing.”
Leader of the Council, Cllr John Clarke said that a decade of funding cuts meant they now had to make tough decisions to help balance the books.
He said: “We’re approaching a decade of year on year funding cuts with £3.5 million more to find by 2020. This means exploring all kinds of options, many of which we’d prefer not to.
“I’m really encouraged at the great start the new organisation has made to improve the centre and I thank all those that have taken the time and trouble to respond to the consultation and offered to get involved.
“I’ve no doubt that some residents will be disappointed with any loss of the bowling green but I hope it is recognised that the Council has made a genuine effort to strike the right balance between preserving community services and at the same time balancing our books.”
The proposal for the Bowling Green will be considered by the Council’s Cabinet on October 12, and you can find more information through the Council’s website www.gedling.gov.uk from today (5).
The council’s latest plans to keep the borough moving during the winter months were outlined this week in a report by the council’s Community and Place Committee.
As well as plans to keep the roads clear, the report also revealed improvements were being introduced to help bolster resources ahead of the winter season.
Via East Midlands, which manage the County’s highways network on behalf of the County Council, will carry out the winter maintenance operations based at the Council’s four highways depots.
Similar to previous years, gritting teams are officially on low-risk standby from October, with salt barns already well-stocked. In fact the county has 10,000 tonnes more salt stockpiled than official government recommendations, putting Nottinghamshire in an excellent position should we face the worst winter conditions.
All 30 gritting lorries in the county’s fleet are all equipped with an CCTV system, to help monitor road surface conditions as well as being tracked by GPS technology.
We operate from four of the six highway depots countywide in Gamston, Markham Moor, Newark and Bilsthorpe.
Overall, the council has the capacity to store around 20,000 tonnes of salt – some 18,000 tonnes of it under cover. Checking and refilling of the 1,300 roadside grit bins has already begun and deliveries of salt to parish councils are planned for November.
Councillor John Cottee, Committee Chairman for Community and Place at Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “Winter maintenance is a high priority for us, so we plan for winter all year round so we are in a strong position and ready for whatever the winter brings. “
Improvements for the coming season includes:
• Three gritting vehicles – which have come to the end of their life-span – have been replaced with three new four-wheel drive gritting vehicles to help increase resilience for coping in severe weather.
• Roadside weather stations at A614 Perlethorpe and A611 Coxmoor have been refur-bished and upgraded, including replacing sensors and new CCTV cameras to im-prove the quality of weather forecasting information and to help monitor road surface conditions.
Kevin Heathcote, Team Manager at Via East Midlands, which manage highways services on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “October signals the start of our gritting teams on low-risk standby, so we are now ready to treat our gritting routes as and when it is needed with our team of dedicated drivers.”
Gritting facts and figures:
• The end of March is the last official day when the county’s gritting teams are on full 24/7 standby but they remain on part-standby until mid-April when the danger of ice and frost is fully past.
• In all, the County Council gritted on 62 days last winter, between October and April. It completed 65 runs on main routes and eight runs on severe weather routes.
• The County Council salts A and B roads, heavily trafficked major roads and many main bus routes.
• The County Council’s Gritter Twitter social media feed will once again be used to promote the daily gritting decision to all interested stakeholders.
Do you have a burning question you’ve been itching to put to Gedling Borough Council bosses?
Whether it’s about council tax, bin collections, parking charges or our green spaces, now’s your chance.
Next week, Gedling Eye will be taking your questions and putting them to Gedling Borough Council leader John Clark face-to-face at the authority’s HQ in Arnold.
What do you think the council do well? What could they do better? Here’s your chance to let him know.
We’ll then be publishing Cllr Clark’s responses on Gedling Eye.
If you have a have a question for teh coucnil leader, then post it in the comments section below.
People in Gedling borough are being warned about an alarming new text scam where fraudsters pretend to be your daughter in a crisis.
Scam-busters Action Fraud are urging people to be on their guard when receiving a message from someone claiming to be ‘Sarah’, as it could cost you £20 a time.
One text received read: “Mum I did try and phone from some else phone signal is really bad, there has been a terrible car accident.
“I’m in the ICU ward in hospital my phone ain’t switching on and needs charging.
“I’m on this mobile number please make sure you reply to this number, my friend didn’t make it he died before we got to hospital and his sister’s fighting for her life.
WARNING: Don’t reply to these texts from fraudsters – it could cost you £20 each time
“Mum I had my seatbelt on, I’ve got a head injury but I’m ok.
“Going into X-ray to be seen, please make sure you message me back and don’t phone cause mobile phones aren’t allowed here so please text in case I’m in there.
“I will go outside and phone you mum its really bad I need you to do me favour before it’s too late, as soon as you get my text please reply by text I need you to do me a favour mum, time is running out and i need you to do something mum.”
Once a user responds to the text, they are charged £20 for a mobile top-up code.
Action Fraud warned people to avoid repyling to these messages.
They said: “These messages can quite easily evolve into more elaborate scenarios and are designed to play on your emotions and get you to react quickly without thinking.
“If you receive one of these text messages, don’t send any codes or money, delete it and report it to us.
“If a family member was hospitalised, they would never be forced to use a mobile phone that required credit to activate it.”
We all love to receive a notification or two from our smart phone or Facebook as it makes us feel like we are connected to others. Browsing through apps and other people’s photographs makes us feel like we have an attachment to people or places or that we are vicariously part of events. But what is this doing to our mental health?
Andy Puddicombe put this in a way that resonates with me “It is not what technology does to us; it is what we do to technology. Used skilfully, it can enhance our lives beyond our wildest imagination. Used unskilfully, it can leave us feeling lonely, isolated, agitated and overwhelmed”
Why does technology make us feel both good and bad? The average person incredibly unlocks their phone over 80 times a day. Do you open up anything else 80 times a day?
We don’t use our phone as a phone as it’s so many other things to us now that take up our attention. We have all seen the couple in the pub engrossed in their phone while not even speaking to each other. It’s obviously become a comfort, a distraction and, for some, an addiction. Does it make us feel good? For a short period “yes” but it gets in the way of real relationships, it takes up our time and disconnects us from people and, most importantly, ourselves.
As human beings we need to be connected to others and have attachments. Attachments start when we are born, with our mums or primary care givers and once we realise we are not part of them we attach to that caregiving figure. It’s how we survive and develop in our very early years. If you think of where you hold your smart phone and then think of the distance at which you would hold a new born baby – it’s the same – we are attaching to our phones in the same way we do to our children.
So when we attach to technology we get an instant response/gratification to an object that tolerates us doing whatever we want on it. For some people this is fine and they can define the difference between a real attachment and a virtual one, because they have made secure attachments in their lives as a child. But, for others the affects can be life changing – anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, isolation etc.
People who have made an insecure attachment in early life will then make a similar attachment to technology and for some they use technology as a defence again being with people, by not using the phone for calls but prefer to be part of online communities or self-help groups. They will use technology for self-soothing or a way to retreat from reality and certainly as a way to remain distant from others. For some this results into never leaving their rooms and becoming a recluse.
Our identity gets embroiled in the internet, we need the ‘likes’, we only exist if someone else sees it and we only feel real if it’s on the internet (the selfie-culture!).
For others who did not attach well as young children, the internet is the way to connect and they are unable to be separated from it in case they miss something or someone. They use technology to gain attention , as a cry for help, they stalk others and have no boundaries or sense of self.
For others, the internet is where they can be impulsive by becoming addicted to online gambling or porn, (there are over 4 million online porn sites that make more profit than Hollywood). They can view some pretty disturbing images and expose themselves to harm by joining self-harm or eating disorder communities. They become the trolls and groomers as they pass on their feelings of trauma to others.
For all of us there is the feeling that with technology we are never alone, but we need to be able to tolerate separation to develop our sense of self.
No one ever dies on the internet, so the grief process which requires us to withdraw and reconnect with life is prolonged, and the reminders will continue when we log on to cyber space.
Our identity gets embroiled in the internet, we need the ‘likes’, we only exist if someone else sees it and we only feel real if it’s on the internet (the selfie-culture!).
We become more narcissistic (who hasn’t googled themselves or changed profile photos as the next one makes us look better).
We live a split life, the real one and the one we have in Second life or Warcraft and from there we can become confused which is reality and which is the one we want. We begin to question which the best life is.
What we say and do, or allow others to say and do, on the internet is ‘ok. Its virtual, our boundaries dissolve and we don’t respect other’s boundaries, as we are not attached to others, only to the technology, so others don’t feel like fellow humans. I have been threatened and abused online but I know these trolls would not say this to me face to face.
Our children are affected by internet addition too, if they are exposed to technology too early they see true and false information on the net, how do they learn the difference? They access news and events on line that we would not let them watch with us on the TV. This can lead to PTSD, and they aren’t safe from the groomers and trolls unless parents are vigilant. There is cyber peer pressure; and we all know the plea for the latest IPhone etc. There is no break from cyber bullying, we have information overload, and there is anxiety from trying to be in contact with everyone or the depression when no-one contacts them.
The internet is a force for good too, as we have created a global village, we meet partners on dating sites, we have access to some much knowledge and we can become informed about life changing events almost immediately.
How do we know if we have an issue?
We spend too much time with technology, more than we do with others
We have no real sense of our boundaries
We lie about how long we spend on Facebook or Instagram
There is a feeling of compulsion to check our Smartphone if it doesn’t ping for a while or check every notification.
Feeling like we can’t cope without technology, becoming panic struck at the thought of losing access even for a day
Self-esteem becomes dependant on likes, comments or other cyber space ‘strokes’
Our online life is nothing like our reality
Our online friends are more important than our real life ones
So what can we do?
Getting rid of our smart-phones and technology isn’t the answer as it is part of our everyday life. It’ about putting technology back to a tool we use not a life we lead..
Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock; it gives us access to the outside world and others without giving us time to concentrate on our own well-being.
Turn it off, go to airplane mode or silent at least 1.5 hours before you go to sleep, the light from the screen sets off melatonin production in the brain that controls and wake and sleep function, so we need to normalise it before we try to sleep.
Disable the apps you don’t use as this results less pings notifications and distractions.
Disable email on your phone, do you need to check everyone that comes in?
Find things to do that aren’t internet based – read a book, go running or walking
Set a timer for your internet use and stop when it goes off
Internet addiction is a growing issue for each generation and is beocming a recognised mental health diagnosis. Like all addictions it is a hard one to break once it has taken hold. It’s an area I specialise in so please contact me if you need support.
A council has nearly doubled its fitness class timetable at two of the borough’s leisure centres following an upgrade in new technology that will allow customers to choose from hundreds of different virtual classes on demand.
Gedling Borough Council has fitted New WEXER TV screens and high definition projectors at Carlton Forum and Redhill leisure centre so fitness fans can do anything from group cycling to Pilates at a time that suits them. Customers will have more freedom and choice over what exercises they want to do and will no longer have to worry about classes being cancelled last minute.
Gedling Borough Council say the upgrade will save money by reducing down time, increasing the use of fitness studios and provide better value for money for customers.
Leader of the Council Cllr John Clarke said: “I’m really impressed with the new technology, it’s easy to use and there’s something here for everyone. We’re constantly working to upgrade and improve our centers to offer as much to customers as possible.”
The virtual sessions offers hundreds of classes at a touch of a button, including traditional classes from Aerobics, Yoga and Group Cycling to surf board work out or a contemporary dance class. Customers can also tailor the class to the length and intensity that suits them allowing customers to do a quick warm up before hitting the gym or ten minutes cool down after a workout session.
Plans to improve a play area in Colwick have moved a step closer thanks to a £49k funding boost from grant-giving body WREN.
The money will be used to revamp the play area on Valeside Gardens and pay for new play equipment and also the refurbishment of the current facilities.
Work on the new play area will begin in October and should be finished in time for Christmas.
Children from local school St John the Baptist were invited to contribute to the consultation on the play area and took part in a colouring competition to help shape the design of their ‘dream playground’.
Cheryl Raynor, WREN’s grant manager for Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire said the group were delighted to be able to support this community project.
She said: “We are pleased that our funding will provide such a fantastic facility for the local community in Colwick.
“WREN is always happy to consider grant applications for projects that make a difference to local communities and we’re really looking forward to seeing this one take shape soon.”
NEW LEASE OF LIFE: The current play equipment is to be refurbished
Alison Nunn, Chair of Colwick Parish Council said she was looking forward to seeing local children enjoy the new-look park.
She said: “Colwick Parish Council have long wanted to improve the facilities on Valeside Gardens Playground and are thrilled that we have secured the WREN funding to do so, with the assistance of Jane Richardson, Gedling Borough Council’s Parks team and the Community Of Colwick Village, who got behind this WREN funding application.”
Councillor Peter Barnes, Portfolio Holder for Environment said: “We’re delighted with the funding for the much needed upgrades at Valeside Gardens play area.
“The Parish Council have been working closely with our officers to get this bid together and we would like to offer our sincere thank you to WREN for supporting so many of our parks, we simply couldn’t do this without their support and we are very grateful as are the children who can enjoy the new facilities.”
