Gedling MP Vernon Coaker was presented with a petition last week from Carlton le Willows pupils calling for urgent action on climate change.
Year 10 twins Shahnaz and Alisha Begum presented the local MP with a petition signed by students from all year groups at the Academy, along with a letter detailing students’ views on how urgent action needs to be taken to address the issues of climate change.
The petition forms part of the Academy’s approach to the environmental issue, teaching students how to get their voices heard beyond the school gates and help effect positive change.
CALL FOR ACTION: Year 10 Academy students Alisha and Shahnaz Begum present Gedling MP Vernon Coaker with a petition from Carlton le Willows asking for action on Climate Change.
Mr Coaker has now pledged to raise the issue in Parliament once again after being handed the petition.
Last week he tweeted “It was a pleasure to meet Alisha and Shahnaz especially on such an important issue like climate change.
“I will be raising this again in Parliament and making sure the voice of students are the school are heard. We need action now.”
Children at Killisick Junior School in Arnold can now delve into new reading adventures following a successful revamp.
The new-look facility has been created to provide “a calm oasis for children to read in”.
The grand opening was attended by children who are the pupil librarians along with their parents and Parent Governors of the school.
Kay Greensmith is a parent governor at the Arnold based school and attended the launch party.
She said, “The room is a lot airier and has a very pleasant environment now. I think that the library will be used a lot more by children, especially because we have a lot of new books available.”
The story books in the library are now organised by author said Kay, “I think that’s a really clever idea because when children find a book they have enjoyed, they can easily find others by the same author.”
PICTURED: Pupils, teachers and governors are pictured at a launch event for their new library
Teacher Karen Carpenter (English Lead at Killisick Junior School) is responsible for the transformation in the school’s library.
She said “It was a fairly standard room before with old book cases and was a bit messy and disorganised. We have tried to create a much more positive and cheerful area. To do that I have painted the room and put a mural on one wall, we also have all new bookcases and have just ordered another £1500 worth of books.”
Many of the new books were chosen by pupils and included their favourite subjects, characters and authors and there is also a ‘recommended to read’ area to encourage children to try new titles.
Karen added: “I think it is a much more inspiring place and is very calm. It has become a favourite room with the children and will hopefully inspire them to explore new titles and develop a lifelong love of reading.”
Pupil Zac Rogers (age 11) said “I think it is so much better than before! I think before it felt cramped and small and it was quite difficult for the librarians to do their job. I like that it has a nature theme and there are trees everywhere. It has made it really nice in here and it’s my favourite now.”
A 49-year-old man has been charged and remanded with threats to kill and affray following an incident in Ravenshead in the early hours of Saturday (23).
Mark Stephenson of no fixed address has been remanded into custody to appear at Nottingham Magistrates Court today (March 25).
The charge follows the arrest of the man at Priory Avenue in Ravenshead at around 1.30am on the same morning.
A man has been locked up for carrying out burglaries on properties in Gedling and Mapperley while the occupants slept.
Jake Shaw, 19, of Lotus Close, St Ann’s, was sentenced to three years and six months’ imprisonment at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday (March 21).
In the early hours of Sunday, November 25, Shaw entered a house in Third Avenue, Gedling, while the occupant was sleeping and took two hard drives, a purse and a debit card.
At around 1am on January 5, 2019, Shaw entered a house in Marshall Road, Mapperley, while the occupants were sleeping and took two sets of car keys, house keys, a purse, bank cards, two handbags, a wallet, cash and two cars, which were found abandoned in the early hours of the following morning.
DS Craig Luckett said: “Credit has to go to the Burglary team who worked tirelessly on this case to ensure the victims got justice. I’m pleased to see the courts recognised the impact this type of crime has on communities and reflected that in their sentence.”
For someone who played some of the most prestigious venues in the world as guitarist in the Rod Stewart band, as well as being a member of Cockney Rebel, Family, and recording with the likes of Cat Stevens, Jim Cregan is a most humble man. At the end of the show he could be found in the lobby casually chatting with many an audience member. He also clearly still loves playing live.
‘We’re having such a great time and hope you are to,’ he said half way into this Warthog gig in Lowdham Village Hall.
In 2011 Cregan formed his own group, Cregan and Co, as a vehicle to perform his catalogue which include many songs co-written, recorded with, or produced for, Rod Stewart. The Co part of Cregan and Co are X Factor finalist Ben Mills, adeptly delivering Rod Stewart’s vocals as well as adding guitar, Pat Davey (bass), Harry James (drums), and Sam Tanner (keyboards). All sensational musicians in their own right!
‘I hope you’re not just expecting the Rod Stewart show,’ said Cregan introducing The One That Got Away, a slice of Americana written to raise money for a charity which helps prevent suicides of US military veterans. Shane was a track written by Cregan and Elton John’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin. It was originally conceived for Roy Orbison who sadly died before he could record it but Cregan and Co have finally cut the track for their latest CD. Cregan’s guitar twang would certainly have suited the Big O.
PICTURED: Cregan and Co
It was at a concert after listening to Cregan’s the memorable guitar solo on Make Me Smile, Cockney Rebel’s number one that Rod Steward recruited him. Apart from this and the two afore mentioned songs, the show was pretty well all post-Faces, Stewart. The hits came one after another: Baby Jane, Hot Legs, The First Cut Is The Deepest, I Don’t Want To Talk About It, Tonight’s The Night, Forever Young, Young Turks, and so on and so on. Cregan played homage to Stewart’s lyric writing, exemplified in I Was Only Joking. It took little encouragement for folks to sing along.
Both Cregan and Mills referenced another project that Sam Tanner heads up and noted that he sells out venues in London with his own group. Blondes Have More Fun allowed Tanner to take lead vocal, as well as showcasing his rock and roll, keyboard wizardry.
It was all up on their feet for Maggie May, before the band returned for a three-track encore of Twisting The Night Away, Sweet Little Rock And Roller and the anthemic Sailing.
‘With the Rod Stewart Band, Sailing was the only song we ever used a pre-recorded backing for. In that case it was a choir. You folks will have to stand in!’ encouraged Cregan and he certainly won’t have been disappointed as to a person the crowd sang and swayed along.
For those struggling to get tickets for Rod’s latest tour, this was a pretty fine substitute.
Plans to build a new community centre for residents in Mapperley has been given the go ahead by council chiefs.
The plans, submitted by Nottingham City Homes, include demolishing the Wells Community Centre in The Wells Road to make way for a new facility.
The new centre will feature a pavilion area for outdoor seating and a paved area for mobility scooters. It is hoped it will then be used by existing and new members of the community to meet and socialise.
PICTURED: An artists impression of what the new centre would look like
The proposed new centre would be built next to the old school site, which Nottingham City Homes has redeveloped into 33 new houses and six bungalows.
The existing building was built around 1945 and was originally the woodwork room for the old Morley School. It became a community centre in the late 1980s. It had to be closed on January 1st 2019 because of its poor condition.
The plans were submitted by Nottingham City Homes, working on behalf of Nottingham City Council. The council’s planning committee has now given the plans the green light.
The housebuilder behind the new Teal Close development, near Netherfield, will now allow homebuyers to withhold an average of £3,600 per home until any faults found are fixed.
Persimmon Homes today (21) announced it is to launch their ‘retention’ scheme to support customer satisfaction in its new build properties, in a response to recent criticism about the quality of their homes.
The firm are building 830 homes on the 135-acre Rivendell site in Teal Close between Netherfield and Stoke Bardolph, which is estimated to cost around £96million.
Persimmon Homes will become the first major housebuilder to establish such a scheme, which will see 1.5% of the total home value withheld by the buyer’s solicitor until any faults identified at the point of key release are resolved.
Neil Follows, managing director of Persimmon Homes Nottingham, said: “For most of our customers, moving into their new home is an exciting and positive experience. However sometimes there are teething problems that need to be addressed, and the introduction of this homebuyer’s retention is an important step towards ensuring every buyer is able to settle into their property with confidence and satisfaction.
“Put simply, we don’t receive the full price of the home until these issues have been resolved.”
The firm say their homebuyer’s retention scheme is the latest in a series of measures introduced ‘to assure high finish standards and improve customer care’.
The policy will see the company’s standard contract including a provision that 1.5% of the total home value (equating to around 6% of the build fabric costs) can be withheld until any faults identified at the point of key release are resolved.
The average amount withheld, based on current selling prices, will be approximately £3,600 per home. The new standard contract and policy are expected to be fully in place by the end of June.
Dave Jenkinson, chief executive officer of Persimmon, said: “Persimmon is listening hard to all stakeholders and we hear the message that we need to continue to raise our game in customer care.
“Initiatives already announced include action taken to deliver greater accuracy of anticipated moving in dates by adopting a more targeted approach to the phasing of sales on specific sites and improvements and investments made to our customer care team, operations and technology over the last few months.
“We are now accelerating the pace of change through the introduction of a contracted retention which will give homebuyers far greater satisfaction at the completion of the purchase.”
Nottinghamshire County Council has announced to sell off the iconic Home Brewery building in Arnold as it’s “unfit for purpose”The sale is part of a major shake-up of council-owned buildings around Nottinghamshire – which has now been approved.
A new “iconic” building is also being planned next to the River Trent in West Bridgford, with £2.4m being set aside to pay for the construction, which would be built next to the existing County Hall.
In a debate on the issue on March 20, Labour councillors said they supported the plan in principle, but there was not enough detail for them to support it.
Concerns were also raised the project could run over budget as building costs are not yet known because the designs have not yet been drawn up. There are also no exact time frames yet.
PICTURED: County Hall
The council hopes the scheme could save money in two ways; ongoing repair costs to older buildings would not have to be paid and new funds would be raised through the sale of buildings, such as the Home Brewery building.
Councillor Kay Cutts, the leader of the council, said as well as saving money, the scheme would help improve services by ensuring council staff were working in more suitable surroundings.
PICTURED: The council-owned Home Brewery building in Arnold
“Our plans mean that we will vacate buildings we rent and move into fit-for-purpose buildings that we own, reducing our overheads and annual running costs by using the latest green technology,” she said.
Councillor Kate Foale, who Beeston Central and Rylands for Labour, said: “This is extremely ambitious, which is good, but I just wonder, because it’s a multi-agency hub, if any other agencies are going to contribute to the cost of it.
“Another concerns is where will the staff go, because already staff are saying ‘where will we go to?’
“Schemes like this never cost less than you think they’re going to, and I worry we may get a situation where you are coming back saying ‘we need a lot more money.’ A lot of this is high-risk, and there seems to be no plan B.”
Volunteers got behind a borough-wide initiative on Saturday (16) and were out and about clearing their local streets and parks of litter.
The Gedling Big Spring Clean was organised to help rid the borough of litter, which has blighted the area in recent months.
Teams from Arnold, Mapperley, Carlton, Netherfield and other areas helped rid their local parks and streets of litter and also waste left by flytippers.
A team in Gedling also removed rubbish from Willow Park and Lambley Lane Park. Amongst the volunteers was Philip Oddie, who helped raise interest in the issue locally with a number of articles for Gedling Eye.
PICTURED: Mr Oddie in Willow Park in GedlingGONE: Litter and waste collected form Carlton after volunteers targeted the area (PICTURE: Twitter)GOOD EFFORT: A team from Mapperley with their haul
Lucy Anderson joined in with the clean up in Netherfield, tackling litter in the nearby Jackie Bells play area with her young children.
She said: “I saw people were getting out and about picking litter so I took a few bin liners and headed out to our local park.
“Most of what we collected was plastic bottles and sweet wrappers, but it certainly looks a lot better. I saw other teams about the town too. It was a great effort.”
Following the success of this event, Carlton Community Cleaners are planning a second clean-up on Saturday, April 20 to coincide with Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘s Great British Spring Clean.
People are being asked to meet at 9.30am at Piggins Cafe on Carlton Hill.
