There are signs of spring at last, but perhaps not too late for more grit bins that residents have requested. In the cold weather, a number of requests were made by residents for grit bins. One is being provided, in Rennishaw way, but in Masefield way, Arthur St. and Ainsdale close residents requests were rejected by the Tory County Council. Richard Church has offered to fund them with his ‘councillors empowerment’ budget, but this too was turned down as the County said they could not keep them filled up with grit and salt.

By next winter, the Conservative County Council plan to cut the standard of winter gritting. We can only hope it won’t be so cold!

Work is progressing well with new play facilities. The Planning Committee unanimously backed the planning application, which will allow for one particularly tall piece of play equipment, which will be set in the dip and close to the trees. It is expected that the play ground will be open in April to allow time for the grass to grow.

Plans are being drawn up for a creative and adventurous new play facilities on the Racecourse. The play area will be at the head of the valley, and will be designed with landscaping and planting to offer something special and complementary to the wide open space of the Racecourse. Companies have been shortlisted to exhibit their proposlas at a series of consultation events over the next few days. These are:-

Tuesday 20th October 7.30pm-9.30pm

Lime Trees Hotel Barrack Rd.

Wednesday 21st October 4pm-7.45pm

The Picturedrome Kettering Rd.

There are also plans for a couple of exhibitions on the Racecourse itself on 26th and 27th October.

Heritage Open days this year are turning into a heritage open weekend with historic places all over Northampton open Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11th-13th September.

In Kingley St Matthews Church will open on Friday 11th September noon-2pm, Saturday 12th 10am-4pm and Sunday noon-4.40pm. The School of Art at the University on St. George’s Avenue will also be open just on Friday 11am-2pm.

Throughout Northampton, other buildings are open, with an antiques fair on the Market Square and a family history exhibition in the ex servicemen’s club in Sheep St. For more information visit the Northampton Heritage Open Days website. There is much more to see in Northampton than the town is ever given credit for!

Door to door glass collections for recycling are to be extended to all homes which do not have wheelie bins, but have black sack collections. This will include streets like Poets Corner and Holly Rd.

Earlier this year over 65,000 households in Northampton received new black glass recycling boxes and over 700 tones of glass was collected in just 2 months. Over the next couple of weeks new calendars and black boxes will be delivered to an additional 15,000 houses so even more people can join in with glass recycling from the kerbside. For these households the new collection will start week commencing Monday 21 September. Glass bottles and jars will be collected every four weeks, on the same day as the black sack collection.We want to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle and reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill. This will give every household the chance to have their used bottles and jars turned into new glass.The new recycling calendars and black boxes will be delivered in early September.

Poetry & performance, live music, stalls, cafes, skate park, dub tent, cinema, kids arena, photography, debates, youth arena and much more…

Visit the Umbrella Fair website for more information

From 12:00 ‘til 2am on the Racecourse

Sadly, it looks as if last year’s Balloon Festival may have been the last. It has been a popular event for nearly 20 years, but since the sponsorship for shaped balloons ended a few years ago it has been more and more difficult to make the festival pay for itself. Even with the charge, to hold it again would have cost the equivalent of £3 for every council tax payer, at a time when the Council is having to find over £8 million in savings due to the recession and lack of government funding.

To continue the balloon festival there would have had to be more severe cuts in other council services. With many other difficult decisions to take we do not believe that could have been justified.

Tree planting throughout Kingsley has started. New trees have been planted in Kingsley Rd, The Drive, The Vale, Milton St. North, Kenmuir Avenue and Kenmuir Crescent. The trres have funded by Richard Church’s County Council budget for Kingsley.

Trees have been selected based on the mature size appropriate to each site, and are well protected against vandalism. Let’s hope they flourish.

The Council have declared Barrack Rd and the Park Avenue North/Kettering Rd roundabout as designated air quality management areas. Some other busy junctions, such as the Cock Hotel, have already been AQMA’s for a while.

Both of these areas have been tested over recent months for Nitrogen Dioxide, one of the main pollutants from traffic, and they are above the government targets, requiring that they are designated as air quality management areas (AQMA).

Both areas will continue to be monitored, and if the level of pollution does not fall then a management plan has to be prepared to show how the pollution may be tackled. This is particularly a matter for the County Council as the Highways Authority to show how traffic levels may be reduced. Ultimately though, it’s up to all of us. The more people use public transport, bike or walk into town, the less traffic and the less pollution particularly for people who live in the immediate vicinity of these roads.

Plans for some low play mounds for young children, to be placed near the playground at the Barrack Rd end of the Racecourse will be on display at the Friends of the Racecourse/ Healthy Living Hub open meeting on Tuesday 3 February at 7.30pm at the Best Western Lime Trees Hotel, 8 Langham Place, Barrack Road, Northampton NN2 6AA.

There will laso be a discussion and presentation about the playmounds and an update on the progress of the Healthy Living Hub.

Council owned homes in Kingsley are to be a part of the £3 million pound plan to improve the standard of housing. 450 homes in Kingsley and Kingsthorpe will be brought up to the decent homes standard during 2009/10..

The Kingsley housing estate was built in the 1920’s and 1930’s with some improvements in the 1960’s. There are problems with damp and condensation which will be dealt with during the refurbishment, together with some environmental works such as walls and fences.

Tenants will have received a letter from the Director of Housing and will be fully consulted on the plans for their homes in the new year.

The arrow sculpture on the Racecourse was formally ‘launched’ today at a little cremony in the park. The university students who designed it, together with members of Friends of the Racecourse and the Healthy Living Hub came together at the arrow to talk about the project and what it has acheived.

It has been controversial, but it is now good to see students using it as a seat and children playing on it. The sphere make useful information points about the park and what it has to offer. The Healthy Living Hub project now continues with the appointment of a part time project worker on a short term contract to take the masterplan forward and seek funding to implement key elements of the plan which have popular support. We hope to have more information about this soon.

Richard Church has requested that funds given to County Councillors to support local projects be spent on replacing roadside trees in Kingsley. The full list of sites where new trees are planted to be planted this winter is as follows:-
Hazeldene Rd. No’s. 144 & 148
Collingwood Rd. No 69
The Drive No’s 14, 20/22, 16
The Crescent No 8
St Matthews Parade Opposite No 30, 79/81
East Park Parade Opposite lamp column No.22
Kenmuir Avenue No.42
Kingsley Rd No. 19A
Milton St. North green space (3 trees)
Kettering Rd. corner of Raeburn Rd (3 trees)
Kenmuir Crescent traffic island
Kenmuir Avenue/Wallace Rd junction (2 trees)
Park Avenue North No’s 2, 30, 82, 90, 120, 162

There are many more sites which have been suggested, but either underground cables prevent new trees being planted or existing tree stumps need to be removed and the site left to rest before a new tree can be planted. We hope to return to some of those sites in future years.

Appropriate species for each site have been carefully selected depending on the nature of the site. Strong trees will be planted with good protection against vandalism.

Let us know if you would like more information.

Following complaints by residents and local Lib Dem councillors, the council have insisted that a caravan permanently parked on Romany Road has been removed. As well as causing a eyesore in the street, an electric cable was lying across the pavement, causing a potential hazard to pedestrians.

Richard Church, the County Councillor for Kingsley, is planning to spend a proportion of funds allocated to him for local community projects on replacing roadside trees in Kinglsey. Richard has put forward a list of locations where trees have been lost and the Council are looking at each site in turn before suggesting which sites should be a priority. Roads where there is space for new trees include Kettering Rd, Park Avenue North, Kenmuir Avenue, The Drive, The Crescent and Kingsley Rd. ‘Trees in local streets make our environment much more pleasant, sadly, too many roadside trees have been lost and not replaced’, said Richard.

Richard will be consulting local residents on the proposed locations. Meanwhile, is you know of any other sites where a tree could be planted, let us know.

At the request of local residents the Council are looking to put a recycling facility in Arthur St for people who live in the flats. This is good news, and I hope it will be used by people who live in the Webbs factory too. When the site has been agreed, the council will inform residents by leaflet.

The County Council are funding repairs to footpaths across the Racecourse. Work will start in the new year to improve the main footpaths used to cross the park. This follows on from the upgrade of lighting in the park 2 years ago. This is good news, and is another step towards making the park a safer and more inviting place for people of all ages.

The Healthy Living Hub project is a plan to create a future for the Racecourse as a community base for helthy living, including walking, cycling, sport a community cafe and green gym. Visit their website .

Andrew Simspn are invloved in the Friends of Northampton Racecourse community group which brings together local resdients and users of the Racecourse as well as the Racecourse Partnership, which brings together public bodies and voluntary groups with an interest in the future of the park.