Happy belated birthday to Mumfords and long may it remain.
Welcome to The Tea Shop – is it open yet ?
Permission has been given to developers Gentian and their local agent John Bennet,for the old launderette to be used as a restaurant/cafe. Another one ? Next to Costa ?! Presumably Costa are not very pleased?! Presumably also it will have to be another ‘chain’ in order for the rent to be paid. It was advertised at more than £50,000 pa.
There is to be a solar farm in Reydon – some would say against all logic since two weeks earlier Waveney refused permission for a double garage to be built opposite the solar site. The officer said of the garage ‘A structure should not need to be screened from view by planting. The need for this suggests it is not proposed in the right location.’ i.e. an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Just a fortnight later the same committee agreed to a nine foot hedge to screen 18,000 solar panels. How strange !
At a site meeting today at the proposed solar farm in Quay Lane, Reydon, it was announced that residents in Reydon are being offered £150 off their electricity bills if the solar farm gets planning permission. Reydon Parish Council are apparently also being offered £8,000 as a contribution to road improvements in Quay Lane. These offers from Niels Kroner of AEE Renewables, the company which wants to erect 18,000 solar panels on the site currently used as farmland.
The offers were made in front of members of Waveney Development Control committee on an official site visit ahead of their meeting to decide whether to approve the plans. Mr Kroner said residents would receive a £50 a year discount on their electricity bills for three years if the solar farm is built AND if they use Good Energy – a small, green energy supplier based in Chippenham Wiltshire.
We are told the Reydon Parish council members attending seemed supportive of these plans. Will the councillors be able to explain to voters the difference between an ‘incentive’ and a ‘bribe’ ?
Amusing to see Nick Ekins, the Chairman of Gentian the property company busy developing Southwold High Street, accusing us of being NIMBYS because we don’t share his love of ‘chains’.
We aren’t NIMBYS Mr Ekins we are STEDS – Sorry to See Developers – and so it seems are many of our visitors as last Sunday (Bank Holiday weekend) every cafe in the town was packed with people apart from Costa.
The publishing of confidential information on the Council website was a huge breach of the Data Protection Act as the Act was designed to prevent private information about individuals being revealed. The material was removed fast on Wednesday morning.
Amongst the delicate information revealed was that a local shop has had to negotiate a rent holiday, and the names of the preferred tenants for council owned flats in Hurren Terrace.
More leaks from the confidential documents which appeared on the Southwold council website this week. The council has agreed to pay £580 for the Town Hall front door to be painted – oh but that does include a knocker and a handle !
This news becomes public after a major breach of confidentiality by Southwold Town Council which published confidential minutes on its own website.
