Category: News

It was a headline we couldn’t resist. This post is about a group of ladies who meet in the village hall every Tuesday to rescue old (sometimes antique)  furniture and restore it under the watchful gaze of master upholsterer Hugh Pamplin.

The cover-up in question is the transformation which takes place when the final layer of new material is carefully stitched in place.

There are a few vacancies for new members. So if you have the odd bit of Chippendale, or failing that, Parker Knoll, which deserves a new lease of life and pride of place in your sitting room, please come along, and learn as you go. No previous experience required.

There is a small charge to cover the cost of the village hall. And of course you need your own chair, pouffe or whatever, materials and tools, but Hugh can advise on these.

Tuesdays – 10.30 am.

Spread the word. Download a Blog poster to send to your friends and neighbours Put it up in your school, club, pub, garage!

We are now in our fourth week, our readership continues to grow.

You can sign up to get an  automatic email notification of new posts and comments, so you don’t need to remember our address. – which is www.horsington.co.uk/blog.

The Blog’s aim is to give the villages a medium to share news, comment, and act together on areas of concern.

If you have anything to announce, a whistle to blow, an event to organize, an item for sale, a service to provide, or would like to write an article, contact us. editor@idnet.com

It’s your blog.

See also –“About”

North Dorset Council’s planning commitee has unanimously rejected Ecotricity’s application to build four wind turbines on a site overlooking the Blackmoor Vale at Silton.

A statement by Ecotricity’s spokesman Mike Cheshire indicated that the company was unlikely to appeal.

More information
Our previous story

Sunday’s quiz, which was won by a team including the Landlord, raised about £75 for the Lions and will be put towards supporting local charity initiatives.  They particularly want to support the Air Ambulance and are running regular quizzes around the area to further their aims.  The next quiz at the Half Moon will be Easter Sunday April 24th.

Landlored Andrew Tarling, who often sets the questions, wishes to make it clear that he had nothing to do with the questions in this quiz!

Vicky Franklin writes: Enjoyed your blog, don’t know much about blogs, this is the first one I’ve read.

I would like to mention an attack by dogs that took place on our land at Coldhills, Horsington, leaving an inlamb ewe traumatised and bleeding in the hedge. She was making a recovery when attacked again on the other leg. I have now had to remove her from the field.

We have a footpath going through our land, please will users keep their dogs on leads and if you let your dogs out at night, make sure you know where they are.

I am told I should be reporting this incident to the police.

We hope you will – Ed

 

Safety-conscious Horsington mower relaxes
after a hard morning’s work

Here’s a real turf war.

The South Somerset District Council has suddenly started taking an interest in Horsington Parish churchyard and the surrounding grass areas.

They abruptly stopped maintaining it in 1991 without explanation or consultation, and the Parish took it over, mowing it to a very high standard, thanks to the noble efforts of two parish councillors.

Faced with job cuts, and threats to their livelihood, the jobsworths from the SSDC turned up unannounced at the last Parish Council meeting in a bid to secure the work.

The Parish Council said it was more than satisfied with the work and there was no need to change anything. Then the SSDC played the elfin safety card. Apparently Somerset’s hospitals are clogged with mutilated graveyard mowers, and only registered contractors have the necessary skills and insurance cover to carry out this task without causing carnage.

The SSDC kindly offered to take over this dangerous work at, it is rumoured, more than double the cost, passing on the extra burden to Horsington’s residents and without  any guarantee that the churchyard would receive a trim and tidy up before each wedding or baptism, as it does at present.

The Parish Council was unmoved, and the work will continue to be carried out beautifully and cost-effectively by our own very skilled and well-insured  people. Well done!

PS. The last time the SSDC insisted that only registered contractors could work in Horsington, the Village School received an expensive and  substandard kitchen, despite the willingness of many skilled local volunteers to do the work.

Did someone say “Big Society”- Ed

Many Wincanton and Somerton buses will no longer run after Somerset County Council cut £3.6 million – half the County’s  bus budget – from subsidies as part of its economy drive.

As a consequence, First, will stop or curtail many of its services from Sunday, April 17. Among services being totally withdrawn is the 901 Wells to Wincanton via Shepton Mallet and Castle Cary Station.

The 58 Yeovil to Wincanton evenings, Sundays and public holidays service will also be reduced.

Simon Cursio, commercial director of First Bristol, Somerset and Avon, said: “We have done what we can to minimise the impact of the changes, taking some risk in running some of the journeys on a commercial basis ourselves”.

This is undoubtedly bad news for bus users, although it has to be said that many buses seem to run around empty, or with just a few people in them. We also notice many “Not in Service”, which in reality could easily pick up passengers.

If Somerset County council has more than £7 million to spend on bus subsidies every year, it might be time to “Think outside the box”. Maybe empty buses trundling around the countryside are not the best solution to rural transport problems. Minibuses and taxis providing an on demand service within specified hours might be a cheaper  and more efficient way forward.

More information

It normally takes a mass murder to get a minor rural area like South Somerset in the headlines, but this weekend our beloved Council ( Band D: £1449.47 per year) hit the jackpot with the front page and an inside story in the Telegraph. The essential facts: 

•  Phil Dolan trousered £569,000 of Council Taxpayers’ money after voluntarily leaving his post as Chief Executive of SSDC after just 6 years- £157,000 for salary, a redundancy payment of £167,000 and a lovely pension top up of £239,000. Breathtaking.  He is quoted in the  Daily Telegraph “There are no fat cat golden handshakes”. So that’s all right then.
• Corporate Director Mark Pollock earned £52,000 for seven months’ work, plus £112,000 for loss of office, and £164,000 for his pension fund.
• David Stapleton was paid £56,000 for 8 months’ work, plus £121,000 for loss of office and £131,000 for pension contributions.The total, £1.2 million, is not far short of the £1.35 million Somerset County Council achieved by reducing library opening hours . Or, to put it another way, 827 band D householders – say the populations of Horsington and South, possibly North Cheriton – coughed up their entire council tax for these guys.

Phil Dolan, no doubt exhausted, has taken early retirement. The other two, one of whose jobs was to liaise with Somerset County Council on the Hinkley Point power station (no we don’t believe it either), and the other was in charge of “health and wellbeing” (we thought the NHS did that), have both gone on to lucrative employment in the local government mafia of quangoes, talkshops and consultancies.

In its defence, the council states “This restructure involved a reduction in staff from having a Chief Executive and four Corporate Directors to having a shared Chief Executive and two directors.

“The departure of the former CEO and the 2 Directors, who were all made redundant, has helped facilitate annual savings of £431k per annum. It is normal practice and a legal requirement in both the public and the private sector for senior executives to receive payment for their loss of employment.”

All very well, but it begs the question of why were at least two of these people were paid so much in the first place for what look like non jobs, already duplicated by the work of  other agencies?

And did any of our elected councillors speak out about the poor value for money these roles represented or their severance terms? Or were they too busy?

How many other publicly-funded non jobsworths are lurking in the undergrowth at SSDC or SCC?
Tell us. Email the editor with your story. In total confidence, of course

More information here

A North Dorset Planning Case Officer, one James Lytton-Travers, has recommended that the application to build four 120-metre wind turbines at Silton, be approved.

The North Dorset Planning Committee meeting will be on March 1^st at the RiversMeet leisure centre, Gillingham. Obviously they are expecting a full turn out.

In his report, Mr Lytton-Travers acknowledges that the turbines will have an adverse effect on the landscape, but says this is outweighed by the benefits these structures will bring.

In particular,  “The potential  to contribute significantly to renewable energy targets and to reduce CO2 emissions and climate change”.

Potential be dammed – what about actual?

If the wind doesn’t blow enough, the whole thing will be an expensive and unsightly white elephant, subsidsed by you and me. Last year, according to the Department of the Environment, wind turbines produced only a meagre 26 per cent of their potential output, and calculations here suggest the performance of the Silton Four will be around 22 per cent.

The builders, landowners and developers of this project will make a tidy sum, thanks to generous public (that’s you and me) subsidies.

Will our elected representatives see sense and vote this expensive, wasteful and quixotic project down?
Think. if it happens here, where next? Stourhead? Melbury? Bulbarrow? Eggardon?

We shall see.

More on
http://www.saveoursilton.org/
www.dorsetforyou.com

Tell us what you think -Ed

It seems the question has been answered. No sooner did we publish this post then a proposal was announced to build a wind farm comprising about 250 450ft tall turbines across a 76 square mile area of the English Channel off the coast of Dorset. 

Enough to power some 820,000 homes. So we won’t need the miserable contribution from the Silton Four -ED

The death recently occurred of a much respected and loved Half Moon regular, Gordon Sunderland. His funeral at Yeovil attracted a massive turn-out on Monday 14 February. Probably the cleverest person in the bar (and that’s saying something!), he was a former senior  boffin at Plessey and  a top man in the MOD at Portland. A very distinguished scientist, gentleman, raconteur and inbiber. We miss him.

We send our sincere condolences to his two daughters and their families.

His sad demise at the age of only 74 raises some serious concerns. This is what happened.

One night in November last year he felt unwell. So unwell, he called an ambulance.

When they arrived, he was upstairs, in bed (he lived alone).

The ambulance crew refused to enter the premises, although he shouted down to them.

Impasse.

So he eventually and reluctantly agreed to come downstairs. In doing so, he fell, and broke his ankle. The ambulance crew carted him off to hospital In Yeovil.

Since the accident he was in and out of hospital in Verrington, Yeovil and latterly Exeter, where he was waiting to have a skin graft, and, possibly the amputation of his foot, a daunting and frightening prospect.

He died in Exeter of a heart attack on January 31st, just before his operation.

On the face of it there is a clear chain of events between his initial call for an ambulance and his untimely death. We hope that the authorities launch an enquiry and review their procedures and rules.

Many people live alone in the country. Some get ill. They will probably think twice before calling an ambulance.

If anyone who knew Gordon well would like to write a fuller appreciation of his life and work, please get in touch -Ed