Page 70 - Phonebox Magazine April 2011

Small School... BIG Achievements! News from Emberton School
This month we have been thinking about “People Who Help Us” and were delighted to receive a visit from the Olney Fire Brigade who parked their big red fire engine in our playground and allowed us to squirt water out of the hoses! We also welcomed Nurse Lou Ecclestone to talk about her important role in the community. These visitors spoke about being safe and what to do in an emergency!
On World Book Day we all dressed up as a character from our favourite story and designed our own puppets, book marks and book jackets, together with a book jacket hunt! It was also lovely to have some of the parents come in to school and read stories to the children.
We have begun this year’s Creative Partnership project with Sherington and St Andrews Schools. Yaw Asiyama has already had the children enthralled with his larger than life story telling, is busy inspiring them to produce creative masterpieces of their own and will be working with the children to write a play, make costumes, sing and dance, culminating in a spectacular performance in May!
At the end of the spring term we will all be sad to say Goodbye to Steve Dunning, who despite having the title of Interim Head teacher has actually been with Emberton School for over two years. The staff and governors would like to thank Steve for all his help and support whilst he has been with us. We are all looking forward to welcoming our new Head teacher Jill Norton after the Easter Holidays!
Come to the Bell & Bear in Emberton on Thursday 26th May for a gourmet tasting night with 10% of ticket sales going to Emberton School. More details next month.
If you would like your child to attend a rural school with small class sizes, we still have places available for September 2011. Contact us on 01234 711518 and we would be delighted to show you around.
TESNOLATEST
A nasty piece of DIRTY WORK
MIlTON KEYNES EMBRACES an authority of utter disunity controlling two very different places. To the South and West of the motorway lies the new town, very modern and a thousand things slick. To the North and East of the motorway we find the pleasant and largely rural acres of North Bucks. Over two thirds of the electoral power resides the town of MK proper, a place which sees no need to respect traditions and life styles which were centuries old before the unitary authority came into being. The council is blind to the natural independence of Newport Pagnell.
There have sometimes been bizarre consequences and the latest of these is an utterly unjust proposition. The ever greedy all seizing Tesco seek to impose themselves on Newport Pagnell by building a large store on the old Aston Martin site. Newport Pagnell have made it plain (hundreds of them) that no such store is needed, that Tesco are uninvited and absolutely unwelcome. During discussion at the planning meeting on 13th April the Newport Pagnell position was quite coarsely overlooked and set aside on the strength of a seriously flawed report from a consultancy whose credentials were never made clear. The quality of the report itself must be seen to cast doubt on those credentials. Frankly I believe the committee just dragged someone in from outside to do their dirty work for them. This campaign is not finished yet.
North Bucks comprises two super little towns, each with a history and traditions older by hundreds of years than the unitary authority. Two little towns come with a string of gorgeous villages and some jolly good farming. We could do with enjoying the authority to conduct our own affairs, Buckinghamshire County were not alone in objecting to the land grab which created the present set up. The minister of state for local government should be pressed to reconsider the limits of Milton Keynes, please mister put it anywhere you like so long as it doesn’t come this side of the motorway. GB
"We feel we have been let down very badly by Milton Keynes Council. This is a Major Planning Application deserving a bit more consideration than being decided by the party whip of one political party. The decision of The Development Control Committee(DCC) was proposed by Geary.A.(CON) Hanslope Park, seconded by Klein.M.(CON) Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and nailed down by Morris.A.(CON) Bletchley and Fenny Stratford. These Councillors have no allegiance to the people of Newport Pagnell - they are not our elected Councillors and are not answerable to people in the town at the ballot box. This is an obvious flaw in Unitary Authority services for local matters of this magnitude.
The stench surrounding this application started two years ago when a planning application for 105 houses, suddenly evolved into a Tesco Superstore planning application, overnight, without prior consultation. Now two
years later in 2011 the stench is not going away. On the DCC decision night Council representatives stated under questioning that the 2 Million extra cars a year on Tickford Street, a narrow "B" Road that is currently battered with 3.5 Million cars a year, could not be resolved, and no they had not conducted traffic impact analysis for the other roads in the town, and no they had not conducted traffic impact analysis on those roads leading into the town either. Surely if it cant be resolved, then it cant be approved? More so if the decision is based on an incomplete half-cocked traffic report.
With the traffic question, and other key major problems still unresolved, which it should be noted are also unresolvable problems, there may well be grounds for an appeal. This is currently being considered by experts in that arena. As I understand it, and I am not an expert in legal matters council procedures, or planning law, there could be grounds for
some sort of appeal to be submitted by our own Council if they decide to do so. If they have the resolve and the resources to face down such a challenge. This could take 3-6 months.
As residents we have organised, represented and funded our own awareness campaign through TESNO. and given this our best shot for the last two years. We are not going to go away. Sadly, the Tesco divide and rule strategy was easily deployed in the town and the community is divided on this issue now, the scars of which will take some time to heal. So lets wait and see what happens, after all the May ballot box beckons in some wards, and the 2012 ballot box is not far away either. Just like 2009 its amazing what an Election Year can promise. Or as Winston Churchill once put it "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
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