Page 36 - Phonebox Magazine February 2014

Newport Pagnell Councillor Corner
Cllr Douglas McCall
Tickford Fields Farm
About a decade ago, the Newport Pagnell Lib Dem Focus Team fought and won a battle to stop Tickford Fields Farm, which is off North Crawley Road, being allocated in the Local Plan as development land, but it was made a ‘Strategic Reserve’ for future development. Time has passed and this reserve will now be brought forward for development.
Milton Keynes Council plans to sell the land at Tickford Fields Farm to Inter MK, which is the property company of MK Dons Chairman Pete Winkleman.
It is thought that the land will be developed for housing to help fund a new training ground for the MK Dons.
Your local Lib Dem Councillors will be working with Mr Winkleman to ensure the minimum impact on Newport Pagnell and the maximum gain for the town. For example, we will want an assurance that there will be no access from existing roads such as Chicheley Street and that access will be off roads such as North Crawley Road.
Bathing Place Plaque back in place
When the work on the new footbridge over the river was taking place, the plaque commemorating the old Bathing Place was stored away for safe keeping. It has now been put back in place, but on the other side of the river in Riverside Meadow.
Some residents have reported ponding on the new footpaths on the approach to the new bridge, and I have reported this to the Council for rectification by the contractor.
Newport Pagnell Police Station
Thames Valley Police are selling most of the site at Newport Pagnell Police Station in the High Street for redevelopment, but the Police Station is not only to remain, but is to be refurbished, with the costs being met by the developer. The Newport Pagnell Lib Dem Focus Team are delighted that the town is to retain its police station.
How to contact us
If you need to contact any of the Newport Pagnell Liberal Democrat Focus Team please email us on NewportFocus@mklibdems.co.uk.
Write to (no stamp needed): FREEPOST RSLR- SSHC-GKUS, Newport Pagnell Focus Team, Newport Pagnell, MK16 0BW.
Follow me online: www.douglasmccall.mycouncillor. org.uk
Like my facebook page: www.facebook.com/CllrDouglasMcCall
Follow me on twitter: @DouglasMcCall
Cranfield Panto
P
antomimes have gone down the spout since I was young. These days the typical ‘big’ pantomime contains an ex-page three girl, a local DJ and an actress from a soap such as Emmerdale or EastEnders. They bear little relationship to the
pantomimes I used to attend as a child. Happily traditional pantomimes live on in village halls and community centres around the country. No more so than at Cranfield Village Hall where ACTivate presented the pantomime Little Red Riding Hood, which was written by Richard Peacock, who also played the dame. The script was full of humour and was bursting with real characters.
It had all the great panto ingredients: a large number of heroes, a villainous Wolf who looked as it had just returned from a bad night in Milton Keynes, the wolf’s two villainous and utterly incompetent assistants, who seemed to have come from a Laurel and Hardy tribute show, a sweet and innocent Red Riding Hood who thought that the wolf was much misunderstood, two heroes: Dandini and a forester, and a magnificent Dame whose attire was so indescribably lacking in taste that even a charity shop would have rejected it.
The plot is simple: a happy community is beset by a marauding wolf who takes a culinary liking to a sweet girl and uses an old woman with an appalling dress sense to ensnare her, the community rallies round, fixes on a plan to capture the wolf and then succeeds. This sounds simple, but intertwined in this is a pantomime mix-up with Dandini arriving from that perennial favourite Cinderella, an X-factor competition that was used to decide the best idea for snaring the wolf, an incompetent Fairy Godmother, a bureaucratic mayor enamoured of EEC regulations and an explorer and assistant who didn’t quite seem to know where they were—I thought that I saw them heading for the M1 when we drove away from this happy evening.
There were many excellent performances which I have already mentioned, including the mayor’s doddery assistant Mrs Cyclepath who was transformed into a Sharon Osborne figure for the X-factor competition; one aspect of the evening that worried me was that my wife continually misheard the name Mrs Cyclepath as Mrs Psychopath, so
36 Phonebox Magazine