“The Toughest Yet, But Starting To Take Shape”

Babergh District Council which needs to find £1.3m of savings next year has taken a major step forward in identifying exactly how it will do this. Members on Babergh District Council’s Strategy Committee today (January 12) considered a range of packaged options and after a thorough debate are recommending to all councillors the main areas where both new cuts and extra income could be found to balance the books for the 12 months from April.

In addition to £1m worth of savings coming from the integration of the council’s staff with those of Mid Suffolk and radical changes to working practices, Strategy Committee councillors also backed:
• a below-inflation Council Tax increase of 3.5%
• use of part of the New Homes Bonus allocated to Babergh by the government(with the reminder targeted upon way to support local economic growth)
• an increase in long-stay car parking charges from £1.50 to £2 for anyone parking for three hours or longer
• a continuation of the public convenience closure scheme – again in consultation with local parish and town councils to identify new management opportunities with them
• an expansion of the customer-funded brown (garden waste) bin scheme Councillors also decided to drop the consideration of short-stay car parking charges and called a halt – pending a review – to planned further reductions in the grants available to community groups.

Cllr Jennie Jenkins, Chairman of the Strategy Committee, reflected that “I believe that these proposals accurately reflect the kind of balance that our residents and other bodies are asking us to strike as we go about the painful and difficult business of sorting out next year’s budget. I believe I speak on behalf of all Babergh councillors when I say thank you to our staff who once again have borne the brunt of these cutbacks. Their support and resilience in tough times is much appreciated”.

“For such a well-run council as Babergh, having to find such enormous savings is difficult. Indeed, this year’s budget is the toughest yet, but at least it is beginning to take shape”. Cllr Jenkins was also keen to thank the many community groups and parish and town councils who had been working with Babergh since August last year to look at new and more cost-effective ways of delivering its services in the longer-term. Many of these ideas are being worked up in more detail and Babergh is looking forward to receiving more information in due course.

Howard with Alan Keeble at Bower House Farm

Here I am in February and I am still writing about Christmas. And it came to pass on Christmas Eve that I was very busy playing the piano and organ. Alan Keeble a local country landowner and Lord of the Manor of Polstead was keen that the Guns at the Bower House Shoot (top brass from all corners of the UK) should be entertained by a local celebrity. Naturally, Alan’s thoughts turned to me and he asked that I should play for their lunch. I accompanied Jessica Simmons who with a crystal clear voice charmed the audience with Piu Jesu and the Snowman.

Jessica’s teacher opera singer Maggie Addison sang O Holy Night. Her bosom heaved as she struck the top notes with gusto and Alan Keeble kept a close eye on his light bulbs as they rattled with the acoustics. The picture shows us all after our performances. I was delighted to receive from the Shoot £200 as a gift to St Elizabeth Hospice in memory of my father who died there (at the Hospice and not the shoot) last June. The carols by candle-light at Flowton Church beckoned in the evening.

Many of you will know Miranda Reckitt (Mackintosh) who lives close to my office who has been one of the leading matrimonial lawyers in East Anglia. I was so pleased to be able to join her at her retirement party at her firm Kerseys in Ipswich. VIPs apart from myself numbered lawyers and Judges some of whom I was pleased to find, like you, to be followers of “our” column.

It was a pleasure to join Mark David of The Cooking Experience at a smashing Christmas lunch for twenty five: do sign up for a cookery course in the High Street (Tel. 01473 827568). I mentioned in January my time at Pinner Grammar School. Blow me down: Tom Langley from Ann Beaumont Way popped in to say that he was at the School a few years earlier. He brought with him a magazine for old students. I thumbed the pages only to find reproduced an article that I had written about a visit to the Royal Cinema at Buckingham Palace in 1978. What a coincidence. One of my readers mentioned to me a TV soap “The Only Way is Essex” – a little too coarse for our liking. Hadleigh would be a better substitute. And what of my chauffeur Frank and cook Maria. Well, I gather that they have been trying for a baby. I expect they will get bored with it and go back to Canasta.

First Time Buyers your relief from Stamp Duty Land Tax ends on 25 March. You might just buy somewhere in time. Give me a call if you decide to do so and if it all makes you feel ill then let me make your Will.

Howard Gibbons

Taj’s Tips on losing the post Christmas weight

Over indulged at Christmas and New Year? Feel fat and unhealthy?
It’s that time of year when we all promise ourselves we will get fit and healthy this year, we will lose those extra pounds and we will join a gym and keep going beyond March. Each year we make these resolutions and fail. Will this year be any different? Let’s face it. Most of us are overweight because we eat too much and exercise too little and not because of some underlying medical condition.

Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is so important to our overall health – it reduces our risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. A good way to check if you are overweight is to use the BMI or Body Mass Index. Why not log onto are website at www.millpharmacy.co.uk and use our BMI calculator to work out your BMI? If you don’t have a computer our staff at Mill Pharmacy will be happy to calculate it for you. A score of over 25 means that you are overweight.

Our website will also provide links to Slimming World, Weight Watchers and other weight management sites where you will be able to glean useful information on eating healthily and losing weight. At the moment they are all offering special rates to join. In addition Mill Pharmacy stocks the diet capsule Alli the first non-prescription diet capsule licensed by the European commission which can be used by people with a BMI of 28 or over to lose weight. This is a very effective way of losing weight provided you follow a reduced calorie low fat diet – for every 2lbs you lose Alli can help you lose 1lb more. However, it is not suitable for everyone as it can interact with some medicines and is also contraindicated in certain medical conditions.

If you want to know if Alli is suitable for you why not book a FREE confidential appointment with our pharmacist who will also be able to give you professional advice on calorie controlled diets and various forms of exercise. So with all this help and support available this year can be different. This year you can lose weight and keep it off. This year you can be healthy.



Two of the butterflies
Butterflies all belong to a group of insects called “Lepidoptera” and are true insects with the body parts that you learned about at school, Head, Chest (thorax) and Body (abdomen). Their flamboyant wing colouring is the result of light bouncing off the minute scales covering both surfaces. The colourless blood is pumped round both body and wings by a primitive heart located – not in the chest as you might expect – but in the abdomen. The females lay eggs on specific plants, which hatch to become the familiar caterpillars (Larvae). When these have grown large enough they weave themselves a silken protective shell (chrysalis) and undergo an amazing transformation. Their body breaks itself down into a “soup” and then rebuilds itself into a butterfly. At the end of this process they break out of their protective coat, sit for a while to allow their wings to expand and dry, and then fly off as butterflies. There is no competition between caterpillars and adults for food because they feed on different food sources. The caterpillars feed on plant material (generally leaves) and the adults on nectar, using their long tubular mouth part to reach into flowers. Some can survive the winter in various forms here in the UK, but others are migrants

Brimstones (Gonepteryx rhamni)
These are the earliest butterflies that you are likely to see, emerging late February, early March.

They’re bright sulphur yellow and you’ll see them fluttering among the leafless tree. They live for a very long time (often in excess of a year) and are one of the few butterflies that actually hibernate here as adults. It is these emerging adults that you see in the spring. The eggs are laid on Buckthorn during late March - April. After about 3 weeks these hatch to become the caterpillars which will spend all spring “fattening” up on the Buckthorn leaves.

During late June or July they will become a chrysalis (pupate) emerging as adults in late August or early September to feed on nectar and the juice of over-ripe fruit to gain sufficient reserves for their winter hibernation. By mid-September these adults will be looking for somewhere frost proof to spend the winter, (such as the bark under dense Ivy) where there they will hang motionless until “awakened” by the early spring sun to start the process again. The one in Photo 1 has its wings folded! I’ve never seen one that has landed with its wings open, that’s something they just don’t do.

Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta)
Although a few are now being recorded as overwintering in the southern parts of the UK these are generally considered to be one of the migrant species, flying in from the temperate parts of Europe.

The first ones (which are often very battered in appearance) appear in June or July and have flown in from the Continent; those appearing between July and November are the result of the eggs laid by these migrants. Once here the female lays individual eggs on the leaves of Stinging –nettles (Urticus diocre) which hatch after a couple of weeks to become caterpillars (Larvae) to feed on the nettle leaves.

You will normally only find them individually because they’re cannibalistic and will actually eat one another. They shelter themselves from both the elements and predators by weaving together leaves to form a protective “tent”; emerging only to feed. Red Admiral’s mating habits are strange; the males are territorial, sitting about waiting for the wandering females to come to them – avoids a lot of chasing about!

Mick T.

Greener Hadleigh

Last month we mentioned the need to be careful with water use, both to save money and for environmental reasons, particularly as there have again been news reports on the drought affecting our part of England. The water from our taps is treated to a standard making it safe for human consumption, so please don't waste it. Some suggestions for reducing water usage, which also cuts bills if you are on a meter, include: do not use running water when cleaning teeth, shaving, washing up or washing vegetables - a running tap can use 6 litres per minute; only use a washing machine with a full load and do not use power washers for cars and paths. Check for dripping taps - they can waste several litres a day and thousands in a year - and again more water butts please.

Continuing with water, many of the chemicals used in our homes and gardens cause water pollution, both by going down our drains and through run-off. When you are thinking of spring cleaning, or just replacing your usual products, please think of safer alternatives. For instance: white vinegar is good for removing limescale, cleaning taps and glass; bicarbonate of soda is a mild abrasive for cleaning sinks and cookers, and is a deodoriser in fridges and dustbins; citric acid can be used to remove limescale from washing machines, kettles and irons. These are only a few of their uses, more information can be found on the packaging and in books. These products are all available in the hardware store in our High Street.

Local shops and market gardens stock a good variety of seed potatoes and vegetable seeds, but if you would like to see more about potatoes, the East Anglian Seed Potato Day is on Saturday 11th February, from 9.30 until 1.30, at Stonham Barns, Stonham Aspal, admission £1.50. As well as 100+ varieties, there will also be books, tools and other seeds. Go to the website, eapd.btck.co.uk for more information. You don't need a large garden to grow potatoes or other crops as they can be planted in large bins, pots or purpose made bags, and many vegetable leaves are attractive enough to go in a flower border or pot - or how about growing salad leaves on a windowsill.

The Big Lunch is an annual event, started by the Eden Project. The aim has been to set a date for a nationwide get together for neighbours, which could be anything from a few in a back garden to a whole street party, or interest groups, such as Scouts. The website, thebiglunch.com, provides ideas, access to information packs, recipes, decorations, posters and a map of what is planned in different areas of the country. This year the date is Sunday 3rd June, which is also the Queen's Jubilee, so you have time to contact friends and neighbours to plan an exciting community event. As always, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle.

Welcome to this months edition of news from the Police Station.

Many of you may have noticed that PCSO Bignell and I spent time and effort in the cold rain on 30th December throwing empty glass bottles into skips in Magdalen Road car park. We had taken this action because the bottle banks were full, and people continued to stack empty glass bottles up on the car park floor. There were literally thousands piled high sitting around waiting to be used as weapons or items to cause damage with. A few people commented that it surely wasn’t the job of the Police to clear this up. True, it wasn’t. However, had we left them in situ and somebody got hurt, questions would need to have been answered. Whilst the local commitment to recycling has to be commended, can I please ask that you all take on board that leaving empty glass bottles lying around is not acceptable. If the recycling banks are full, you need to be taking the bottles elsewhere. It is not the job of the recycling agents to clear bottles from the floor; they will only empty the banks. If you decide to leave the bottles in the car park you are littering. Our thanks have to go to G Leeks skip hire that managed to bring two skips out to us and help us clear the site within half an hour of asking. Had it not been for them I am sure the situation would have got a lot worse. This operation cost time and money, money that would have been better spent on policing rather than litter picking.

This incident leads nicely into Street Watch. In 2011 Suffolk Police began launching Street Watch patrols in some of our neighbourhoods. Street Watch is a national police and community partnership initiative that empowers the communities to take back ownership of their public spaces through high visibility civilian patrols and good citizenship. The scheme is designed to allow volunteers from within our communities to patrol the streets and assist us in making our Towns and villages better places to live in. There is scope for Hadleigh to be considered for this scheme. I would urge any interested reader to visit www.street-watch.org.uk, or to contact me at Hadleigh Police Station for more information.

Since the launch of the new non-emergency phone number, 101, we have received many comments supporting the efficiency of the number. However, people have also said to me that they have hesitated phoning the police in the past for fear of wasting our time. We are here to serve you and our communities. What might seem like a trivial matter to you might be the missing piece of the jigsaw for us. We don’t just deal with crime related issues; we are here to tackle the full range of anti-social behaviour, neighbourly disputes and nuisance pets and vehicles. If you contact us and we think that one of our partner agencies are better suited to deal with your query, we will guide you in the right direction. So please don’t think that calling us is a waste of out time, because the chances are it isn’t. The call you make might be the difference between a better, healthier life.

For a better understanding of who our partners are, and what the Babergh East Safer Neighbourhood Team can do for you, please visit www.safersuffolk.org I remain open to invites and meetings and look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible when I carry out my weekly rounds of the Town.

When you see me walking around your street, come and say hello and let me know what is going on in your world. It’s meetings like this that lays the foundations for strong community relations, something that I am always looking to build on in my everyday work.

Until next time,
Matt PC 1455 Paisley,
Hadleigh Police Station
matthew.paisley@suffolk.pnn.police.uk,
Telephone: 101