From our Files: Stumped by tree decision...river fencing...beat bobbies loss
50 YEARS AGO
NEW Milton developers McCarthy & Stone are in conflict with Christchurch Council over a 50ft oak tree in Ringwood Road, Walkford.
It stands at the entrance to their Walkford Park Estate. The developers want to save the tree from destruction but the council insists the tree must come down.
The developers say they are “amazed” that they should be “guardians of the environment” in conflict with the “wishes of the local council.”
They said they hoped the matter could be “solved amicably and to the benefit of the community at large.”
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FENCING of the river at Balmer Lawn. Brockenhurst, seems to be the only solution to the danger problem facing young bathers, New Forest Consultative Panel were told.
The words came from the engineer with Southern Water Authority and Hampshire River & Water Division, Mr M Caine.
Last year a child died in the river. Mr Caine said he could see nothing that could be done in law apart from fencing off the river preventing the public from using it.
There are holes in the river bed which means it goes from shallow to deep without warning and a “shifting” river bed adds to the danger.
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CHRISTCHURCH town hall was inundated with letters this week from irate Mudeford residents from Mariners Reach and Mudeford Wood estates expressing their concern at the possibility of large numbers of council house tenants moving into the area.
Some 130 residents agreed to write to the council at a lively meeting of Mudeford and Stanpit Residents Association last week.
The council have already entered into negotiations with developers with a view to purchasing a three storey block of flats on the Mudeford Wood Estate.
Anxiety has spread among residents who claim that the value of private dwellings would plummet if adjacent flats became council owned and the “whole area became a council estate”.
25 YEARS AGO
ONE hundred and twenty family, friends and colleagues gathered in Sway village hall last weekend to mark Mike Cranidge’s retirement from Ordnance Survey which coincided with his sixtieth birthday.
Not that Mike intends to be idle for Ordnance Survey has acted as a second career as he and wife Sue carry out the administration of the International Map Trade Association.
Mike joined Ordnance Survey when he was 16 eventually becoming sales manager. As part of his retirement presents Mike received his old office chair.
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DR JOHN Farthing and his wife Barbara, of Highcliffe, supported their son at his fiancée Jill Dando’s funeral in her home town of Weston-super-Mare.
The service was restricted to family and friends while police estimate a crowd of 2,000 listened outside and a further 10,000 lined the three mile route before the murdered 27-year-old television presenter was buried in the same grave as her mother.
The funeral was conducted at Clarence Park Baptist Church as the nearby Milton Baptist Church where Jill was a member is being demolished to make way for a larger building.
Officiating was the Rev Mark Owen a “great caring man who supported us and Alan,” John told the A&T.
“Alan was dignified through it all and we are really very proud of him. He’s got to have the opportunity to grieve now.”
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THE villages of Burley, Sway and Brockenhurst, are horrified that proposed new police measures will mean the loss of their beat bobbies in favour of more modern motorised transport policing which Hampshire Constabulary, maintain will lead to more greater efficiency.
But the villagers are unimpressed and county assistant chief constable Ian Readhead has promised to meet the parish councils.
Sway councillors are so incensed they are determined to take the lead by promoting a preliminary meeting with their counterparts in Brockenhurst and Burley.
“Rural beat officers will now become area beat officers and there will be no need for them to live in the community for which they are responsible.
“At a stroke we will lose all their years of local knowledge, this is an unacceptable loss,” said Barbara Trousdell of Sway Neighbourhood Watch.
