From Our Files: New cinema owner... grazing row... jobsworth rules
75 YEARS AGO
THE Waverley Cinema in New Milton has changed hands. The Mayfair Circuit Ltd, the owners for the past five years, have disposed of their interests to Mr Raymond Stross, managing director of Raymond Stross Theatres, of London.
This company owns many theatres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Mr Stross told the A&T he has big plans for the improvement of the cinema. He intends to completely redecorate the cinema as soon as the necessary permits are obtained.
“I think the cinema has a message to give,” said Mr Stross. “And we intend to carry this out by bringing the very highest standard of films to New Milton.”
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AS a result of a decision reached at their monthly meeting last week, the Borough Council are to ease up in their policy of requisitioning houses, and action will not be taken until a property has been unoccupied for six weeks. This decision met with some opposition from Labour members.
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THE annual meeting of the New Forest and Christchurch Conservative and Unionist Association was described by Col. O. E. Crosthwaite-Eyre, MP for the Division, as an historic occasion.
For 30 years, he said, they had had two associations – a men’s and a women’s. Despite the fact that they had done great work, there was bound to have been overlapping and a lack of efficiency. That day they had agreed to amalgamate on terms of absolute equality in accordance with one of the cardinal principles of philosophy of the Conservative Party.
50 YEARS AGO
THE fight to keep Lymington Borough in Hampshire is to be taken to the House of Lords. This was the decision made at a public meeting held at New Milton on Wednesday night.
It was also decided to write to MP for the New Forest, Mr Patrick McNair-Wilson, demanding that he should attend a public meeting to explain what was described as his non-action at the 11th hour.
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ALTHOUGH the proposed laying of an overhead electricity line through Denny Wood in the New Forest was certain to involve “major fellings”, the Court of Verderers “had been misinformed” in this respect, said Lord Malmesbury, Official Verderer, in a statement to the Verderers' Court on Monday.
“The verderers were given an assurance that minimal fellings involving unimportant trees only would be entailed,” he said. “And on that basis, the verderers approved the construction of a power line on the route placed before them.”
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OBJECTING to the policy of swiping bracken and furze in the New Forest, and liming, to encourage better feed for the commoners’ animals, Miss Gladys M. Haines told the Court of Verderers that the work would “alter the character of the areas treated completely and destroy the ecology of this unique part of Britain”.
She said: “To try to turn the Forest into rich grazing ground is trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, as the old saying has it.
"A certain number of ponies and cattle are part of the traditional balance of the Forest as it has built up over the centuries, but they should be limited to what the area can properly support without the destruction of the natural vegetation.”
25 YEARS AGO
COUNTY officials deny they are obeying ‘jobsworth rules’ that are forcing a home for the elderly in Ashley to close.
One of the owners told the A&T: “Bureaucrats implement rules and regulations too rigidly and many are not relevant in the day to day running of a home.”
Official county council inspectors have always regarded Reap Grange as providing care of the highest standard. All the residents are very well looked after and obviously feel safe and secure.
But the owners explained that new rules and regulations now demand that registered rest homes must have a lift and that rooms have to be a certain size. “Even a couple of inches out, and the county council won’t allow it,” said Mr Luchoomun.
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TEN Russian children from Belarus, not far from Chernobyl, and still suffering from the effects of that nuclear disaster, are spending a month’s holiday in the New Forest area, hosted by local families. Various bodies have voluntarily subscribed to the £300 needed for air fares and documentation for each child – amongst them. Lymington Rotary Club and the young pupils at Ashley Junior School, New Milton, who actually reached £425, the excess defraying other expenses, such as medication for thyroid cancer from which most of the visitors suffer, not having been given any extra iodine pills.
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OPTIONS Alcohol Counselling and Information Service’s new premises in Lymington were officially opened last week by New Forest District Council chairman Coun. John Hutchins. The move to the Stanford Road offices was motivated by the need to provide additional and better counselling and administration accommodation, in the efforts to respond to the year on year increase in referrals for help and support for people coming to terms with either their own or someone else’s drinking.
