Gritting

As the sub-zero temperatures have now hit us, it is worth being aware of the salting and gritting section on the Central Beds website as it contains some useful links.  Central Beds salt a little under half of the roads within the council's boundaries to try and maintain priority routes.  Additionally, some of the parishes within the Caddington wards make local arrangements to try and also grit other roads off of the priority routes.

There is a full list of salt bin locations on the CBC website; an edited version is given below showing the locations within this ward.

CBC salt bin locations [edited]

Road closures in Caddington

Advance warning of some scheduled works as follows:

• Monday 12 January 2015 - Luton Road will be closed between the two junctions for Hyde Road for carriageway patching.
• Tuesday 13 January 2015 - Little Green Lane will be closed for carriageway patching and work on the gullies.

Slip End Mountain Rescue Team

I am looking forward to tomorrow night's meeting of the Slip End Mountain Rescue Team, where there will be an update on activities during 2014 and also a special report from the European liaison officer, currently visiting from Germany.

I suspect that there may also be a glass raised in memory of founder members and absent friends.

Studham Lower School

It was a pleasure on Friday to accept an invitation to the Christmas Music Concert at Studham Lower School.

The children were all impeccably behaved, sang beautifully and a number of short musical solos were played on a whole selection of different instruments.

The children and teachers are a credit to this popular little school, which was recently rated as "Outstanding" by OFSTED.

Local press

Some clippings from today's Luton On Sunday:

Luton On Sunday 07-Dec-14

It is difficult to know how to react to a rise in burglaries in town in the context of what happens in rural areas.  On one hand, it would seem to demonstrate that the uncomfortably high crime figures in the villages are not an isolated problem.  Against that, the usual concern that the large town will suck in resources at the expense of rural policing raises its head once again.

LoS 07-Dec-14

Add to this overall picture separate incidents involving stabbing and shooting in the last week alone, you begin to wonder if burglary is to be relegated to a non-investigated crime recorded for statistics only as the force is committed to dealing with violent crime and threats to life.

Locally, initiatives like Neighbourhood Watch are championed and can certainly be an effective tool but the underlying worry is that the under-funded Bedfordshire force is not viable in its current format; it seems that particular concern is not going away. 

Luton On Sunday 07-Dec-14