St James Residents' Association

For The Residents And Workers Of St James

Thursday 17 May 2012

Bring Back The Trams


Advertising Space On The SJRA Web Site



Chair - SJRA
If you have a local business and you want to advertise your company why not think about letting us do it for you. The SJRA wish to help local businesses advertise their company for very competitive rates. To find out more why not drop us an email at

stjamesra@phonecoop.coop

or go to our web site

http://www.sjra.info/.

Down Your Way, for Mon 21st May



St. James Church will be holding a Table Top Sale on Saturday May 26th starting at 10.30 a.m.  If the weather is good the stalls will be outside in the Church grounds, inside the hall if rain is forecast. Please come along and support this annual fundraising event.

On 22nd June, in the morning, Lyncrest Primary School are hosting a fun run that will be ran around the local streets. Neighbouring schools have been invited and so far, St James, Earl Spencer, Hopping Hill, Duston Eldean and Chiltern have agreed to take part. The Lyncrest Micro-Marathon is to celebrate health and friendship amongst the local schools and community, as well as marking this Olympic summer.  There will be approximately 500 children taking part and they have received permission to close the roads on the route (Cameron Drive, Ellesmere Ave, Lyncrest Ave, Malcolm Drive, Lovatt Drive and Trevor Crescent). If you need further information please feel free to ring the school on 01604 751336.

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Proposed Changes to the Controlled Parking Zones in Northampton


Consultation Details:

Title:                  Proposed Changes to the Controlled Parking Zones in Northampton 
Subject:             Parking

Start Date:         17 May 2012
End Date:          07 Jun 2012
Result Date:       31 Aug 2012

Overview: At the start of 2012 the County Council undertook a consultation with residents living in parking permit zones (Northampton) to ensure that they are fit for purpose and still meet the needs of the local community.

Having compiled the results of this survey the County Council is now advertising the legal notices for the proposed changes of which the majority of residents have requested in each of the zones. This is the final opportunity to comment before the proposals are agreed and implemented. The proposed changes in all of the parking permit zones are available to view by clicking the links below, along with the assessment of the results of the consultation undertaken earlier this year.

  View Consultation Details

Monday 14 May 2012

Councillors to be briefed on Grosvenor Centre redevelopment plans


This week Borough Councillors will be meeting the Legal & General team responsible for preparing one of the town's biggest and most anticipated planning applications, the redevelopment of the Grosvenor Centre.

Every Councillor at the Guildhall has been invited to meet the Legal & General team to find out what will be happening over the next few months to prepare the planning application for submission by the end of the year. Councillors will also have an opportunity to ask questions and find out what steps will be taken to give residents and businesses the chance to have their say in the evolution of the scheme.

Next month Legal & General will start to hold public consultation events and make information available for everyone to comment on. The meeting with Councillors will help shape this process and agree the best way to manage the consultation process so everyone can get involved.

Councillor David Mackintosh, Leader of Northampton Borough Council said: "The redevelopment of the Grosvenor Centre is a key part in making our town a better place to live, work and visit. This project will be worth hundreds of millions of pounds and will create jobs and investment opportunities in our town centre. And, it is a real sign of confidence in Northampton that we are now only months away from a planning application."

Councillor Tim Hadland, Northampton Borough Council cabinet member for regeneration, enterprise and planning said: "The Grosvenor Centre was one of the most talked about projects at the Northampton Alive exhibition and everything is on course for designs and plans to be on show over the next few months as Legal & General finalise their plans."

A planning application is expected by the end of the year, and more details of the pre-application consultation will be announced in the next few weeks.

Station announcement


Cllr David Mackintosh, leader of Northampton Borough Council, warmly welcomed the announcement by the Rt Hon Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport, of funding to allow the redevelopment of Castle Station to go ahead.
 
"This is fantastic news that shows what can be achieved through the strength of our shared commitment to the growth of Northampton.  It underlines the confidence that exists at a national level in our ability to deliver the vision for the town’s future - we are not just making plans for regeneration, we are seeing them come to life,” Cllr Mackintosh said.
 
In March, Cllr Mackintosh, Brian Binley MP and John Markham, Chairman of West Northamptonshire Development Corporation, met with Justine Greening to discuss the urgent need for investment in the station.
 
"This is a really key decision for Northampton. All the major projects taking place in the town are connected and the station is one of the lynchpins.  It’s wonderful to hear that this major investment is going ahead,” Cllr Mackintosh said.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Investigating the issues that matter to residents


Over the next few weeks teams of Councillors will start their work to investigate some of the issues that matter most to people in Northampton. 

Earlier this year Northampton Borough Council's Overview & Scrutiny Committee asked for people to submit their ideas for issues the Committee should look into. The Committee has the power to look into any issue affecting residents or the town, and ideas do not even need to be related to Borough Council services. 

After looking at all of the suggestions for possible investigations the Committee found that there were four popular themes for further work.

Changes to taxi licensing policy to unify rules


Northampton Borough Council’s licensing committee last night (8 May) opted to unify its taxi licensing policy for both Hackney Carriages (black cabs) and Private Hire Vehicles as long as they meet a new condition policy.

"A Public Meeting on the Proposed Bus Interchange With Council Leader"

Follow the link to sign the petition

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/a-public-meeting-on-the-proposed-bus-interchange/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Thursday 3 May 2012

Gymnastics Club

Take care around Abington Park lakes

Northampton Borough Council and its partner Enterprise, which helps maintain the town’s parks, are advising people to take extra care around the lakes in Abington Park whilst water levels are high. Although rather drier weather is forecast over the weekend, the bottom lake at the Bridgewater Road end of the park has spilled over the pond boundary and caused a pooling of water along the one side.  The water is now back within its boundary wall but the pool of water alongside the lake varies in depth and will take time to drain away.  Any further rainfall may cause the water levels to rise and the council is asking that people take care around the worst affected areas.

Down Your Way, for Mon 6th May

Committee members of the SJRA attended a reconvened meeting organised by County Councillor Suresh Patel  to discuss traffic issues in the area, which were attended by Councillors, Residents Association, Police, Saints management and other bodies. This is the first meeting to take place in over a year and focuses on mainly matchday parking but also other contributory factors as well. The main item of good news is that the Saints will be paying for some more match day traffic management next season for most of the games. More details on this will be available after the fixture list is revealed. Now the Claret car park is to be opened regularly, this will be a useful tool in helping to alleviate traffic and parking problems in the area. It cannot hope to eliminate them all together, and thanks are due to the Saints for stumping up the cash to do this, and for being seen as part of the solution instead of the problem. As many people realise, it is not just the Saints who create traffic problems, the Weedon Road is saturated with traffic most days of the week and particularly on Saturdays as everyone goes shopping. The SJRA has repeated its calls for both ends of St. James Mill Road to be connected to create a through route which would alleviate traffic using St. Peters way and St. James Road. It is staggering that after visiting the Northampton Alive exhibition recently, that the information provided did not include St. James Mill Road being connected, as a key transport strategy for Northampton, mind boggling and short sighted, particularly with the dawn of the much trumpeted Enterprise Zone! The SJRA has also requested from the County Council an electronic traffic information sign to be placed on Westbridge that would advice motorists of congestion in the area and to seek alternative routes, namely via Edgar Mobbs Way. The traffic meeting is due to reconvene in August.

Cracking down on vehicle crime in Northampton

Northampton Community Safety Partnership is launching a crackdown to drive out vehicle crime in the borough.

Vehicle crime – theft of and from cars and vans – is a top priority in Northampton. During 2011/12 there were 1982 vehicle crime offences in Northampton: 1485 of those offences were thefts of items from vehicles, an increase of 18.5 per cent compared with 1253 thefts from vehicles in 2010/11.

Scrapping the metal thieves in the East Midlands




East Midlands Crimestoppers have launched a film to help prevent metal theft, by encouraging the reporting  by members of the public of any suspicious behaviour to the Police, or if they prefer anonymously on 0800 555 111 or anonymously online.
Click to watch Video

Northampton Alive

More than 2,000 people took the opportunity to find out about Northampton’s major regeneration projects at the Northampton Alive exhibition and the bus interchange drop-in event last week.
Around 1,500 people visited ‘Northampton Alive’ and spoke to the Leader, Cabinet members and regeneration experts from Northampton Borough Council and West Northamptonshire Development Corporation about development in the town.

They were able to learn about progress on the key developments taking place in the town, including the Grosvenor/Greyfriars development; Northampton Waterside Enterprise Zone; Castle Station, St John’s and Avon Nunn Mills.

More than 1,000 people also came along to Northamptonshire County Council’s separate drop-in sessions to view the plans for the bus interchange and ask questions of the designers.

When added to the people who came to the Northampton Alive roadshows held at all of Northampton Borough Council’s public forum meetings, the total number of people who have found out more about plans for their town is well over 2,000.

Tell us how you think we are doing

People in Northampton are being asked to say what they think about the service they receive from their Borough Council.

Northampton Borough Council is launching the first 2012 satisfaction survey on Tuesday 1 May. Last year the decision was made to run two online satisfaction surveys a year so the Council could monitor how well it was performing across four key areas:
  • Level of satisfaction with the way the Council runs things,
  • Information about services provided by the Council,
  • Ability to influence decisions affecting the local area, and 
  • Do people agree or not that the Council provides value for money 
The online survey should only take 10 minutes to complete and can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nbctrackerspring

Still time to have your say on the future of your community

The final deadline for communities to tell the Borough Council how they would like to be represented has been extended to give groups more time to respond.

Earlier this year the Borough Council started a Community Governance Review so that people across the town could have their say on setting up a local council to represent their area. Communities from across our town have been busy getting organised to discuss the options for forming a recognised council or committee to represent their area.

The deadline for petitions was Friday 27 March, however this has been extended to Friday 18 May.

There has been interest in establishing a new community or parish council in 10 areas of the town. Three areas have gained enough support for the Council to take a closer look at developing proposals for residents to vote on later this year. Councillors agreed to extend the Review's deadline to allow the other seven areas additional time to discuss the issue and get the required level of support to start a deeper debate.

Bands in the Park joins London 2012 Festival for season finale

Abington Park will play host to a packed programme of live music every Sunday this Summer culminating in a grand finale that will see Northampton join the rest of the nation in the Bandstand Marathon - part of the London 2012 Festival and the Cultural Olympiad.
The Bandstand Marathon will mark the close of the national London 2012 cultural event and will also mark the end of Northampton Borough Council's popular Bands in the Park season.
This year's season is the longest the park has hosted for 10 years with bands booked to perform at the much-loved bandstand every week from 6 May to 9 September.
Bands in the Park will have something for everyone. As well as traditional brass and wind instrument bands, this year also sees the return of Folk in the Park, an afternoon of music from Northampton's best covers' band, music to accompany the runners during the "Race for Life" event, and, of course, the Bandstand Marathon finale featuring music, community singing and an instrument amnesty.

Big Jubilee Picnic goes craft crazy in build up to big day

With Northampton's Town & County Big Jubilee Picnic all set for Sunday 3 June, a series of FREE craft workshops to get people in the mood for the event will be held at the Guildhall throughout May.

The free 'Crafternoons' will be fun workshops where you can learn how to make anything from a fabulous picnic blanket, home-made bunting, a corgi doggy bag and even crochet crowns for children.

St James End before 1965

St James End before 1965

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