Blue Plaque Trail

A small crowd of representatives from the Tenbury History Society, Tenbury Tourist Information Group and Tenbury & Burford Civic Society wait for the planned launch of the Tenbury Blue Plaque Trail.

The launch had been advertised on the MHDC website, but none of the launch dignitaries appeared at the advertised time. Perhaps they were already walking the trail!

Copies of the trail will be available later this week from the Tourist Information Centre, the initial print run having been exhausted prior to the launch.

From the MHDC Website.

A new walking trail will be officially launched in Tenbury Wells this month.

Signage for the Blue Plaque Trail is complete, with sixteen signs now highlighting local links to famous people together with key buildings and places of interest within the town.

Finances for the project were secured by Malvern Hills District Council through a £25K grant from the Market Towns Better Welcome programme. The Blue Plaque trail will be managed by a team of volunteers from the Tenbury Historical Society. The launch event will be attended by local dignitaries including the Mayor of Tenbury, Richard Jones, MHDC Council Leader Phil Grove and Councillor Joe Smith, Portfolio Holder for Economic Development.

The event is taking place on Saturday 13th March at 11.00 a.m. at the Tenbury Wells Tourist Information Centre.

Councillor Joe Smith says:

“Tenbury has been listed as one of the UK’s Top Ten friendliest places to shop and we are keen to build on this enthusiasm. The Blue Plaque Trail is an ideal way of attracting more visitors to the town and we are extremely grateful to the team of volunteers from the Historical Society who will be acting as guides.”

Tenbury Gets Streetview

Google's sometimes controversial Street View mapping now covers Tenbury Wells.

Can you guess when the camera car came to town?

I wasn't Tuesday or Friday as there was no Market, it was a week day as the Crossing Patrol is on Market Street. So it was between 8.30 am and 9 am.

View Larger Map

It was whilst the Round Market was being repaired, but whilst Margaret Austin, Bromyard Road's Crossing Patrol was off sick.

Can anyone narrow it down further?

Visit streetview

The Best Picture will not be seen in Tenbury

The Hurt Locker, the low-budget, low-grossing war film about bomb-disposal experts in Iraq, won six Oscars Sunday night, including best picture, but it won't be shown in the Tenbury Regal as it is among a growing number of films only available in a digital format.

The Regal Volunteers group who run the Cinema is hoping that the Town Council, who own the Regal Cinema, will soon start discussing the need to update the projector as it is likely that the existing 35mm format will mostly disappear within the next three years.

The projector currently in use was obtained second hand from a redundant cinema in Wales 20 years ago.

What's in a name

Hopefully the threat of the Biomass Power Station on the business park has finally gone away.

This week Tenbury Biomass Power Limited officially changed their name to CJ Day Associates Limited.

Hopefully this will remove the final blight from the site and that MHDC can attract developers to build starter units and attract more businesses to Tenbury.

Playground Update

Work in well under way creating the new Children's play ground in the Burgage at Tenbury Wells. The contractors are just marking time at the moment waiting for equipment to be delivered.

With an estimated £50M of new play equipment being installed across the West Midlands in the first quarter of this year, the manufacturers are all struggling to meet the demand as due to the vagaries of public funding all work has to be completed by the end of March.

So far only one item of equipment has arrived, and this came direct from a quarry.

Just in case you wondered.

You may have wondered what the rather strange items of urban landscaping are that have appeared on the footpath alongside Kyre Brook.

These are features for Skateboarders to use to make their journey to and from the Skate Park more interesting.

I also understand that they can be used by BMX bikes, although paradoxically they are banned from cycling down this footpath.

(In a recent Tenbury Primary School quiz, the Cycle in a Red Ring sign was described as Cycling permitted, so who knows!)

Spring Cleaning in Teme Street

BEFORE

AFTER

As the repainting of Teme Bridge is still at least 2 years away, Worcester County Council have decided that cleaning the bridge would be a good alternative.

Unfortunately, due to the proximity of the river, only gentle cleaning by hand is permitted to ensure that nothing spills and pollutes the water.

As you can see from the photo's above there is a spectacular difference in the before and after appearance.

Tenbury Advertiser Article complete with inaccurate information.

Any one for Tennis

The Tenbury Tennis Club made representation to the Town Council tonight asking them to reconsider the increase in the annual charge to the club.

As all the discussions regarding this increase have been held in private session, I do not know what prompted the Town Council to ask for an increase of 35%. I can only guess that they had finally done the maths and spotted that they were subsidising the club by a massive amount.

From the figures released by the Tennis club tonight, it would appear that annual membership is in the region of £50 a year and will need to rise to £60 a year to cover the increased rent.

I don't know much about Tennis Clubs but an increase from £1 a week to £1.15 doesn't seem outrageous to me. This still means that the Town Council are subsidising the facility to the tune of several thousand pounds a year.

Once again the Council reverted to private session, so I don't know if they backed down on the increase or held firm.