Window Competition - Winner

Tenbury Mayor, Liz Weston presents the award to the winner of this years Mistletoe themed window dressing competition Sue Todd-Wood of the Little Dress Shop.

Mistletoe Sacrifice

Mistletoe Festival 2010, originally uploaded by @WR15.

About 40 people gathered on the Burgage, Tenbury Wells to participate in the Mistletoe Foundation Druidic Ceremony, witnessed by a BBC Film Crew, program makers from BBC Radio 4 and numerous photographers from various publications.

The ceremony which lasted about an hour thanked the natural word for all its gifts, such as the Sun, Wind & Rain and for the Harvests such as Hops and Apples.

At the culmination of the ceremony the Mistletoe harvested this morning is thrown into the River Teme as an offering.

More photo's

Ceremonial Mistletoe Harvest

Members of the Mistletoe Foundation met this morning in Tenbury to carry out the Druidic Mistletoe Harvesting ceremony (whilst being recorded by Radio 4).  The Mistletoe is cut with a Golden Sickle and caught in a white sheet so that the Mistletoe doesn't touch the ground.

The Mistletoe will be paraded through Tenbury at about 2pm this afternoon, (starting at he Rose & Crown, Burford) and a further ceremony will be held on the Burgage before the Mistletoe will thrown into the River Teme as an offering.

Radio 4 will be in attendance along with a number of photographers from various publication.
Radio 4 Open Country

Tesco Planning Meeting Arranged

Malvern Hills District Council have booked Tenbury High School as the location for the Northern Area Planning meeting on December 20th at 6pm.

Although some documents and reports are still incomplete, Council Leader Phil Grove said tonight  "At this stage we have no plans to postpone the meeting"

From my (and other peoples) investigations, a number of questions have been raised.

• 1. Who now owns the land and have they been served with the appropriate notice/certificate/documentation that a planning application is in progress.
  
  It appears that the former owners, Chase Tenbury LLP have been struck off for failing to complete statutory returns, and in theory all their assets have passed to the Crown.
  
  
• 2. Tesco's have not put in a Conservation Area application to demolish the Old Infirmary.
  
  As far as can be ascertained, they originally planned to make an application that would be considered at the same time as the planning application.  It is understood that they have now decided/been advised that they needn't make the application until after the planning application has been decided as the need for the demolition is intrinsic to the scheme.  Therefore if the scheme is passed, that automatically grants them permission to demolish.
  
  
• 3. Tesco's have not put in a Listed Building Consent Application to demolish the buildings behind the Old Fire Station and to remove some of the railings.
  
  Once again they appear to be relying on the "intrinsic to the scheme" theory.
  
  
• 4. The Environment Agency has raised concerns that not enough information has been supplied and therefore at this stage they are objecting to the scheme.
  

If Tesco's are correct and they can reply on the "intrinsic to" how do MHDC allow agencies such as English Heritage to comment on the demolition as they would not be consulted about the planning application.

I have asked Cllr Grove that "IF" there is a need to defer the decision, this is publicised prior to the meeting (which will need to go ahead as it is considering other planning applications at the same time) and not once everyone has braved the December night and turned up at the school.

Market Street Toilets - CLOSED

The new "Iconic" public toilets in Market Street, Tenbury Wells, have had to be closed.  It appears that insufficient (or perhaps no) lagging has been installed to protect the water pipes during cold weather.

It is not yet confirmed whether the work was incorrectly specified or incorrectly installed, but whatever the outcome it is a further embarrassment for Malvern Hills District Council.  The new toilets took an incredible 3 years to design and build and have only been open less than six months.

Tomorrow is the Mistletoe Festival, one of the days that attract visitors to town and yet again, there is a strong possibility that the toilets will not be available.

The Town Council have already raised their disappointment at the state of the toilets during Applefest and had asked that additional cleaning be scheduled on festival dates.

On a brighter note, WCC have actually managed to grit the Town Centre pavements this year.

Major Power Outage - Tenbury

Roughly one third of the shops and other businesses in Teme Street, the Crossing Lights and Christmas Decorations lost their power this afternoon.

The fault has been traced to a single cable and EON are currently excavating in search of the problem.

The duty "jointer" is on his way to Tenbury to splice in a new section of cable.  Early indications point at "old" infrastructure rather than overload or other reason for the fault developing.

It is hoped that the power will be restored in the next four hours, or at the very worst by very early morning.

New Photo Magazine in Town

At the moment it's something of a best kept secret, but there is a new online magazine in town, with the most amazing photographs.

I would recommend you all to visit www.tenburymagazine.co.uk it's fantastic and puts my efforts to shame.

Also it's time to collect the latest issue of the Teme Valley Times from Tenbury News, the Post Office and other local suppliers.

Coldest Night So Far : 2

In Tenbury last night the temperatures fell to a low of -12.2 c. 

The lowest recorded temperature yesterday was -20.9 c at Altnaharra.

Hard to believe now:

Global temperature has warmed to near record levels in 2010 say climate scientists from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia. Provisional figures for the three main global temperature datasets put 2010 on track to become first or second warmest in the instrumental record.