Flower Festival at St Mary’s Church for Remembrance

‘LEST WE FORGET’

Flower Festival

  31st October to 2nd November

The St Mary’s Church, The Fairway, South Ruislip will be open on all 3 days with displays commemorating the 1st World War and Saints. Admission price £2.

Refreshments will be available throughout the weekend together with a programme of music.

 On Friday evening from 6-8pm there will be a children’s party with a theme of Saints and Heroes.

Please contact info@stmarychurchruislip.co.uk for more details or to book a ticket.

 On  Saturday afternoon stalls selling Christmas gifts, cakes, sweets, refreshments

 together with face painting and other activities will be in the Church Hall.

On Sunday after our morning service there is the opportunity to plant a British Legion Poppy Cross in our Garden of Remembrance

in memory of a loved one. These will be sold at £3 to raise money for the Poppy Appeal.

Friday 10am – 8pm

Saturday Noon -7pm

Sunday 11.30am-6pm

Next Quarterly Meeting 21st January 2014

In a change to the published date the next quarterly meeting will take place on 21st January 2014,  Normal St Mary’s, Long Drive venue at 8pm.

Whenever the SRRA doesn’t meet the Fourways Womens Club meets at the Hall and they thought we were meeting on the 21st rather than the 28th as originally planned.  As Fourways had booked speakers we were happy to move our date.

Fourways are a longstanding club who celebrated 50 years in operation earlier this year.  More details in this Gazette article.

Back to the SRRA.  If you have any items to submit for consideration at the meeting please send to Honorary Secretary Jeremy Wasden or via the email address at this site.   Best to do this two months in advance for the agenda in the newsletter, but otherwise send us an email at our contact email address.

St Mary's, Long Drive
St Mary’s, Long Drive

Next Quarterly 22nd October 2014

The Road Stewards are getting ready to deliver the newsletters out ahead of the next quarterly meeting  which will be held at St Mary’s Church Hall, The Fairway, South Ruislip, on Wednesday 22nd October starting at 8pm.

There will be updates on local policing, the ARLA site, HS2 and a whole host of local issues.

If you have any items to submit for consideration at the meeting please send to Honorary Secretary Jeremy Wasden or via the email address at this site.   Best to do this two months in advance for the agenda in the newsletter, but otherwise send us an email at our contact email address.

St Mary's, Long Drive
St Mary’s, Long Drive

Update from RAF Northolt: Less Flights and More Flares

RAF Northolt
RAF Northolt

Direct from RAF Northolt:

“At present we are having some major upgrading works on our Air Traffic Control tower. To enable the works to take place, the air traffic staff will move out of the tower and into a temporary facility. In view of the reduced capacity of the temporary facility it has been decided to prioritise military and government aircraft movements and therefore from 8pm on Friday 8th August until 8am on Tuesday 26th August no commercial aircraft will operate from RAF Northolt.”

In addition we will test our ability to communicate with aircraft through flares on 7 August between 10am and 11am on Thursday 7 August, so residents should not be alarmed if they see flares being fired at this time.”

Release from RAF Northolt 06/08/2014

Comments turned off – sorry :-(

I like the idea of an open an interactive site but I can’t moderate the flow of spam comments I’m getting on the site so have turned off comments for the time being.

126 spam comments at the moment and I don’t have time to check in case something real is in there.

If you want to comment on an article or something affecting South Ruislip please email us or pop over  to the Facebook page, just search for us under South Ruislip Residents Association.

SRRA on facebook
SRRA on facebook

 

Signs of Life at the Focus Site….

Focus Site
Focus Site

Toys shop planning applications and there two  others online at Hillingdon planning.  This could well be seen now because the owners, AVIVA, expect the ARLA site on Victoria Road to get planning permission…

In brief the plans are straightforward  and seem to be amendments to the two units:

  • To demolish the garden centre section in favour of car parking
  • To extend the range of goods to be sold.
  • Change in the internal configuration

For more information search online at Hillingdon Planning for applications

 

HS2 Update 40 from Ruislip Against HS2

Dear Supporter,

We hope you are enjoying the summer sunshine and long may it last!
As usual there is lots of news to share with you and whilst we hope you have some relaxing holiday time we would ask that you don’t forget about HS2 over the summer – it may be quiet, but HS2 certainly isn’t going away!
HAHS2 will be working hard through the summer to make sure that we are prepared for every next step of the campaign.
We are planning another fundraising comedy night at Ruislip Golf Club on 19th September – this was a great night last time so please do save the date. More details to follow….
Local MPs.
Nick Hurd, the MP for Ruislip/Ickenham/Harefield, lost his Cabinet position with the latest government reshuffle along with neighbouring MP for Denham, Dominic Grieve.This means they will revert to being backbench MPs with more time (and more freedom to speak out) on local issues.
Nick Hurd has always made his stance clear, he will continue to fight for better mitigation and compensation for HS2, on behalf of his constituents, but in a recent meeting with HAHS2 he has confirmed that if those issues are not dealt with satisfactorily, he will vote against the HS2 Hybrid Bill at 3rd Reading.Whilst this is a more encouraging sign of support, it would be useful if more constituents keep writing to him, to let him know their concerns.In particular, H.O.A.C is still under threat with no realistic plan for relocation, even after the Transport Minister visited last week.News story HERE
Sir John Randall MP has announced that he will be stepping down as MP for South Ruislip and Uxbridge at the next election.It is widely rumoured that Boris Johnson may stand for the seat, however candidates have yet to be decided so we shall have to wait and see!
Petitioning
Overall there were 1,925 petitions submitted to parliament and of those many came from across the Hillingdon borough,including one from Hillingdon Council and one each from the Local Councillors and Resident Associations that cover each area here affected by HS2.
Many more individual residents submitted petitions too – which is great, so thanks to all those that made the effort.We are pleased to say no petitions from Hillingdon were challenged.
However the two biggest petitions came from Stop HS2 and HS2 Action Alliance and these were challenged,by HS2 Ltd,on the grounds that they did not have ‘locus standi’ and could not represent those affected by HS2 on route wide issues!A hearing was held this week and the challenge was not upheld, so the good news is that these petitions will be heard by the select committee.
Thank you to everyone who wrote letters of support to them which were used in evidence.
We now have to wait to hear when individuals will be called to be heard by the select committee but given that there are so many petitions,plus a decision to start proceedings in the north and work down the route, this may take some time.
The Chair of the Select Committee, Robert Syms, has admitted that the petitioning hearings could take at least 2 years, so we have some way to go before the Hybrid bill can reach it’s 3rd reading. This will obviously take us beyond the next election so there will be interesting times ahead.
HAHS2 will be collating advice and information on how to best present evidence to the committee, when the time comes, and we hope to share advice with you .Please do email us if you have submitted a petition and would like some support.
Compensation
Following a decision by SoS for Transport earlier in the year, to make some changes to the HS2 compensation scheme, a new consultation has been launched. We know that you have responded to these consultations many times before but we need your continued input to help secure further changes.Whilst some of the changes could benefit more residents in Hillingdon we don’t believe the measures go far enough and in practice the proposals are not as ‘fair and generous’ as the government would like you to believe.
HAHS2 will be producing more easy response postcards that will be available in all local Libraries in the coming weeks.We simply don’t have the resources to distribute these to everyone so if you are able to help – even just to deliver to your own road – please email us.
For more information about the compensation consultation and to respond on-line – see  HERE The consultation closes on Tuesday 30th September at 11.45 pm
Legal Action
There are 3 legal challenges going through the courts,2 of which have been bought jointly by HS2 Action Alliance and Hillingdon Council.
The first is a judicial review challenging the decision by the SoS for Transport to issue safeguarding directions without undertaking a strategic environmental assessment.The case has already been heard by the High Court and we await a judgement.
You can read more about the case HERE
The second case is a complaint to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee. Lottie Jones of RAHS2 has joined forces with Hillingdon Council and HS2AA in taking this case to help represent Hillingdon residents.
The good news is that the committee has ruled that this case has the right to be heard in Europe so we are one step closer to calling the government to account for their responsibility to the planning of HS2 and protection of the environment.
You can read more about the case HERE and see the complaint HERE
The Government is also to face a High Court legal challenge from the Information Commissioner along with campaigners after ministers used a wartime veto to censor information about the controversial HS2 high speed rail projectRead more about this case  HERE
We will of course keep you updated with news of the progress of all this legal action.
Funding
 
As always the campaign to Stop HS2,fight for fair mitigation and compensation as well as lobbying parliament, relies on financial support. Much of the progress that has been made over the last few years could not have happened without donations to the cause.
We are grateful to all those who have made contributions in the past but we need to keep support going!
Please do think about make a donation if you can.
We are currently trying to raise funds to support the Stop HS2 stands at the Party Conferences which will be crucial as we continue to lobby MPs in the run up to the 2015 election.
If you can contribute in any small way, donations will be gratefully received either via Paypal on our website by clicking the donate button HERE or by sending cheques to Hillingdon Against HS2 to: 8 Almond Close, Ruislip , HA46EB
 
You can also help raise funds really easily – FOR FREE! as you do your everyday shopping online – please register HERE
 
Social Media
 
Don’t forget to use Facebook and Twitter to help keep the campaign against HS2 alive.
Join our Facebook page HERE for daily updates and news as it happens. Follow us on Twitter @HillingdonAHS2 and  remember to use #HS2 and or #StopHS2 when tweeting.
From Lottie Jones.

HS2 Update

An artist's impression of part of the proposed HS2 routeHS2 is currently being debated in parliament.  Even though there is strong opposition to it and it has been flagged up as a red/amber risk as to whether it will provide value for money by the parliamentary watchdog, there is a strong feeling that it may still be pushed through.

We have to be prepared for this eventuality, so whilst we remain resolutely opposed to the project we need to try to mitigate its effects locally.

The rail link through South Ruislip is currently planned to be in a tunnel which reduces much of the blight that would have been experienced by an over ground option.  What many in the area may not be aware of is that to enable the tunnel to proceed a number of major works must be carried out to the local services such as sewerage and water systems.

These works will create major disruption for long periods of time. They will be mainly centred on West End Road, Station Approach, Long Drive, the green area adjacent to Bridgwater Road and Victoria Road. The Victoria Road effect will be from the construction of a vent shaft behind the old Focus building.

A petition process was announced by HS2 which gives individuals, associations and businesses the right to petition parliament to seek ways to mitigate the local disruption.

SRRA has submitted a petition on the residents behalf and while we clearly stated that we remain opposed to the project we requested that when these works were carried out they must not be scheduled simultaneously, access to shops, businesses and residential properties must be available at all times etc.  We received a great deal of help from the council’s personnel in ensuring that our petition was presented in the correct format and for that we thank them for their assistance.   A copy of the mandate signed by committee members following the AGM and the petition are on the website.  [Ed: Clicking on the links will download the documents in Word format to your browsing device].

Author:  Sid Jackson

ARLA South Ruislip Retail Development

ARLA South Ruislip
ARLA South Ruislip

One key issue for us in South Ruislip at the moment is the building on the ARLA site.  The majority of the residents, local councillors and the committee of the SRRA are in favour of the new shopping facilities and housing being built.  There are plans for a new supermarket, ASDA, a cinema, housing and family restaurants.

Those against speak in particular of the concerns with traffic.  Our argument is that there will be more traffic anyway and counter peak traffic won’t be as detrimental as traffic at peaks such as if the site was all housing.  Besides we like the idea of competition with Sainsburys.  If you have a point of view on this issue you are always welcome to leave a comment below or attend the planning meeting when it takes place or write to your councillors with your viewpoint.

The consultation process has finished now, but details of the plan can be found here on Hillingdon’s planning portal.

A decision is due by 05/08/2014, but often they take longer subject to the timing of the next available major planning committee meeting.

The developers website can be found just here.

 

Next Quarterly Meeting 23rd July 2014

St Mary's, The Fairway
St Mary’s, The Fairway

The Road Stewards are getting ready to deliver the newsletters out ahead of the next quarterly meeting  which will be held at St Mary’s Church Hall, The Fairway, South Ruislip, on Wednesday 23rd July starting at 8pm.

Further meetings will be held on 22nd October 2014.

If you have any items to submit for consideration at the meeting please send to Honorary Secretary Jeremy Wasden or via the email address at this site.   Best to do this two months in advance for the agenda in the newsletter, but otherwise send us an email at our contact email address.

The website of the South Ruilsip Residents Association