Category: Latest News

On this page you can view the latest news from West Northamptonshire Council. Visit their website at: https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/

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WNC Town & Parish Briefing – Monthly Comprehensive Newsletter

September 2024 edition of the Town & Parish Briefing

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WNC News Releases – highlighted by East Farndon Parish Council

Sept 18th 2024 – It’s time to apply for you child’s school place for September 2025

Parents and carers of children living in West Northamptonshire can now apply for a reception place in a primary or infant school, a year 3 place in a junior school, or a Year 7 place in a secondary school, for the September 2025 intake. Parents and carers can apply for a place in reception if their child will be four years old on or before 31 August 2025. The closing date for applications for places in reception (and year 3 at junior school) is 15 January 2025 at midnight. The closing date for applications for Year 7 places is 31 October 2024 at midnight.

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Sept 18th 2024 – 24 hour mental health text message service launched for Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) along with North and West Northamptonshire Councils have partnered with charity Mental Health Innovations to offer free, confidential and 24/7 mental health support to those across the county through the charity’s text messaging support service Shout.

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July 20th 2024 – WNC service to deal with Wasp problems

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Mar 13th 2024 – Eligible households urged to access funding to save money to heat their homes

Residents who have an annual household income of under £31,000 or less and are not connected to mains gas networks could be eligible for government funding to help to make their homes more energy efficient and save money on heating their homes, reducing fuel poverty. From Tuesday 2 April the criteria will change to less than £36,000 combined gross annual income.

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Our next Coffee Morning get together at the East Farndon Village Hall will be on Friday 25th October 2024, from 10.30am to 12.00 midday. You are very welcome to join us to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea, plus toasted tea cakes, a selection of books and a raffle. All money raised is donated to village charities / causes or other local charities. Everyone is welcome and entry is free. Many thanks for your ongoing support.

Sam Beesley has set up an East Farndon WhatsApp group called “Fabulously Fantastic Farndon”. This was set up originally to support the 12 Days of Christmas event that took place last year, but it has developed into a quick and useful way to update residents on events etc. It is a completely personal and private group and not linked to any formal East Farndon organisation. If you would like to be added to this group then please contact Sam. You can use this link to email Sam Beesley.

Last week was Bees’ Needs Week, but you can still get involved. Our bees call on everyone to take five simple actions to help pollinators. To sustain bee populations, people can:

1. Grow more flowers, shrubs, and trees 
2. Let patches of garden and land grow wild 
3. Cut grass less often 
4. Don’t disturb insect nest and hibernation spots 
5. Think carefully about whether to use pesticides

For more details and information, please see https://defraenvironment.blog.gov.uk/2024/07/08/5-simple-actions-to-help-pollinators-this-bees-needs-week/.

As part of the West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) development of a new local plan, in June 2024, East Farndon Parish Council (EFPC) responded to submit our drawn Village Confines, 4 nominations for Local Green Spaces and a request to extend the WNC Special Landscape Area within which East Farndon is located. These requests will remain in a pending status until the new WNC local plan is formally accepted and published in 2025. The EFPC submissions can be viewed in map form by clicking the links below.

Village Confines Map

Local Green Space Nominations Map

Special Landscape Area Map

Also, most people will know that East Farndon has medieval settlement remains in the village and this is a Historic England Scheduled Monument. This can be viewed in map form by clicking the link below.

Medieval Settlement Remains & Scheduled Monument Map

The parcels of land in the WNC spatial options strategy and call for sites documents, identified for potential major housing developments between East Farndon and Market Harborough, remain in the latest / new WNC local plan. The good news is that all of these areas have been marked as not suitable and thefore will not be going ahead into the new housing areas to be developed for this plan. It remains the case that Harborough District Council (HDC) could request these development areas from WNC to include in the new HDC local plan. This is unlikely, but EFPC will continue to monitor closely the development of both the WNC and HDC new local plans.

Please click this link to read more about this on our page dedicated to Planning & Major Housing Development.

If you have any questions, please use this link to email our Parish Clerk, Caroline Burton.

Many thanks to everyone who purchased raffle tickets and those who braved the variable weather to attend our East Farndon Village Fete on Saturday 15th June 2024. Also thanks to the Fete Committee for organising such a great event and special thanks to Nigel for the use of Haynes Field. Cick this link to see some photos from the event. The raffle raised £950 for the church and the other activities raised £1,300 to support local charities and village initiatives.

Judy Hodgetts has created a special history article to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day which took place on Thursday 6th June 2024. The article, together with some WW2 artefacts, were displayed at our East Farndon D-Day 80 commemoration event. Judy’s very interesting article is a must read and it includes reflections from a number of East Farndon residents. The first page is repeated below, please click this link to read the full article.

The D-Day Landings by Judy Hodgetts

In June 1944, five years after the start of World War II, France was under German occupation. On 6^th June that year over 150,000 allied troops landed on 5 beaches across Normandy, northern France in what was known as the D-Day landings. The aim of this mission was to drain German resources and to block access to key military sites. Securing a bridgehead in Normandy would allow the Allies to establish a viable presence in northern Europe.

A combined naval, air and land assault, it remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. It was known as Operation Overlord, codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as the D-Day landings. The landings marked the start of a long and costly campaign in north-west Europe, which lasted until 30^th August 1944. It ultimately convinced the German high command that defeat was inevitable.

Early on 6^th June, Allied airborne forces parachuted into drop zones across northern France. Ground troops then landed across five assault beaches – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a foothold along the coast and could begin their advance into France.

A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself, with more than 5,000 wounded. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy (the entire campaign), 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle – and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities – killed around 20,000 French civilians.

Many men and women from East Farndon served in World War II, and although we know where some men were stationed, it is unclear how many landed in Normandy on 6^th June 1944. Upon their return home after the war, many men were unable to talk about the trauma they had been through.

Sadly, two men from the village (Sidney Chapman and Brigadier Denis Sanders) were killed in action during the campaign and four other men (Frederick Stanley Allen, Mick Belton, Ernie Piggin and Brigadier Sir Alex Stanier) took part in the landings and survived……….please click this link to read the full article.

Huge thanks for joining us at East Farndon Village Hall on Thursday 6th June 2024 for our special event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. We had a full house and everyone enjoyed a fish & chip supper, followed by a quiz, a game of heads & tails, and our tribute, which included the lighting of the candle of peace at 9.15pm. Please click this link to see some photos from this event.

The event raised a fantastic total of £365 that we have donated to the Royal British Legion. Thank you everyone for being so generous.

Judy Hodgetts created a very special history article to support our event and this was displayed on the night, together with a number of WW2 artefacts and some very clever knitted (by Judy) characters! Please click this link to find out more and read this special article.

Alan Langley delivered another of his now legendary illustrated history talks on Friday 17th May 2024 in the East Farndon Village Hall, with £58.50 raised for Marriott Green maintenance. The talk focused on ‘How to Deci-pher an Ancient Language: the Solution to a 50-year Mystery.’ The hero of the story is buried in Welford, not far from East Farndon!

Last night, Friday 10th May 2024, saw a spectacular display of the northern lights over East Farndon! What a great thing to see! Please see a few photos attached.