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End of an era?
Victorian Fiesta may be scrapped unless helpers come forward
TRING’S traditional Victorian Fiesta could be cancelled if no one steps forward to organise it this year.
 Members of Tring and District Chamber of Commerce, who are the brains behind the event, have announced they will no longer be heading the festivities.
For the first time since it was introduced 14-years-ago dedicated members of the group will not be the driving force behind the popular event, which draws crowds topping 15,000.
Martin Cheshire, of Almar Printers, who is one of the key organisers, said: “It will be a shame for it to go, but we have tried for the last two or three years to step back a bit to let other people come forward. Now we are stepping right back out of it. We hope that some other organisations or other people will have their hands forced to do it.”
He added: “We have got the knowledge and details to pass on to people. It just needs someone who is willing to put the time into organising.”
The main organisers from the group - Mr Cheshire, Carol Lawrence and Ben Cartwright - have been giving up their time for years to make sure the celebrations are a hit and now they feel it is someone else’s turn.
Mr Cheshire, 62, said: “It is a big change. We enjoy the buzz of organising it and I’m very happy to say it has always gone well. I’m getting to retirement age and there is a limit to what we can do. We all slow down.”
The chamber of commerce, made up of the town’s traders, has also been forced to pull out of organising the town’s Christmas lights, because of cutbacks in funding.
The lights which line the High Street and surrounding streets, cost a whopping £11,000 to put up and maintain each year.
For last year’s lights the chamber paid an extra £3,000 to meet the shortfall in funding, after Dacorum Borough Council cut its funding to £8,000.
Mr Cheshire said: “The chamber stumped up the difference, but we don’t have excessive amounts of money, so we have just put it back into the hands of the town council.
“We don’t have bottomless pits. This year there will be a shortfall of between £5-6,000 and we don’t have that money.”
Dacorum Borough Council spokesman Sarah Jones said that no budget decision had been made for 2006/7. Amanda Kentish, regeneration manager for Dacorum Borough Council, said: “We are extremely grateful to the chamber of commerce for the wonderful job they have done arranging the Christmas lights in Tring for the last 10 years.
“We are sorry they may have decided to hand the reins for this to someone else and look forward to working with them in the future.”
During a Tring Town Council meeting on Monday, January 9 councillors decided to ask Tring Together, the group tasked with improving the town, to organise the festive lights with some financial backing from Tring Town Council.
Councillors will also be exploring ways to help fund the lights.
Accounting for trouble
WHIPSNADE zoo keepers turned would-be shopkeepers this week as they swapped buckets of foods for their clipboards to start work on a stocktake with a difference.
Around 200 species at the Bedfordshire wild animal park must be recorded each year to keep track of new arrivals, and being added to the list this year will be two new Madagascan red ruffed lemurs, three rhino calves and two Grevy's zebra foals.
Senior keeper Carole Day had her hands full when our snapper caught her taking down the particulars of a gang of Madagascan ring
tailed lemurs on Tuesday.
The annual count is one of the Park's biggest and longest jobs of the year, taking until the end of this month, and with cheeky chappies like these
it is not hard to see why.
Digging in to find problems
SURVEYS by Herts Highways are ongoing in Tring to find out what works need to be carried out to permanently fix the troubled High Street.
Work to dig trial holes to give an indication of the underlying state of the town’s busy street were postponed in December, after traders raised fears that it could ruin their Christmas sales.
The investigative work, which will include road closures, is expected to continue from February and the results will be analysed and a report drawn up.
Herts Highways spokesman Lara Hejazi said that they will then be able to discover what works need to be carried out.
Night-time surveys of the road were done in November, which included a radar survey of the underground utilities.
The works are the first stage of plans to give the High Street a facelift after years of problems. Pressure from heavy traffic passing through the town has caused fractures to underground piping, forcing workmen to repeatedly rip up the road to repair pipes. Continuous works has caused roadblocks to sink resulting in potholes and many of the bricks forming the road surface have also sunk.
Danger alert over banners
RED tape has forced High Street advertising banners to be scrapped in Tring.
Fears over health and safety means that large signs, which are strung across the busy street to publicise local events, have been banned for the new year.
Martin Cheshire from Tring and District Chamber of Commerce said that fears over the safety of volunteers putting up signs using ladders means it has had to stop the service, costing £25, which has advertised a whole host of events.
He said: “There are so many rules and legislation that we can’t climb up ladders and put the banners up. It is a danger.”
The chamber would now have to use a special lift costing £100 each time.
Restaurant offers food for thought
GET your thinking caps on because a Tring businessman is giving local people the chance to name his vegetarian restaurant, due to open later this year.
David Metcalfe is stumped over what to call the first ever meat-free restaurant in the town and is offering a free meal for two for the person who comes up with the best name.
He wants to get plans drawn up to convert the New England House Antiques Shop in High Street into his dream restaurant as soon as he gets the keys at the end of this month (January).
A vegetarian himself, Mr Metcalfe is so keen on locally produced vegetables and fruits that he will be growing his own produce to be used in the restaurant.
The owner of FW Metcalfe and Sons, he plans to use special polytunnels at Metcalfe’s Field in Station Road to help him grow tomatoes, herbs and peppers all year round.
Other vegetables that will be cultivated in the four acre field will include, potatoes, beans, onions, garlic, carrots and parsnips as well as pear and apple trees.
Mr Metcalfe said: “I want to use virtually 100 per cent organic products and I want to make use of local produce.
“The polytunnels mean I can grow vegetables for a longer period of time. It has given me a lot more options.
“I think that local food is really important, I can’t emphasis that enough. Sometimes you can buy organic from the supermarket and it has been shipped from across the world.”
Mr Metcalfe, aged 45, has teamed up with Boxmoor gardener Ewen Davidson, who will be helping him with making sure the vegetables are top quality.
Mr Metcalfe said: “Ewen knows a lot about growing organic. Hopefully between the two of us we can work it out. We are quite a good team.”
Plans are for the restaurant, which will be based next door to the family hardware store in the High Street, to be opened by October. Mr Metcalfe said: “I have always wanted to do it.
“I know it’s the right thing to do. It is definitely going to happen.”
Tring Town Council voiced no objections to Mr Metcalfe’s planning application to put two polytunnels on his field.
A final decision will be made by Dacorum Borough Council.
If you would like to put your suggestion for a restaurant name forward, you can pop into Metcalfe and Sons or call David Metcalfe on
07780 990575.
Man puts home for sale on eBay
But three-bed mobile home still attracts no bids
A WIGGINTON man has resorted to selling his home on eBay after failing to get any offers on the property for more than three months.
Martin Elmes, aged 43, took the unusual step after his chosen estate agents failed to attract a buyer for the three-bedroom static home in Beech Park, Wigginton, which had been on the market for three months at £58,000.
Keen to generate interest in his house Martin turned to internet auction site eBay.co.uk in search of a buyer.
He placed the home on a ten-day long listing with a starting bid price of £45,000 and no reserve.
Unfortunately when the listing ended on Saturday (January 14) no bids had been placed for the home.
Martin, who works at Tesco in Tring, told The Gazette he is selling the house as part of a divorce settlement with his estranged wife.
Once a deal is done he plans to move to Bath with his new partner who he met following his split.
“I have got it advertised with estate agents and not had any responses so I decided to see if I got a response from eBay,” Martin said.
“I am going through a divorce and this is the matrimonial home so I am selling it to split it 50/50.
“I am hoping to set up a new home with a new partner I have met,” he added.
Martin says the home which, as well as having three bedrooms, features a
bathroom, kitchen and lounge, would be perfect
for someone working in Tring.
Between two and three bus services a day run from Beech Park into Tring.
Tring musical to get Oz premiere
A FUN Tring musical has been such a hit that it will be performed on the other side of the world.
The home-grown production, Noah the Musical, was written by locals Ian Gower and Rob Alderton and went down a treat when it was stage at the Court Theatre in Tring last year.
Now the musical has been snapped up by other performance groups and is set to be staged at the Stirling Players Theatre in Perth, Australia this July.
Director Christine Ellis, who will be heading the production, found out about the musical while looking on the internet.
She said: “This show is great. We fell in love with it the moment we heard it on the website. It is like a cross between The Lion King and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, a real family show - just what we are looking for. We are so proud to be presenting the Australian premiere of Noah the Musical.
“Noah fits the bill perfectly, a great story told with fabulous new songs.”
Ian and Rob spent a year putting together the whole show from scratch, from writing the music to selecting the costumes for their debut at the Court Theatre.
Now there are more than 15 groups around the country and abroad who are looking into performing the musical. It will be staged in Farnham, Hampshire this October and another group in Jersey will be performing the musical in the autumn.
Ian said: “Our next goal is to get around 20 to 30 groups performing the show in the next 18 months or so. This hopefully will entice larger producers and theatres to take a look at Noah, with a view to taking it further.”
The talented duo are now working on another musical based on Robin Hood, which will be staged at the Court Theatre in September this year.
For details visit the website at www.noahthemusical.co.uk
People power wins round pub bosses
Residents object to longer opening hours
CONTROVERSIAL plans to extend the opening hours of a Tring pub, just months after new licensing laws came into effect, have been withdrawn at the last minute.
Pub company Punch Taverns had put forward an application to add 30 minutes to the Grand Junction Arms opening hours.
The proposals would have meant the Bulbourne pub’s doors staying open until 11.30pm from Monday to Thursday, 1am on Friday and Saturday and 11pm on Sunday.
Pub bosses also wanted to play recorded music for an extra 30 minutes from Monday to Thursday, until 11.30pm; Friday and Saturday until 1.30am and Sundays until 11.30pm.
Residents turned out for a Tring Town Council planning meeting earlier this month to voice their objections and said that since new opening hours came into play last November, they had suffered loud music late into the night, people parking in driveways and loud and sometimes abusive behaviour.
Herts Police confirmed that they have had reports of nuisance behaviour.
A spokesman said: “We are led to understand from local residents in the vicinity of this pub that low-level nuisance behaviour may be affecting their quality of life.
“In this instance we would urge residents to keep a diary of the problems they experience, which can be used as evidence at a licensing hearing.”
During the Tring Town Council meeting Cllr John Allan said: “I think it is very worrying.
“It is quite clear that what is happening here is
completely unacceptable behaviour by their customers.
“
Punch Taverns is a very large company and there is no reason at all that they can’t get their pubs in order.”
A Punch Taverns spokesman said: “We are planning a £150,000 internal and external refurbishment of the Grand Junction Arms and as part of the application process are required to state our preferred opening hours.
“Following consultation with local residents it was decided to withdraw the request for additional opening hours.
“We are awaiting the council’s final decision to help us improve the outlet’s offering.”
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