Main Street in Great Gidding was temporarily blocked off on Tuesday 21st December 2021 whilst the newly refurbished school bell tower was lifted into place prior to refitting.
PLANNING – LOCAL
Ironically enough for a councillor who isn’t a member of the District Council’s Development Management Committee, I continue to spend a significant amount of time dealing with planning issues; to one degree or another, over the last year I have been involved with planning related issues in Great Gidding as other villages in the Stilton, Folksworth & Washingley ward.
PLANNING – NOT QUITE SO LOCAL
I am concerned about the proposals for a distribution park on a green field site to the north west of Junction 17 of the A1M (on the opposite side of the A605 to the Extra Services) not least because this would be outside of the local plan.
As the site is in the northern part of our district council ward, my fellow ward councillor, Marge Beuttell, is taking the lead for the two of us on this matter; at the time of writing, a planning application hasn’t been published but Marge and I have already been contacted by a number of local residents.
FLY TIPPING
There seems to have been another spike in Fly Tipping recently and I am grateful to the prompt actions of the Huntingdonshire District Council Enforcement team, who work to identify those responsible and the Operations team, who clear away what has been tipped. Reports of tipping and littering can be made via www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk I use the What3Words app to help identify the location, which I find especially useful in representing a rural ward, which one of the largest in the district.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Huntingdonshire is one of the largest districts in the country and the district council has a longstanding commitment to tackle environmental challenges.
The Local Plan sets out green infrastructure priorities and key policies which better shape our future environment for the benefit of nature and the reduction of carbon emissions.
The environment is one of my key areas of interest and I look forward to continuing to try and reduce my own carbon footprint as well as working with the council for the benefit of the community as a whole.
COVID-19 AND RECOVERY
Huntingdonshire District Council’s officers and councillors continue to work hard to deal with the ongoing issues around COVID-19 and the ongoing recovery. Further information on what has been achieved can be found at https://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/people-communities/recovering-from-covid/
A WIDER PERSPECTIVE
The last 18 months have been some of the busiest in my time as a District Councillor; I am approached about a wide variety of issues, not all of which are the direct responsibility of the District Council. Sometimes I am able to help directly and other times my role is to point people towards other councillors, councils or organisations but I will always try and help.
I am fortunate to have a good working relationship with my fellow ward District Councillor Marge Beuttell, County Councillor Ian Gardener and the Councillors and Clerk at the Giddings Parish Council and enjoy working with them for the benefit of the community.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Contact details for Huntingdonshire District Council, including the Out of Hours Emergency Telephone Number, are available via https://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/contact-us there is also information available via https://www.wearehuntingdonshire.org/
My contact details are:
tim.alban@huntingdonshire.gov.uk
07913 101145
District Councillor for Stilton, Folksworth & Washingley Ward
(First contact for residents in Stilton, Folksworth & Washingley, Holme, Denton & Caldecote, Great & Little Gidding, Glatton and Connington).
www.facebook.com/TimAlbanForStiltonWard
(If you are a resident of Sibson-cum-Stibbington, Elton, Alwalton, Morborne, Haddon, Water Newton or Chesterton, please contact my fellow ward councillor Marge Beuttell in the first instance via marge.beuttell@huntingdonshire.gov.uk)
With best wishes for a Happy Christmas and New Year.
Councillor Tim Alban
Why not send a Christmas card of the Giddings this year?
Giddings Christmas cards are now on sale in the Village Shop and include three beautiful aerial views of the Giddings in winter, four of St Michael’s Church beautiful stained glass windows, five magical scenes of Great Gidding in the snow and three warm and glowing Giddings church interiors.
There are 4 different sets of cards:
- Aerial views of the Giddings (3 different cards)
- Great Gidding in the snow (5 different cards)
- St Michael’s stained glass windows (4 different cards)
- Giddings church interiors (3 different cards)
Local Christmas cards – views of our beautiful villages 🙂
Sold as packs or as individual cards. Beautifully printed and gloss laminated, quality cards with envelopes. Blank inside.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
An adventuresome group of four (that’s us three ‘girls’ and Stanley the dog) had a delightful return trip to Grafham Water yesterday courtesy of the new ‘bus-on-demand’ service named Ting.
Once you’ve booked your journey by app or by phone the bus can be tracked in real time so you know exactly when it’s going to arrive, and ours was on time and hosted by two very friendly Ting staff, driver Lisa accompanied by very helpful Dave.
Excellent service
We were picked up at 10am and dropped at Grafham Visitor Centre, had a lovely walk to Perry for lunch at the pub, then returned to Grafham village to be picked up at 3pm.
Read all about Ting and how to make use of this great new service in the article on this website:
Come and say hello to ting
WHERE: Village Hall car park, Great Gidding
WHEN: Friday 22nd October, between 13.20 and 14.20 hours
The ting bus is visiting Great Gidding so we all have chance to see what this new on demand transport service is all about before it launches on Monday.
Come along, there will be handouts and a chance to chat to one of the drivers too.
Background – Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority is trialling a new demand responsive transport system called ting. Instead of running to a fixed timetable, you can now book trips across West Hunts using the ting trips app, or the booking line, when you need them. Once you have booked your journey, it will tell you how long until your bus arrives and where it will meet you so you can hop on board. You can track it live too. You can head over to www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/east/Ting for all the information.
Sue Shepherd and Mary Read are delighted to announce that last Sunday’s Gidding Garden Party raised the marvellous amount of £400 to give directly to The Green Backyard allotment project in Peterborough.
Sue Shepherd adds “As members of the PCC we were very aware of the Church’s ongoing need to raise money. Despite this we all felt that perhaps this time the Church could reach out and give rather than take and that just maybe we the PCC as representatives of the Church could do something that would be of benefit to our community and at the same time help those much less fortunate that us i.e. the Green backyard.
We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our Great Gidding friends and neighbours. It would be good if future events could continue in this vein of giving and sharing.
Many thanks to everyone who helped by coming along to the event and by contributing cakes, plants, donations, time and effort”.
Our Harvest Festival service last Sunday was the first at which the congregation could sing, albeit still wearing masks, for nearly eighteen months. The church was beautifully decorated, and thanks to all who did the decoration. The service was made up of hymns and readings, and taken by Revd Fiona Brampton. The readers were Mary Read, Sue Shepherd, Sylvia Hogg and John De Val. The only thing missing was the sound of the church bells. Hopefully they will be heard again in the not too distant future.
Garden Party at Crown Cottage
After the service, there was an opportunity for the village to come together at a Garden Party at Crown Cottage, organized by the Parochial Church Council. A special thanks to Sue and David for providing such a splendid setting. Proceeds after expenses will be given to The Green Backyard, a community allotment project in Peterborough. We were delighted to welcome a couple of members of the charity, who shared their ambitions for the future with us.
Thank you to everyone who came along and supported this delightful event – even the sun shone on us!
Services at St Michael’s Church
Now a sense of normality is returning to everyday life, this is reflected in services at St Michael’s Church. As many of you will know, we have taken the opportunity to re-assess the pattern of services, and these come into full effect in September.
Tuesday 7th September at 8.30am Morning Prayer
Tuesday 14th September at 8.30am Morning Prayer
Sunday 19th September at 4pm Evensong
Tuesday 21st September at 8.30am Holy Communion
Tuesday 28th September at 8.30am Morning Prayer
In September, we are re-introducing the monthly weekday service of Holy Communion, which takes place on the 3rd(third) Tuesday of every month. Please note that effective from this month, all Tuesday services will start at the slightly later time of 8.30am
Evensong now starts at 4pm throughout the year.
Mike Keck
Gidding resident and artist Geoff Goddard has sent us the fifth one of his beautiful paintings in the series called ‘Autumn Lights’ which at 90cm x 60cm is the largest painting so far. The location is in the field just behind Alconbury brook from Great Gidding, accessed from Luddington Road.
Fabulous work Geoff!
View Geoff’s other Autumn Light paintings
We had a fleeting visitor to Great Gidding on Tuesday, a cormorant, which was first reported outside the end bungalow in Mill Road and then walked and flew down Main Street. Late morning today there were again a number of sightings in Main Street. Eventually, the bird was standing in the road outside the Village Hall whereupon it was later captured and taken into care for its own safety.
Photo: Laura 
Photo: Laura 
Photo: Lesley
A few cormorant facts!
Cormorants originally used to be a seabird frequenting the cliffs around the British Isles and Northern Europe; although in recent years they have moved inland, possibly because of declining fish stocks around our coasts. They nest in colonies in trees, locally there are colonies at Little Paxton Nature Reserve with currently about 50 nests. They also nest on the Ouse & Nene Washes, Holme and other places in Cambridgeshire, birds often fly out from the colonies to feed in lakes, particularly those that hold good quantities of fish.
Cormorants are difficult to love, seen up close they are quite reptilian in features having a very sharp hooked beak as Graham, from The Waterfowl Sanctuary, and myself can testify. Cormorants have been persecuted by man in the past because of the adverse effects they are thought to have on fish stocks. They are a protected species under the Wildlife & Countryside Act, but they can be shot under licence to ‘prevent serious damage’ but only after other methods have been, ‘tried and failed’. Cormorants normally feed entirely on fish, obtained during the day by diving from the surface, using their feet to propel themselves under water their wings are held close to their bodies; they stay underwater from 15 – 60 seconds down to depths of up to 9 metres. Most prey is brought to the surface often shaken and thrown in the air before swallowing. After fishing, cormorants have a very unusual habit of sitting on posts with their wings stretched out to dry their feathers.
Baby Conrad
How did Conrad (or Cormorant Strike as he has also been called) finish up in Main Street? It is difficult to know if it is a he or she, but it is definitely a juvenile bird, (light coloured breast feathers) it will not get its all dark feathers for a year. So my theory is that it is “a baby bird” (or at least a teenager) newly away from its parents; taking those first few tentative steps (or flights in this case) away from home. We have had some bad spells of weather recently and it may have downed the bird and it has not been able to feed as there is no suitable habitat nearby, any local goldfish or Koi may have had a narrow escape.
The Waterfowl Sanctuary
Graham is currently feeding our Gidding cormorant some recently thawed roach that he has obtained from a fishing bait shop in Huntingdon; he will keep up us updated as to progress. Graham came out very quickly although strictly speaking he deals with waterfowl, ducks geese, swans etc. His website is here https://www.thewaterfowlsanctuary.co.uk/ and he is very deserving of donations towards his work.
Cormorants have been recorded living up to 20 years old, so let’s hope Graham can get the bird’s strength up and can return it to the wild at a suitable location.
Terry Murfitt
Last seen in Alconbury. Nervous and scared so please don’t shout or chase.
Please report any sightings by calling:
07917 680151 or
07557 655755
