Attempted burglary between 1140 and 1210 yesterday, Thursday 18th July, on Mill Lane, Wildmoor. Thankfully they did not gain entry.
Please be extra vigilant and report and suspicious activity to the police calling 101.
PC Kelso. SNO. Bromsgrove North and Rural.
Over the next two weeks decorators will be at the Hall repainting & re-varnishing internally.
Whilst work is taking place there will be no activities. Weekly evening activities will resume Monday 5th August.
Then during the rest of August work will take place to install external CCTV, improve lighting over the car park and along the entrance plus installation of a projector, sound system and media player.
The CCTV installation & operation will be fully compliant with relevant legislation & ICO guidelines, the Village Hall policy will be available on the village website on the Village Hall web page.
This Autumn we will see the start film nights and afternoons. Full details in the next FVCA newsletter.
Over the car park low energy, LED, lights will now come on automatically when it goes dark, remaining on until it becomes light. This will improve Hall User safety.
We have been contacted today by a couple of residents that have received letters from Nextdoor Neighbour, asking them to join their networking site.
Earlier this year we were contacted by two other residents who also received similar letters.
There is a social media site called Nextdoor Neighbour that allows residents to share local information within a closed group; incidents, events, good news stories, etc.
We understand that if you register with the site you will join an online community that is wider than Fairfield, it includes Bournheath, Clent, Hagley & Belbroughton.
We also understand that if you sign-up you will agree to the collection of your data for marketing purposes that will be shared with third party organisations.
Searching the internet, there are complaints about “SPAM” letters from Nextdoor Neighbour, and people are claiming that letters are being sent to their neighbours from them but they were not aware that they had given their consent – this was the case earlier this year, the person that received the letter passed it on to FVCA and when we spoke to the person whose name appeared on the bottom of the letter, that person said that they had joined the site but was unaware that letters were being sent out in their name. Nextdoor Neighbour have challenged these comments by saying:
“The invitation you have received is from a neighbour that has verified at their address and chosen to send invitations to other residences in their neighbourhood to grow their Nextdoor network.”
“To be clear, we will never send out neighbour invitations on behalf of the member without the explicit permission of the member. Members are presented with the option to invite their neighbours when they join and through emails from time to time, however, members may choose to either ‘skip’ this step or choose not to click on the ‘send postcards” button in the email. There is additionally an option to cancel postcards from the email if the member has accidentally sent invitations they no longer wish to send. “
“We are deeply committed to the privacy and security of our members, if this member doesn’t believe they have sent invitations from their account, we would like to review their account with them directly and are available on help@nextdoor.co.uk.”
FVCA encourages people to think carefully before joining sites and to do their research before subscribing and sharing personal information.
We have received the following message from our County Councillor, Shirley Webb:
“I have been advised by Safer Roads Partnership that the current motorcyclist who is off sick is just waiting for clearance to go back to riding from his specialist. The new recruit is yet to be fully trained, we are looking at mid August at the earliest to start.
In the meantime i have asked our Safer Neighbourhood team when time allows, to spend time monitoring around my division.”
Fairfield First School has been chosen by the Local Authority (LA) to expand to a 1 Form Entry (1FE) School, to help ease the pressure on school places, across the town of Bromsgrove.
To do this the LA allocated funds to build one additional classroom. During the Feasibility Study it quickly became obvious that it would be cost effective to also replace the ageing mobile classrooms, currently in their 35th year on site!
As such, plans have been created to build 3 additional classrooms, on land belonging to the LA, to the rear of our school.
The Headteracher, Scott Smith, said “This, as I am sure you can imagine, is a very exciting prospect for everyone associated to Fairfield First.”
A ‘drop in’ session has been arranged where you will be able to view the current plans and speak with the design team. These plans will also go on display within school, when they return in September.
PRE-PLANNING CONSULTATION EXERCISE IN RESPECT OF EXTENSIONS AND ALTERATIONS AT FAIRFIELD FIRST SCHOOL
Place Partnership Ltd have been working with Worcestershire County Council to develop proposals to extend and alter the existing buildings at Fairfield First School. A pre-planning consultation will take place at the school on 6th August 2019 from 2:30pm to 6:30pm where the proposed plans will be available to view and make comment on.
The session will be a ‘drop-in’ arrangement so you can call in at any time between 2:30pm and 6:30pm. Plans will be available in the school after this date, should you wish to view them at the school, then arrangements are made direct with the school.
We have received the following message from Worcestershire County Council:
“Just to keep you informed regarding the emptying of the gullies along Stourbridge Rd, there is a project in place to dig back the verges along Sandy Ln and jet the whole system, we will look to cleanse all the gullies along the Stourbridge Rd from the main island that joins Sandy Ln up to the motorway bridge (by the nursery) at the same time.”
“As you can appreciate it wouldn’t be cost or time effective to do these at separate times.”
If no action is seen by the end of September, FVCA will be chasing.
Many of the storm drain grids along Stourbridge Road are still blocked, even though Residents and FVCA have reported to the County Council.
We will continue asking that our drain are unblocked.
Can residents please do the same via the County Council Report It CLICK HERE
Smokers please #BinTheButt. Don’t #FlickIt.
Our community litter pickers have noticed an increase in cigarette ends on the Recreation Ground and along the Village Roads.
As well as plastic, cigarette filters are comprised of thousands of chemical ingredients, including arsenic, lead and nicotine, all of which can leak into marine environments. According to studies, just one cigarette butt per litre of water is highly toxic to fish.
Toxins from the filter seep into the ground killing microscopic & small insects that are valuable to the food chain. Plastics also harm our local biodiversity.
Our #BinTheButt campaign aims to raise awareness amongst smokers and highlight the link between the cigarette butt they drop on the street, on the Rec. or down the drain and the impact it has on the our environment.
An elderly resident this morning has received an automated telephone call claiming to be Mastercard saying that the resident owed money. The resident, who does not have a Mastercard, put the phone down.
We appeal to you to speak to your elderly neighbours to tell them about Scams and not to become a victim of fraud.
Two Fairfield residents, both in their mid/late 80s, have each received a telephone call, claiming to be from Barclays Bank. The call was an automated voice asking each residents to press the 1 button. Both residents, not having an account with Barclays, put the telephone down.
Please be vigilant when answering the telephone and PLEASE speak to your elderly and vulnerable neighbours about Scam telephone calls.