I was relieved at the tail end of last week when SGN provided an update to North Baddesley residents about the over-running gas main works on Rownhams Lane. I did drop a letter updating residents into a lot of letter boxes on Rownhams Lane on Wednesday afternoon, when at least the sun was shining for a little light delivery round!
There is an update on my facebook page and I also added it to the North Baddesley Village page, but in short the one way system is due to be lifted today (Friday) and the works are due to be completed by 24th July. I know residents are rightly concerned at the length of time it has taken and the rat running there has been to try to find the best wat round, but hopefully the end is now in sight.
In the spirit of things being finally completed I was pleased to be able to visit the former tyre dump at Ashfield with owner Tom Francis who has done an incredibly job getting the site cleared. It is an amazing transformation and I will do all I can to support the site finding a new future, one that does not cause such an environmental hazard to Romsey.
For those who are unfamiliar with the history of the site, I can well remember the tyres arriving over the course of a bank holiday weekend, not long after I was first elected to TVBC. I cannot remember the precise year, but maybe 2000/2001. So for the best part of a quarter of a century those tyres have been a blight and the Fire Service and the Environment Agency have been urging a solution be found because of the pollution threat, to the town, to the River Test and the wider locality. Sometimes solutions take a very long time, but for Tom Francis and his team this has been an incredible achievement and for Romsey it means the threat of a terrible fire and plume of smoke that would have lasted for weeks has gone.
It was great to see Bossington featured on the News at 10 this week with legendary fly fishing guide Gilly Bate talking about the admission of women to the Flyfishers’ Club. That is certainly a campaign I can get behind, and a reminder that even in 2024 there are spaces women are refused access to. Although as of Thursday I was no longer the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, it is a role I have really got my teeth into and hope to return to.
