TEMPERS are fraying over the appalling condition of the B474 Penn to Beaconsfield road by the Crown pub, which has had signs by part of it for several weeks warning that the road surface has failed.
Hazlemere motorist Alex Smillie claimed in the Bucks Free Press his Audi suffered £12,000 worth of damage while he was driving over the ruts, necessitating a new gearbox and differential system.
There have been scores of complaints on local social media pages and Penn Parish Council says it too has received numerous complaints.
Transport for Buckinghamshire, part of Buckinghamshire Council, has offered its “sincere apologies” in a letter to residents living near the failed road surface but say nothing can be done until the spring.
“As we are experiencing colder temperatures it is not possible to continue with certain schemes on our carriageway surfacing programme,” says the letter from Tara Rutland, of Transport for Bucks.
She adds: “The materials used cannot be laid in these temperatures so they will now be undertaken in the spring of 2022 when the weather has improved instead of in October as they were originally programmed.”
Local Covid infections soar but symptoms are generally mild
HERE’S a breakdown of the coronavirus situation in Penn, Tylers Green and Hazlemere:
As with other areas of the country the Omicron variant of Covid has infected nearly twice as many people locally as the Delta variant did at its peak a year ago.
- In the week to Christmas Eve 380 positive cases were reported in the Penn, Tylers Green and Hazlemere area compared to 307 in the week to 18 December. The number appears to be falling for the final week of the year but the data may have been affected by the Christmas holiday.
- The Christmas Eve figure is the equivalent of 1,605 infections per 100,000 population, higher than the national average.
- Some people are affected quite badly with severe flu-type symptoms, but many say symptoms equate to a slight cold or mild back-ache. On 21 December 25 people were in Buckinghamshire hospitals with coronavirus, some of whom were diagnosed when admitted to hospital for other ailments.
- In the Wycombe area five people died between 11 and 28 December who had been diagnosed with Covid within 28 days of their death.
- Vaccination rates in our area are higher than the national and county average for those aged 12 and over. In the Penn area 90.2 per cent have had at least one vaccine; 84.8 per cent two vaccines; and 65.5 per cent the booster. In Tylers Green 90.6 per cent have had the first vaccine; 87.7 per cent the second, and 63.7 per cent the booster. In Hazlemere the equivalent figures are 90.3 per cent; 84.3 per cent and 64.6 per cent. (figures up to 28 December).
Health authorities in Bucks yesterday (31 December) urged people to keep vaccination appointments, saying that 750 appointments were lost every day in the past week because of people not turning up.
- Staff shortages are affecting businesses, services and other organisations because of people off ill or self-isolating after being in contact with someone with Covid. Local schools are due to return from the Christmas break on Wednesday (5th). Head teachers will assess their school situation beforehand and inform parents if any changes to school arrangements are necessary.
- Penn Surgery is asking for volunteers to help at the Adams Park vaccination centre in High Wycombe with car parking and crowd control arrangements on Thursday 6 January (one of two shifts – between 8am and 1pm and between 1pm and 6pm). If you can help email simpsonpenn.ppg@gmail.com with your name, phone number and email address.
This blog will be updated with any urgent Covid-related news for this area as and when necessary.
Taylor Wimpey wants to build up to 800 homes in the Gomm Valley
TAYLOR Wimpey, the house building company that acquired most of the Gomm Valley, between Hammersley Lane and Cock Lane, Tylers Green, last year has told the council and residents’ groups it wants to build up to 800 homes on the land.
This is 200 less than that proposed and then dropped by a previous developer but still more than the 600 or so recommended for the whole of the valley by a Government planning inspector five years ago.
One residents’ group, Pimms Action Group, say Taylor Wimpey told them that to build less than 800 homes would not make any development viable.
In a scoping document submitted to Buckinghamshire Council the company says its proposed development would include a new one-form entry primary school plus a nursery and a “community facility”. A small part of the site would be used to build places of work.
At this stage it envisages access to the site via new junctions off Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane plus an extension of Gomm Road, off the A40, which is currently a cul-de-sac. The company also talks of a potential extension to Pimms Close.
Taylor Wimpey told Pimms Action Group it intended to encourage access to the development from the A40 and positively discourage traffic from accessing the site from Penn and Tylers Green.
It will be some time before an outline planning application will be submitted. The company has published a scoping document outlining the tests and analysis it proposes to access the environmental impact of any development. Things will progress once it has heard back from the council, residents’ groups and the public.
Supercar for sale in Penn
One of our sporting heroes passes away
TREVOR Long has been in touch from his home in Wiltshire to say that one of the village’s sporting sons has passed away in Surrey.
Terry Long, Trevor’s cousin, was born in Tylers Green in 1934 and played football as a teenage amateur with Arsenal before joining Wycombe Wanderers first team in the early 1950s as a defender. Crystal Palace signed him in 1955 and he made 480 appearances with them before retiring in 1970…214 of those appearancs were in consecutive games.
He stayed at Palace as a coach for a couple of years before becoming manager at Millwall. But, as Trevor says, “the football world had moved to a new era and he opted to move on too.” Terry then worked until his full retirement with the Royal British Legion.
Briefly..
Vicar replacement – Penn and Tylers Green will be without a full-time vicar for at least a year after the retirement of the Rev Mike Bisset in June. The Rev Bisset, vicar of both Holy Trinity, Penn and St Margaret’s, Tylers Green, said there was no question of him not being replaced or of the parishes being reordered. An interregnum of at least a year is normal while arrangements to appoint a new vicar are made, he said. During the interregnum there is a good supply of support clergy.
School rated inadequate – Manor Farm Community Junior School in Rose Avenue has been judged “inadequate” following an Ofsted inspection in October. In the last review, five years ago, the inspectors judged the school “good”. This time the inspectors were particularly critical of safeguarding arrangements and concluded pupils did not have enough understanding of how to keep themselves safe online. They also said the teaching of reading and phonics was not prioritised as highly as it should be.
The new head teacher, David Compton, who started in September, and his new senior management team at the school say they have made “huge strides” in addressing the weaknesses highlighted in the report. The inspectors made a point of stressing the good behaviour and positive attitudes of the pupils and noted there were no reports of bullying.
Christmas tree downed – For the second time in ten years strong winds brought a premature end to the village Christmas tree on the common. The tree snapped at its base in the winds and rain of Tuesday morning (28 December). The gusts also brought down a tree in Common Wood, which blocked Common Wood Road for a time.
Post success – Penn and Tylers Green Scout Group volunteers delivered nearly 1,200 Christmas cards for free in and around the village and have thanked all those who helped and those who used the service. The amount raised in their Christmas charity appeal for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance has so far reached £761. Their Just Giving page, https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/penn-and-tylers-green-scout-group will remain open until the end of this month.
Junction improvements – The council is considering painting double yellow lines around the junctions of Ashley Drive and New Road and Ashley Drive and The Lawns, Tylers Green to prevent vehicles parking too close to the junction.
Barn objection – Penn parish councillors are objecting to a planning application to build new stables at the Grade 2 listed Puttenham Farm, behind the Red Lion in Penn. They say the new stables would not be in keeping with the main farmhouse.
Honours for Penn residents – Jan du Plessis, 67, the recently retired chairman of BT who lives in Penn with his family, was awarded a knighthood in the new year honours for services to telecommunications and business.
An MBE was awarded to Emma Lindley, of Beacon Hill, Penn for services to promoting diversity and inclusion in the digital identity sector in this country and abroad. She is co-founder of the organisation Women in Identity.
Locking in carbon – Penn House Estate announced that by changing its farming practices it managed to reduce its carbon footprint last year, locking away more carbon than releasing it. Activities included increased tree planting, less field ploughing and reduced use of sprays and chemicals.
Bomb scare – Police evacuated Waitrose in Penn Road, Beaconsfield and bomb squad officers exploded a suspicious looking package in the car park as a precaution on Thursday (30 December). They later said the package was not related to any criminality and was an old battery with wires protruding left near a recycling bin.
Playing politics
IT’S BEEN a heady few weeks for Wycombe (and Tylers Green) MP Steve Baker: being touted as a possible successor to Boris Johnson one minute; being informed the next that if recent polls are anything to go by he will lose the seat at the next election.
Mr Baker, a die-hard Brexiteer, formed a WhatsApp group among fellow Tory MPs called Clean Global Brexit which takes a critical stance about most of the prime minister’s policies. When one MP, Nadine Dorries, attempted to defend Boris, Mr Baker promptly ejected her from the group.
In the Bucks Free Press the 50 year old MP denied he was manoeuvring to be leader of the party, only for the influential Tory website Conservative Home to suggest a few days later that’s precisely what he was doing. In fact, a poll for Conservative Home among Tory Party members made him fourth favourite to succeed Mr Johnson, ahead of other possible candidates like Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove.
Mr Baker’s majority in the Wycombe constituency has been steadily shrinking since he was elected in 2010 and an opinion poll last week suggested that if there was an election tomorrow his 4,213 majority would be wiped away.
Add to that suggestions there might be a local Lib/Lab pact where the Liberal Democrats would stand aside in Wycombe to give Labour a clear run in return for Labour standing aside in the neighbouring Chesham and Amersham (including Penn) constituency in order to give the Liberals a better chance of defending their newly acquired seat, and we are in for an interesting 2022, politically at any rate.
After hundreds of years, more Penn tiles emerge from the mud of the Thames
SIX HUNDRED years ago Penn was the place to be if you were rich and famous and needed a new floor. Floor tiles made in Penn were a medieval must if you wanted to show off.
And even today these tiles are still being unearthed regularly by professional and amateur archeologists.
This “healthy chunk” was recovered from the banks of the Thames in central London by a “mudlark” – those with special permission to search the debris on the banks of the river – just a couple of weeks before Christmas. The two separate pieces below were found by another mudlark on the Thames foreshore earlier last year.
Penn tiles are recognised because each tile-making area in the country had its distinctive set of designs, and some are more common than others.
Archeologists at the Museum of London were astonished by a particularly rare Penn design, dated between 1350 and 1390, found in a medieval cesspit during an excavation at the Courtauld Institute (formerly Somerset House) in Westminster.
It depicts a strange mythical creature with a human head at one end and a leaf-like tail at the other. It is one of a four-tile panel thought to have been commissioned for a bishop’s palace in the Strand nearby. It’s currently on display at the institute.
HS2 building activity steps in 2022
THE INTENSITY of work on HS2 in the Chilterns will go up several gears this year.
For the last three weeks HS2 contractors have been working overnight to build temporary platforms alongside the Chiltern railway line between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury.
Starting this week a train will arrive from factories in Derbyshire at midnight every day between now and the end of May to deliver thousands of tonnes of concrete and other building materials needed to build the viaducts, tunnels and track bed between Wendover and Amersham.
The first of the giant tunnel boring machines which began grinding its way through the chalk to construct the 10 mile Chilterns tunnel started its journey from Denham in May. It is expected to reach Chalfont St Peter, four miles away, at the end of this month.
Ahead of the machines,work will progress this year to complete the four ventilation shafts at Chalfont St Peter, Chalfont St Giles, Amersham and Little Missenden which provide fresh air to the tunnel.
At the same time work will speed up on an intervention shaft in Chesham Road, South Heath which will eventually provide access to the tunnels for emergency services.
At the end of this month engineers should have completed the extensive piling work, the first stage of a vast railway viaduct at Wendover; while at the other end of the Chilterns section the first of 56 giant concrete pillars which will support Britain’s longest railway bridge – the two mile Colne Valley viaduct at Denham – will be put in place.
In April work is due to start on a controversial mile-long “cut and cover” tunnel approaching Wendover but even at this late stage environmentalists are still hoping the stretch can be converted into a mined tunnel.
They say a cheaper cut and cover tunnel in the middle of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty will be devastating for the countryside and wildlife. They also fear it will change the course of vital water courses.
In June more tunnel boring machines will be brought in to build an eight mile tunnel from Northolt in Hillingdon to Old Oak Common in Ealing.
You can contact this blog at peter@pennandtylersgreen.com