Latest News

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Village Shop Celebrates 20 Years as a Community-run Venture

Hambledon Village Shop and Post Office has reached the significant milestone of 20 years since it was reopened as a community-run business.

A celebratory party was held in the village hall on Friday (Nov 16) attended by many of those involved in setting up the shop two decades ago together with the current management team and volunteers.

Virginia Bottomley, who as local MP was asked to reopen the shop in 1992, returned to the village to toast its continued success, paying particular tribute to the villagers whose vision, hard work and generosity got got the shop reopened and the many volunteers who have kept it going since.

“If Britain is a nation of shop keepers then Hambledon is a village of shopkeepers,” she said.

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Hambledon has had a village shop since at least 1850. It closed in March 1991 as, like so many other small shops, it lost out to supermarkets. It was a grievous loss to a rural community like Hambledon and older people in particular missed the convenience of a general provisions store and Post Office.

Two things happened that were to galvanise a team of villagers to take matters into their own hands. The Rev Christopher Blissard-Barnes, then vicar of St Peter’s Church, preached a sermon on the value of community spirit, saying that it would be wonderful if the shop could be reopened.

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£99,999 Grant For Hambledon FC Clubhouse

A grant of £99,999 from the Football Foundation means that Hambledon Football Club will be able to start work on its much-needed new pavilion and changing rooms at its Badger Park ground in the New Year.

The award of the grant has been greeted with delight by The Dons as it makes the long-awaited new facilities a reality rather than an aspiration. Planning permission has already been obtained but work could not start until significant funding was obtained on top of that already raised.

The grant, made by the Foundation under its “Grow The Game” fund, means that the club has a good chance of having the new club house ready for the 2013-14 season.

Matt Kiley, club secretary and first team player, said: “This money, along with grants already awarded from Waverley Borough Council, Surrey Community Fund and the Surrey Playing Fields Association, together with the club’s own fund raising efforts, enables us to put our building plans into place. Exciting times area ahead for the club.”

However, fund raising will continue as another £10,000 is still needed.

Paul Thorogood, chief executive of the Football Foundation, said: “I commend Hambledon FC and the Surrey FA for working tirelessly to secure this funding and I look forward to seeing the end result in the near future.

Hambledon FC will be presented with its grant cheque at a ceremony attended by club members, the Football Foundation, Waverley Borough and Hambledon Parish councillors and local MP Jeremy Hunt.

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Repaint for Village Shop Phone Box

The red phone box outside Hambledon Post Office and stores has been given a repaint by BT, with the Crown picked out in gold in this Queen’s Jubilee and London Olympic year.

The kiosk, which is of the iconic K6 design, was given listed status by English Heritage in October 2010. Recently the paint had peeled and faded and the parish council requested a repaint, which was carried out two weeks ago. The interior has also been repainted.

BT had proposed removing the kiosk three years ago because the number of calls made from it had declined with the widespread use of mobile phones, but this was resisted by the council and others. The parish council asked English Heritage if would consider listing it and an inspection was carried out.

The kiosk is of the classic design by Giles Gilbert Scott and was first introduced in 1935 on the occasion of King George V’s Silver Jubilee. English Heritage concluded that the Hambledon box, situated in a picturesque landscape next to a pond and post office, within a conservation area and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, “contributes to the exceptional rural setting in which it stands”. It was given Grade II listed status.

It now looks splendid with its fresh coat of paint.  Although the box cannot now be removed, BT may remove the phone apparatus, subject to further consultation, sometime in the future. So please pop in and use it. It makes a pleasant change from a mobile phone. But remember: you will have to buy a phone card from the village Post Office as the kiosk no longer accepts coins.alt

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Hambledon Jubilee Activities Raise £8,747

dogshow

The Hambledon Fete and other events held on the Diamond Jubilee weekend in June, raised a remarkable £8,747.08 for villages causes.

The Parish Council has sent congratulations to the many people who helped organise and run activities for making them such a success. To raise such a large sum in a small village of just 750 people is a great achievement.

The fete itself raised £5,167.08, and this has been evenly split between Hambledon Football Club, Hambledon Cricket Club, St Peter’s Church and the village Almshouses.

The Jubilee Ball, run by Sue Blackman, raised £3,580 after expenses, and from this £1,000 was donated to the Hambledon Community Fund and the remainder split between the above organisations.

The Parish Council, which provided £1,000 towards the cost of the marquee and other expenses, has acknowledged the success of the events and has sent its thanks on behalf of the village to all those who organised, promoted, helped run and took part in the weekend of activities.

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Superfast Broadband Update 2012

altFor those of you that completed the Superfast Broadband Questionaire, here is an update:

Superfast Broadband in Surrey – the latest position 


Surrey County Council is following a competitive dialogue procurement process to select a private sector company to extend the roll-out of broadband in Surrey to those areas that are not commercially viable for the private sector to invest alone. The aim is to ensure that homes and businesses can access superfast broadband and make use of the benefits it offers, no matter where they are located in the county. 

Final proposals were received from two bidders in June. These provided detail on issues such as technology, deployment, speeds and cost. The proposals were evaluated against a set of criteria, which took into account both cost and quality to find the best solution for Surrey. 

On 24 July 2012 Surrey County Council’s Cabinet considered the proposals and took the decision to award the contract to the preferred bidder. 

Next Steps 

The project is now in a ten day standstill period, as required by the Public Contracts Regulations (2006). 

The contract will be finalised with the preferred bidder and signed during August. 

At this point the County Council will be in a position to provide further details around this ground breaking, superfast broadband contract for Surrey. A joint press release shall be issued with the Supplier and a bulletin will be circulated to provide information. 

Surrey County Council will work with the Supplier to develop the deployment schedule. Information on where and when superfast broadband will be deployed will be available in the Autumn. 


Superfast Broadband Project Team 
Surrey County Council 

Webmaster’s comment:

Dont forget to register your interest for BT to extend their BT Infinity coverage to Hambledon.  If more residents expressed their interest in BT Infinity the logging of this demand may give BT a greater impetus to roll out towards Hambledon.  So please use their BT Infinity availability checker and confirm your interest so we can build a weight of demand. Just go here:  http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

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Hambledon selected for National Archive Project

altAt the start of the year Surrey History Centre chose our website as one of three Surrey websites to be part of a new archiving project in association with the National Archives.  I am pleased to say that the project is now completed.   This is a super feather in the cap for Hambledon.

A page on their website gives further details and also includes a link to the archived version of the Hambledon Village site.   More information is also available on the National Archives website. 

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre/surrey-website-archiving 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-sector/web-archiving-pilot.htm

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Website upgrade – COMPLETE

You may have noticed a number of website outages in recent weeks.  Our original choice of website host has proven less and less reliable in recent months – so the web design team have decided to move the website hosting to another provider that will hopefully offer a more reliable service for Hambledon’s website.  The transfer took place over the weekend.

 

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Mic Coleman Awarded British Empire Medal

altMic Coleman has been awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours “for services to sport and to the community in Hambledon”.

Mic has already been recognised locally for his unstinting work, particularly in relation to the village cricket and football clubs, but now his achievements have been acknowleged by Buckingham Palace.

His BEM was announced in the 2012 Birthday Honours List, published at the weekend. This was the first list since 1993 to have receipients of the BEM, which was reinstated to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The BEM is sometimes referred to as the “working class” medal as it celebrates the achievements of ordinary people and the dedication and hard work they put into their communities. Mic was one of 293 people from across the UK to receive the medal this year.

The medal was founded in 1917 but scrapped by John Major, in 1993, shortly after he became Prime Minister. David Cameron announced last year that he was reinstating the medal.

Mic has been a stalwart of village life since moving to Hambledon in the 1950s. He has worked tirelessly for the football and cricket clubs, becoming president of both, he is a past chairman of the parish council and has been involved in helping run a host of activities including the fete and produce show.

He and his wife Sylvia celebrate their diamond jubilee wedding anniversary this year.

The whole of Hambledon sends it congratulations to Mic on a richly-deserved honour.

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Attempted theft of listed GPO Letterbox at Vann

On the night of 7/8 June thieves tried to steal this box. They rammed a jemmy of some sort vertically behind the door and succeeded in breaking a bit off the cast iron box and badly damaged the lock which happily held or they might have been able to break the bolts that retain it to the concrete post from the inside. Said the engineer who came to repair the damage “These boxes are now being sold on e-bay. Dating from a long while back the post office sold off unwanted boxes. Thieves are now adding to these and the boxes bear no identifiable markings.” “Ours” is a listed monument, with Edward the Seventh’s monogram. It was last removed for repainting for the millennium. Grandfather WD Caroe wanted a PO box and one was allocated to Vann on condition that there was enough usage, so he brought the office mail to Vann every Friday when they came for the week-end, and here it has stayed!

Mary Caroe 8/6/12

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Broadband in the slow lane in Hambledon

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We have heard about initiatives for Superfast Broadband but they are not going to change anything for a very long time.   Hambledon remains in the slow lane, with Broadband bandwidth crawling along under 2Mbs – amongst some of the worst performing areas in the country.    BT has an interim solution – the relatively new BT Infinity system that promises slightly better speed of broadband – by installing fibreoptic cables to street cabinets.  It is being rolled out slowly to many parts of the country – but BT is being selective about where it installs fibre.  Milford has got BT Infinity already but the cabinet serving Hydestile and North Hambledon (at Milford Station) is not scheduled for upgrade yet.  Maybe there are town planning delays to this, or more likely I am guessing it is driven by demand for broadband and potential catchment area.    So maybe if more residents expressed their interest in BT Infinity the logging of this demand may give BT a greater impetus to roll out towards Hambledon.  So please use their BT Infinity availability checker and confirm your interest so we can build a weight of demand. Just go here:  http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

If 30 or so people register interest it may make the difference.

If you want to check your broadband speed – try this: http://www.speedtest.net/

 

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Jubilee Weekend Starts With New Village Commemorative Signs

altHambledon’s new village name signs have arrived in time for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

They replace the two signs erected almost 60 years ago, at the Lane End and Hydestile ends of the village, to commemorate the Queen’s Coronation.

The new signs were erected this morning (Friday June 1st). They are identical to the pair they replace, apart from the additional words “2012 Diamond Jubilee”. The Lane End sign has been covered in a Union flag in preparation for a brief unveiling ceremony at 7pm tonight.

The new signs are made of locally sourced green oak and have been crafted at the Norbury Park sawmills near Dorking, which operates on a site belonging to Surrey Wildlife Trust.

altThe replacements have been provided by Hambledon Parish Council which was also responsible for the originals following the Coronation in 1953. The old signs have served the village well but were in need of replacement and were only held in place by the addition of concrete supporting posts.

However they are being retained and the parish council is interested to hear what villagers think should happen to them. Please make your suggestions on this website’s forum.

Our pictures show a close-up of the new sign at Hydestile and the removal of the one it replaced.

 

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Hambledon's Bus Service Is Reprieved

altTHE 503 bus service, which links Hambledon with Milford, Godalming and Guildford and which was to have been axed under proposals contained in a cost-saving bus review, has been saved.

The route, operated by Stagecoach but subsided by Surrey County Council, is the village’s only public transport service, and the parish council, supported by residents, mounted a strong defence against the proposal to scrap it

Surrey County Council’s Cabinet met on Tuesday (May 29th) to consider all the proposals contained in the bus review following a consultation exercise earlier this year, including the fate of the 503. It agreed that the service should not only be retained but returned to a three days a week service from its current two. This means that, from September 2nd, the service will once again run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, twice in each direction. Currently it operates on Tuesdays and Fridays.

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Jubilee Party and Beacon

ImageFinal arrangements have been made for the Hambledon Jubilee Party to be held on Monday June 4th on the Cricket Green.

The party is hosted by Hambledon Parish Council and it starts at 8pm. There will be a hog roast, strawberries and cream and a full bar. All who live or work in Hambledon are welcome.

It is a family affair so please come along. There will be background music and entertainment will be provided by magician Richard Kettle. If it is a fine evening the party will be on the green but if it is wet the marquee, erected for the village fete and evening dinner and dance two days earlier,  will be available.

At 10.15 Karin Sehmer, High Sheriff of Surrey, will light the Jubilee Beacon, one of many official beacons across the country to be lit as part of the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The beacon will not be on the green but at a high point in the village and should be visible to those attending the party.

You will need a ticket to attend and they are available from the Village Shop and the Merry Harriers. Tickets are free but required so that helpers have an idea of numbers.

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Snow Brings Power Cuts to Hambledon

ImageParts of Hambledon were without power today (Sunday Feb 5th) after overnight snow brought down a power line at Church Lane.

The morning service at St Peter’s Church was cancelled because snow made the lane impassable and the power cable was still live and producing sparks where it was in contact with the ground.

Engineers from Southern Electric were carrying out repairs and a fire engine was on standby at the junction of Church Lane.

Malthouse Lane and Woodlands Road were among areas without power but the village shop was not affected and was open as usual. Volunteers had cleared a path to the door.

Peter Knight, of Burgate Farm, cleared many of the smaller roads in the village as part of an agreement with the parish and county councils. He has been provided with a snow plough blade to fit to one of his tractors by Surrey County Council.

And SCC had gritted Hambledon Road before the snow fell and later went through with a snow plough.

ImageTim Coleman and Stewart Payne, part of the village volunteer team,  cleared branches from a tree that had been brought down by the weight of snow and was partially blocking Rock Hill.

Elsewhere, children were enjoying the snow and using toboggans in fields around the village.

Overall, the arrangements in place to deal with snow appeared to have worked well. Between three and four inches of snow fell in the late evening and the early hours of this morning and many roads were impassable for a time to all but four wheel drive vehicles.

But, because Hambledon Road had been spread with a mixture of salt and grit, the snow had largely melted away by this morning.

Details of Hambledon’s winter planning arrangements and contacts numbers can be found in the previous news item on the Latest News menu.

 

 

 

 

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Dunsfold Village School – campaign to reinstate the school

The way is now open, if we move quickly, to recover use of Dunsfold’s former infant school building for the education of local children. The Charity Tribunal decided at the end of 2011 that the preferred use of the building should be ‘as a school for the education of children who are resident, or whose parents are resident, in and around the parish of Dunsfold’ and invited production of ‘a formal, viable and timely proposal for use of the property as a school for the village’. In response to this our proposal will combine nursery and primary provision on the whole site, and the formation of the Dunsfold Village School Trust to carry this out.

We hope to be able to take advantage of the Government’s Free School initiative (state-funded schools set up in response to parental demand) to open ‘Dunsfold Village School’, and would aim to build on nursery provision by opening in September 2013 a Reception class for children who were born between September 2008 and August 2009. Over the following years the school would then grow, each September, to become a primary school for children aged 4-11 by 2019. During the initial years we envisage that the property could be extended and reconfigured to accommodate the increasing numbers of pupils and staff.
In order to take this initiative forward and secure funding we need to know as a matter of urgency the level of parental demand and local support for a Primary School in Dunsfold. We would be grateful if you could please take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire.