Leicestershire County Council is calling on people who are proud of their parish to help share with others what makes it special and create a heritage trail.

The County Council is interested in areas with features unique to Leicestershire or special places, interesting landscape or fascinating wildlife and people.

A training session, Creating a Heritage Trail in Your Parish, is being held on Monday, October 6, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Holly Hayes, in Birstall, and is run by the council’s Community Heritage Initiative, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Rutland County Council.

The trails are a great way of bringing alive natural heritage and encouraging people to get the best out of visiting environmental, cultural, social and historical sites.

The session will be led by local expert Keith Small and is designed for anyone thinking of developing a heritage trail in their parish. Simple ideas and guidance will be given on making the heritage trail a celebration of the parish.

To book a place, or to find out more information, contact the Community Heritage Initiative, Holly Hayes Environment and Resources Centre, 216 Birstall Road, Leicestershire LE4 4DG, telephone (0116) 2671377, e-mail wildlife@leics.gov.uk or visit: www.leics.gov.uk/celebrating_wildlife

More and more people are making use of their Community Forum to try and improve local services and raise issues of local concern.
- Residents in Birstall were unhappy that the swimming pool in Longslade Community College was no longer going to be open to the public outside school hours. Discussion at the local Area Forum meeting resulted in the College working directly with local users to find ways the pool can remain open.
- Following the Government’s shortlisting of ‘Pennbury’ as a potential Eco-town, the ‘Have your Say’ meetings in Kibworth and Tugby were the first opportunity for residents in the surrounding area to find out how the District and County Council were planning to respond to this challenge.
- At the Blaby South Community Forum residents and Parish Councillors from Sapcote, Sharnford, Stoney Stanton and surrounding villages expressed their concerns about the volume and speed of Heavy Goods Vehicles travelling through their villages. In response officers promised to look into a range of measures to reduce the impact of traffic and improve road safety in the short term, while explaining how they were looking to provide longer-term solutions.

Community Forums give you the opportunity to discuss local issues with your local Parish, District and County Councillors and representatives from the Police and the Health Service. There are 27 Community Forums across they county. To find out more about forum meetings in your local area, please visit www.leicestershireforums.org

Contact: Derk van der Wardt, 0116 3057581

In spite of the unsettled weather this year's event was well attended and many complementary comments were received. Although we are still awaiting the final figures the editor understands over £5,000 was raised for All Saints Church, Hoby.

23rd April 2008 [Wednesday]
A Concert for St. George
7.30pm (doors 7.00) - St. Bartholomew's Parish Church, Quorn

Centre Arts for Quorn is presenting a concert to celebrate St. George's Day given by Hoby's virtuoso guitarist Alan Thomas, featuring some great English music alongside masterpieces of the classical guitar recipe from Spain and Latin America. Performing on several different guitars, Alan plays with both fingerstyle and plectrum techniques to create a veritable one-man band in his delightful arrangements of popular songs from Sting and The Beatles (from his recent critically acclaimed CD release "The Long and Winding Road").He'll also play some magical Spanish music, South American tangos and some of his own compositions inspired by African music with a bit of boogie and blues thrown in for good measure! Come along to hear the beautiful sounds of the solo guitar and experience why "Classical Guitar" magazine said - "Thomas conjured a wonderful rich world from his instrument in this spell-binding concert. Anyone interested in the best of the contemporary guitar should seek out Alan Thomas, who exudes confidence and pleasure in his inspired playing and repertoire". Tickets priced £8 are available from Quorn Post Office as of April 1st or through the ticket hotline 01509-414287 (Terry Stirling) e.mail terrystirling@ntlwrld.com.

Thank you to all those Hoby residents who turned out on Sunday, 16th March for the Hoby Litter Picking Morning. In-spite of the foul weather eleven people were there helping and a huge amount of litter was collected. A big thank you to you all from the Parish Council.

Householders who have been flooded recently, or who are identified as living in a flood risk area, may be able to benefit from a scheme run by Melton Borough Council. Under this scheme the Council provides a financial contribution for flood barriers / flood defence works (subject to certain criteria). The flooding has to have occurred from April 1998 onwards and the grant provides up to 75% of the cost of the work, up to a maximum of £750. There are other criteria that must be met to qualify and full details can be obtained from Ramon Selvon at Melton Borough Council.

It has been two years since the last litter pick and we have arranged for one to take place on Sunday, 16th March. We will meet at Hoby & District Village Hall at 10.00am and be issued with litter pickers, gloves and plastic refuse bags. If you would like to come along and help you would be very welcome.

Hoby volunteer's attended a training evening at the village hall last night on how to use hand held radar speed guns. Hoby will have this equipment for four weeks commencing Monday, 14th January. Volunteers will be monitoring traffic through Hoby during this period and vehicles exceeding the 30mph speed limit will be reported to Leicestershire police.

To allow essential carriage way drainage works to take place on Brooksby Road Hoby, this road will be closed for up to three days from Wednesday 5th December 2007.

The road will be closed from a point approximately outside No 6 Brooksby Road up to the junction with Thrussington Road. Access to properties fronting the closed section of road will be maintained but all through traffic will be diverted via Thrussington Lane & Mill Lane.

The Parish Internet Cafe, "The Greasy Spoon", has just received two new laptop computers so it now has a total of three. All of them are on WiFi and we have a WiFi printer available. All this equipment has been provided by the Leicestershire Rural Partnership to whom we are extremely grateful. The Internet Cafe is held in the Methodist Church on Mondays and Thursdays, 10.00am until 12.00 noon. Free internet access is available to all as well as training in basic computer skills

We have had many complaints from residents of speeding traffic through Hoby. We therefore circulated a questionnaire to all residents to see if they were agreeable to Speedwatch being introduced in Hoby and 88 people were in favour and 10 were against. We have applied to be included in this scheme and Don Ainscough has agreed to be the Hoby Coordinator. He has 22 volunteers who are prepared to be involved in the project. Don will be getting in touch with these people and we reckon it will be January or February next year when we receive the equipment. Training will be given to all volunteers before it is received and in the meantime Don will be pleased to answer any questions you may have on 01664 434185.

The Clean Neighbourhoods & Environment Act (2005) (Dog Control orders) makes it an offence not to clean up after your dog in our villages. Not being aware of dog fouling, not being present at the time of fouling, or not having the means to pick it up are not an excuse under the legislation. A fixed penalty fine of £75 can be issued or the penalty on summary conviction is £1000.

Please be a responsible dog owner & keep our villages safe & enjoyable for everyone. Carry collecting bags & clean up after your dog.

Councillors Terry Fleming, Stuart Gregory and Nicola Wheeler have met with Annie White the Principle at Brooksby and Melton College to discuss various local subjects. It was a most useful meeting with many positive issues coming out of it and Annie has agreed to come to our December Meeting and point out various college facilities that could be made available to villagers.

The next meeting of Hoby with Rotherby Parish Council will be on Monday 3rd December 2007 at the Village Hall Hoby at 7.30pm.

During September the Leicestershire County Council highways department will be carrying out its annual highways inspection through Hoby, Rotherby, Ragdale & Brooksby. They have been asked to look at several roads in the Parish where pot holing & lifting tarmac has occurred.