leightimes.co.uk TIMES SERIES June 19, 2018 15Newsdesk (01702) 477666/474455

RAYLEIGH TOWN COUNCIL NEWSLETTERSEPTEMBER 2018

The Pavilion, King George V Playing Field, Bull Lane, Rayleigh SS6 8JDTel: 01268 741880

e-mail: clerk@rayleightowncouncil.gov.uk www.rayleightowncouncil.gov.uk

TOWN BLOSSOMS FOR ANGLIA IN BLOOM

Cllr Jack Lawmon and Mr Mike Davies unveiling new heritage plaquefor King George V Playing Field.

Some of the model insects in the schools and community competition.

Report by Chairman, Councillor Jack Lawmon

THE town centre floral displays are beautiful again this year and I thank ourlocal residents and businesses who sponsor these. The Anglia in Bloom judges visited our town in July and seemed very impressed,not only with the flowers, but also with the high level of involvement by volun-teers, schools and residents in numerous community activities and competitions. I will be attending the Anglia in Bloom Awards Ceremony in Bury St Edmundson 12th September and we are hoping that our community’s hard work and ef-forts will be properly acknowledged and we will retain the GOLD award for ourtown.A list of the winners ofall of our ‘Rayleigh inBloom’ competitions isshown right and we verymuch look forward topresenting our ownawards next month atRayleigh Baptist Church. Our schools and com-munity competition tocreate a model of a Gar-den British Insect wasvery successful as youcan see from the photoabove. If anyone is in-terested in joining ourRayleigh in Bloom

CREATE A PAPER MACHE MODELOF A BRITISH GARDEN INSECTFairview Under Fives Pre-SchoolDown Hall Primary, FoundationRayleigh Primary School, Key Stage 1Rayleigh Primary School, Key Stage 2

SCHOOL GARDEN1st Place – Fairview Under Fives SENIOR SCHOOL PROJECT

FitzWimarc School Art Project String Artand a Feast for the Senses

BEST PUBLIC HOUSE 1st Place – Joint winners The Roebuck &Marco’s Tapas BarBEST MAINTAINED RELIGIOUS

GROUNDS 1st Place – Holy Trinity Church

FRONT GARDEN1st Place – Mrs Jean Adams (Lawn Garden)1st Place – Mrs Louise Reed (Paved Garden)

BACK GARDEN1st Place – Mrs Louise Reed

SHARED GARDEN1st Place – Rawreth Court ALLOTMENTS COMPETITION

Lower Wyburns - Mr R DrayKenilworth Gardens - Mr P BloomfieldGrove Road - Mr A WilsonSweyne Park - Mr HardyOverall Winner to be announced atRayleigh in Bloom Presentation on 17thOctober 2018

RAYLEIGH IN BLOOM COMPETITION WINNERS

DATE SET FOR TOWN’S ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LIGHTS SWITCH-ON

FOOTBALL PITCH VACANCY ATKING GEORGE V PLAYING FIELD

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

CROWN HILL PUBLIC TOILETS

TOWN COUNCIL GRANTS

THEAnnual Service of Remembrance and WreathLaying in Rayleigh will be held on RemembranceSunday, 11th November 2018. This special yearmarks the Centenary of the end of the First WorldWar and Holy Trinity Church is making ambitiousplans to install a wave of poppies on the front of thechurch. Knitted poppies may be donated to the Town Council of-fice, Rayleigh Town Museum and Holy Trinity Churchby the end of September. Volunteers are needed on Sat-urday 27th October at 10.00am to help to prepare the in-stallation.There will be the usual Parade through the Town Centre,forming up in Websters Way Car Park at 9.30 am andmarching off at 9.40 am. The salute will be taken at the High Street/BellinghamLane junction, before the parade reaches Holy TrinityChurch, Rayleigh. There will then be a service in the Church commencingat 10.15 am, with a concurrent service in the ChurchParish Hall at the same time. A third shorter service willalso be held in front of the Royal British Legion Memo-rial Hall, London Hill, Rayleigh, which will start at 10.40am.When all the services are ended at 11.15 am and all areassembled, there will be a Wreath Laying service at theRoyal British Legion Memorial Hall War Memorial.Rayleigh will take part in the national Beacon LightingCeremony in Bellingham Lane, which commences justbefore 7.00pm, as part of the national Battle’s Over trib-ute of 100 years of Remembrance. It has been seen in previous years how important thisday is for so many in Rayleigh, when those of the Towncome together in Remembrance of all those who havegiven so much for us today.

RAYLEIGH Town Council is planning to take overthe management of the newly installed public toi-lets at the top of Crown Hill from Rochford DistrictCouncil (who will continue to own the building)when the pathways and landscaping are complete. Rochford District Council will be inviting expressionsof interest from organisations and businesses that may beinterested in renting the existing public toilets building,however, it will remain as a public toilet until the newbuilding is operational.

THE deadline for the submission of applications toour Grants Scheme is 9th November 2018. We award grants up to a maximum of £750.00 tolocal charitable and community organisations, how-ever, our funds are limited and all applications willbe considered on their merits. Application forms may be obtained from our websiteor the Town Council office.

YOU can meet your local Town Council representativeat Councillor Surgeries in the foyer of Rayleigh libraryon the first Saturday of the month from 10.00am tomidday. The Surgery dates for the rest of the year are:6th October, 3rd November and 1st December.

TOWN COUNCILLOR SURGERIES

Committee or becominga volunteer please con-tact the Town Counciloffice. I am very much enjoy-ing my year as Chairmanof Rayleigh Town Coun-cil and have had thepleasure of meetingmany members of ourcommunity. It was a great honour toraise the Red Ensign forMerchant Navy Day on3rd September and itwas good that membersof the Royal Naval As-

sociation were in atten-dance. I also attended a veryinteresting exhibition atthe Rayleigh Town Mu-seum in July to mark the70th anniversary of theRayleigh Rockets, aspeedway team that op-erated in the town be-tween 1949 and 1973.There follows a sum-mary of some of theTown Council’s workover the summer and ourplans for the remainderof the year.

THE ChristmasLights Switch OnEvent, will be heldthis year on Thursday29th Novemberbetween 4.00pm and6.30pm. The High Street willbe closed at the top ofCrown Hill from1.45pm until 9.00pm.Access to theBellingham Lane carparks will continueuntil 3.45pm. Therewill be no taxis in theRank after 1.00pm. Please refer to thesigns and postersaround the town foralternativearrangements for thediversion route, taxisand buses.We will have all of our

usual attractions at thisyear’s event, includinga festive market, funfair rides and FatherChristmas with hissleigh. BBC Essexpresenters SteveScruton and Ian Wyattwill be on stage withpopular local singer JoePalmer. SouthendUnited Football Clubplayers, the MushroomTheatre Company andour primary and seniorschool choirs have allbeen invited to attend. We will also hold ourusual competitionsincluding: Amos EstateAgents Colouringcompetition and‘Design the Chairman’sChristmas Card’. Thewinners of both

competitions will beinvited up on stage tocollect their prizes. Theevent is very popularand we advise all whocan to leave the car athome for the evening offestivities. Look out formore details in the localpress. Our ‘Best ShopWindow’ competition isopen to charity andcommercial shops andwill be judged after theevent in earlyDecember along withthe ‘Best DressedPublic House’. PalmersSolicitors have beeninvited to sponsor thisagain by providinghampers as prizes.Show your pride inyour home town bypurchasing a badgedisplaying the town’screst from the TownCouncil. Each badgecosts £3.00 and profitsgo towards helping tofund the ChristmasLights.

RAYLEIGH STREET MARKETS

COMMUNITY SPEED WATCH

RAYLEIGH’s weekly general street market offers awide variety of products and takes place onWednesdays. We are pleased to welcome some newstalls, including ladies clothing, cup cakes, a largerplants stall, Himalayan salt products, bath salts,candle holders, curtains and cushions. Whilst you’re visiting the market why not make a day ofit and also visit the Rayleigh Town Museum (at the top ofCrown Hill above Pizza Express), the Windmill and theDutch Cottage on the same day. Details of these attrac-tions can be obtained from www.rayleightownmuseum.co.uk telephone 01268 785657 and Rochford DistrictCouncil (for Windmill and Dutch Cottage) atwww.rochford.gov.uk telephone 01702 546366.We will be holding Saturday markets during Novemberand December again this year for consecutive weeks. Thestalls will be selling general goods as this is not specifi-cally a Christmas market.

COMMUNITY Speed Watch is a partnership betweenthe local community, local authority and Essex Police.Volunteers are trained to use speed detection devicesfor the purpose of gathering data on motorists who arespeeding. The objectives of the scheme are not to catch peoplespeeding but rather to raise awareness of the dangers ofspeeding and anti-social behaviour on the roads. Where appropriate the driver or registered keeper of of-fending vehicles will be sent a letter advising them of thedangers of speeding. The Town Council has purchased its own Radar Deviceand a Digital Speed Display Board, which allows us toconduct more frequent checks. However, we do need vol-unteers to come forward to take part. Please contact theTown Clerk if you are interested in participating in thisscheme.

THE Football season has recommenced this month and we continue to have avacancy for a football team to play on Saturday afternoons. This will be allocatedon a first come first served basis so make your application quickly (see TownCouncil’s website for more details). Fortunately, due to the hard work of our grounds contractors, the pitches have sur-vived the hot, dry summer well and the grounds are in very good condition. There wereless events in the playing field this year as the Bouncy Castles and the ChristianChurches both cancelledtheir bookings. The TownCouncil has introducedadditional safety measuresfollowing the tragicbouncy castle accident inNorfolk. We hope that wewill replace these eventsnext year. We did how-ever welcome back theMoonbeamers cinema and‘The Greatest Showman’on the last day of Augustwas sold out. RayleighLions Fireworks displaywill take place on Satur-day 3rd November andtickets will be available topurchase before the eventand on the night, see pressfor details.A new heritage plaquewas installed at the East-wood Road gates of theplaying field to add to the

30 heritage plaques thatwe have in the town cen-tre. We thank Mr MikeDavies of the RayleighTown Museum for hiscontinued work on record-ing the history of ourtown. Details of theseplaques may be obtainedfrom our website. We were very proud to beawarded the prestigious‘Green Flag’ for the sixthyear running in July andthank our grounds mainte-nance contractors ELMHorticultural for keepingup the high standards. InOctober we will attend theEssex Playing Fields As-sociation awards cere-mony in Chelmsford, aswe have entered into sev-eral categories, includingbest football pitches and

play area. Following previousyear’s successful comple-tion of projects to installnew play equipment inareas owned by RochfordDistrict Council, the TownCouncil will be applyingfor grant funding againfrom Essex County Coun-cil’s Community Initia-tives Fund to install newplay equipment and sur-facing in the RDC ownedSweyne Park play area. The Town Council con-tinues to fund weekly vis-its by the Youth Servicewho visit the playing fieldto chat to young people atthe Skate Park and TeenShelter to offer advice andsupport where it may beneeded.