St Martins Parish Council News www.stmartins-online.org .

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Armistice

Sunday Nov 9th saw atrocious weather for the Remembrance Day service at the war memorial but when I saw the young Scouts, Guides, Cubs, Beavers, Brownies and Rainbows marching from the “Stute” car park to the war memorial it gave me a warm feeling of pride in our community. Every one of them was smartly turned out, well behaved and a credit to their parents and leaders. It was difficult to count their numbers but I know it was more than sixty.

The Reverend Stuart Jermy conducted the service and Mrs Sue Heard read the passage from the Bible, Ifton Band accompanied the hymns and sounded the “last post” and “reveille”.

This year was the 90thanniversary of the ending of World War I and the attendance was higher than for many years. Mr Harold Evans read the names and the Parish Council wreath was laid by Mr Graham Holt.

There are many negative articles in the press about young people but they need to look deeper to see that so many of our youngsters are positively good.

Arthan’s pond

When it came to the notice of the Parish Council that the pond was up for sale to the highest bidder, councillors were worried that it could be lost for community use and they decided to look for funding to buy it.

At that time we had received many letters from Parishioners requesting land for garden allotments and to the north of the pond is a large area of land suitable for this purpose. The plans are to clean up this area of land for gardening, replace and improve boundary fences, provide an off road parking area and increase disabled facilities.

We have secured a grant of £40k from Oswestry Borough Council and the Centre Trustees have secured a grant of £17.5k from Shropshire County Council. At present the Parish Council’s solicitor is dealing with the legal processes needed in order for us to buy the pond for the Community

The anglers that use the pond are forming themselves into a club and it is proposed that they run the angling side of the project and look after the pond. It will be up to the allotment users to form their own group to look after their interests.

There will also be funding available to encourage youngsters to use the facilities, by providing equipment and arranging coaching sessions and competitions. We believe this is a worth while project and hope the community will support us.

Welsh Water