We would like to hear from Collins house residents on the pros and cons of
cavity wall insulation. Tel Evelyn Macpherson, 8067 6746
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Open Gardens Day will be on Sunday 27 May. The Swaything Lawn Tennis Club have
kindly agreed to let us use their club house to provide refreshments and from
where tickets will be sold. Please add your garden to the list or nominate a
local charity by contacting your street rep or sending us an email.

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Make a note in your diary of this not-to-be- missed annual event for residents.
Our midsummer party will be held on Saturday 23rd June from 3pm. Children’s
games, a bouncy castle and a barbecue are planned.

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The proposed travellers’ transit site has now been submitted for planning
approval (Application no. 07/00484/FUL
).

It will be first advertised on 19th
April. Representations should be sent to Development Control Services, Civic
Centre, Southampton, SO14 7LS. Comments may also be submitted on-line.

There is a link to this planning application on our website, which also has many
other links about the travellers’ transit site including numerous items that
have appeared in the Daily Echo.

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The Neighbourhood Book Group is up and running. We meet once a month on a
Thursday at 7.30 at 52 Ethelburt Avenue. So far we have read and discussed Nick
Hornby’s "A Long Way Down", William Broderick’s "The Sixth
Lamentation", and Andrea Levy’s "A Small Island". The books are
loaned in batches by the Library so there is no expense.

The dates for the next meetings are: 26th April, 31st May, 28th June and 26th
July.
If you are interested in joining, please contact Peter Martin 023 8032 2332

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Police Community Support Officers are a welcome sight on our streets. They are
very approachable and have effectively dealt with several issues troubling the
community.

Remember to report all incidents. Use the single non-emergency telephone number
101 as an alternative to 999 for reporting less serious or anti-social offences
to the police.

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The Leaside Way Residents’ Association had their AGM on 7th March. Their biggest
achievement has been to secure upgrading of the children’s play area with new
play equipment and fencing. They have now set their sights on getting a seating
area for the elderly and a new phone box located near the shop.

The Swaythling Lawn Tennis Club is a small and friendly tennis club tucked away
behind the houses in Ethelburt Avenue. The club is always looking for new
members and the new season starts at the beginning of May. There is no ‘play
your way in’ policy, instead we welcome players of all levels, from beginners to
the more experienced. We also have a junior section of the club. If you would
like further information about joining the club contact Sue Green on 80671016.

SLTC will be holding its annual sale of plants and homemade cakes on Saturday 19
May at the Club in Ethelburt Avenue, starting at 1.30. This will also be the
Club’s open day - do come along and have a game for free - all welcome, young
and not so young. Come and see if tennis is your sport!

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The City Council’s Conservation Officer was asked about products for repairing
Collins Houses which are no longer available. A shortened version of her reply
follows.

Thank you for your letter regarding the non-availability of certain building
items. I understand that it is a problem for many people these days but new
buyers must go into a house purchase with their eyes open with regard to the
cost implications of maintaining a protected building and living in a
conservation area. As always, regular and correct maintenance and repair is
always the best answer and reduces the need for new items.

Where architectural items are no longer available new, I usually recommend that
owners search through the architectural salvage yards for suitable similar
materials, as weathered items are often a much better match than new ones for
small amounts of work. One has to be very careful with salvage yards as
unfortunately some are not very ethical in their dealings and these give the
others a bad name. I therefore recommend that people use yards that belong to
SALVO which is a professional organisation for dealers of this type.

For larger projects that require a greater number of say, bricks or tiles for an
extension, then I recommend that people contact the specialist manufacturers
that make modern replicas of imperial dimensions. The more that owners and
developers use these companies, the more they will produce and the cheaper the
items will become in relation to standard metric products.

With regard to metal windows, there is a little more of a problem as there are a
number of different designs of window in the Ethelburt Avenue Conservation Area,
some of which are no longer made. There are still a number of metal window
manufacturers in business today and some companies that will repair metal
windows. It would be worth contacting the Steel Window Association and the
Twentieth Century Society, both of whom have websites.

One of the best sources of information on specialist items for historic
buildings is a book called ‘The Conservation Directory’. All the information is
available on a website: www.buildingconservation.com, along with an archive of
articles that have appeared in previous editions of the Directory. It contains a
lot of very useful information and the names of many useful companies.

A couple of other points worth mentioning. Firstly, when designing an extension
that forms a continuation of the side wall of a property it is worth setting the
new part back at least half a brick or more from the existing wall. You then do
not notice quite so much that the new bricks are not a complete match to the old
ones. Secondly, when carrying out re-roofing, if you do not have enough tiles
for the whole project, then the front and side elevations of the roof should be
done in the original tiles and the rear in a mixture of old and new, if this is
practicable.

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As chairman of HCERA, I get invited to quite a few consultative meetings on such
arcane topics as
the Local Development Framework or the Local Area Agreement. Last August, I
attended a Better Neighbourhoods Conference, a follow-up conference in December
and in January, a "Neighbourhoods Agenda Stakeholder Group" meeting.
These three meetings were concerned with the interrelated matters of
Neighbourhood Management and Neighbourhood Hubs. What, you may well ask, is all
that about? The driving force is the Central Government, which set out its
policies in the White Paper "Strong and Prosperous Communities". The
Government is legislating to require local authorities to secure the
participation of local citizens and communities.

Something is going to happen and these meetings are to help determine what.
Should Swaythling have its own parish council? That is only one possibility and
the pros and cons of five different models are being looked at. Decisions will
be made after the May elections.

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