The Herbert Collins Estates Residents Association Newsletters

Following the Tories gaining control of the City Council in the May elections, the Council on 14th May resolved that the Gypsy and Traveller Site at Monk’s Brook be deleted from the 2008/9 improvement plan.

The land on the east side of Stoneham Lane, within the City boundary, will not be used for park-and-ride in the foreseeable future. At its meeting on the Monday 30th June, the City’s Cabinet agreed in principle to offer a long lease to the BTC Sports Club and to recommend to the Council that park-and-ride at Stoneham be deleted from the Local Transport Plan 2006-2011.

Members of the Council’s neighbourhood involvement team must be biting their nails as they wait to learn who will be made redundant after the loss of five full-time-equivalent posts. Later this month it should become clearer, following a fit-for-purpose review, how community involvement is going to be delivered. It is already clear that the Neighbourhoods Partnership structure of a coordinating group and regular meetings of working groups will not survive. The Neighbourhoods Partnerships may continue but be given the role of planning and running an annual consultation event or “summit”. This would be aimed at finding the views of residents on local issues and their willingness to contribute.

Despite 1300 properties receiving leaflets, only a handful of residents turned up to the meeting with Sgt Strange, PC Sheppard and Police Community Support Officer Joe Averis at Ventnor Court, Leaside Way on 27th April.

Issues raised, included parking on verges in Leaside Way, cycling on pavements, misbehaviour of St George’s boys waiting at bus stops, new fencing around St George’s School, traffic light phasing for a right turn from Stoneham Way into Stoneham Lane, inadequate 30mph signage on Bassett Green Road and the sharp increase in vehicle crime.

Required - a full size Collins four-panel internal door. Please call 07970 748310.

The HCERA Open Gardens Day will be on Sunday 18th May from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm. The charge will be

Now that senior citizens can travel free by bus throughout England, it is an opportune time to look at what is available from Swaythling to begin the journey. Bluestar bus 2 from Stoneham Lane runs every quarter of an hour during the day and half hourly in the evening to Eastleigh Bus Station, very handy for Sainsbury’s, Lidl or The Point, and then goes on to Fairoak. From Eastleigh there are buses, half-hourly during daytime, to Winchester. Less well known is the hourly bus A, which may be boarded in Wide Lane at Walnut Avenue and goes to the Hedge End superstores where it connects with the number 15 to Hamble. The last two A buses leave Eastleigh Bus Station at 21.55 and 23.15. The latter is later than the last number 2 bus.

Don’t forget the hourly number 14 that will take you to Bitterne from the stop in Stoneham Lane.

On Friday 28th March a dining room window was broken at about 12 noon. Three boys loitered on the gravel path in front of the house until they thought no-one was about and then threw the missile, running off in the direction of Leaside way as they did so. The dining room was covered in glass and anyone sitting there would have been hurt. The 3 boys were all white and were not in school uniform. Two were quite young, about 12-13; the other, who threw the stone, was older, possibly 16.

Other residents will appreciate how upsetting this is and we hope anyone who sees this trio, especially during school hours, will keep an eye on them and report any incidents to the police. A good description is very important.

Swaythling Lawn Tennis Club is a small and friendly, LTA affiliated, tennis club tucked away behind the houses in Ethelburt Avenue.
We welcome players of all abilities, from beginners to the more experienced. We also take junior members. The club is always looking for new members wanting to experience playing tennis on grass courts and who are willing to be actively involved in maintaining this rather special amenity right on our doorstep. The new season will start at the beginning of May and further information can be obtained from Sue Green on 8067 1016.

SLTC will be holding its annual sale of plants and homemade cakes on Saturday 10 May at the Club, starting at 1.30 pm. This will also be the Club’s open day, giving non-members the opportunity to come along and have a game for free. All are welcome.

In the January Newsletter, people were asked to share their experiences about building an extension. So here are mine. A builder recommended someone to do the drawings and submit them for Planning and Building Regulations approval. The drawings had to be amended 3 times before I was satisfied. Something which I had entirely overlooked and which the Planning Department insisted upon, was that the new building should not touch the string courses. These are the rows bricks which project slightly from the wall and run just below the upstairs windows. This made it difficult to achieve the minimum roof-pitch needed for the tiles. A problem which emerged during tiling: n rows of tiles had less than the minimum overlap while n+1 rows had more than the maximum. The next question was the choice of builder and I approached various people on the estate who had recently had extensions. It surprised me that some builders were only known by their first name and telephone number. For me, it was a non-starter if the builder’s name and address was not on the estimate.

As with many extensions, the existing manhole for the drains would be under the new extension. I had expected this to be a problem, but providing a new soil pipe with manhole outside the extension went very smoothly and I was able to flush the toilet and use the sink for all but a few hours.

I learnt that it is advantageous to discuss with the Building Inspector what you would like to do, in my case, have a window a little wider than a naive reading of the regulations would permit.

Keeping a close eye on the work can prevent expensive mistakes. Sub-contractors are likely to turn up and get on with the job without being fully briefed: the carpenter and the pitch of the roof, the bricklayer and what happens at the corner. Decisions which I had postponed, suddenly needed to be made: exactly where do you want the power sockets? When finished, the internal dimensions were less than I had anticipated: wall cavities these days are 100mm and not 2 inches and the drywall plastering took up about 40mm.
After a year from concept to completion, I have an extension I am very pleased with.