Research on latest stories, locally.
Aerospace firm brings more jobs to Basildon
8:22am Monday 12th July 2010
ALMOST 70 new hi-tech jobs could be on their way to Basildon as an aerospace company wants to transfer its staff to the town. Gardner Group, which makes and repairs plane parts, is consulting staff at its Maesteg plant in south Wales about moving production and 69 jobs to its Basildon branch at Wollaston House, Wollaston Way.
Patrick Grady, Gardner’s chief executive officer, said: “The proposed transfer is likely to take approximately 12 months.”
He announced the 30-day consultation on Thursday, which spells good news for Basildon which already has a number of hi-tech firms operating in the town such as Selex (formerly BAE) and Arrk Research and Development.
£63m Sadlers Farm scheme gets under way
2:16pm Monday 12th July 2010
WORK has begun today on the £63 million Sadlers Farm Junction scheme to improve vital transport links for residents across South Essex.
The scheme, which will deliver millions of pounds of benefits to the local economy each year, was officially started today with Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation digging the first sod getting the project on its way.
The project will support the development of up to 55,000 new jobs and 43,000 new homes planned for the area, and is the largest local authority scheme currently underway in the East of England. It is Essex’s largest highways scheme in over a decade.
The improvement will provide a new dedicated link to the A130, providing faster and more direct access to Chelmsford and Southend. The improvements will also allow for safer and more efficient use of the junction, providing improved local access to Benfleet, Thundersley and Canvey areas via a new roundabout.
This scheme together with the programmed improvements at the Tarpots junction will improve bus journeys and reduce congestion for motorists.
The new junction is expected to deal with an increase in traffic up to 40% over the next twenty-five years. The improvements will help the junction cope with this demand and remove around a third of the through traffic from the existing junction, and also to facilitate future economic growth and regeneration in South Essex.
Works are due to be completed by March 2012 to help provide faster links to Essex’s 2012 Games mountain biking event at Hadleigh.
Harwich: Port jobs saved by Government budget
JOBS have been saved at shipping companies working from Harwich Port after backdated debts were wiped clean.
Businesses are celebrating the news, which came as part of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition’s budget announced on June 22.
The goverment has cancelled £175 million of charges levied on port businesses across the UK by the Labour government, who backdated business rates to 2005 following an evaluation of the port industry.
Harwich alone was shouldering an estimated debt of £350,000, which threatened smaller port firms with closure and job losses.
Lars Olsson, commercial manager for Stena Line, said: “Stena Line is delighted with the coalition government’s commitment to abolish the unfair backdated liability on port businesses to pay business rates.
“This will ensure the survival of many businesses, promote investment and create additional employment in ports around the country."
Critics have been fighting the plans ever since their introduction claiming the charges unfairly targeted coastal towns and communities reliant on shipping industries.
Bob Neill, local government minister, said: “The dark tax cloud that has been hanging over some port businesses, the backbone of Britain's export industry, for too long has finally been lifted.
"The Chancellor’s decision to waive and repay the unexpected rates bills for those affected port businesses is a victory for common sense."
Many companies across the country will be able to move forward confidently, unburdened by these unexpected debts.
X-Factor star Rachel Adedeji performs at college in Grays
Cuts will be deeply damaging
FOR weeks now the Government has been trying to create an atmosphere of crisis in order to justify the deep and damaging cuts George Osborne delivered in his Budget that will throw people out of work, hold back economic growth and damage the public services we all rely on.
The most surprising aspect of the “new politics” is the way the LibDems have so enthusiastically ditched their principles in a head long rush for power; and for what? A referendum on the voting system!
The LibDems and the Tories have broken their promise to be fair, with tax increases and benefit cuts that will hit hardest at the people who can least afford it.
These cuts will affect you, your family and the people around you. This Budget will affect everyone: * Growth next year would have been higher and unemployment lower with Labour’s responsible, credible plan to halve the deficit over four years.
* Increasing VAT from 17.5% to 20%, so that higher prices will be paid in the shops by everyone, from pensioners to the unemployed.
* Cuts to tax credits, and cutting back free school meals.
* Cuts to the disability living allowance, cuts to help for the jobless.
* Freezing Child Benefit for the next three years.
It is important to set the record straight, the Tories can't encourage economic growth, and reduce the deficit, by throwing people out of their jobs and abandoning support for business.
People will be worrying about what these cuts will mean to their livelihoods, and for the future of their family.
These cuts will affect you, your family and the people around you.
New A12 junction is ahead of schedule
WORK to build Colchester’s new A12 junction is three months ahead of schedule, but it will still be two years before it is fully integrated with the town’s road network.
Councillors Norman Hume, Lyn Barton and Anne Turrell at the site The £12million junction at Cuckoo Farm is set to open early next year, but it will be summer 2012 before an extension to the Northern Approach Road, to link the junction to the town centre, is completed.
Essex County Council highways boss Norman Hume praised “excellent progress” on the junction and said he was “confident and determined” to see the link road built. Until it is built, drivers will have to leave the road off at the junction and head into town via the already congested Axial Way, Severalls Lane and Ipswich Road.
Mr Hume said: “We should focus on the positives here and this junction is ahead of time, on budget and will make it much easier for people to get to the stadium, business park and local housing.
“I’m delighted this is happening for north Colchester, which needs this infrastructure to go with the major development it has had in recent years.”
The scheme was originally to be funded by developers building on the former Severalls Hospital site, which has been earmarked for 1,500 homes. When the recession put paid to that, the county council won Government money to build just the junction.
County Hall is working with North Essex Partnership NHS Trust, which owns the land, and the Homes and Communities Agency to fund the £9million link road.
Public money would be used, but repaid by developers as the Severalls site is developed.
Mr Hume said: “We are tying down the details on the forward funding agreement and if it wasn’t done this way, I cannot say how long we would be waiting for the link road to be done.”
South Essex’s new sporting centres really taking shape
11:50am Tuesday 22nd June 2010
TWO multimillion-pound sporting projects in south Essex have reached another milestone.
The ambitious £38million sporting village in Basildon is taking shape, with steel framework now in place.
While the external work on the 25-metre swimming pool at Garon Park in Southend has been completed.
About 1,100 tonnes of steel have been erected at Gloucester Park in Basildon, finishing the large frame for the sports complex that builders started putting up in February.
The Basildon Council project is due to open in April 2011, in time to be used as a potential training camp for international teams going to the 2012 Olympics in Stratford, East London.
Roofing the structure will be the next task for workers at the site.
Kevin Blake, councillor for leisure and arts, said the complex was progressing on time and budget.
He said: “Every time I go down there I’m just delighted. When you visit you realise how amazing and enormous it will be.
“It’s a huge scheme and it’s not just a project, it is something that will be beneficial to everyone in the district.”
When finished, it will feature a 50-metre swimming pool that can split into two pools, a teaching pool, gymnastics centre, eight-court sports hall, fitness suite, exercise studios, meeting rooms, creche and cafe, climbing wall, five-a-side football pitches and a new athletics grandstand for 750 people.
The external work at the £13.5million swimming pool built at Southend Leisure and Tennis Centre has been completed and work continues inside. The pool will feature a 25-metre eight-lane swimming pool, a leisure pool with water slides, water sprays and a small fountain.
Swimmers will also be able to take advantage of a dry diving training area complete with a harness and trampolines, as well as a world-class diving tower.
Southend councillor responsible for culture, Derek Jarvis, said: “The construction of the pool is well on its way and everything is running to schedule to be completed by mid to late October.
“At the moment we are in the middle of doing the floor tiling and other things to finish it off.
“But if you drive past the site you will see that good progress is being made.”
