Work set to start next month on Cleethorpes amenity building - so long as sums add up

                                                         

Tests have been ongoing to ensure the ground is capable of holding a three-storey building with utilities capacity

WORK is scheduled to start next month on construction of the amenity building proposed for the site of the demolished Waves pub on the corner of Sea Road and Central Promenade.

So long as a price can be agreed, the prospective contractor is long-established Lincoln-based Lindum  which has taken over from JemBuild. 

The project has been long delayed, For anyone who might have forgotten, the proposal is for a "three-storey building comprising public amenities and a changing facility as well as commercially lettable space across all floors".

However, it is still not clear whether any prospective tenants have yet been signed up to take spaces.   

NELC is not revealing anything  save to say that the building, when completed, "may include different providers in retail and hospitality". 

During the long lull since activity, further tests have been carried out on the ground to establish that it is of sufficient integrity to accommodate a relatively large building.

So far, £1.4-million has already been spent, out of a budget of  £6-1-million,  on design, planning and  preliminary works.

The proposed completion date is March next year, but is this projection optimistic given that the council acknowledges that there are some challenges ahead?

It lists these as: 

• Certainty required on design, legal position and costings to enable start on site 

• Support from NELC's own planning and highways colleagues

• Co-ordination of design and construction with the adjacent Pier Gardens project

• Aligning project cost with procurement requirements.

Perhaps the main concern is that, after having done the arithmetic, Lindum may decide that the budget is insufficient to make the project profitable, prompting them to pull out.

Time will tell.

Film review: how bird of prey helped give shape to life of woman numbed by grief at loss of her dad

                                                             

The film movingly explores the bond between a college lecturer and a Goshawk 

THERE has been quite a bit of buzz locally about the film H is for Hawk which is currently screening at the Parkway cinema in Cleethorpes.

It explores how  acquiring and training  a hawk (which she names, Mabel - from the Latin, amabilis, meaning lovable) becomes the obsession  of Helen Macdonald, a lecturer at Jesus College, Cambridge.

In some strange way, the bird seems to provide an anchor to her life following the sudden death from heart failure of her much-loved father, Alisdair, a photographer with the Daily Mirror.

The action is based on the true story recounted in a book of the same title by Helen who co-produced the film.

It has to be said that many parts of the book are heavy going.

The film, by contrast, is tightly-edited and crisp.

The movie is also more successful in exploring both the touchingly tender bond between daughter and her father (it survives just as strongly after his death) and her warm, but less affectionate, relationship with her mother and brother.

There is some fine acting in the supporting roles, notably by Lindsay Duncan, as  the mother, but it is the performance of Claire Foy as Helen Macdonald which really excels - not least  because, to fit the role, she had to learn to engage with a live Goshawk, a large and energetic prey with fierce bills and talon.

There is a rough honesty about how Helen is portrayed. Far from being a paragon of tenderness she has plenty of ragged edges - she is self-centred, chain-smokes, swears  and  plays rap music at top volume in her late father’s car where she seems careless at the wheel.

With,  a somewhat slovenly approach to life and slightly cruel laugh, this character is not someone you would necessarily want as a reliable friend.

But  it is impossible not to sympathise with and admire a woman trapped in grief and loneliness, yet simultaneously able to find an anchor in her  life through  her affection towards a bird that in no way can reciprocate.

Looking at the credits, the extent of  female involvement in the making of the film is conspicuous, and, perhaps in a nod to diversity, even the GP who diagnoses Helen’s depression is changed from a man in the book to a black woman in the film.

Plaudits to the director, Philippa Lowthorpe, who ensures the narrative is taut and almost entirely free of sentimentality apart from one moment when the Goshawk seems to be casting a tender eye on its owner as she sleeps.

Also creditable is a lecture hall sequence, late in the film,  which explores the ethics of hunting with raptors and whether, as in times gone by, there might today be a role for interaction between humankind and birds as an alternative to watching them with detachment from afar.

It should be noted that though the theme is underscored throughout by grief, the message is emphatically not one of despair. 

The last word, spoken in a flashback sequence as Helen’s father asks her to pose for a picture is: "Smile".

And before the credits roll, we see on screen (and are invited to interpret) the words written in 1373 in  Revelations of Divine Love by the ascetic, Julian of Norwich  (1343-1416): "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well". 

What happened to the Goshawk, for which Helen had paid £800? 

It is not revealed in the film, but according to the book, the bird "flew for many more seasons before a sudden untreatable infection with aspergillosis - airborne fungus - carried her from her aviary to the dark woods where dwell the lost and dead."   

Oil painting of old Grimsby trawler expected to fetch bids of up to £100 at Scarborough auction

                                                                     

Paintings of old Grimsby steam trawlers are not scarce but those of high quality invariably attract the interest of bidders when they come up for sale. According to Scarborough auction  house David Duggleby, this oil-on-canvas by Keith Baldock of Black Watch is expected to   go under the hammer for between £50 and £100 at its art sale on Thursday February 12.

Controversial proposal for 154 homes on outskirts of Waltham continuing to divide local opinion

                                                         

Plenty of greenery - artist's impression of proposed development 

UNCERTAINTY continues to surround a longstanding proposal for construction of 154 homes on land to the south-west of Cheapside in Waltham.

It was back in 2023 that  M.F, Strawson and Carr & Carr Builders submitted their plans which seems not to have gone down well with neighbours, many of whom have expressed concerns about pressure on infrastructure and 'overdevelopment'.

There have since been amendments to the proposed layout, landscaping and house designs but there is still opposition.

Among those expressing concern is North East Lincolnshire Council's heritage officer, Louise Jennings, who has confirmed  her abiding misgivings about the potentially adverse visual impact on the setting of Waltham windmill which is Grade II Listed.

Although she acknowledges the developers have sought to minimise the impact, she believes the mitigation offered is insufficient.

However, it needs to be stated that there are some who regard the designs and layout as attractive.

They have also welcomed the fact that no more than 154 houses are proposed for a site allocated in the Local Plan to accommodate 200. 

The revised scheme is under consideration by North East Lincolnshire Council planners.

                                                                     

Layout of the proposed development

The roof can bear the extra weight so Aldi plans to install solar panels at its Telford Park store

 

Up to 170 solar panels could be installed on the roof of the showcase Aldi foodstore at Telford Park in Grimsby. The company has verified the integrity of the roof to carry the additional weight, and its agents have applied for planning consent from North East Lincolnshire Council.

Decision imminent on proposal for new Grimsby school for 150 children with special educational needs

                                                           v

The site earmarked for a school for children with special educational needs

A DECISION is expected very soon on a proposal to build in Grimsby a 150-pupil school for children with social, emotional and mental health needs.

If North East Lincolnshire Council backs the project, the allocated site is the vacant land off Freeman Street that was formerly occupied by tower blocks of flats. 

Whitehall would pay for the majority of the construction costs - estimated at about £3-million - but NELC would need to borrow £2.3-million for enabling works such as land acquisition (from the Lincolnshire Housing Partnership), remediation of the brownfield site, flood risk mitigation, design and  highways works. 

An alternative option offered by the Government is to award a £7-million grant to pay for various  smaller-scale projects to create  specialist resources and  places in mainstream schools across the borough.

At least in the short term, the alternative looks more financially advantageous.

But the council's own education chiefs favour the new school option because long-term it would save the huge costs currently incurred by the authority in paying for and taxi-ing disadvantaged pupils - currently 169 - to placements outside the borough.

This would also help to breathe new life into a brownfield site that has long been identified as ripe for regeneration.

It is understood the cabinet will make a decision later this month.

If they plump for the new school option, the likelihood is that, following its opening, probably in 2028, it would be run by Wellspring Academy Trust which has been in talks with the council.

Grimsby and Cleethorpes MP Melanie Onn is reported to favour construction of a new school. 

The Grimsby News says: Building a brand new school, then farming it out to an academy trust, would be the easy option for NELC - but would it be the right one for the children? Surely it would be  better for provision to be made for them to be educated alongside their friends and peers in existing schools where they remain part of a community that is familiar to them. In the proposed special school, they would inevitably be stigmatised as 'different' to the likely detriment of their long-term development and prospects. And by what thinking would anyone believe a school should be located  in this depressing part of Grimsby where there is hardly a tree or shrub in sight and where no birds sing? Research shows that pupils - and staff - are far happier where they work in a setting  surrounded by nature rather than by concrete, traffic and urban sprawl. 

Parts of North Promenade under water as high tides and easterly winds batter Cleethorpes seafront

                                                  

The north end of Cleethorpes' North Promenade today took an early-morning battering as easterly winds whipped up the high tide. It certainly provided quite a spectacle for those motorists who didn't mind their cars taking a saltwater soaking.