From our Files: TV-for-favours claim...sewerage control...paraglider crash
50 YEARS AGO
MEMBERS of Christchurch Council have been questioned by the police about an allegation that one of them had received a colour television set as an inducement for favours in connection with development at Highcliffe Castle.
The councillor revealed at a meeting of the council that he had been given the television by one of the castle owners. He said that police had received an anonymous letter making allegations that he received it so he would act favourably to any planning application from the owner. The councillor said he had been interviewed by a member of the CID as a result.
Two other councillors reported that they had also been questioned by the police as to whether they were aware that the councillor had been given the TV set. But they said they had been unable to “assist the police in any way”.
The councillor who received the television set said he would like the town clerk to make inquiries as to whether other councillors had been similarly accused and investigated and according to the information to ask the Constable of Dorset for his comments and observations. He said he refuted all allegations.
* * * * *
THE control of sewage systems by the water boards meant that they were virtually the planning authority, Mr R. B. Alderson stated at New Forest District Council’s Housing Committee meeting.
“Unless you can put in your main drainage systems then you cannot build your houses,” he said. “To my mind they are having the wrong effect, not the right effect at all.”
Agreeing, Mr A Cooper commented: “They have a complete grip on private housing and council housing.”
* * * * *
“WE get so many people making drunkenness as an excuse and we take little note of it,” chairman Mr W. E. J. Lann told a 17-year-old youth who said at Lymington court that he had stolen a bubble gum machine because he was drunk.
The New Milton youth was fined £25 and ordered to pay £12 costs and £3 compensation after he pleaded guilty to stealing the machine from outside Mr Edward Chalk’s tobacconist shop in Southampton Road, Lymington.
25 YEARS AGO
ON the fourth of July 1944 Major Hal Shook, commander of the 506th Fighter Squadron, led his formation into the air from Winkton Advanced Landing Ground. This was to be the last mission from Winkton.
After that, the 506th would join the rest of the 404th Fighter Group at their new home a temporary airfield near Chippelle in Normandy.
The 404th Fighter Group had operated from the fields between Sopley, Winkton and Bransgore since April 1944 as part of the massive allied air effort to prepare for and support the Normandy landings.
In June 1999, after 55 years, Hal Shook returned to Winkton with his family to revisit the site of the former airfield. He still remembered every detail of every mission he flew from there. During his day in the New Forest, he also visited Holmsley tea rooms to see the exhibition of aviation art and memorabilia.
* * * * *
A PARAGLIDER suffered two broken legs when he crashed into the cliff face at Barton-on-Sea.
Internationally known sculptor and architectural metalsmith Guiseppe Land, 47, got into trouble when he suffered a loss of air stream and smashed into the cliff, landing behind a beach hut.
The coast guard helicopter and fire and ambulance crews were led by PC Dick Bezan riding a motorbike. Mr Land, who forged gates in Hyde Park to mark the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday in 1993, was taken to Bournemouth General Hospital and then transferred to Poole.
A resident who lives near the cliff said: “This was an accident waiting to happen.”
* * * * *
FOXES have wiped out huge numbers of nesting birds on a nature reserve in the Solent, regarded as a nationally important breeding colony of terns.
The foxes have even been crossing the sea wall on Pennington Marshes at low water and raiding nesting boxes on half a dozen rafts provided by Lymington Wildfowlers.
Few mallards have been successfully reared. The Wildfowlers are angry that no action is being taken by Hampshire County Council to control the fox population on its reserve.
* * * * *
URGENT work needed to prevent possible flooding of New Milton may have to be delayed because of lack of funds. New Forest District councillors have called for a report on the phasing of a £66,000 scheme for Great Ballard Lake after hearing that there was a shortfall of £11,000 which the town council, owners of the lake, was unable to provide.
The lake is an important part of the land drainage scheme in the area acting as a storage pond water during extreme weather conditions. In the recent thunderstorms water in the lake had been very close to the top of the bank.
The major maintenance work required consisted of replacement of the timber revetment, providing stability of the banks, removal of a large quantity of silt, modification of the spillway to allow better control of water levels and construction of an access chamber for the sluice valve to enable maintenance work to be carried out on it.
Committee chairman Coun. John Washington said: “It is an important scheme for New Milton and it seems time is essential.”
