War memorial

Our search for ways of preserving the names on Cranfield's war memorial continues. One possibility is a granite facing on the existing portland stone. But the War Memorials Trust advises:




Due to its porous nature all stone allows some movement of water vapour. By introducing a less porous material (i.e granite) onto the memorial you block this movement and cause differential movement whichwill lead to the increased erosion of the stone surrounding the plaques. 


In addition to this introducing a new material will change the aesthetic and design intention of the memorial which represents the wishes of the community at the time of erection.

It was the second sentence that amazed me - the fact that we might offend people 100 years responsible for designing and setting up the war memorial whose main aim, surely, was to preserve the names of those they had lost. It is, after all, a memorial.  Does the above as it currently looks, meet the wishes of the original post world war one community? I don't think so.

War Memorial?

Any word from QSS re re-lettering? I don't think so. Getting a little bit fed up.

Summer catch-up

Wow - 22 July since the last post. Where has the summer gone? We have been to Orkney and to an Irish wedding and England my well have blown the Ashes. Scattered them I suppose. The footie season has started.

The headlines since then, in no particular order are:

• The church clock is working again.

• We are writing to Persimmon asking them to come and see us. I had a conversation with a representative which seemed to contradict a conversation the chair and I had a little earlier with another representative. Obviously we are very keen to sort out the misunderstanding.

• We have agreed BUT ONLY IN PRINCIPLE to adopt the green spaces, merrily described as NEAPS and LEAPS (neighbourhood play areas and local play areas) on the Home Farm development. But we are in discussion with Woods Hardwick (representatives of Persimmon) about moving the proposed pavilion nearer the community building and clarifying control of this.

• We have responded to the public consultation as a parish council on the proposed health centre. Basically they should be increasing the range of health services and not packing it full of business development centres and libraries and cafes. See next post.

•The lettering is almost all faded from the war memorial - just a year since we had it done to some acclaim. Currently chasing the contractor but I will be blogging obsessively about this.

• The public consultation on traffic calming proposals will not go ahead in September but October according to Amey.

• We held a special meeting in August to deal with the Home Farm adoption proposals, other planning matters and the health centre consultation. 18 members of the public attended and it was a good evening.

• There is on-going consultation about the BEAR and Covanta energy to waste (incinerator) proposals for the Vale.