Category Archives: General

Proposals To Reduce Road Gritting Service For Kirk Ireton This Winter

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Villagers,

I have been asked to make sure that everybody is aware of Derbyshire County Council’s (DCC) plans to reduce the road gritting service provided to Kirk Ireton.  At the present time the roads into our village are treated during the day and night and ‘pre-treated’ before bad weather hits. Gritting is then continued on a 24 hours a day basis.  The proposals are that this be reduced to gritting in the day only with the first run being completed by mid-morning.  Roads would be pre-treated before bad weather hits, only where possible, with higher priority routes taking precedence.

Gritting Routes are to be divided into three categories: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary.  The service we receive at the present time is equivalent to the proposed Primary service, but the DCC want to downgrade Kirk Ireton to the Secondary service.

Personally, I feel that with such a steep hill on the primary access route to the village, the fact we have a school and the record of accidents on that hill in snowy conditions (including an overturned vehicle last year) should put us in the Primary category.

The DCC is currently carrying out an online Gritting Consultation which allows you to react to the proposals.  It is in two sections, the first is a series of option boxes which allow you to react to specific questions (personally I think the questions are very cleverly biased).  The second is a comments box which is probably the best route to describe our special needs (assuming anybody reads it).  Below is the link to the online Gritting Consultation page.

http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/transport_roads/roads_traffic/road_maintenance/snow_info/gritting/gritting_consultation/default.asp

THE DEADLINE FOR RESPONDING TO THE CONSULTATION IS WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2011.

If you need help completing the questionnaire Call the DCC on 08 456 058 058 or 01629 533190.

Hopefully, if we all react we will retain our present service but I suspect we will all be buying crampons this year.

Mac

Living in Kirk Ireton by Emily Heron – September Diary

Posted on by
Reply

Living in the village has its ups and its downs. There is lots of space to play and everybody knows each other. However, as the village is so small, it does mean you can only meet a few people, and you all have to try and get along.

Being surrounded by fields is great. There are so many places to go to, which are perfect for playing Man Hunt and building dens. I have really enjoyed going to Kirk Ireton Primary School, it takes me less than two minutes to walk to school. All the teachers live in the Village, the downside of this is that school NEVER closes even when there is 3 feet of snow and every other school in Derbyshire is closed!

Winters are fun, loads of kids go sledging. Last year a group of people were chased by cows. When summer comes, lots of people play at the park, or on the Village Field which is amazing, especially with the court. Sometimes during the summer holidays it does feel like there isn’t that much to do, and it can become boring.

It wasn’t until recently that I realised just how lucky I am to live in Kirk Ireton. During the riots in London, many children were too scared to go to sleep at night and their homes and communities were attacked and set on fire. In Kirk Ireton the older children look out for the younger children and people help each other. There is lots of community spirit.

Kirk Ireton is a safe and happy place to live and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

An Editor’s Apology – September Diary

Posted on by
Reply

I think everybody spotted my faux par last month of incorrectly stating the winner of the Jean Mayfield Cup and Saucer short story competition, which of course was won by Christopher Martlew’s brilliant story. I have no excuse as I was there on the night.

Because I was so impressed with the writing ability of the young entrants I asked Emily Heron to write a short piece for the News Letter: Living in Kirk Ireton.

I have had lots of suggestions about how the News Letter should be developed, but not wanting to dilute it’s purpose of supplying important village related information, I propose to try some of these ideas out on a separate sheet called KI+. To save printing costs the KI+ sheet will only be distributed by e-mail and (mostly) online. Have a read of it and let me know what you think.