STOP PRESS - WEATHER CANCELLATION

Just this minute received by email from Jeanette Woollard, Brigg Town Clerk...

Having spoken to the Committee Chairs, and in view of the weather conditions, it has been decided to cancel this evening's meetings. The Property & Services Committee meeting has been provisionally re-scheduled for Wednesday 20th January at 7pm. The planning business will now be deferred until the next scheduled meeting on Monday 25th January.

QUEEN STREET PARKING LATEST

Brigg Town Council has two committee meetings tonight in the Angel Suite Lounge, with discussion relating to Queen Street residents' parking probably of greatest interest to the general public. That's the final item on the agenda of the planning and environment committee which meets at 7pm.

RESIDENTS' PARKING – PROPOSED TRIAL SCHEME
To receive a report from Councillor T.D. Glossop and the clerk regarding the scheme it is proposed will be trialled in the Queen Street area of the town.

Just to make it clear...That, of course, is a North Lincolnshire Council trial, not anything Brigg town councillors have come up with. They are just making their views known as representatives of our community.

Planning applications to be considered tonight (North Lincs making the final decisions) include an extension to 12 Birch Avenue and an extension and retention of storage containers by Thomas Bell and Son, Bigby Road (all previously mentioned on Brigg Blog - use our search facility if you want to look them up).
A meeting of the property and services committee follows at 7.45pm.
Reports on the allotments in Redcombe Lane (pictured) and Grammar School Road are expected, together with a discussion on whether the town council wishes to fund the cost of a gate into the Woodbine Park play area, off South View Avenue. Decision-making was held over from an earlier meeting because important information was late arriving.
Both tonight's meetings are open to the public, who may listen to the discussions but not chip in their thoughts to the debates. The Angel Suite Lounge, where the meetings are held, is downstairs (NOT the main former ballroom). Access is via the rear of the building.
If you can't get along, visit Brigg Blog during the week to read all about it. And the Scunthorpe Telegraph, if they send a reporter along, which they sometimes do.

NF adds: As it's snowing (again) while I'm typing this post I thought we'd have a nice summer picture of the allotments, just to remind us of warmer times.

SOME CAUGHT OUT

Driving round half-a-dozen well-populated roads in the St Helen's Road area of Brigg very early yesterday morning I was struck by how many people had failed to put out their general waste and plastic/cardboard bins for collection by North Lincolnshire Council. Bin-lid stickers made it clear both types would be taken.
If you were among those who slipped up, Brigg Blog has just checked online and the council will be carrying out the following pick-ups in Brigg next Tuesday (Jan 12).
Blue kerbside box
General waste wheeled bin
Green kerbside box - cans, glass and aluminium foil
Salvation Army textile bag.

STILL UNRESOLVED, IT APPEARS

Another year has arrived and this application relating to the fringes of Brigg remains on West Lindsey District Council's list of All Current Outstanding Major Applications (without a decision). It carries the date November 30, 2007.
Appn Type: Full Planning Application.
Proposal: Planning Application for change of use of land to residential caravan site, including construction of road and hardstandings and retention of buildings and cess tank.
Location: Land off Westrum Lane, Brigg.
Applicant: Sam Smith and others, land off Westrum Lane, Brigg.
Agent: Philip Brown Associates Ltd, 74 Park Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 2QX.

LISTED BUILDINGS IN BRIGG

North Lincolnshire Council's website has much to commend it - but I've been unable to find a list of Grade II listed buildings in Brigg.
The original part of the former Brigg Grammar School (circa 1672), now the library at Sir John Nelthorpe School, is Grade I, as expected. I know that from Glanford days.
But although the websites of many other councils list those afforded Grade Two status, North Lincolnshire's seemingly does not. Unless it's just me who's failed to find it.
The reason I'm wondering is the former courthouse and police station, on Wrawby Street (pictured), now up for sale. This is an original Victorian police station/court complex and has been well cared for down the decades. So is it listed? And if the answer is No, then shouldn't it be considered?
We all know what happened to Brigg Corn Exchange, which many people in the town were very disappointed and surprised to find had none of the protection afforded by law to listed buildings.
It was council-owned (not by Brigg) and council demolished (not by Brigg)!
Buildings/structures afforded listed building status can be many and varied. (Isn't the early 1960s Civic Centre in Scunthorpe among them?)
Researching a recent freelance article for the Hull Daily Mail, I discovered Grade II status had been given to a 1920s water chute ride at one of the municipally-owned parks. Well deserved, too. Full details available to all if you search online.
Returning to Brigg, is it safe to assume that fine Georgian building in the Market Place used for offices by Ian Cawsey MP is listed, together with others like the Exchange Coach House, Bigby Street? And, dare we say it, the nearby Dying Gladiator - now disused and with an uncertain future. All three are within the Brigg Conservation Area, which brings its own restrictions on what can, and cannot, be done to buildings. Down Bridge Street there are also many old buildings of note, including the now-closed Brocklesby Ox and the former Merchant's House.
Perhaps North Lincolnshire Council will add a complete list of listed buildings to its website, if one is not already provided. Public information from a public body for the public, after all!

S-NOW JOKE IN THE CANDLE KHASI

Older Brigg residents raised in council houses - and some private ones dating back to Victorian times - will remember (without affection) visiting the outside toilet across the yard during the sort of winter we are currently enduring.
Water pipes were lagged with old sacking to stop them freezing and bursting, and it was common to have an oil-fuelled lamp, or mini-burner, on the go to offer some warmth (soon lost when the door was opened to enter or leave).
During miners' strikes, which led to power only being available three days a week, you needed to take a torch with you, or even older form of lighting.
And that prompted the nickname Candle Khasi being afforded, with some humour, to our family's outside facility.
Some more modern Brigg council house-dwellers, on the Springbank estate for example, did not have to venture across the yard. But you most certainly did if you lived in the older varieties, built in the 1920s.
Windows were single, not double-glazed, meaning you woke up to find ice had formed on the INSIDE of the glass in your bedroom. Hot water bottles (purchased from Timothy Taylor's or Boot's) would warm your feet, and some of the older generation would even heat a brick on the fire and put that at the foot of the bed. Wearing socks in bed was a very common practice indeed.
So, younger Brigg Blog readers, if your bathroom radiator is perhaps in need of bleeding and not operating at full capacity, or your boiler breaks down for a few days, consider how it used to be before you lodge loud protests with the head of the household.
You don't know you're born!
During winters long ago one of the most appreciated gifts of all by many old folk in Brigg was a delivery of free wood for the fire - collected on Colonel Nelthorpe's Scawby estate and distributed round town on a lorry by the Scouts. I think this was done by the group connected to Brigg Grammar School and headed by geography master Geoff 'Shoddy' Jarvis. Which would explain the link to Colonel Nelthorpe, long-serving chairman of governors. Anyone confirm that? Somewhere in the Scunthorpe Telegraph archives, inherited from the old Lincolnshire Times, there's an image or two showing Scouts distributing wood in this way.
Could the current winter turn out to be on a par with 1963? I have childhood memories of trudging through a blizzard on Preston Drive, between 'Brigg prefabs' and Hawthorn Avenue, and not being able to catch my breath.
That winter, British Railways had to reinstate many steam locomotives because the modern breed of diesels and electrics couldn't cope with the cold. The other day a railway enthusiast friend (ex-North Lincs) sent me an interesting press release about Tornado (pictured above by Craig Stretton/A1SLT), the steam loco, which kept going at the head of a special train in Kent when modern motive power had been brought to a halt by the wintry weather.
History repeating itself?

PS For those wondering about the origins of the word, the Khasi Hills in India, in the days of the British Raj, were reckoned to be among the wettest places on Earth. They were also somewhere the ruling class went to cool off, rest and reflect on their lives governing the huge country. Brigg Grammar School headmaster Brian Williams (born 1918) studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, and from there went to the Punjab as a member of the Indian Civil Service. In 1947 he returned to England following the granting of independence and went into teaching. We can't say whether he ever visit the Khasi Hills.

'OFFICIAL' ADVERT BOARD THE ANSWER?

Just a thought...North Lincolnshire Council appears to be planning a bit of a clampdown on businesses' A-boards propped up round the town centre.
Brigg Blog suggests: How about creating an official advertising board/display on the piece of grass on Barnard Avenue near the Old Courts Road traffic lights?
Businesses could either group together to fund their own display, or the council could set one up and charge them an annual fee for advertising.
Small businesses quite rightly want to advertise their services, and wares, to drivers passing by on the A18; the council, of course, has a duty to ensure planning guidelines are met on temporary signs.
The current temporary A-boards on this piece of grass always seem to catch the eye as you drive past. But before someone suggests the road safety angle, we'd better point out that's irrelevant, as North Lincolnshire Council advertises its own farmers' market, and other events, on the railings near the Monument, permits sponsorship advertising on flowerbeds/roundabouts, and (in Scunthorpe) puts its own notices along prominent routes (eg on Ashby Road, near Pittwood House).
When Brigg Town Council debated the A-boards issue, both sides of the argument came out. On the one hand there's the requirement for pedestrians, particularly in wheelchairs and those who are blind or partially-sighted, to be able to walk about without having to dodge signs on the pavement; on the other hand, the powers-that-be need to note that many Brigg small firms, particularly down the courtyards, would really benefit from alerting would-be customers about their location, goods and services. Hence the popularity of these A-boards.
It's hardly on a par with Solomon and the Biblical baby, but North Lincolnshire Council is not faced with an easy decision here.