July
2010
REPORTS
Southwold Primary School
There is no truth to the rumours that Southwold Primary School is shutting. The School has received an assurance from Suffolk County Council’s Education Department that it cherishes small schools and is working hard to support the Primary School, which is currently looking at options for replacing the headmaster, who retired at Christmas. The School hopes that parents will consider sending their children to Southwold Primary School.
Jenny Hursell, Vice-Chairman of Governors
Southwold and Reydon Society
NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney, the local Primary Care Trust or PCT, is one of 14 in the east of England and spends £374 million of public money each year on community health services for the area.
This was the statistic that an audience of more than 100 heard when the Society’s Open Meeting was staged on 25th May last.
People assembled were told that they were not present for a formal consultation about proposals for the new Health Centre in Wangford Road, Reydon, although one would follow later in the year and even as early as July or August. This was in accordance with an Act of Parliament (2000), but the information came with a public health warning that cuts of £10 milllion per annum will need to be made and that the protection of frontline services could be expected to be accompanied by a reduction in management staff.
The Chairman of the PCT, David Edwards, asserted that targets were being achieved, that the working partnership was proving beneficial and that the Trust was fast improving health judged by the achievement of strategic goals. The Trust is, for example, in the top four for 70% of questions asked by performance analysts.
Individual patient plans were envisaged, and these would be accompanied by improvements in the quality of service, safety and overall patient experience. The good news was that hospital-acquired infection is down, and that more screening considering need versus demand would reflect personal pathways to facilitating access to services and even individual personal trainers. Life style is to be a focus of attention as are long-term conditions that affect patient lives.
This, then, is the background against which the new Health Centre is to be built on the Eversley site. It will, initially, be a replacement for Southwold Surgery, its training facility, both undergraduate and postgraduate sections and for health services currently available from Southwold Hospital, including physiotherapy, midwives, health visitors and mental-health community nurses. It would, also, provide for the transfer of consultant and specialist services by way of out-patient clinics from the James Paget University Hospital, thus reducing the travelling time of patients from this area. This being the goal to effect more care at a local level and decentralise services.
Good news for the South Waveney Cluster?
Well, yes since this incorporates 6,000 people, made up by 5,000 from surgery practices in the area, together with 1,000 holidaymakers and 15,000 in combined catchments for different aliments. The last would have better access to hospital services as envisaged by the outreach clinics in addition to having the prospect of a mobile X-ray unit as an additional bonus.
One must hope that the funding is indeed secure and the optimism that is associated with this is not dashed by zealots who favour a reduction in the National Debt over the need to keep Britain working and provide some much-needed stimulus for this area in particular.
Ian R Bradbury, Hon Secretary (e-mail: southwoldandreydonsociety@gmail.com)
More about Southwold Hospital
Sean Perry, Estates and Services Projects Manager in the PCT, has kindly provided the following information since the Society’s Open Meeting:
Southwold and District Hospital was opened in 1903 and was held on trust for the benefactors until 1948, when the property vested in the Minister of Health (NHS Act 1946, section 6). This Act terminated any pre-existing trusts affecting such properties. There is a provision in the 1946 Act that requires property vested in this way to be used in accordance with the terms of any pre-existing trust so far as is practicable, but the Act does not fetter the discretion of a relevant NHS Trust from disposing of an asset if it becomes surplus. (As it turns out, the PCT is unaware of any such pre-existing (ie pre-1946) trust for Southwold and District Hospital.) The proceeds of any sale, if this were to occur, would be recycled into local healthcare.
The Healthy Living Centre (the provisional title of the replacement for the York Road Surgery) is a separate project and can go ahead without affecting the future of the existing Southwold and District Hospital building, which could only become surplus if and when alternative provision was in place.
If and when the prospect was to arise of the existing Southwold Hospital becoming surplus to requirements, there is a process that would be followed to test this within the NHS before a sale could be considered. The question of the building’s future would by then have already been the subject of a statutory public consultation procedure conducted by NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney.
Dr Andrew Eastaugh has provided a summary of his own concept of how a hospital facility could be achieved on the Reydon site, close to the’ Healthy Living Centre’:
To maintain and improve the important role in our community that is currently served by the Southwold Hospital, we need among other things to have a building that is fit for the challenges of 21st-century healthcare. It is proving ever harder to bring the present building up to these exacting standards and unless we do something imaginative we might lose the facility. The proposed Care Home – ‘New Southwold Hospital’ – could do this by providing a purpose-built modern building, which could accommodate:
• a number – two, three or four – of 15-bed wings
• community beds (like the current Hospital)
• dementia care
• longer-term nursing or social care.
The wings, and the services, could come on stream sequentially. There could and should be allowance for future expansion to 60 beds.
Like the original Southwold and District Hospital, the new hospital or care home could be owned wholly or in part by the community. We would need to work in partnership with the PCT and probably with a commercial care home developer/operator. By having an active community interest company with a significant stake in the care home, we can ensure that the community voice is heard in the running and the future of the home. The construction cost is thought to be £2 million–£3.5 million (depending on size – provisional estimate) and this could be raised by a combination of:
• donations from grant-giving bodies
• individual donations
• issuing shares – which could potentially pay a dividend and which could be sold back to the company
• loans – there is a Government scheme for assisting community interest companies by matching raised funds with loan capital.
The Southwold and Reydon Society thanks Mr Perry and Dr Eastaugh for providing the information on which the above is based.
John Stewart, Southwold and Reydon Society
Crick Court Social Club news
Here are the results of the Crick Court Whist Drive held on 3rd June:
First: Mrs P Walker and Mrs N Barber.
Second: Mrs P Hurren and Mrs M Edwards.
Third: Mrs H Walters and Mr D Tomlinson.
Fourth: Miss L Allen and Mrs D White.
Thanks to all who came to support us and for the raffle prizes.
The next Whist Drive will be held on Thursday, 1st July at 7.30 pm, and, on 7th July, we are holding our Strawberry Tea at 4 pm. Admission is £3. All are welcome.
Mrs Mary Edwards
Southwold and District Tennis Club news
If Wimbledon has inspired you to try out tennis for the first time or to dust off your racket and get on the courts again, then why not come along to Southwold and District Tennis Club (Hotson Road, Southwold). We welcome enquiries from anyone of any age or ability. For further details, see our website at www.southwoldtennisclub.org.uk or contact me at mg.sdtc@btinternet.com or David Jenkins on 01502 724613. You can try up to three club sessions at £3 per time to help you decide if you would like to join us (any £3 fees paid will be refunded from membership fee on joining). Membership entitles you to free use of the courts all year round.
At the end of May, we held our annual Charter Plate/Turner Cup Tournament with barbecue. The weather was fantastic, there was lots of competitive tennis and the barbecue after was great fun. Congratulations to winners Steven Greenwood and Mary Gregson and runners up Mark and Carol Websdale. Thanks to all those involved in the organisation and running of the event. Our next event is our Post-Wimbledon Strawberry Tea Feast following the Club session on Friday, 9th July. Also, our Summer Knockout Tournament is about to get underway at time of writing.
In the Lowestoft League, our mixed teams have had some good results so far. At the time of the last results table received on 31st May, the top three teams were as follows: A team second place in Div 1, only narrowly behind Broadland Sands A, both teams having won all three matches that they played; B team top of Div 2; and C team third in Div 3.
In June, the Club was extremely proud to once again host the Lowestoft and District Tennis League Championships. The weather was kind and the standard of matches extremely high. Congratulations to the Club members that have made it through to the finals (taking place at time of writing) of the various events and good luck.
Our Licensed LTA Club Coach Mark Websdale (tel: 07939 526333) runs organised group sessions; both term times only. Please contact Mark direct for more information or to arrange private coaching sessions:
ADULTS: social pay and play with coaching – £4 per members, £5 per non member – beginners 9.30 am–11 am Mondays and intermediates 9.30 am–11 am Tuesdays
JUNIORS: Saturday afternoons – £3 per member £4 per non member – mini-red (six years old and under) 12.45 pm–1.30 pm/mini-orange and green (seven to ten years old) 1.30 pm–2.30 pm/junior tennis (11 years old plus) 2.30 pm–3.30 pm
If you are interested in cardio tennis, contact Beth Drinkell (tel: 07776 398422) for more information or simply come along and join in:
CARDIO TENNIS: pay and play – £4 per member and £5 per non member – 10 am–11 am Wednesdays
One court is also available for hourly hire by non members, excluding Sundays and when in use for Club events. Call into the Southwold Angling Centre on Station Road to book.
Join our fund-raising 100 Club for the chance to win cash prizes each quarter. It costs £12 per unit per year and the amount of cash won depends on the number of people in the 100 Club. You do NOT have to belong to the Tennis Club to take part. More information or application forms from David Jenkins on 01502 724613.
Mary Gregson, Honorary Secretary and Press Officer
Music report
Haydn, ‘The Creation’, performed by Aldeburgh Music Club at Snape Maltings Concert Hall on Saturday, 22nd May.
This sumptuous work commences with an extraordinary depiction of Chaos, the tonality floating vaguely from key to key. The conductor, Edmond Fivet, here relished the opportunity to showcase the excellent woodwind of the Prometheus Orchestra, whose members also excelled in the lower strings’ sublime depiction of the sea and revelled in Haydn’s frequent descriptive passages. However, notwithstanding the steadying presence of some experienced professionals, there was some lack of cohesion with the soloists that betrayed shortage of rehearsal time as an ensemble.
It was a joy to hear the artistry of Stephen Varcoe again. His mellifluous phrasing, vocal colouration and impeccable diction were continual pleasures all evening, particularly affecting in his gentle steering of the duet in Part 3, sung with a quiet but radiant warmth that rightly evoked a ripple of applause from the attentive audience. His colleague, the soprano Elenor Bowers-Jolley, possesses a clear, sweet tone, and her account of ‘With verdure clad’ was beautifully phrased and articulated. The tenor Richard Edgar-Wilson may have been husbanding his resources, as some of his arias, particularly ‘In native worth’, were rather uneven in tone. However, his phrasing was always sensitive and he blended excellently in the trios with some lovely shading in his upper register.
The Aldeburgh Music Club fielded a chorus of almost 100, supplemented by some invited singers – plenty of precedent here, Britten used to draft in members of the Ambrosian Singers to assist the fledging Aldeburgh Festival Singers – and although their overall sound was rather opaque, they gave robust accounts of the lively choruses that close the first two sections: ‘The heavens are telling’ and ‘Achieved is the glorious work’. It was unfortunate that their final contribution almost came adrift in the opening entry, but this did not detract unduly from a brave account of a deceptively difficult work that requires considerable concentration and professionalism to bring off. That the Aldeburgh Music Club managed to produce such a memorable evening is due in no small measure to Edmond Fivet’s excellent direction and the hours of weekly rehearsal that such efforts always require.
Andrew Plant
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