Do you recognize this derelict Fakenham building? Bit of a disgrace, isn’t it? It has apparently looked like that for around 20 years and it’s one of two in Oak Street and nearby Star Yard, under the same ownership, which are in a similar state of disrepair.

A local resident has set up a petition on the NNDC website to determine whether the full council should be obliged to discuss these buildings. In order for them to do that, it will require 1500 signatures within three months (I wonder if any previous petitions have actually met these seemingly high criteria?). If you think that this matter should be dealt with by the District Council, you should add your signature to the petition.

Here’s a current story on the EDP website:
The Garden House in Fakenham could have its licence removed  

The pub has gained a reputation for drug use, violence and high noise levels and is to have its licence reviewed at the request of police. In a report by the Police Licensing Team, it says that  the venue presents “a high risk to its patrons and the wider community that use and live in the area of Bridge Street“.  

The District Council are currently holding a public consultation regarding the pub in Bridge Street. People have until 15th June to make their views known.

The Licensing Team have requested that the management at the pub be removed and the premises closed for three months for staff training. If that happens, I hope the police will support the other pubs in town, as the Garden Room’s clientele will obviously be looking for somewhere else to frequent. It would be pointless if the trouble just moved elsewhere. Other options include the imposition of licence restrictions (eg closing at 11pm instead of opening as a club until the early hours) or removing it completely.

I’d never been in the pub before a week or two ago, when I popped in with my fellow conspiritors in Fakenham Plubfest to see if the venue would be doing anything for the festival. I was surprised to see the appearance of the interior (it’s a vast cavern of a place) and was interested to hear the manager, who seemed a pleasant enough guy, describe the current noise restrictions they’ve had placed on the site. Apparently, when the sound levels reach a certain pre-set level, they trigger a switch which completely cuts out the sound system! However, I think some of the noise problem stems from the fact that you can’t fit those kind of switches to the customers!

It’s time, I decided. Remember that new Fakenham website I was telling you about? The new one that’s a central point of info for all things Fakenham. I’ve switched the switch. Pulled the lever that makes it available. Dropped a coin in the virtual meter. You can have a look now!

Let me know what you think. I’m after suggestions for the content and I’m hoping you’ll let  me know if you find any incorrect information or if things go all pear-shaped while you’re surfing it.

There are a few bits that don’t work yet, such as the news items from the Town Council and Kick Start Fakenham websites (they’re not launched yet). There are some sparsely-populated sections too, like the Local Link Directory (do you run a non-commercial Fakenham area website? Get your site linked now!). On the whole though, it’s just about there – albeit a work in progress. Automatic links to Facebook and Twitter, the works!

Have a ‘butcher’s hook’ and tell me how you get on

The Crown Hotel, Fakenham

Remember when this was a thriving pub? Remember when it was a positive focal point in the town centre?

The Crown has been closed for a long time now. It’s arguably the best recognised building in the Market Square and it’s got to be the prime location for a pub in Fakenham, yet it remains empty. The Crown continues to project an appallingly negative image on a town whose residents and representatives are fighting to improve and promote it. For an important building like this to remain closed just looks bad and if it could be reopened might start to paint a more positive picture of the town. Maybe that would in turn start to attract more and better shops – nothing breeds success like success, as they say.

What can be done?

I was talking  the other day to a Wells resident about a similar situation in his town. There’s a prominent building – now an eyesore – on the Quay which has been empty for a long time due to a fire. The community there have called on the council to investigate issuing a compulsory purchase order. It makes sense. They’ve spent shedloads of money in the area and want to promote Wells, as we want to for Fakenham, but the eyesore is a blot on the landscape which is holding them back. ‘Spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar’ is the old saying.

I wonder if something like that’s a possibility for The Crown? The owners don’t seem to be doing anything to actively sell the place or get new tenants in. I have a client who tells me he produced an outline business plan for joint ownership of the place as a pub/restaurant/hotel but despite contacting the owners with it he was completely ignored.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas? Please leave a comment.

Community Volunteer Award 2011
FAKENHAM TOWN COUNCIL

If you know of anyone who gives their services voluntarily to assist others would you like to nominate them for the Community Volunteer Award. This is given every year to an individual who has helped in youth club, local church, residential or nursing home, personal home help to an elderly or sick person, a local club or aid group or any other similar organisation within the Town. The volunteer gives their services with no thought of reward but with the intention of helping others in the community.
The nominee must live in Fakenham and provide their voluntary work in Fakenham.

Please write to Fakenham Town Council at the address below and nominate a person by the 31st March 2011

FAKENHAM TOWN COUNCIL
Fakenham Connect, Oak Street, Fakenham 
Telephone: 01328 853653
email: info@fakenhamtowncouncil.co.uk

The War Memorial in the town centre. We all know where and what it is, but let’s spare a second to remember what it actually represents…

On Thursday 11th November at 11am, representatives from Fakenham Town Council will be leading a community ceremony to commemorate Armistice Day with a period of reflection and silence – remembering all those servicemen who have lost their lives in conflicts around the world – on the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the Great War.

It’s a subject in our minds constantly these days, as the UK’s service personnel – including many from this region - are currently engaged in active duty in difficult conditions in the Middle East. Rarely a day goes by at the moment without a reminder appearing on our TV screens and in the newspapers and I think as a consequence, public support for our Armed Forces is probably at a bit of a high right now.

It would be lovely to see a good turnout of support at the ceremony, which is to be completely informal and open to all. It will be market day in the town and I suspect there will be lots of people who do join in – they’ll be made welcome, I’m sure. I’ll try to get there myself  to take a few photos for this website if I can.

Of course, the Royal British Legion will be holding their own ceremony in the Market Square on Remembrance Sunday too, with their own traditional march and wreath-laying. If you can’t make it on Thursday, pop along on Sunday morning to pay your respects with them if you can.

I attended a Kick Start Fakenham meeting last night – the first one I’ve been to for ages. The meetings are much more formal than they used to be, with a definite agenda and structure to them. Although the informal nature of earlier meetings was friendly and comfortable, I think it has improved with this change – they covered a lot of issues in an hour and a half!

There’s a fair bit going on at Kick Start. Carnival plans, fundraising ideas, festivals, commemorative areas being planned for the community and a lot more besides. They’re actively representing themselves on other town agencies too – the Area Partnership, Town Council and Chamber of Trade will all have Kick Start representatives from now on. It’s all coming together nicely.

Hopefully, I’ll be helping them to get a website up and running soon – they’ll then be branching out from their Facebook page so that information about what they’re doing for the town is more widely available. That’s why I was there last night.

Online information: That’s another area which will hopefully become more ‘joined up’ in Fakenham in the near future too. Watch this space!

Fakenham has started to address some of its issues now, I think. People are beginning to focus on improving our town and the first signs of coordination between the local organisations involved is becoming apparent.

Kick Start Fakenham have made their presence felt with an impressive Fakenham Fair, with the aid of the Fakenham Area Partnership. They’ve proven that they mean business and can organise an event on that scale - which bodes well for an even bigger community event or maybe even a full-scale carnival next year.

But what next? The town needs to progress further and we need to consider what direction to take.  Comments on an earlier post by a visitor to our town highlighted some of the negative aspects he’d seen. The many replies to his comments seemed to culminate in the opinion that although it was easy to spot and point out problems it was difficult to find a way to address them.

So do you have any ideas? What would you like to see the various organisations in Fakenham concentrate their efforts on? Are they doing anything wrong or completely missing a trick somewhere?  There’s the Town Council, The Area Partnership, The Parish Church, the Kick Start group and the Chamber of Trade – all trying to do stuff for the town we love. Give them some feedback!

Ofcom enlists 4-year-olds to boost dodgy DAB stats • The Register

Do you listen to the radio? Do you use a DAB digital radio? Are you concerned about a digital switchover for radio which will mean that FM radio will be phased out?

Ofcom have produced the latest in a series of reports on which the future of radio broadcasting in the UK will be based. It seems to skew the data it uses on purpose to indicate that the use of analog radio is waning and that DAB uptake is a success.

For example, Ofcom claims five digital-only stations are reaching over one million listeners a week. However, the ‘listeners’ it cites are aged 4+ instead of the industry-standard benchmark of 15+.  Other ‘statistical shenanigans’ are also pointed out in this article at The Register.

It’s designed to convince us that DAB is a good idea and a complete success which we should all rush out to support by buying DAB radios and junking our perfectly-serviceable (and superior quality) FM sets.

There’s also a more in-depth blog about it by a chap called Grant Goddard, an independent media analyst, here – http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/lies-damned-lies-and-ofcoms-first.html

We’re being fed false information again. Somebody have a word before we’re sold a digital pup.

It’s poll time again. The last one was all about your Fakenham shopping experience.  It was pretty split (see the graphic on the right) , with the only agreement seeming to be that it has definitely changed -  whether that’s for the better or worse isn’t totally clear!

Right, as it’s poll time and it’s nearly poll time (if you see what I mean) I thought I’d ask you which way you’d be voting in the general election. Your votes here are only tallied – I don’t take a record of who you are - so it’s an anonymous headcount. Please feel free to add your comments to this post, whether you’re afilliated to a political party or just a plain vanilla citizen like me.

Have the Yellows kept you mellow? Are you starting to see Red? Feeling Blue? See the new poll in the right menu…