66% Vote for George Atkinson

Councillor	Party	Votes Cast	%
Atkinson, George	Conservative	2,956	66.59%

Detailed Results
Candidates	Party	Votes Cast	% of Votes Cast
Atkinson, George	Conservative	2,956	66.59%
Rigby, Michael Vincent	Labour	596	13.43%
Sutton, Roger Clive	Liberal Democrat	887	19.98%
	Total Votes Cast	4,439

Annual Court Leet Dinner

Keith Tomlinson - past High Bailiff of Alcester, Barrie Fischer - Reeve of Bromsgrove,
Keith Martin - High Bailiff of Alcester

Many of the great and the good of Henley and Warwickshire gathered in the Guild Hall on Thursday 28th April for the Annual Court Leet Dinner hosted by High Bailiff - Brian Jackson and his Court Leet.

The High Sheriff of Warwickshire was one of many local dignitaries who enjoyed a fine table and several excellent wines and port before sitting back to listen to the main speaker - Pablo Mason. He is a former Henley resident, who returned to entertain guests with stories of his years as a RAF helicopter and fighter pilot. He served in several conflicts including the First Gulf War, the Falklands and Northern Ireland. He flew an amazing 23 missions in the Gulf and recalled the irony of having previously trained some of the Iraqi pilots that then became the opposition. Pablo apologised for twice having ejected from aircraft during his RAF career, at a cost of around £13 million to tax payers.

Other speakers to entertain guests included Court Steward - David Lodder, Ale Taster - John Brealey and Affearor - Alistair Price.

John Latham

Photos by John Love

VE Anniversary Parade

The Henley & District Royal British Legion is holding a parade on Sunday 8th May to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day.

The parade will be lead by the Shirley Pipe Band starting at 10.25 am from the Memorial Hall to St. John’s Church.

Following the Service the Band will lead the parade back to the Memorial Hall. The Legion would like as many people as possible to take part in this parade as this will probably be the last parade to celebrate VE Day.

Trafalgar Anniversary Lunch

Tickets for the Trafalgar Anniversary lunch to be held in the magnificent dining room at the Judges' House, Warwick on Saturday 22nd October 2005 are going very fast, according to the organisers.

With less than 7 tickets left, an early booking is essential. It is expected that the event will be sold out within days.

Nigel Hastilow (pictured right), who has been researching the Battle of Trafalgar, will be the guest speaker. The event has been sponsored by Henley NEWS on-line.

Parking is becoming hopeless

Gordon Trinder is a life long resident of Henley and a highly respected member of the community. He writes:

Bluebells at Austey Wood

The bluebells in Austey Wood are now at their best.

Henley in Bloom planting

The Henley in Bloom committee and helpers will be busy on 27th, 28th and 29th May planting all the tubs around the Town.

They are always looking for more helpers. Please volunteer and ring Gordon Trinder on 794445.

May Day Bank Holiday Weather

During the morning unusually sunny bank holiday weather brought out the cars but it reverted to normal by early afternoon.

Photos by John Love

Scam letter causes concern

Have you received a letter from a Barrister Smith Botho of South Africa? Then beware! Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards Officers are warning residents about this latest hoax letter, but are also concerned about where the fraudsters are getting people’s names and addresses. Trading Standards Officers have begun to receive complaints about this latest scam letter that claims to be sent by a barrister representing a long lost and now deceased relative. The letter asks the recipient to help to ‘repatriate’ $10.5 million before the money is confiscated.

The letters claim to be sent from South Africa, but are posted in East London and carry second class stamps. This, warn Trading Standards Officers would appear to be an elaborate hoax. There is no money. Many thousands of people will have received this letter and anyone who contacts Mr ‘Smith Botho’ may simply be asked either for money to help the ‘transfer’ of the non existent funds, or for personal and financial information which could then potentially be stolen and used to create fake identities.

Further, Trading Standards Officers are also concerned because some complainants are unsure as to how the fraudsters were able to get hold of their name and address.

One complainant Mr Paul Coxon, who lives in Warwick and works for the Trading Standards Service had only been living at his address for one month when he received the letter, and had only provided his personal details to a very limited number of organisations – his name wasn’t even on the electoral role or in the telephone directory!

Noel Hunter, Director of Warwickshire Trading Standards said: " We are very concerned that these fraudsters seem to be able to get people’s names and addresses so easily – even when our complainants tell us they have requested their personal information be kept private and not sold on. Anyone who receives one of these letters should not respond to it but bin it instead!"

Road maintenance programme begins

Warwickshire County Council is carrying out an extensive programme of surface-dressing to roads across the county between late April and August. Almost 200km of roads are earmarked for dressing as part of the Council’s annual programme of preventative highway maintenance – prolonging the life of the road network and keeping a good level of skid resistance. The £2 million programme will be done at more than 320 sites including everything from A roads to residential cul-de-sacs.

Andrew Savage, Highway Network Manager, said: “We need to remind drivers to drive at 20mph or less through areas being treated with surface dressing. We advise this speed to help keep our workers safe and to minimise the hazard of flying chippings picked up by tyres.”

The work is being carried out by Carillion – who won a seven-year contract to undertake highway maintenance work for WCC last year. Residents living near where work is taking place will be notified by Carillion to help ensure roads are cleared of vehicles to allow the work to be done as quickly as possible.

Andrew added: “Residents should be aware that Carillion will not carry out any private surface-dressing work and therefore be wary of bogus contractors offering such services.”

After the initial surface-dressing operation and first vacuum-sweep of loose chippings, the roads are swept twice during the following six weeks to ensure the safety of all road users. Typically some 10 per cent of chippings are swept up over the six-week period and recycled for more surface-dressing work on other less busy rural roads such that no materials are wasted.

Douglas Bridgewater's