Photos from Cllr Darren Byford & Cllr Deb Nicholls - Horbury & South Ossett's post

[Ossett News]

🎄🎄Week ending Saturday 26th November 2022 🎄🎄
It has been a couple of weeks since our last blog. Many apologies – we have been very busy supporting the community across the whole of Horbury & South Ossett. This week’s blog features highlights of the past 3 weeks. Hopefully we have not missed out too much of our work.

Wednesday 9th November - we met with a group of local residents on the bypass, close to the Ego Restaurant to look at traffic issues. Unfortunately, this was the day that Horbury’s town centre roads were closed off due to an accident. All we witnessed on the bypass was queueing traffic! We will meet again to do some traffic monitoring at a later date.

On Friday 11th November - Darren and Deb attended a Remembrance Service held in Reid Park, Horbury Bridge. This event is led by the school and features 100+ children, who conduct the entire service, giving you a true sense that the younger generation will ‘never forget’

Later on Friday afternoon - we were able to meet with Simon Lightwood MP. Simon has recently been promoted to be a Shadow Minister for Transport, so we used this opportunity to tackle him about the constant issues with buses in and around Horbury and Ossett. These issues are like open-sores, only Government has the cure. Give local Mayors the power to nationalise services or bring back under public control. But for some reason or another, they do not want to do this. Buses and trains were raised with the West Yorkshire Mayor, more on this later in the blog.

Sunday 13th November was our Remembrance Sunday event across both Horbury & Ossett. Both Darren and Deb attended the Horbury event. Firstly, at St Peter’s Church, where Darren was honoured to read out the 200+ names of the fallen from both World Wars. We the paraded up to the Memorial Gardens where another service was held.

St Peter’s Church was full to capacity with several hundred people attending our outdoor service at Memorial Gardens.

As the Poppy Appeal came to a close on Remembrance Sunday, the donations have now been counted and the total is - £44,993.39 – what an amazing achievement, just short of a few pounds to take the overall total a quarter of a million pounds from the last 5 years appeals. A massive thank you to the volunteer team and to Malcolm, the brains behind the entire operation.

Wednesday 16th November – we attended our usual coffee mornings at the Senior Citizens’ Support Group and at Horbury Methodist Church.

Later that morning we visited the Manorfield’s area & met up with managers from Wakefield District Housing This session followed a comment made on Facebook about the state of a small community space between Gervais Rd & Clifton Crescent.
Together we have established that this area belongs to WDH and not Wakefield Council.

The team agreed to investigate what could be done to improve the space and make it more community friendly. We will keep you informed of the progress over the coming months.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was the full Council meeting of Wakefield Council. The meeting was attended by the elected Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracey Brabin. This gave Councillors the opportunity to raise issues directly with the Mayor, which we did for around an hour. Questions focused on public transport, especially buses, jobs, infrastructure, the environment and much more.

Darren asked a question, to what the Mayor could do to establish a new railway station in Horbury or Ossett within the next 5 years. This quest is supported by all 3 of your Local Councillors. The Mayor said that she was being lobbied for a new station and she would look at the case for one. However, she did ask that as Local Councillors we need to provide evidence that as station a required. This we will try to do.

Finally, on Wednesday evening we both attended a fundraiser at Queen Street Fisheries in Ossett. This was in support of the Pancreatic Cancer charity arranged by two local fundraisers Gillian and Tony. Around 25 people attended and enjoyed a good meal and raised a good amount of money.

On Saturday morning Deb held our regular advice session at Horbury Library. A couple of residents attended and raised issues with Deb, which she has noted and raised with the appropriate Council Team.

On Monday this week, we both attended the Horbury Village Partnership monthly meeting. Here we agreed to the investment for the summer hanging baskets for 2023. We also agreed our programme of events for the forthcoming months and the design of our new website. Watch out for more information over the next few months.

Tuesday was spent on our respective Cabinet roles and kept us busy in Wakefield. On Wednesday morning we met with a resident on a very wet street in South Ossett. Here we saw a parking problem first-hand, which had been created by a recent change of use from a larger house into a business complex. This simple change had created around 7 to 10 additional cars that needed to be accommodated on a very compact residential area.

On Wednesday we met with a group of residents to discuss a major issue that is planned for a neighbouring Ward. More information about this in future blogs. This was followed by a customary Wednesday coffee at the Methodist Church in Horbury town centre.

On Wednesday afternoon, Darren chaired a meeting of Horbury Churches Together. This group is responsible for the creation and management of the Horbury BreakThrough project and much more youth focused activities.

Later on Wednesday, Darren attended the Presentation evening at Horbury Academy. On Thursday evening Darren then attended the same event at Ossett Academy.

Both events were showcases for the amazing work of the students of our two secondary schools. It was a great honour to attend and to be a sponsor at the Ossett Academy event.

On Thursday evening, Deb attended our regular Police & Community Together (PACT) meeting in Horbury. The weather appeared to keep many attendees away. However, an informative meeting was held with representatives from Horbury Academy, giving an insight to how they deal with drugs and drug education. The dates for the 2023 PACT meetings will be published shortly by West Yorkshire Police.

Friday evening was the highlight of the Festive Season for Horbury. The Christmas light switch on and ‘Santa comes to Horbury’ event was held. A crowd of several hundred people attended with around 200 children visiting Santa and receiving a free Cadbury’s selection pack. This event is organised by Darren and Deb with support from our local Rotary Club, Methodist Church, and Horbury Village Partnership. The funding to allow this event to take place is provided by Horbury Lands Trust, Horbury Village Partnership and our trade union, Unite the Union.

There were new lights on The High Street, with more to come on Queen Street and the weeping silver birch tree has been beautifully illuminated in Stan Barstow Gardens. Thank you to Wakefield Council for their help in providing these great displays and our massive tree outside of Bar Biccari.

Finally, this week, Deb and Darren took down the display banner in Memorial Park for safekeeping and installed 4 Christmas banners across the Ward.

A busy few weeks, with more to come before the end of this year.

Please keep safe and take care.
Darren & Deb
Working for our Communities, throughout the whole year!

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