On this week in 2014 and 1994: £4m innovation centre finally becoming reality and celebrations for 100 years of band

In our weekly On This Week column, we look through the pages of the Lynn News from October 2014 and a picture from October 1994…The £4 million King’s Lynn Innovation Centre (KLIC) is finally becoming a reality after 10 years of work put in by West Norfolk Council and the Norfolk and Waveney Enterprise Service. The centre, which could be up and running by Christmas 2015, will be built on the Nar Ouse Regeneration area, would offer offices and other services to help fledgling businesses get off the ground. A public exhibition of the plans for KLIC will be held at the borough council offices in Lynn and a planning application for the building will be submitted shortly. The centre is being funded by a £2.5 million loan from New Anglia Local Enterprise partnerships, the Growing Places fund a £1 million from the borough council.Several roads will be closed in Hunstanton when the US Air Force’s 67th Special Operations Squadron receives the freedom of the town. The ceremony has been arranged to recognise the contribution the squadron made to save many lives during the 1953 flood disaster. The parade will be led by the Norwich Pipe Band, starting in Sandringham Road and the formal ceremony will take place at the Spinney.

Another three West Norfolk churches have been left in desperate situations after thieves stripped the lead from their roofs – leaving one with a £120,000 bill. More than half-a-dozen of the borough’s churches have been hit in recent weeks and there have been more attacks across the rest of the county. The Rev Barbara Pearman, assistant priest at the renowned All Saints Church in Tilney All Saints, which now faces the task of raising £120,000 to fix its roof, said: “We already hang by a thread keeping churches together.”Air crews from RAF Marham have taken part in their first combat mission since being given the go-ahead to take part in military action against Islamic State extremists. Servicemen and women from the base had flown in several missions without deploying weapons after MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining in the operation in Iraq last week. No weapons were deployed until Tuesday when a guided bomb and a missile were used against two targets in the north west of the country. Defence chiefs said they believed the operation had been successful.Developers have been making their case to build dozens of new homes in Heacham. A public exhibition of the Pegasus Planning Group’s proposal for 69 new properties on a 3.2 hectare site off Cheney Hill was held at the Old Friends Hall last week. Although the site has been identified as a preferred option for residential development, the scheme attracted an angry reaction from many of the attendees. Opposition is also growing at Hunstanton where Hopkins Homes wants to build 166 new homes on the southern edge of the town. A petition has been launched backing the Civic Society’s opposition to the scheme. Howard Junior School in Gaywood has invested around £4,000 into creating an outdoor wooden fort with teepees as a quiet area for children to read. Teachers plan to use the area as an additional ‘classroom’ space and hope it will particularly inspire boys’ interest in books. To celebrate completion of the area the entire school had a wild west day, where pupils dressed as cowboys and native Americans, with learning linked to the theme.A countryside walk in the Nordelph area has been revived thanks to the construction of a new culvert – around 40 years after the previous bridge fell into disrepair. Walkers in Nordelph can now make their way from Birchfield Road to Old Bedford River on footpath number 7, and may soon be able to complete a circular route. The project cost just under £1,500 and costs were kept down thanks to volunteers giving their time to assist in the construction.A shed fire in Magdalen which spread to an electricity line led to hundreds of people being left without power, residents evacuated from their homes and a school being closed. Residents in Park Crescent were woken at 5.40am by the sounds of canisters and aerosols exploding in the shed where there had apparently been an electrical fault in a freezer. Firefighters from Lynn and Downham spent around two hours on the scene, but the shed, all its contents and a Vauxhall Corsa car were destroyed.