On this week: February 8-14, 1997

Car parks, council ‘ego trips’ and speedway feature in our regular On This Week feature…Lynn town centre car parks where drivers enjoy worry-free parking and pay on exit is the dream of shoppers and West Norfolk Chamber of Commerce is hoping that a feasibility study will lead to pay-on-exit car parks throughout the town. West Norfolk Council’s environmental services committee has recommended that all car park charges should increase in June, but after talks with the Chamber, representing shopkeepers in the town, the committee has agreed to study the feasibility of pay-on-exit at three of the town’s car parks – the Old Cattle Market, Regent Way/ South Clough Lane and Albert Street/Austin Street West. Pay on exit, says the Chamber, would allow shoppers to venture into town, shop at their own pace and enjoy other town centre facilities without a car parking deadline hanging over them.Tinker Taylor, three times Downham Mayor, is resigning from the town council in protest at its £180,500 “ego trip”. The 67-year-old Mr Taylor, a town councillor for more than 30 years, says he is disappointed by the council’s decision to spend this much money on making the former Lovell’s site on Paradise Road its new headquarters, without considering other options properly. He pointed out that West Norfolk Council had offered the use of rooms in its offices in Priory Road for £4,000 per year. Most of the money to pay for the new building has come from Somerfield, which paid the town council £110,000 for licences to build two access points to its supermarket from Hollies public car park.

Lynn and Wisbech Hospitals’ NHS Trust has responded to public opinion in setting new visiting hours at Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The new visiting times – from 2pm to 4pm and 6pm to 8pm on the surgical, medical and orthopaedic wards – will take effect from the beginning of March. Previously the visiting hours were 2pm to 8pm, but the aim of the trial hours was to try and achieve a better balance between the benefits patients gain from seeing relatives and the need for quiet and privacy to aid their recovery.The countdown is on for the start of the new Elite League speedway season in six weeks’ time and Lynn Stars chief Buster Chapman remains confident he will be able to start on schedule and with a strong home team. He said everything was agreed with a bank and receivers for his take-over and he hoped to sign the papers in a matter of days, and when that happened he would start work – with volunteers – on bringing the stadium facilities up to the standards demanded by the safety authority and the Elite League. Czech riders Bob Brhel and Tomas Topinka are already signed up, together with Paul Hurry and Ray Morton.There was gnome way you could have missed the fact it was David Bradd’s birthday last week – for he had an outdoor party with a difference. Mr Bradd awoke to find a garden gnome for each year of his life adorning the lawn of his Sedgeford home, and how they got there is a mystery, The sixty gnomes, complete with a gnome jigsaw puzzle, arrived in the middle of the night without so much as a sound to give Mr Bradd the surprise of his life on his birthday. “I don’t know who is doing this, but I have a good idea,” he told the Lynn News, adding he was at a loss to know what to do with his new-found friends. Staff at Lynn Arts Centre have greeted proposals for a management merger with the town’s Corn Exchange and Hunstanton’s Princess Theatre with “frustration and anger” and criticised board members who agreed the move. They vented their feelings in a letter to Alan Pask, chief executive of West Norfolk Council, who is recommending that the borough’s policy and resources committee should approve the plan. There are nine members of staff at the centre, plus two or three casual employees. They fear that a merger with the borough council would harm the artistic integrity of the centre by taking away its independence.Dersingham’s branch of the Girls’ Venture Corps Air Cadets is in danger of closing unless leaders and members can be found. At present there are only four members and just one leader, who is due to step down soon because of other commitments. The quartet of cadets are currently joining in with the Lynn unit, which meets at the Loke Road headquarters. The Dersingham cadet unit is based at the Drill Hall, Doddshill Road, meeting on Mondays from 6.30-9pm.Student support for rag week stunts at Lynn’s Norfolk College produced £450 for local charities. After collecting all the donations from events which included a drag queen and king parade, and a spaghetti-eating competition, the Students’ Union are setting about deciding who should benefit. All the money raised came from students within the college which the executive committee described as “excellent”.