On this week in 1996 and 2013: Campbell’s 25 Year Club and supermarket wars rage on

On this week: January 15-21, 2013As the war of the supermarkets rages on in Lynn, motorists are left questioning whether the town boasts the cheapest petrol in the UK. A petrol price comparison website has revealed that, on average, a litre of unleaded will cost 132.47p across the UK, but some areas are seeing prices soar as high as 143.9p. The website also shows the minimum price for UK petrol as 126.9p per litre which is the current price at Lynn’s new Sainsbury’s store off Scania Way. The supermarket is closely followed by Asda, in South Wootton, where unleaded costs 127.7p per litre, while Tesco’s two garages charge the same as Morrisons, on Coburg Street, at 127.9p per litre.Snettisham Parish Council is to give an update on the future of Snettisham Watermill and Heritage Centre, having taken over responsibility for the project last year. A committee of volunteers was formed in 2003 to restore the mill to its former glory, but the project fizzled out when the site was sold for housing. Villagers have been calling for the group to be wound up and any money in the project’s account to be distributed. That balance currently stands at £1,600.

County councillors have overwhelmingly backed a new call for the main route linking Lynn with Norwich and Peterborough to be improved. A motion calling for the government to make a commitment to make the A47 a continuous dual carriageway has been passed by Norfolk County Council, with only the Green Party voting against. Calls have grown for the road to be improved in the wake of several fatal accidents over the Christmas period and two more fatalities on the route near Norwich this week.Proposals to build an extension to the Anmer Hall country house have been submitted to West Norfolk Council. The application allows for a new garden room to be built, existing wood stores to be converted into accommodation and the current driveway to be re-routed. And this all comes amid speculation that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may be moving to the property. Officials say full details of the application may not be made public for security reasons and no documents relating to the plan have been published by the council on its website.Commuters have welcomed plans for a half-hourly rail service between Lynn and London King’s Cross, despite an increase in fares. For the first time, the cost of an annual season rail ticket has gone above the £5,000 mark as plans were announced to improve the Ely North junction allowing a half-hourly service to run. Regular commuters interviewed by the Lynn News thought the service “pretty good”, but one teenager travelling to London for two weeks while on work experience complained about the lack of heating for one late night journey home. Nell Briscoe, a 10-year-old pupil at North Wootton Primary School has received an unexpected letter from Prime Minister David Cameron in reply to her Christmas card stating that West Norfolk does not want an incinerator. Nell had also questioned whether Mr Cameron wanted to see the West Norfolk countryside ruined by the building of an incinerator. Her dad, Jim Briscoe, said: “Nell is a very articulate girl and she certainly knows were own mind. She must have picked up little bits [about the incinerator] and decided she wanted to do something about it.”Campaigners have admitted they have reached the end of the road in their fight against two controversial wind farm plans planned for the Chiplow and Jack’s Lane developments at Bagthorpe and Stanhoe respectively. A High Court judge has decided there was insufficient evidence to overturn a planning consent for the wind farms and campaigners now say the cost of continuing the fight was out of all proportion for small village groups. Residents who had fought the plans for more than three years were “numb” at the legal ruling.Charity officials at the Purfleet Trust in Lynn have hailed a grant of £106,277 which they say will help them provide greater support to homeless people. The cash injection comes from Homeless Link, a body for people who work with rough sleepers in England, and gives the Trust a vital boost to their work amid the current freezing weather and a rise in the number of people sleeping rough in the town. The Trust estimates that as many as 12 people are currently sleeping rough in Lynn at any one time. The grant will enable staff to stay open later in the evenings, until around 9pm, and offer services on weekend mornings.