Current Topics
The Barnsley Chronicle does its bit but Penistone people don't have a proper forum to 'Get things off their chests'. Let's hope that somebody will set up a website for it. S36.TV could be the way of the future but the Penpictorial Guestbook might help for now. The usual rules apply about bad language and libel.
JB will keep an eye on it for adverts and dross. Here are just a few things that have been doing the rounds:
Housing Developments
Penistone Grammar School (- for that is its legal and proper name)
Some links: PGS homepage (large 10MB page-load), PGS at Barnsley Council, RmyT, PGS Wiki, BBC pictures,
Council Matters
Other Penistone Matters
Done Deals and Dead Topics
Concerning the windfarms and council matters, these have been moved to their own pages to make this one shorter. See:
New Happenings
Fields in Trust
In 2010 a new scheme was instigated to celebrate the Queen's jubilee of 2012 by protecting recreational areas with legal covenents in perpetuity. This is so that the land must be kept as a recreational area and cannot be built upon. Penistone Town Council is supporting an application for this 'Fields in Trust'' programme, so that our recreational land would be protected from further exploitation, for years to come. A further enhancement is that Penistone is one of ten towns that have been chosen by WREN ('Waste Recycling Environmental') to receive funding for outdoor gymnasium facilities.
Changes Over the Years
Looking back over the years, Penistone Market Street/High Street might not appear to have changed much but there have been a lot of changes in Penistone. We used to have a labour exchange ('jobcentre'), ambulance station, two fire engines, a fully-manned cop shop and an historic livestock market. That was when Penistone had half the population it has now. The old employment exchange is long gone, the ambulance station has been replaced by a rapid response unit and the cop shop is lightly manned and difficult to contact. A good old people's home was closed to save money, although a new one is on its way. Penistone's cafes have changed quite a lot (see cafe page) and we have lost a popular public house - The Rose and Crown.
Our historic livestock market was closed to save a few grand and make room for a supermarket (a 'done deal' reported in the papers), then something like £120k of 'Heritage' money was found for a (needed) skateboard park. People asked why it was built on the edge of the Showground instead of, say, the large recreational area of Church View Road? A local builder wondered why it cost more than about £30k.
Planning permission was granted for 141 new houses in the small village of Millhouse Green against the wishes of local people and our local council (is it ever refused?). I heard that there were in fact two lots of planning permission. After some creative confusion, more houses were built than was originally understood. That sleepy village is now bigger but the infrastructure is the same. Extra traffic will be added and Bridge End will be yet more of a bottleneck. It is time that the traffic lights were extended on to Huddersfield Road, with a box junction in the middle.
A few more houses are to arrive at Bridge End and four new dwellings have appeared the very narrow ridge of land near the viaduct on a spot which was formerly a viewing point for the valley, with a very sheer drop behind into the Don. Parts of the land is propped up. Don't bother playing footie in their back gardens. If the ball goes over, it is lost in the Don. A row of 'pointy' and very tall dwellings is planned for opposite the British Legion, but developers have re-submitted plans because of their imposing height. After three rejections, they conceded something like the height of a brick. They were playing some sort of attrition game with the planners, who are usually in their pockets anyway. Very odd.
A block of affordable flats was advertised for Green Road but 'Saunderson Gardens' was built there instead, which don't quite fit their social housing surroundings. They look more like Kensington Gardens. In fact, they don't appear to have gardens. Another daft name.
Old people's homes in Barnsley area (including Penistone's Green Park House) were closed to save money at about the time when £3,000,000 of public money was given to Barnsley football club and another £9,000,000 went on consultants. They forgot to put all of that in the glossy 'where it all goes' leaflet which they send out with Council Tax demands. Now they have saved the £350,000 needed to bring Green Park House old folks' home up to standard - by closing it down. Sounds a lot but it works out at less than two Barnsley council executives (salary, pensions, etc.)
In 2005-2006, the chief Executive of Barnsley Council was paid £116,611.00 and his mate the Executive Director trousered £104,718.00, including extras (See Taxpayer's Alliance), with expenses on top. Mustn't forget the expenses, must we? They must have had more responsibility than the prime minister (£75k at the time). Barnsley Chronicle letters caused a furious backlash from top councillors when someone questioned expenses. That particular nerve was being tweaked long before the MPs' expenses fiasco of 2009. It will be great fun for we mere mortals when these 'top' people are forced to reveal how they spend out money, as they surely will sooner or later.
The Showground was donated to the people of Penistone by a local farmer but BMBC acquired 'ownership' of it (stole it) after local government reorganisation in 1974, as they did our Town Hall (and bumped up the hiring fees). The late George Punt was looking into the ownership of the Town Hall but Barnsley archives had conveniently lost or misplaced most if not all of the old records, deeds and other documents which were sent there in the 1970s. Much of Penistone's written history has been lost by those charged to keep them safe.
In the 1990s, BMBC drew up detailed street plans to build a housing estate on the Showground. Then they granted permission for a massive Tesco to be built right on the edge. A lot of Penistone people wanted a new and better supermarket but objected to the proposed Tesco location. Mind you they were also opposed Davmar's (same people as Dransfield's) earlier plans to flatten the vicarage and put a 'plastic' supermarket there. That was sold as 'focus on revitalising retail trade in Penistone', as though planting a new supermarket in Penistone would boost competing businesses. Yup. They even claimed 'highway improvements to increase ROAD SAFETY' (their capital letters). They said that if you put a new supermarket near a busy junction, you will have fewer accidents. Yea, right. Anyway, in what surely must have been a cock-up of some sort, the plans weren't passed. Unless there really is a God.
People Power
Local people are very protective about our recreational land, also known as the 'Showground'. There have been several threats to it which have sometimes been fended off. 'Busy Bees' planned to build a nursery on the Showground area but local opposition against it was unexpectedly fierce. An action group sparang up - PACE and it had some effect. It was a persistent campaign too and cost a lot of money paying for barristers, etc. I know because I stumped up some money towards the campaign and the cost of a barrister.
The extremely well-funded (into £millions nationally) BBs charity changed direction and took an interest in the old National School on Church Street. It had fallen into a bad state of repair, which hadn't been helped by idle youths trying to destroy it. The building was falling into disuse. It had only seen occasional events and the local 'gentlemen's club' held meetings there (no names, no packdrill).
In 2007, Barnsley council arranged for its 'Surestart' scheme to spend around £500,000 of public money to renovate the National School, which is owned by a trust. It was radically extended and renovated and the yard tidied up. The contractors did a very good job and even rebuilt the wall connecting with the Don Press next door, which had been damaged one Sunday morning some years previously by 'improvements' from members of the said gentleman's club. In 2010 Busy Bees took up occupation of the building. It has become, in a way, 'their' building.
Now in 2011, there is a continuing dispute between trustees of the National School and Penistone Town Council about access to the nursery from the Community Centre car park. It appears to be just a technical matter and is likely to be resolved without too much fuss.
Good Intentions? - Carry A Bag
I am big on the environment. I always recycle my spent beer into the local sewage plant and none of my light bulbs are of the incandescent variety. The bag campaign ticks a tiny green box but I think that it might 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. In my case, the move against plastic carrier bags has led to more pollution.
Let me explain. I used to put household waste in Co-op carrier bags because I knew that they were bio-degradable. I discovered this for myself after storing things in a back bedroom. The bags disintegrated. Now they are being phased out and I use bin-liners, which are not biodegradable, for my kitchen waste bin. The 'Carry-a-Bag' website warns that non-biodegradable carrier bags go into landfill to last for centuries and they get into the sea to kill sea creatures. We are about eighty miles from either coast. I am not wholly convinced about some of the arguments but it makes for a good debate.
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