There's a meeting tonight in the Rugby Club to discuss progress on the Hendy Mugga

The lease of the area has now been agreed and the full funding of the project has been secured

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Park-set-revamp-deal/story-18595705-detail/story.html#axzz2PUZk9tVb

 

Park set for revamp after deal

 

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

 

WORK to regenerate a Llanelli park can now move forward, after a lease was agreed between two councils.

Carmarthenshire Council's executive board has approved proposals to lease part of Hendy Park to Llanedi Community Council.

The 25-year contract will see Llanedi pay a peppercorn rent, so plans to create a multi-use games area (muga) can move forward.

As part of a bid to regenerate the park, the community council has worked with local authority grants officers to apply for around £150,000 to fund the new facility.

 

Extensive consultation has been carried out in the community, and residents answered calls to set up a voluntary committee which will manage the muga day-to-day.

The community council has taken on full responsibility for all maintenance, utilities and insurance at the site.

Llanedi clerk Owen Jones said final details were still being discussed.

"We hope at the moment that work will begin on the muga in April," he said.

"It should be complete by the end of May.

"There will be a soft surface, suitable for use for different sports.

"Teams will be able to hire out the muga for different sessions.

"But the aim is for it to be open for the children of the area to play on."

He said grants had come from a variety of sources, including WREN (Waste Recycling Environmental Limited), Veolia, Cwm Environmental, Carmarthenshire Council and CAVS (Carmarthenshire Association of Voluntary Services).

Read more: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Park-set-revamp-deal/story-18595705-detail/story.html#ixzz2PUaEtpXQ

Last Week Owen Jones the clerk of the community council and Darren Rees Regeneration Officer for Carmarthen County Council met me in the Hendy Park following the news that our final grant fund manager has accepted our grant application,

the whole cost has now been realised which means that work can now progress towards setting a start date

This good news has now been featured in the local Llanelli Star

This is the second round of funding that we have secured for the park, the first round saw investment in new footpaths and gates and access points, the bottom gates were renewed and a new access was added at the top end of the park near the top speed bump

below is a photo of myself with Kevin Madge the leader of the county council after the new wrought iron gates were installed in 2011

News about the top gates also appeared in the Local Llanelli Star

Hendy News

Following the site meeting in March 2012 where Nia Griffith MP added a press release story to her web site http://niagriffith.org.uk/2012/03/tackling-talycoed-junction-hendy/

quote off site

Cllr Steve Lloyd-Janes, Keith Davies AM and Nia are trying to find a solution to the problems encountered by the residents of Talycoed, just opposite the motorway junction in Hendy.

In spite of lobbying, County Council officers have been reluctant in the past to consider the painting of a yellow keep clear box at the junction, because the Welsh Assembly’s Trunk Road Agency had judged the proposal as not ideal.

“We highlighted this problem to the agencies concerned some time ago and it is disappointing that the problem has still not been resolved. In my opinion, doing nothing is not an option as drivers coming out of Talycoed have to dart between traffic as it is drawing up to the traffic lights and filter into the motorway slip road. That’s why we have held another site meeting with the County Council, and have now asked for representatives of the Trunk Road Agency to meet us on site as soon as possible.“

end quote

Following that first meeting a petition was collected by residents and Cllr Steve Lloyd-Janes presented this to the County Council Exec Board Member for highways

Following this presentation of the petition, as part of the agreed action plan in March Keith Davies AM met with the Assembly Highway members and several residents and at that meeting the Assembly officers told the residents and the County Highway Officers that the Assembly would have no objection to the County delivering a scheme to address safety concerns for the residents of Bryngwilli and Talycoed.

Photo taken during the second with the assembly and county highway officers

Eventually a scheme was delivered in November 2012

Your labour team has since held further site meetings with residents Nia Griffith MP came to Hendy and met with eight residents to witness the peak traffic and conditions that residents have to battle with after the yellow box scheme had been painted.

Nia Griffith Mp and residents were alarmed and shocked to find the yellow boxes were painted in the wrong location and that the Assembly Officers had suggested painting double white lines on the south bound carriageway of the A 4138 between Junction 48 and Talyclun.in the interests of channelling traffic coming off the M4 west bound slip lane onto the south bound A 4138. The intended propose of the Assembly Officers Idea to try and control traffic in this way was to maximise the holding capacity of the dual south bound lanes at peak PM traffic periods and minimise queuing on the west bound hard shoulder of the M4 approach to J48.

Nia Griffith MP when she met residents along with local councillors, Steve Lloyd-janes and Alan Blackley, she was told  residents felt these new double white lines have caused a bigger safety issue than what they were trying to resolve, because there is a slight curve in the road and when traffic coming from Llanelli try to overtake, there were concerns that Traffic from Hendy would be stuck in the middle lane as a result it has become clear that drivers are ignoring the white lines in the interest of safety and  there have been a number of near misses on this stretch of road.  

Nia took up the complaints from residents that the yellow boxes were located in the wrong locations and that the new double white lines were dangerous, up with the Highways and she is pleased to report that the county and assembly officers have now agreed to re look at the safety concerns raised

Below Nia Griffith MP at the Busy Hendy Motorway junction with local residents

During the Christmas Holiday period the weekly angling press ie Carp Talk, Angling Times and Anglers Mail produced a bumper two week edition

Browsing through these editions I spotted White Springs Fishery on four occassions in articles

The Wales and West section of Carp Talk which came out on 19th December advertised our Christmas Competition which was to take place on December 23rd

The Anglers Mail talked about an amazing week just before the cold snap came in December

and in the Angling Times we had a photo of a 22lb new personal best for Cardiff Angler Paul Austin

The Angling Times also covered the Welsh Carp Masters which will be held in the Summer of 2013

This event has proved very popular and all the fisheries involved were sold out in just under a fourtnight

details of the whole event can be found in cymfishing a welsh fishing forum for anglers details about prizes rules and the ten pairs who have entered in each venue in the link below

http://www.cymfishing.com/wcf/viewforum.php?f=54&sid=efb317a64c43f4c5a21d2105fdd73f79

Over the Christmas Holiday I made changes to the text of this blog and also made a new year resulation to repost some old photos and internet stories about the fishery, so I will end the todays blog entery with some archived info

The Carp Masters first started in 2007 with five venues getting involved and the very first winners in 2007 were Mark Adams and Dean Amesbury from Tredegar who actually fished the qualifiers at White Springs

Sky sports were actually filming at each of the qualifing venues and preported on the final event

below are photos from the presentation of the very first welsh carp masters held in 2007

I'm sure this year the whole event will awsome and enjoyed by everyone who enters and will be an amazing event and I wish all the competitors on all of the qualifying venues the best of luck and tight lines during 2013

The 2007 Welsh Carp Masters Final which was held at Celtic Lakes, this year the final will be on the Birch Syndicate in Newport

Details about this years event can also be found on face book, there is a group dedicated to the event and the group organiser have thanked White Springs for donating a prize for the event

https://www.facebook.com/WelshCarpChampionships2013#!/photo.php?fbid=534183653266624&set=a.534179973266992.124725.534177686600554&type=1&theater

During 2012 my circumstances changed and I now have more time on my hands, and I have been spending more time in White Springs Fishery in Pontarddulais Swansea

this fishery was started by my father E.V.LLOYD who has a catch phrase when he leaves answer messages on peoples phones Lloyd's the name fishings the game give us a ring

There's absolutely loads of info on the Web about White Springs as it was created in 1983 and officially opened in 1987 and 26 years later there's loads and loads of reviews and news articles on the fishery

Over the coming weeks I will be posting the old photo's from the first web site created for White Springs in 2005 which was update until 2009 and eventually deleted in 2012 but I kept the info and the old photos

but here area just two of some info posted about the fishery, by external sources

Well after ten days of ice freezing the lakes over the weather changed and the fishing has been patchy up and down, probably because no two days had been the same until this week when the rain arrived and its rained almost every day

as a result the fishing has become more settled and the fish have started coming out on a regular basis

here's a weekly summary of the fishing for the match and pleasure lakes as well as the specimen carp lakes, that was sent to the various angling press reporters

Last Wednesday White Springs appeared in Carp Talk a weekly magazine about Carp Fish and featuring tips and news from the country and carp fisheries

we had a photo of one of our fourty pound fish called Hand Job many anglers have asked why give the fish the name "Hand Job" so here's the story around how she got her name

a few years ago one of our regulars was fishing and he had a fish on which put up a good fight during the attempt to land it it made a run and as the reel left out line he was adjusting the drag and his line got tangled and all knotted up.

So he ended up throwing his rod behind him having managed to grab hold of the line above the top eye and eventually hand pulled the fish in, with two or three regulars at hand to to help net the fish, and seeing a beautifull marked fish that would be easily recognisable she was christened "Hand Job" a name that stuck

any way since then the fish has continued to grow and has since become a fourty pound plus fish and she came out about last week at 42lb 10oz,

The fishery also appeared in the Wales and West section with a written report all anglers mentioned have caught new Personal Bests at the White Springs during the last three or four weeks at the fishery,

Hand Job came out on Tuesday, the previous Thursday Paul Austin from Cardiff caught a new PB common at 22lb off the Island Peg, below is Pauls common  

Paul then moved off this peg on the Friday evening to allow 14 year old angler Tom Samuel from Kidwelly to fish the same peg and Tom went and landed a fish known as "Colin The Carp" now known as CTC,

This was the second time Tom has caught CTC this year and Tom's photo also appeared in Carp Talk

both photos of CTC caught during 2012 by Tom can be found in the White Springs photo album http://www.whitespringsfishery.co.uk/apps/photos/album?albumid=14219196 

below is the recent photo of Tom with CTC that appeared in Carp Talk

Three hours later Marcus Jones from Neath landed "Head Work" a 32lb mirror which gave Marcus a new PB, marcus and his mate Daniel had only just joined the 20lb club less than a month ago when they both caught a 26lb and a 25lb fish on the same day

The article in the magazine mentioned all four anglers names well done lads

The fishery had fished really well last week because after CTC and Head Work came out on Saturday Scott landed Hand Job on Tuesday, then on Thursday a cracking 24lb 8oz common came out for Dean Jenkins on the old cabin also on the Wednesday Daniel Jones managed a fish at 19lb 10oz out of the same peg that Scott had been on and on Saturday Marcus landed another cracking double at 24lb 4oz

If you wanted to know more about how White Springs Fishery as it happens as the fishery is now on Face Book with several anglers adding photos themselves as they catch the fish via their mobile phones off the bank and we update face book on a regular basis

https://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Springs-Fishery/143457435697480?ref=ts&fref=ts

Hendy Junior Football Club have had an ongoing issue about its fencing and we have been trying to get grants and funding to replace and inprove the fencing

This is because every year during the summer grazing period when there have been cattle in the fields next to the pitch there have been a small number of occasions where some of the cattle have got into the pitch

Eventually after two grant applications this year the second fund provided 460 young tree saplings and more than 30 youngsters from the football sqauds and the local Hendy Youth club attended a tree planting day

Below are some photos of me planting some of the trees with the Hendy Youth Club team, there were several groups of youths planting the trees in teams along the boundary fence inside the pitch

If all the trees catch in about three or four seasons there should be a young hedge being established

The trees were supplied thanks to the woodland trust

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/jubilee-woods/about/Pages/our-aims.aspx

To celebrate Her Majesty The Queen's historic 2012 Diamond Jubilee, the Woodland Trust is helping millions of people across the UK to come together to plant 6 million trees.

When we applied Hendy School supplied a letter of support for the grant and as a result the school were also invited to attend a tree planting day, there was one special tree in the pack, this was a young oak sapling that has been grown from decendants from the original Royal Oak

The legends state that The Royal Oak is the English oak tree within which King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. Charles confirmed to Samuel Pepys in 1680 that while he was hiding in the tree, a Parliamentarian soldier passed directly below it. The story was popular after the Restoration, and is remembered every year in the English traditions of Royal Oak Day and every tree pack supplied had one oak sapling grown from this tree or a direct decendant from that same tree.

I understand the club were going to ask could this tree be planted over in the school grounds

Here's a weekly report which includes two new Pb's

Its not been a bad week here on the fishery despite the weather turning cold, pushing the fish down, because the fish have still been feeding.

On the pleasure lake Mark Brown fished a day session to land 9 carp all caught on sweet corn fished over pellets.

The canals have fished well this week with some reports of some good bags of mixed fish being caught.

Tony Whale fished peg 8 on the old canal and landed 19 carp.

On the Pit Ryan Jones fished the railway bank to catch 6 carp the best being a 17.9lb common, Ryan also caught a nice bag of mixed bream and roach.

The open match on Sunday was fished on the match lake, in 1st place was Chris Org with 71.4lb, 2nd was Dan Bowen 71lb, 3rd was John Charlsworth with 53lb.

The Sir Howie match was held on the old canal with 18 anglers turning up to fish, In 1st place was Adam Mitchell with 62lb, 2nd was Mikey Williams with 55lb and 3rd was Mark Goodall with 48lb, these three anglers all fish for Browning West Wales. The match fished well for everyone with the lowest bag being over 35lb.

On the specimen lake Martin Mathews from Carmarthen has finally finished his annual monthly session landing 35 carp in total of peg 2.

Gareth and Rob Mayer fished the island peg for 3 nights over the weekend to land 7 fish between them the best being a 22.3lb mirror.

Whilst Daniel Andrews and his mate Marcus Jones from Portalbot fishing peg 8a and 9 on the other side of the lake, both broke their pb's with a 25lb mirror and a 26lb mirror both catching on Monday morning after a slower 48 hour session than Gareth and Rob's, weekend session

Marcus has added photos to face book and one of their fish is attached to this report, all of their carp were caught on the white springs banana boilies.

One of the fish actually took off at 7am and by the time the rod was picked up the fish had already snagged upand the two anglers needed to take to the boat to play and release the fish and land it

Also on the specimen lake fishery owner Vince who has now semi retired after coming back from a short holiday to blackpool he decided to try a bit of fishing and took another day off to fish peg 13, to land his 1st double figure carp caught on bread

White Springs web site can be viewed at  http://whitespringsfishery.co.uk

Hendy News

I know I posted an entry saying I wouldn't be posting much due to work commitments up the fishery

but here's this weeks local Hendy News column

Carp Talk is a wekly magazine and in this weeks edition issue no 941

24th Oct to 30th Oct

White Springs Fishery gots its name into the paper twice, when i picked the paper up I quickly browsed through it looking at the pictures and I spotted the photo of the 35lb fish and was pleased about the inclusion of this photo in the magazine, but later as we were reading the stories as well as having the photo on page 30

White Springs got a mention on page 26 under the title venue of the week

To date about six people fishing up the fishery have told us that they spotted the photo in the magazine this week.

FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT KNOW ME PERSONALLY, A THANK YOU FOR FOLOWING MY REPORTS, THEY WILL NOT BE HAPPENING AS OFTEN MAYBE ONE A MONTH FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS

THIS IS BECAUSE MY DAD HAS RETIRED AND I AM NOW BLOGGING AND WRITING FISHING REPORTS FOR WHITE SPRINGS

http://www.spotfish.co.uk/fishery/white-springs-lakes-coarse-fishing 

AND I AM ALSO DOING LOTS OF STUFF FOR WHITE SPRINGS ON FACE BOOK UPDATING FISHING REPORTS AS THEY HAPPEN

IF SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENS IN THE COMMUNITY I WILL BE REPORTING BUT NOT AS OFTEN AS I HAVE BEEN

ONCE AGAIN THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT IN THE PAST

TIGHT LINES FOR NOW IF YOU ARE ON FACE BOOK HIT THE LIKE BUTTON ON THE WHITE SPRINGS FISHERY PAGE WHICH I WRITE DAILY

http://www.whitespringsfishery.co.uk/

Just a quick update, many people have been asking what am I doing with myself since loosing the county council election in May 2012 and am I missing the council work, four or five residents asked me questions along these lines during the school Fete

If I am totally honest I have not had any extra time now that I have lost my seat, this is because I am still a Community Councillor and I am the acting chair of the Hendy Parks Committee and there's been some progress made on the regeneration of the park, as blogged previously,

The commitee have been meeting monthly and there has been lots of extra work put in to obtain grants so this has kept me busy during the last few weeks.

Plus I was elected by the local Labour party as an observer of the County Council Group, so I now sit in pre meetings listening to the Labour Groups discussions etc 

and I then sit in the county council chambers listening to the full council debates, and there's going to be a heated debate in the county council chambers next week

because Plaid Cymru are proposing on moving a motion of no confidence in the leader of the council over press statements made after two planning decision for Sainsbury were called in and they are asking for his statements on the issue to be withdrawn

Kevin Madge put out a press release about the two sites that were called in and the internet and the local and welsh national press has been red hot as political bloggers and critics have been covering the whole polotical row ever since.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-19583484

 

14 September 2012 Last updated at 16:20

Llandeilo and Cross Hands supermarket plans prompt political row

The supermarket plans at Cross Hands include redeveloping a derelict site for housing

A political row has erupted in Carmarthenshire over plans to build two new supermarkets, creating 600 jobs.

The council's ruling Labour-Independent coalition has accused the local Plaid Cymru AM and MP of trying to scupper plans at Llandeilo and Cross Hands.

Leader Kevin Madge accused them of encouraging the Welsh government to call in, or review, Sainsbury's plans.

But AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas says he and the MP, Jonathan Edwards, passed along residents' concerns to ministers.

Mr Thomas said: "This type of response is characteristic of Carmarthenshire County Council... the council doesn't want any scrutiny of its decisions.

Continue reading the main story

Start Quote

"At best this will now be delayed, at worst, it may not happen"

End Quote Council statement

"To blame us is just silly... we wrote to the Welsh government because concerns were expressed by local people [about these developments]."

A statement from the council said the projects were worth £60m on investment, creating several hundred construction jobs.

It said that at Cross Hands, the investment includes redeveloping a derelict site for housing, a doctor's surgery, health centre and care home along with improvements to Maes yr Yrfa School.

'Quickly as possible'

"At best this will now be delayed, at worst, it may not happen, which will be a great disappointment to many parents," said the statement.

Mr Madge said: "These are major developments which would have helped so many people and impacted so positively on many communities.

"The investment at Cross Hands, in particular, would have supported our aim to improve Welsh medium education which is also now at risk."

The Welsh government has been asked to comment.

The council said Sainsbury's director Neil Sachdev had written to the minister urging him to process the "call in" as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Mr Thomas added that he is considering making a complaint about the content of the press release by the council.

 

 

 

 

Interestely the two plaid politicians were quoted by the BBC

" AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas says he and the MP, Jonathan Edwards, passed along residents' concerns to ministers." ....... "To blame us is just silly... we wrote to the Welsh government because concerns were expressed by local people [about these developments]."

 

But in their latest statements they are now denying getting involved claiming the county council had advised the Assembly to call in the planning, and after telling the BBC they had writen to the Assembly on their web site, they now try to wriggle like a worm trying to get off a hook by back tracking and state 

 

"comments were then exposed as a complete fabrication when the Welsh Government confirmed it had not received any representations from the Plaid politicians regarding the proposed developments at Cross Hands."

 

someone needs to be a little more economical with the truth and remember what they have actually told reporters?

 

 

the above quote was taken off the plaid cymru web site.

 

http://www.carmarthenshire.plaidcymru.org/news/2012/09/30/the-leader-of-carmarthenshire-county-council-councillor-kevin-madge-is-to-face-a-grilling-from-councillors-next-week-after-the-28-member-plaid-cymru-group-submitted-a-motion-calling-on-cllr-madge-to-withdraw-his-inaccurate-comments-against-carmarthenshire/

again another quote off the plaid cymru web site

“The Council Leader and his advisors should know that the decision to call-in planning applications rests squarely with the Welsh government. The Council itself passed on the applications to the Welsh government under the Shopping Directive legislation."

 

The Plaid Politians are deperately trying to shift the blame for their actions

 

well that's enough about polotics I sure there will be lots more on this topic in the coming weeks

Watch this space?

back to my original topic of what am I doing with my time

I've also taken more of an interest in my parents business White Springs Fisheries, I had been involved slighlty in this but only maybe once a week but since May my dad has semi retired taking more holidays and time off, because my sister and her partner have taken over the business as fishery managers and I have stepped up my involvement with the web design and promotion of the business.

I had started the first web site for the fishery in 2005 with the Fishery having no web presence prior to this, in 2008 having set up the web design and being elected as a county councillor I started taking a back seat as I never had much time off from the county council role,

but now in 2012 having more time I am now up the fishery three or four days a week and I have now stepped up the publicity and web design promotions again

for the last two weeks the fishery has had photos in the national angling press, after my promotion of good news stories had been promotted on the web

lately in the last month I have targeted face book

https://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Springs-Fishery/143457435697480?ref=hl

So if I honest I'm just as busy now as I was prior to loosing my county council seat.

The Hendy Park regeneration is now starting to look a bit more promising, last Wednesday there was almost a full house of committee members with fourteen members turning up to hear updates from county council officers and the clerk of the Llanedi Community Council about grant applications and further news for the multi use games area that we are hoping to install.

During the meeting the committee were advised that the Sports Council of Wales, senior area grant advisor was willing to visit Hendy on Monday of this week, to view the site the committee has applied for a grant from the organisation.

The meeting was scheduled for midday, and once again like last week I struggled to get out of bed after working night shift and only having about three hours sleep, but I made it in time, about three minutes before the officers only Owen Jones the clerk to the council was there before me.

The weather was good and the turn out was better than expected

The PTA had spent the last two months meeting on a weekly basis and all this planning paid off

The school fete was well manned and lots of money was raised there were lots of stalls with some old favourites like guess the number of sweets in the jar, to naming the cuddly toy, a coconut shy and splat the rat, but one of the most popular with the kids and adults alike was soak the staff locked in the stocks at 50p a go they got well and truly soaked

He was absolutely soaked when the committee left him out

Scouser didn't get away scot free he spent some time in the stocks as well

There was lots to do for the family and the whole day was enjoyed by all, one of my favourites was the Glantawe Hawking Display and I got to hold one of the Owls on my arm

As one of the senior store reps in work, every quarter i get invited to attend a meeting with the group Store Director, recently our store had not had a full time personnel manager, two of the other managers in store had been job sharing whilst the company had looked to fill the post with a fully qualified PM.

After several weeks our new PM arrived in store and I brought it to her attention that as a result of no full time PM in store our Store Forum had not been conducted and it needed top be conducted before the end of September. I must say what really impressed me was three days into the role of the store she requested a meeting with the whole team of reps and the meeting was very positive.

When I spoke to her last week she advised she was working Monday and Tuesday of this week and then she was taking some annual leave, so we agreed to hold the meeting on Monday afternoon, even though I was nights on Sunday and Monday I agreed to get up early would normally be in bed all day till early evening.

As it happens it ended up being a benefit because last week I had printed some local Labour news letters which I started delivering on Friday, but when the local office found out I was out in the Hendy delivering some leaflets with Scouser, they asked could I pick up some leaflets for Christine Gwythers and deliver them the same time. 

As the request was 4pm on a Friday afternoon and nobody in the office was working over the weekend I agreed that I could pick them up Monday afternoon before I attended the Tesco meeting on Monday

Having only three hours sleep prior and then a meeting etc and a couple of hours in the early evening I suffered a bit from the broken sleep, but at least I can now go to the quarterly Store Directors meeting later in the month with answers and feed back,

This SD forum is the big one as far as our staff are concerned, its the start of our next years pay award, the company asks us for feed back on the pay award this year and for feed back on suggested improvements for next year, following our feed back ideas are taken by the national rep to the national discussions and the national team then enter into the negotations where they try to achieve ideas that are fed through the forum process.

anyway i'm off now to start delivering the leaflets

here's the leaflet that Christine gave us to go with our news letter advertising the Hendy school Centenary Fete (photo added 26th sept)

Got involved in the Hendy School Duck Race this week

First we taped empty pop bottles to a rope to go across the river, 

this was the finish line and it would stop any ducks washing away

then we invite the Hendy school children who had arrived to watch the race to count down for the three of us who were standing in the middle of the river to empty the bins of ducks into the river and the children run down the river bank following the ducks

not sure who won as we were busy collecting the ducks that got stuck on snags and had drifted into the banks

EDITED ON THE 19TH SEPT: I found out Natalie Reynolds won the duck race

here's next weeks Hendy News Column