G Casino at the Ricoh Arena complex is to host the free evening of indulgence on Thursday, February 25.

It takes place from 7pm until 10pm at the venue in Phoenix Way, Foleshill.

The event will feature a range of stalls offering women everything they need to spoil themselves, including make-up, beauty treatments, clothes and accessories. A range of chocolate, jewellery, clothes, hair and beauty products will also be on sale.

And a charity raffle will be held with all proceeds going to the Marie Curie Cancer Care Charity.

Ladies will receive a free glass of champagne on arrival. Free gaming tuition will also be on offer.

For more information and to book a place contact Jaimie on 02476 706975 or 024 7668 4747.

SHOPS in Coundon are joining together to raise cash for Children in Need with a range of fun activities tomorrow.

Businesses will be offering their services as prizes and staff will carrying out sponsored challenges on the corner of Barker Butts Lane and Moseley Avenue.

Luigi Andreatta, of Snack Attack, said the shop will also be donating ten per cent of the day's takings to the charity.

He said: "Just about every shop around here has donated something. We've got free hair cuts, massages and a free nail job to give away in prizes.

"It's a way of bringing all the businesses together in a common cause to help children who need it."

Collection boxes have been placed in shops for the past two weeks and a tombola will be held to raffle of prizes during the day.

VISITORS from electricity distribution company National Grid were part of an attempt by St Osburg's Catholic Primary School to win a top environment award.

Staff from the company spent a day at the school in Upper Hill Street, Radford, Coventry, talking about climate change and recycling and giving presentations, workshops and organising games with an environmental theme.

As part of the day pupils learnt about renewable energy and wind power by flying kites in the school grounds.

Patrick Luke, from the school, said: "Currently we are a silver award eco status school. We are attempting to achieve Green Flag level, the top eco school level. This involves working with the community and also outside companies to educate children in environmental issues and how to promote the school to be sustainable."

The school was a runner-up in the Coventry Telegraph Go Green awards earlier this year.

TWO PIZZA delivery boys from Coventry have been jailed for their roles in a plot to smuggle more than £15,000 worth of heroin into the country.

Brothers Rohaib and Zoaheb Iqbal, of Ransom Road, Foleshill, pleaded guilty to their part in the bid, which involved hiding 239 grammes of the class A drug in a make-up set brought into Manchester Airport by a family travelling from Pakistan.

The free event was part of the extended school programme at the school in Radford.

Full service extended school manager Wendy Medlicott said: "The bushcraft and survival skills workshop was particularly popular.

"The children became progressively more enthusiastic despite the wet miserable weather they had to contend with. They thoroughly enjoyed learning how to build a virtually waterproof shelter out of wood and leaves and making plum, apple and blackberry jam."

By Jo Vitols

The people who use the Post Office at Jubilee Crescent. Radford. Coventry are being greatly inconvenienced as the post office there has now closed it's door, almost over night it seems.

As there was no forward notice given that this would happen.

I have been told that the vacant shop next to the butchers is to be taken over as a new base for the post office but needs to be upgraded first.

This will take about six weeks.

So until this happens folk will have to use their nearest post office which is on the Keresley Road or travel into town to do their business or pick up their pensions.

The post office has really become very congested of late as it serves a dual purpose selling much merchandise on the side.

From what I can gather this shop will continue trading independently and the post office will serve just as a post office in future which should work out better for all concerned at the end of the day.

So we must just be be patient

THE owner of a Coventry off-licence yesterday backed down over his plans to sell booze until 3am - because he didn't want to upset his neighbours.

In particular Kulbir Dhaliwal, owner of Drinks 4 You, in Crampers Field, Coundon, didn't want to cause extra distress to a neighbour who has cancer.

Mr Dhaliwal had applied to Coventry City Council for his alcohol licence to be extended.

Locals voiced their anger at the proposal claiming it would lead to anti-social behaviour, litter and noise.

A petition bearing the signatures of some 122 people was submitted to the council.

Mr Dhaliwal attended a licensing committee meeting at the Council House yesterday to explain why he applied for the extended licence.

He said: "We applied for an extension due to our customers asking for it.

"That's the only reason we put it in, because they asked us to extend the hours.

This is the view of Labour MP Mike O'Brien who says that the Ash Green area of Bedworth would also disappear as a community under plans to build more houses.

He has called on the borough council to drop the two options, which are part of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council's Core Strategy consultation., and would allow thousands of houses to swamp the areas and merge them into Coventry.

He said: "People are waking up to this. Coventry plans to build up to the boundary with Keresley End and wants to cross the boundary to build an additional 3,500 houses. The village of Keresley End would be swallowed up by Coventry.

"These options are not caused by Whitehall. The government only allocated a number of houses to the West Midlands as a whole. It is councillors on the Regional Assembly who decide what each area gets and last June the borough council cabinet agreed 10,400 homes by 2026, plus a potential further 3,500 from Coventry."

MORE than 100 people say their lives will become a misery if a city shop is granted an extended alcohol licence.

Drinks 4 You, in Crampers Field, Coundon, has submitted an application to the council to sell alcohol from 6am until 3am and also extend the hours for selling booze around New Year, Christmas Day and Good Friday.

But nearby residents are worried about the noise and nuisance they believe will be caused if the shop is allowed to serve alcohol for 21 hours every day. A petition with more than 120 signatures opposing the application has already been handed to the licensing committee, which will meet today to make a decision.

Patrick Kavanagh, 77, of Fynford Road, said: "Selling alcohol up to 11pm is fine. The off-licence is already causing a lot of problems which have been there for a while. But this extension to the licence is going to make it worse." Another resident of Thamley Road, who did not want to be named, said it was 'outrageous' for alcohol to be sold around the clock.

"There will only be three hours every day that they are not selling alcohol - that's outrageous.

I notice that some buses are carrying adverts for apprenticships.

It reads 16- 19 year olds This has always struck me as being rather unfair for the late starters at school as these do not even leave school until they are seventeen.

This gives those who leave school at sixteen, three years to apply for an apprenticship giving them a years advantage over the late starters who have only two years to apply.

Perhaps it is time something was done to rectify this unfairness, although unbeknown to me this may be covered.

Perhaps someone could put me right on this score.

Just a thought for the day...

A COMMUNITY centre has been threatened with closure unless willing volunteers come forward to manage it.

Jubilee Crescent Community Centre, in Radford, Coventry, currently receives about £30,000 a year from the council to plug a funding shortfall but that budget will be slashed from next March.

It means the centre would have to close unless a management team can be formed by local residents to look at ways of managing the finances more effectively and bid for community grants.

Local ward councillors and members of the Radford Community Association have organised a meeting to try and gain enough public support to ensure its future.

Pensioners who visit the luncheon club are devastated at the thought of losing their centre. Vera Curtis, aged 86, of Owenford Road, Radford, said: "We'd be lost without it. I've been coming here for years and years but I'd be stumped if we lost it. I'd have nowhere else to go.

"I get a lot of peace and quiet being here and now it could be taken away from me.

"It would be best if they [the council] carried on the upkeep of the centre because a lot of us are not capable of doing a lot of fundraising."

Margaret Graham, aged 83, of Guard House Road, Radford, said some pensioners would never go out of their homes if they did not have the centre.

"There are holiday clubs, trips that we organise, games days, dance classes for children. There is a lot at stake," she said.

"The elderly will miss it the most."

Ernie Sherriff, chairman of the Radford Community Association, said the news had upset a lot of people, adding: "I'm very disappointed."

A council spokesman said: "Jubilee Crescent is the only community centre in the city that still receives a significant amount of funding from the council.

"Without this funding, the centre would face closure as it would not be able to maintain its overheads. Work has commenced with local councillors and organisations that operate from the centre to consider options to sustain the centre for the benefit of the local community.

"One of the main challenges with the centre is that there is no organisation that manages the overall building. It is essential to find a voluntary or community organisation who would be willing and able to manage the centre."

He said the council's Community Organisation Support team would help explore funding opportunities and look at how volunteers can to gain skills to ensure sound business planning.

The meeting will take place at the centre on Monday at 6.30pm.

By Jo Vitols

IT seems the number thirteen bus route is in line for some changes as consultations have taken place along this route to see what people think about the alterations Primelines Ltd have in mind to do.

They want to create bus lanes along here and bring some on verge parking, and on road parking in places along the route to make for a smoother and quicker ride.

I went along to Jubilee Cresent when discusions were taking place .

There were photographs and maps displayed so that people could view what the planners had in mind to do.

I also filled in a questionaire along with others.

It seems they would like to widen the road in some way at Jubilee Crescent as it is such a congestion area and really something drastic needs to be done here to improve the situation and to keep the buses flowing and running on time.

You might like to know the the old Woolwoorths store in Jubilee Crescent has now opened under the new name of Newey's.

This was the Pound shop but they transferred to the bigger premises.

Murphy suffered serious internal injuries and died on Sunday morning following the attack.

Owner Bridie West, 69, of Evenlode Crescent, Coundon, said she was very upset by the cat's death after looking after it since it was a kitten.

She had let the cat out on Saturday evening and when she went to let it back in on Sunday she saw it lying motionless in the garden.

"She was more of a house cat really but she did used to go out sometimes. It was so hot on Saturday she wanted to stay out," Bridie said. "I saw her lying in the garden. She was barely alive. I picked her up and tried to open her mouth but she died. I took her to the emergency vet and they found the pellet inside her. It had gone through her major organs.

Whitmore Park School, in Halford Lane, Keresley, will be shut today but is due to reopen tomorrow.

It has acted on advice from environmental health officers after a number of pupils and staff reported a stomach complaint.

Workers have been at the school over the weekend conducting a thorough clean of the school, including equipment and play areas.

Parents are advised that local radio stations and the city council website will update them in the unlikely event of the school being closed for longer.

Staff have also urged parents to keep their children home if they report feeling unwell, adding they must be symptom free for 48 hours before returning to school.

The men, aged between 17 and 20, have all been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent following the clash in the Longford area of Coventry on December 14 last year.

The disorder - believed to be between two opposing groups - is thought to have begun in Longford Park before spilling out onto the Longford Road, near to its junction with Blackburn Road, at about 5pm.

The two injured men, aged 17 and 18, were treated at University Hospital, Walsgrave.

West Midlands Police said the brawl had involved a "large group of people".

The five men are due to appear at Coventry Magistrates Court today for an initial hearing.