By Jon Cleaver

Binley Woods Women's Institute has recently celebrated its 25 Anniversary.

Formed in 1984, following the demise of the Towns Women's Guild, it has grown to become a pillar of the community.

When Winifred Wade and a group of local ladies first talked about starting the group, they could not have foreseen, 25 years on what a success their initiative has become.

President Jane Sells said: "In the early days Wyn had a pot into which WI money would be placed, anyone who had expense claims would be invited to retrieve from the pot."

Over the years, Binley Woods WI has been involved in supporting many worthy charities, including the upkeep of Brandon Wood, Binley Woods Village Hall and Myton Hospice at University Hospital.

In 1985 a drama group was formed within the WI, which eventually became the Binley Woods Board Walkers.

The Institute celebrated their 25th Anniversary at the Village Hall and were entertained by Stoneleigh Male Voice Choir.

As President Jane Sells cut the cake accompanied by five founding members, the Choir sang Happy Birthday.

Jane Sells has compiled a booklet on the history of Binley Woods Women's Institute which can be purchased from the Institute.

By Jon Cleaver

Residents of Binley Woods and surrounding villages are up in arms at the threat to close Brinklow Fire Station, under radical restructuring plans by Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Services.

Kim and Paul Lucas of K&P News of Binley Woods have started a petition which has already amassed over 400 signatures.

At a meeting last Tuesday, with fire fighters at Brinklow, Kim expressed the concerns of Binley Woods residents.

She said: "The closure of Brinklow Fire Station would mean that fire appliances would have further to travel and could cost lives."

Brinklow has one of the fastest response times throughout Warwickshire, even as back up crew, they often find themselves on the scene first.

At a recent incident on junction 2 of the M6, the Brinklow crew were on the scene before Bedworth and Nuneaton.

An FBU spokesman said: "Once, Brinklow attended a house fire at Withybrook as back up, by the time the main fire appliance arrived, we were clearing up."

A Brinklow spokesman said: "Out of a 100 calls, we have had one malicious call." Other fears expressed concerning the closure of Brinklow and Bedworth is that appliances would have to come from Nuneaton, Southam if available, or Lutterworth.

The FBU spokesman said: "Relying on retained fire crews will not guarantee what fire appliances would be available.

At least with our own appliance at Brinklow, we know what is available. Under the proposal, response times would increase causing a danger to life."

Fire fighters also questioned the wisdom of using smaller vehicles to attend a fire, while sending 5-6 Fire fighters in a fire tender, to fit 10-12 smoke alarms, as is suggested in the consultation document?

Chief Fire Officer Paul Fuller is concerned about reducing "the carbon footprint" and yet makes use of fire tenders to fit smoke alarms.

There is concern that the consultation document is far to complicated for the public to be able to respond to.

The FBU spokesman suggested that people should write direct to the Chief Fire Officer with there response, at Service Headquarters Warwick Street Leamington Spa.

A Lutterworth man, who entered the Flora London Marathon for the second time in April, at the age of 48, he first ran it at 21, in 1982, has won the Silver Bond Trophy sponsored by the London Marathon, for raising the most money for charity, £23.800, beating any other official charity runner.

Chris Skelton the Financial Director at Coventry based ExtraCare Charitable Trust, was presented with the Trophy by the Chief Executive of the London Marathon Nick Bitel, at a ceremony held in London.

For charities to qualify for a place, Bonds are issued, a Silver Bond allows one place every five years, a Gold Bond allows five places every year.

ExtraCare, a charity caring for older people, is involved in a pioneering project, building secure villages nation wide, where residents live as a community, with all amenities provided.

The £23.800, will help pay for additional gym equipment for the villages, and to encourage residents to participate in activities and challenges, promoting fitness in later life.

Chris said: "I have been inspired by the resident's achievements."

Already Chris is looking to April 2010, when he enters his third London Marathon.

On Sunday October 25 Chris will be running the Coventry Half Marathon.

Dear Sirs

Re: Proposed Kings Hill Lane Development

I work in Kenilworth and have the pleasuring of driving down Kings Hill Lane on my way back from work every day while every other soul fights their way down the A46 and A45 in rush hour.

The beautiful countryside and wildlife provides an escape I feel honoured to experience and I am more likely to meet a horse and rider than any other traffic on my journey.

The deep hedgerows and fields provide a home to nature you are lucky to find in Coventry, and the green belt land is very precious to this wildlife.

I would be horrified to think that this beautiful landscape could be replaced by rows of identical soulless houses with no back gardens, and the area bulldozed to make way for roads and concrete.

I do not yet have any children but when I do I don't want to find that the local playgroups, nurseries and schools are already over-run with children from all the homes our infrastructure cannot possibly accommodate.

The quality of schooling will drop as class sizes increase, and the great reputation of our schools will become diluted and lost. Not to mention the strain on the supporting local amenities and roads in the area.

The idea of cramming so many homes onto the area of Kings Hill is heartbreaking.

Why do we feel we have to take away all the greenery from our area and replace it with houses which are so close together there is no room for gardens and sheds and places for children to play?

How can we expect to be healthy happy people when there are no trees or flowers to look at? These will just be replaced with congested roads, speed bumps and graffiti. Fantastic.

Yours faithfully

Lauren Burgoine

I couldn't help a wry smile upon reading Mark Whitehouse's letter "Get your TV licence or face a fine." 29/8/09.

He threatens the good people of Coventry with retribution for licence evasion.

TV Licensing writes threateningly to citizens as if it had the legal powers to do it. Its purpose is to collect money for the BBC. It cannot enter your property; it has no power to hire bailiffs to come visiting to collect the fee, as it is not considered in law as a debt.

More people are refusing to purchase a TV licence for a variety of reasons, including the charge that the BBC is often in breach its charter.

A former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator, Charles Moore, has refused to pay £139.50 for a licence since July.

In an open letter to the BBC on receiving a demand for the fee, he said: "No you can't have my £139.50. Will I see you in court?" Moore's disgust at the way the obnoxious and obscene pair Jonathan Ross and cohort Russell Brand, abused 80 year old Andrew Sachs in his own, home led him to believe Ross should have been instantly sacked.

As this did not take place, Moore has stated that until this happens he will no longer pay for a TV licence and instead he has sent a cheque for £139.50 to Help The Aged. So far he has not appeared in court? Mr Whitehouse states 1,480 citizens were caught evading the licence fee.

It would be interesting to know how many of the 1,480 were dragged into court, how many were fined £1000 and refused to pay, and how many ended up in prison, so perhaps, Mr Whitehouse, you will tell us? Anyone wishing to find out more about Charles Moore's stand can visit Daily Telegraph.uk/charles moore.

By Jon Cleaver

Plans to build on land in Binley Woods, first submitted in 2008 by Court Warwickshire of Willoughby, have been re-submitted to Rugby Borough Council.

Residents were outraged last year when the company destroyed an ancient woodland overnight without consultation, which contained wildlife, including the protected bat species.

The planned development which will include five dwellings plus a carport for three vehicles is on a small plot of land behind homes in Oakdale Road.

Residents living by the site have been offered land by the company in order to reduce the size of the plot to 0.6 hectares, the maximum size permissible to obtain planning permission through deregulated powers which is responsible for overseeing smaller developments like conservatories, extensions and smaller buildings, where planning regulation is less stringent.

The Parish Council has raised several objections to the plan, including serious worries on safety.

One major problem we have with the project is site access, and the dangers it would cause at traffic peak times.

Plans have been rejected in the past because of the acute danger caused by a very narrow private road, which residents living on the estate would be responsible for maintaining and its upkeep; is the only access to the site.

We would like a visit from the Planning Committee to the site so they can assess the impact on the local community by such a development."

Residents living nearby the site complain that it would be overbearing and detrimental.

One resident said: "The land is far too small for a development on this scale."

Letters of complaint have been sent to the Planning Committee.

In 2010 work is due to start on the Toll Bar Island on the A45 which is expected to last at least three years.

Residents in Binley Woods have already been warned to expect long delays at peak times. The agents refused to comment when approached.

By Jon Cleaver

Plans to build on land in Binley Woods, first submitted in 2008 by Court Warwickshire of Willoughby, have been re-submitted to Rugby Borough Council.

Residents were outraged last year when the company destroyed an ancient woodland overnight without consultation, which contained wildlife, including the protected bat species.

The planned development which will include five dwellings plus a carport for three vehicles is on a small plot of land behind homes in Oakdale Road.

The Parish Council has raised several objections to the plan, including serious aspects on safety.

Chairman Paul Salisbury said: "The plans submitted are the same as last year and contain inaccurate scale detail.

One major problem we have with the project is site access, and the dangers it would cause at traffic peak times.

Plans have been rejected in the past because of the acute danger caused by a very narrow private road, the only access to the site.

We would like a visit from the Planning Committee to the site so they can assess the impact on the local community by such a development."

Residents living nearby the site complain that it would be overbearing and detrimental.

One resident said: "The land is far too small for a development on this scale."

Letters of complaint have been sent to the Planning Committee.

In 2010 work is due to start on the Toll Bar Island on the A45 which is expected to last at least three years.

Residents in Binley Woods have already been warned to expect long delays at peak times.

GARDENER Trevor Brown hopes he could be coining it in after being given a rare undated twenty pence coin at his local newsagent.

It comes after it was revealed Royal Mint had last year issued a batch of coins into circulation without dates on them - a mistake that hadn't happened for 300 years.

The London Mint Office offered £50 for any returned coins but a bidding war broke out on eBay with some changing hands for as much as £8,000.

Now the gardener from St James Lane, Willenhall, is planning to cash in on his good luck, after popping over the road to buy a pint of milk and a loaf of bread.

The 42-year-old who lives with his wife Lisa and four month old daughter said: "I have heard all sorts of figures but at the end of the day it's just a twenty pence coin to me.

"I was given it in change from my friend Jim who runs the newsagent. When I went to tell him he was disappointed but he said 'fair play, good on you'. I've spoken to some people who've said they never thought they would see one in Coventry."

During the initial bidding frenzy it was reported a seller in Norwich put his up for sale with a £920,995 price tag - although the eventual price was unknown.

KITTEN season now being well and truly with us, supply certainly exceeds demand and the FTGH's are popping up everywhere.

So you get a free kitten, it will certainly cost you to keep it. The basics alone of food, FLEA treatment and worming will set you back in the region of £20 -£30 per month. If you cannot at least afford that, then please do not even think of having a cat.

We have received a couple of calls this week from people wanting help with flea treatments (as this is also well in the middle of flea season!).

Their houses are hopping off their foundations as fleas leap up at any passing warm blooded food source that comes their way. Cheap over the counter flea treatments aren't really any good and some of them are quite harmful to the household environment.

One of the best on the market and recently available 'over the counter' is the frontline spot on. Price varies dramatically from £30 for 6 pippettes from the vet through to about £17 for the same product online (Try our vetUK link for the website and we will also get a donation from the company).

That's the best we can offer I'm afraid. We are not hear to pay for essential maintenance for animals, we run at a loss most years and if we started handing out flea treatments we would have to close within a short space of time.

With fleas come their friends, tape worm. The tape worms are passed to the cat (or whoever) through their saliva when they bite. Therefore if you have fleas you have worms and again a proper wormer (Milbemax (vet only) and Drontal (VETUK again!) come to mind - others do not work.

Vets are now recommending that cats be treated each month. Typically a worming table will cost somewhere between £2 - £5.

Cat food costs vary enormously. While some of it is due to brand name and packaging, there is a lot of truth in the 'you pay for what you get' adage.

Cats, unlike dogs, can be frustratingly selective when it comes to what they eat. I swear my own can sense a buy-one-get-one-free offer and refuse to eat the brand they were happily eating the day before because it cost me less.

The cheapest brand of tinned food and some biscuits will cost about £3 a week, if you can get your cat to eat it.

Sometimes it is better to get a good quality food with better quality ingredients. Like people, a cat is what it eats and better food may ultimately make for a healthier cat and less vets visits.

Over the years we have dealt with thousands of cats and currently are so impressed with the quality of the Orijen dry food that we now stock it for resale. It is not cheap, a 7Kg bag costs a little short of £40 , but then it will probably last one cat a couple of months so in the long run is not really an expensive way to feed you cat. Dry food also has the benefit of not attracting the flies this time of year.

Compare these ingredients to the ones that you feed your cat - 75% chicken, turkey, eggs - no animal by-products, 25% fruit, vegetables and botanicals , 0% rice, grain and other fillers.

Cat insurance, now becoming an essential as vet prices continue to rise will cost from £7 - £17 a month depending on the age of the cat , your location and the policy. All policies have small print and quite often a pet is not covered for life which means if a company pays for an ongoing illness this year, it may not next year.

Even if you manage to keep your cat healthy and hearty, the very least you should have are vaccinations and a vet check up each year so that adds up to another £1 a week. A kitten will need to be neutered at 6 months, again £30 - £50 and also need two inoculations in the first year.

One free to good home kitten we came across last weeks was Portia. Portia was a chocolate point british short hair - given away by her 'breeder' in Northampton with suspected enteritis.

We all think of Gasto-enteritis but cats have a nasty killer virus called Feline Enteritis - its one of the things that can be inoculated against and is so contagious, it has been known to close down many a rescue.

So, Portia was given away with diarrhoea to a family in Coventry with no experience of cats or kittens. As the diarrhoea continued she was taken to the PDSA hospital for treatment.

The family then finding the trip to the PDSA difficult and expensive (for some reason the whole family had to go by bus each time) agreed to hand the kitten over to us. We took her straight to the vet where she stayed for a week until she died. It was very sad especially as after 3 or 4 days the vet though we had turned a corner but ultimately the poor thing was dying by the time we managed to get her.

Portia was not the first death we experienced in a rotten ten days. A couple of days before Jill reported in that Tigar (him of the roaming to the local pubs) had had last orders called and died at her home at the age of 15.

The day after, Ellie another one of our golden oldies died. Ellie was another pedigree, this time an ex-breeding queen come to the end of her reproductive life and given away.

As a breeding queen she was quite moody and difficult to handle, kept in breeding units most of her life. She was with us for three years dying at about the age of thirteen.

And it continued..... last week we were contacted about a very young cat that was living in a garden and heavily pregnant.

She came in to us on the Tuesday and we kept her quiet as she was a bit stressed with the move. On Saturday morning she gave birth to 5 small kittens that she refused to nurse and her fosterers stayed up with her all night moving the kittens to her to suckle.

She was at the vet on Sunday, put on a drip and taken back to the fosterer. Overnight 3 kittens died and mum and the remaining 2 kittens were taken back to the vets the next day.

The vet kept them in and all had died by the afternoon. The same day, the same fosterer had to say goodbye to her golden oldie who they had been nursing with an aggressive mouth cancer. He could no longer eat very well and it was time to let him go with Dignity.

Then yesterday, comes my own personal loss. My sixteen year old Puss, originally a stray, has been acting really strangely for a couple of weeks.

We assumed it was his age at first, a touch of dementia which cats can get. Blood tests a couple of weeks ago showed nothing of note but we took him back in as his behaviour got more and more bizarre. Puss was put on a drip and his bloods tested throughout the day.

Diabetes was suspected at first and then when his blood sugar levels were changing dramatically it was thought to be a problem with his pancreas so we said goodbye to him yesterday, though because of his 'dementia' I feel as though we lost him a week ago.

And still it continues... Lady , the cat with no ears, had a fit halfway through the writing of this blog, the first we have seen her have.....

We may not be homing many cats at the moment but boy! Are we getting through them.

Every time I go to town I try to visit Lady Herberts Garden.

The gardens are so central and it is such a pleasant place to be and to spend a moment or two there away from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives is a real tonic.

Credit should be given to the gardeners as they do a splendid job in keeping everything neat and tidy.

They are pleasant lads too as they will always give me a cheery hello when they see me.

So Hello Dave, Liam an Stuart.


This little spot of heaven is Coventry's jewel in the crown, and visitors too must get much pleasure in coming here to sit for a moment or two before carrying on with their journeys and will hopefully take good memorys of Coventry away with them.

I have to say that the flowers all along the road sides are great and we could be in line to win gold again this year in the flower in bloom competition.

So thanks too to those who keep everything in tip top order.

I know from time to time I get onto my soap box and let off steam about things that are not exactly to my liking but I do belive in free speech so if no-one was ever allowed to comment then it would be a very sad world that we live in.