Unlike our previous blog both of us will be able to write on the blog. The site will contain news of what is happening in Combe Down and about some of the issues affecting local residents that we are working on. We are also building a directory of local services/businesses, so that anyone new to Combe Down can at a glance see what is available in the community.

There is always something going on in Combe Down, especially with the mines work continuing in the village. However, the project is now more than halfway through and is on course to end in 2009. There is a consultation doing the rounds at present on whether local residents want any changes to the Firs Field when it is returned to the local community when the stabilisation project comes to an end.

The possibility of a Stone Mines Interpretation Centre at Ralph Allen’s Yard in Rockhall Lane is becoming more likely with every day that passes and a public art project, entirely funded by English Partnerships is progressing. And the Mine workers with their drills have just left my back garden. Combe Road is set to reopen at the end of April, when the buses will return, going one way through the village and returning to the city along North Road.

On the down side though, the houses that have been damaged by the stabilisation process will need to be repaired, and although the time fro these repairs is coming closer, more cracks have recently appeared in more houses and a fall of rock has occurred in the old Quarry at the back of the Firs.

In Foxhill the exciting development by the church on the St Andrews site is making progress with the planning application just submitted, and although the latest news is that the Planners feel that the proposed building is too big for the site, we look forward to a new Community Centre on the St Andrews site. The results of our survey of what local people wish to see in any new community facilities has been passed to the Church.

Cherry has been pressing the council for their promised ‘outreach’ youth worker for Foxhill, but despite getting the Children’s Portfolio holder, Cllr Chris Watt (Con) up to Foxhill there is as yet no news.