How a frozen Council Tax Letter New hotel erected can still cost you more in Groby Norman Griffiths hears that your brown bin will cost you £30 a year As shoppers we are pleased when shop prices are stable and aren’t rising quickly, but we are nevertheless aware that manufacturers have tricks other than price up their sleeves. One of them is to keep the price of a product the same but reduce the amount you get. When Which, the Consumer Association, conducted an investigation into shrinking products they found many examples of hidden price increases. These included a pack of Birds Eye beef burgers with four fewer burgers in it than before, Pledge furniture polish that had shrunk by almost a fifth and packs of Dettol anti bacterial wipes with fewer wipes. Manufacturers are under constant budgetary pressure and use the ‘less for the same price’ strategy to hang onto their market share. You are unlikely to see a ‘new smaller pack’ flash on the packaging. Local Government finds itself in a similar position as caps on spending, budget cuts and tax freezes or limits are imposed on our local councils. We are told that our Council Tax has been pegged for a further year, but just like the can of Pledge we get less for our money. No increase in the County Council(LCC) precept may sound like good news but families having to find cash from the household budget to pay for the bus to get their children to school are unlikely to agree. Neither will other groups affected, for example, by changes to concessionary fare arrangements. So some costs are stripped out of the Local Authority expenditure and transferred directly to the CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 ...>
APPLE DAY in Groby! Sunday afternoon 26th October saw much activity at the village hall car park as happy smiling faces arrived to press their windfalls and in some cases, locally purchased apples into delicious apple juice.
Autumn 2014 was great timing for Churches Together in Groby to celebrate the abundance of the earth’s apple harvest, which God gives us for free! This the churches did by holding Groby’s first community apple pressing event. As well as a flurry of activity on the car park, inside the village hall there were different varieties of delicious apples to sample, information, refreshments which included a mountain of homemade cakes, competitions and apple activities to keep the children occupied. The next outdoor Churches Together event will be the annual Carols ‘round the tree at the Stamford Arms car park on Tuesday 16th December 7.00pm – We hope to see you there.
I wonder if Spotlight readers might be interested to hear that a new 6 storey hotel just opened in Groby! It is of course an Insect Hotel, built to provide shelter for insects including bees and ladybirds during the winter months. Volunteers from Groby CIC built the insect hotel down at the Groby CIC meadow with invaluable support from local businesses including UKGAS and East Midlands Landscaping. Local residents also provided materials such as roofing felt and habitat material to the project, for which Groby CIC are extremely grateful
Groby CIC
Urgent – Can You Help? Want to meet people, get some exercise and help a local charity raise much needed funds? We urgently require a lottery collector to call fourweekly on a small, established round in Groby (Laundon Way area). Would you or someone you know be interested in collecting LOROS Lottery subscriptions for us? Maybe you have just moved house and don’t know anyone in your area? We are desperately looking for anyone with a couple of hours to spare. There is no cold calling involved and everyone on the round has indicated that they would like a collector to call. Most importantly, it is a very worthwhile way of supporting LOROS. Give Bree a call at the Lottery Office on 0116 2318430 if you would like to have an informal chat and find out more about becoming a LOROS Lottery Collector.
NEXT ISSUE OUT: Saturday 13th December - Advert/Articles needed by 29th November