Hundreds visted Woolfest 2008 at the auction mart. The event grows each year in popularity with its out of town parking and shuttle bus into Cockermouth.

CONSERVATIVE Alan Tyson has won the All Saints by-election for Allerdale council, which was held June5 2008 Mr Tyson was one of five candidates standing in the ward, which became vacant when former councillor Strephen Coates resigned due to ill health.Mr Tyson won with 587 votes. Labour's Christine Smith was second with 536 votes.Paul Stafford, standing for the BNP, had 99 votes; Helen Graham, of the Green Party, got 58 votes and former council car parks manager Eddie Woodthorpe, standing as an Independent, got 25 votes

COCKERMOUTH has become the first town in the North West to receive the Cittaslow award which recognises the town as one that has a good quality of life at a relaxed pace. The Italian idea of Cittaslow is an international idea and Cockermouth is the seventh such designbated in the UK.

Upheaval reaches its height as Cockermouth Market Place is dug up for its regeneration and partial pedestrianisation in January 2008. At this low ebb Coun Alan Smith resigns from the Partnership group.
Tragic death in River Derwent of well known coal merchant Michael Renney, 59, of Papcastle Road, Cockermouth. In January David Winkworth of the Printing House museum and the town's bookshops passed away.

Stuart Reeves, 39. was chosen to be head of Cockermouth School following untimely death of Mike Wilde. Mr Reeves joined the school in September 2005 as deputy head, and became acting headteacher last year when Mike Wilde died.

COCKERMOUTH’S fire headquarters has been saved from moving to Penrith in the near future. The county council planned to move the headquarters to make it more central to the county. But fire chiefs have decided not to recommend relocating the service’s Cockermouth headquarters to Penrith at this time.
Impact Housing has submitted a planning application to Allerdale council to build flats, which will be rented out , on the site of the old Market Hall building below All Saints Church. Margaret Jackson, Allerdale councillor for Christchurch, said that the town council had wanted some kind of community building to be built there. Labour's Alan Smith welcomed the plan but Tory Eric Nicholson was opposed. Meanwhile area suffers some traffic chaos as contractors Mayfield, from Lancashire install Chinese paving stone to revamp the Market Place area.

Beardsley, 46, who played for England and a string of top clubs including Liverpool and Newcastle United, was joined by Mr Wilde’s widow Janet and two daughters Sally and Katy.

The £500,000 project was funded by the school with a £326,969 grant from the Football Foundation.

Acting headteacher Stuart Reeves said: “We are delighted with the new football pitches.

“The quality of play has improved noticeably. The pitches have become the centre for football in the area and we are very grateful to the Leconfield Estate for the use of the land and to the Football Foundation and Cumberland FA for all their support, funding and encouragement.”

The pitches are to the east of the school, on land made available by the Leconfield Estate with support from Lady Egremont.

Huge turn out for the funeral of Cockermouth School’s headteacher Mike Wilde at Christ Church, Cockermouth. Mr Wilde had kept running the school despite a cancer diagnosis four years. The head teacher's ashes were scattered on Sale Fell. Len Cockcroft, chair of governors of Cockermouth School, said in the 11 years Mr Wilde had been headteacher at the school, he had achieved more than anyone had thought possible. He added that he always had time for people and pushed them to do their best.

*Cockermouth's famous son, Fletcher Christian in the news as replica of HMS Bounty, the Black Pearl in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, spends three days in Maryport. Built in 1962, the ship is due to replicate its namesake's ill-fated 1789 trip to Tahiti, which saw Fletcher Christian lead a mutiny.

*After consultation the Cockermouth Partnership opt for limited pedestrianisation of the Market Place in a facelift aimed at boosting the popularity of the Castle end of town.
*Cockermouth Show is cancelled just 24 hours before the date after Foot and Mouth outbreak in Surrey leads to ban on all livestock movements.

A Cockermouth man who saved a man from drowning in a raging river Cocker is to receive a bravery award, with a royal seal of approval. Michael Timney, 47, dived into the icy River Cocker at Cockermouth and plucked a 57-year-old man onto dry land. The Royal Humane Society has awarded him a testimonial, personally signed by its president, Princess Alexandra.

Sweeping powers to remove a lot of car parking from Cockermouth town centre residents and extend double yellow lines around many streets have been proposed by Cumbria County Council.

Details of the plans should be at Cockermouth library Objections must be sent to; Head of Legal Services, The Courts, Carlisle CA3 8LZ by June 1 2007...mark letters with ref. KB/4.4.710

However plans to cut disc parking to just 30 minutes in parts of the town appear to have been dropped after petition with over 1,200 signatures objected. On the committee making these decisions:Mr A J Markley (Chair) Miss E Barraclough Mr A Barry Mr J Buchanan Mr A Caine Mr W Cameron Mrs BA Cannon Mr A Clark Mr J Crouch Mr D S Fairbairn Mr T M Fee Mr T Heslop Mr G Humes Mr K Little Mr E W Nicholson

The National Childbirth Trust launched drop in sessions for parents, babies and toddlers at the Kirkgate Centre .

The classes give parents a chance to meet other people and for children to socialise with each other. Babies and toddlers, up to the age of three, can play with toys, crafts and games.The trust’s breastfeeding counsellor is also on hand to answer questions and give encouragement to breast-feeding mothers.

The sessions will be held every Thursday from 10am to 11.30am. Snacks and drinks are available for £1.50 per family. For more information about the trust or the new sessions, contact Ann-Marie on 01900 821719.
In the January GCSE league tables the top performing state school in West Cumbria was Cockermouth School, where 68 per cent of pupils achieved the grades; followed by Wigton’s Nelson Thomlinson on 58 per cent and Keswick with 54 per cent. Public school St Bees achieved 79 per cent.

The statue of Robinson Mitchell was put up outside Sainsbury’s supermarket in 2002. But since then it has suffered continuous vandalism, which has become too costly to repair.

Mitchell’s chairman, Peter Greenhill, whose wife is the great-niece of Robinson Mitchell, said he thought the vandalism was the work of young people who gathered in the area and had been drinking.

 CHEERS

Cockermouth beer festival 2006 at Kirkgate

Rotary Fellowship

For contributions to Rotary International PP David Kerr. PP Ronald Tunstall & PP Nelson Chicken have all been made Paul Harris Fellows. Seen at the Cockermouth Clubs annual charter at Hundith Hill.

Aldi decide to expand their store from 760 square metres to 940 square metres if planning permission is granted. The Shell filling station will close and be demolished for the expansion plan.

COCKERMOUTH youngsters will be driven away from gathering outside Sainsbury’s supermarket by a sounds device that allegedly only they can hear. Used by police, the Mosquito machine emits a sound that those under 20 years old can hear and officers hope it will deter teenagers from hanging around outside the South Street supermarket. The Mosquito, will be installed before Christmas.
Latest plans for a regeneration of the Market Place are revealled....

JOANNE Kerswell and Dominic Fowler open Seven, a new restaurant in King’s Arms Lane. They have taken over the premises which used to be Thyme, run until recently by Simon McDowell, who is taking a break after more than 20 years as a chef.

 RESIDENTS have vowed to fight a plan to build a speedway track next to the national park boundary in Cockermouth.

Workington Comets owner Tony Mole wants to host Conference League meetings at Tarn Close sports ground featuring a Comets reserve side, Cockermouth Cats.

The move comes after plans to develop the club’s Northside practice venue in Workington were blocked.

A £100,000 plan to make Cockermouth’s Jennings Brewery a major tourist destination has been outlined. New owners Wolverhampton & Dudley Brewery (W&DB) hope to build a riverside walkway and cafe at the site, which already runs popular brewery tours. The scheme will be part of the town’s flagship Market Place development, the key plank of a regeneration of the town centre.

Alistair Darby, W&DB managing director of brands, said work could start this winter 2006. Mr Darby said the money had been committed from the firm’s budget for next year and did not require board approval.

W&DB took over Jennings last year in a £45.8 million deal, inheriting Jennings’s 128-pub portfolio. But the wider plans need North West Dev Agency apoproval and have not tackled any potential car parking issues.

Tragic food poisoning outbreak affects customers at the Hundith Hill Hotel. The cases are all linked to a chocolate dessert.

Jennings' head brewer is toasting his retirement after 45 years in the industry.

Peter Laws, 65, the man responsible for the quality and consistency of the Jennings pint for nine years, has passed on the reputed head brewer's mantle to his successor, assistant brewer Jeremy Pettman.

Cockermouth was host to Britain's unique Woolfest. It was held at Mitchell’s Lakeland Livestock Centre on Friday and Saturday. Top knitting designers, Sasha Kagan, opened the celebration of the sources and products of natural fibres.

Vendors included Cumbria Institute of the Arts, UK Alpaca Ltd, Scottish Fibres, Craftsman magazine, Nottingham-based rug maker Cilla Cameron, Sheffield woodworker Michael Williams, and Ardalanish Organic Farm and Weaving Mill of the Isle of Mull. A display of fibre-producing animals showed off more than 10 sheep breeds, angora goats, alpacas and angora rabbits. Farmers could see hand and power sheep shearing demonstrations, while knitting fanatics took part in workshops on weaving without a loom, long draw spinning and Lithuanian folk styles. Experts in the craft gave lectures on the use of wool in Viking times, the rescue of Estonian native sheep, and the primitive sheep of Northwest Europe.Woolfest – the only festival of its kind in the UK – was organised by The Wool Clip, a group of 15 Cumbrian farming and craft women. It is sponsored by the Fells and Dales Leader programme.
Roxy was in Town


Seen pulling the drinks at the Market Place Front Room is Roxy Pallett from Emmerdale.

Cocklermouth school head Mike Wilde was named the top headteacher in the north. Mr Wilde, of Cockermouth School, won the secondary school category in an event at the North East and Cumbria regional finals of the teaching awards at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.In its most recent Ofsted report on Cockermouth School, inspectors said Mr Wilde offered “outstanding leadership.”

COCKERMOUTH’s brewers, Jennings has unveiled plans which could see beer production more than triple in the coming years.
Jennings is set to install three new fermentation tanks at the Cockermouth brewery, which will take production from 30,000 barrels a year to 50,000.
Jennings was bought in June 2005 by Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries (WDB) in a £45m deal.
WDB today confirmed that the three new tanks will be installed around Christmas this year.

County Council's highways depot land at Sullart Street is to be auctioned off in May 2006 for possible 76 homes.

COCKERMOUTH flood victims have vowed to fight for flood defences and emergency strategies to prevent a repeat of last year’s devastation.

A group of residents from Waterloo Street, High Sand Lane and Cockton’s Yard this week formed a committee which will lobby local authorities and the Environment Agency.

For the past year they have been campaigning individually for assurances but now believe that standing together is the only way to get results. Meanwhile Allerdale Borough Council has set up a grant scheme to help towards the cost of installing floodwater barriers. Demountable barriers seal against doorways and airbricks to prevent the entry of floodwater and offer far better protection than sandbags. The grant scheme offers aid of up to £100 per household to owner/occupiers who wish to apply and who have suffered damage in the past. But the money available is limited and will therefore be targeted at properties that are at most risk.

PLANS for a Cockermouth Georgian Fair in 2006 have been given a £31,000 boost but it will not go ahead unless more volunteers can be found. The Local Heritage Initiative, which gave £25,000 this year, has pledged extra cash on the strength of this year’s event and a free booklet that was made available to town residents.

THE proposed closure of the fire service control room in Cockermouth would lead to job cuts, push up council tax and put lives in danger, according to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

The FBU has obtained a confidential Government report which outlines plans to close all 46 fire service control centres in England. The plan is to create nine regional control rooms * including one in London * at a cost of £754.5 million with a staff of around 40 people in each control room. The FBU says the idea has a "very high risk" of "total project failure".

Last year, telephone operators in Cumbria's fire service control room in Cockermouth launched a campaign to save their jobs * and save lives. They say the safety of people across the county will be put at risk if the Government goes ahead with plans to set up one regional centre for the North West. This could mean that Cumbria's 999 calls could be answered as far away as Warrington.

Spellbinding performances of Janacek, Schumann and first performance of new work by Pulkkis by Finnish pianist Antii Siirala at Jennings Celebrity Concert thanks to Cockermouth Music Society.

November 27th sees Brahms at All Saints thanks to the Harmonic Society.

The Swan wins CAMRA award. Cockermouth publicans and Jennings stalwarts Glenn and Beryl Ireland have just notched up their second CAMRA award. In 2000 they were voted Pub of the Season by the Furness branch of CAMRA for the Bay Horse in Ireleth. Four years on they have received the same award from the West Cumbria and Western Lakes branch for the Swan in Cockermouth’s Kirkgate. Glenn started his 43 years in the beer trade as assistant brewer at Hartley’s in his home town of Ulverston, and worked his way up before moving to a technical services role for Guinness. Twelve years ago he and Beryl took on their first pub and have never looked back. The Swan is part of Cockermouth’s rich heritage, possibly its oldest pub. The present building dates back to the early 1700s but it seems there was a Swan back in the 1660s. Inside the pub retains much of its original character.
RATHER that use the appropriate Town Hall building, Allerdale has pressed ahead with a new information centre at Fairfield. The Opening of Allerdale's new Customer Service Centre took place at Monday, 20 September
Fairfield Car Park, Cockermouth. It will open from 8-45am to
5-15pm Monday to Thursday and 8-45am to 4-45pm on Friday and we will not
close at lunchtimes.

THE FORMER arms depot Broughton Moor could provide the training ground for Great Britain's future Olympic champions. An £80 million training academy could be created at Derwent Forest, the new development name for the 1,000-acre MOD site formerly the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Broughton Moor.

AFTER years of allowing dumping of scrap cars Allerdale Council MAY at last be acting to sort out Skinner Street.
The eyesore may be redeveloped as a small housing estate. Landowner David McAllister has applied for planning permission to build seven houses on a Skinner Street site that has caused neighbour complaints for several years. Cockermouth town councillors is recommending that Allerdale approves the plans with conditions. But understandably they were also concerned about the provision of off-street parking.

The town welcomes hundreds of motor sport enthusiasts once again for another successful Malcolm Wilson Motor Sport Rally.

FULL marks to the police for taking the initiative and getting grafitti vandals to get out a scrubbing brush and remove the offending damage.

A new footbridge across from the River Derwent is just one of the possible ideas that the Cockermouth Partnership hopes to ask consultants to consider as part of a Market Town's Initiative to bring fresh vitality to the Market Place area of the town. Some 25 people attended a meeting at Kirkgate centre on February 11 to help finalise a Brief to go to consultants. Chair coun Margaret Jackson said the Partnership hoped top have the brief to consultants by the end of March and responses by July. The departure of Tony Walker had not reduced the partnership's commitment. Also at the meeting was Allerdale's coun Alan Smith who agreed that moving continental Markets (pictured) to the Market Place would be welcome.

Topical as there have been many sightings of Red Squirrels in Cockermouth (See our message board) is this news...Calls for a cull of grey squirrels in Cumbria are being considered. The Lake District National Park Authority will look at the issue for the first time. The move is a bid to protect endangered red squirrels which are under threat from grey squirrels. The number of grey squirrels in England, which were introduced from North America more than 100 years ago, massively outnumber the red squirrels. Jason Reynolds from the campaign group Red Alert said it is a tough but necessary decision. He said: "We are in an unfortunate situation here in the Lakes that we are now at the last stand of the red squirrel and we have to keep England's native red going.

Partygoers at the Hundith Hill Hotel in Cockermouth last month found that instead of the expected jokes and paper hats, there were hand-written insults scrawled in ballpoint pen on pieces of paper. The guests included 40 staff from Allerdale Council's finance department. Among the messages were: *You're a fat b*******, and *You've not won anything so **** off*.

KIRKGATE residents call for a radical one-way system around the town.

THE MAN in charge of Cockermouth's regeneration has quit after just six months. Project manager Tony Walker was appointed by the Cockermouth Partnership in September to take forward the town's action plan. His job was to secure funding for the various projects outlined through the Market Towns Initiative, over a three-year period. But Mr Walker announced his shock resignation before any projects got under way.

JENNINGS is to spend £5 million buying and upgrading pubs over the next 12 months. Jennings shifted its focus from managed houses to Innventures, its leased and tenanted division, two years ago. The brewer, established in 1828, has over 120 pubs across northern England.

2004 is the 20th anniversary of merger of Derwent School and Cockermouth Grammar School...In 1991 the school closed its Strawberry How campus.

Mile Craine 42, takes over the Cockermouth Post from founder Mrs McDonald.

Former Cellar 5 building on Main Street, derelict for many years, has been bought for re-development by Tony Green of the Green Design Partnership. The frontage will be offices for the firm.

Cockermouth Conservative Club failed to cast the necessary 70% vote at an egm to allow full membership for their ladies section.

 Since 1995, house prices in Cockermouth have leapt by 205 per cent according HM Land Registry figures. Flats and maisonettes are selling for an average £96,100 while detached houses go for an average £254,208.

Wordsworth House, the visitor attraction that is closed more than it is open...will be transformed to look just as it did in the 18th century, when the poet was a boy. The revamp will take all winter and

Staff hope the museum will be open again by the end of June next year, although they have not set a firm date, so don't hold your breath!

 PLANS by Town Council to buy the town hall and council chamber from Allerdale are moving closer after more than 10 years of negotiations.

The town council wants to take on the building for the people of Cockermouth rather than renting it and paying large maintenance sums.

As the nation divides over War on Iraq...At Cockermouth School, pupils who are members of the Amnesty Group have sent a bouquet dubbed "protest flowers of peace'" to the Prime Minister. Stop the War grafitti is swiftly cleaned off road signs.

Saturday June 21 is set as this year's Carnival date.. To get involved contact is Isabel Burns Tel. 01900 824173

Suspension-cracking humps in lower Gallowgate are removed...

Chris & Ghislain Smithson announce that they are now the new Landlord & Landlady of "The Huntsman" on Cockermouth Main Street.

Car Parking at Fairfield (next to Sainsburys) has been relaxed with three hour parking now available. First hour can be free if more than £10 spent at Sainsbury's and some other stores(Pay for parking first then reclaim from the store checkout).

Spread of Cockermouth out of town continues as Mitchells introduces retail units at their vast new auction mart development.

The Manor House hotel changes hands and the Trout Hotel push on with expansion plans.

Fireworks display another big success but this year display located on fields to the east of Derwent Mill industrial estate.

 Residents might face a £30 a year bill just for the priviledge of parking their cars outside their homes!

While the MSport team see their man win the Kenya Rally ,Allerdale Planners dither over whether to allow Malcolm Wilson to expand his MSport base at Dovenby to include a hotel and more up-market homes.

Hells Angels escape prosecution over a Bank Holiday flare up in Fletcher Christians pub.

Haunting Russian Orthodox choral music as Cockermouth Harmonic Society give superb performance of Rachmaninov Vespers. Check out details of their programme at
www.cockermouthharmonics.org.uk

 The chaotic traffic situation planners have overseen reached the ultimate finale when a lorry for Sainsbury's ended up in collision with the historic house at the junction of Kirkgate and the Market Place. The driver was soon after sacked by Sainsbury's.

Meanwhile Mitchells new auction centre is ready for its opening at the end of May.