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CAR FIRM REVS UP FOR £1M HOMES PROJECT
Scunthorpe Telegraph Tuesday 29th January 2008
A Proposed £1-million-plus housing development will honour the skills of two former self-employed bricklayers from North Lincolnshire.
The transformation of the site of a car sales and service business in Scunthorpe's Cottage Beck Road will mark the launch of a new company called Horner Homes.
Winteringham-based owner David Horner (33) explained the firm would be dedicated to his father Ken (71), and his late uncle Alf.
"Both brothers were bricklayers and I used to work for my dad as a labourer," said Mr Horner, a former student at Winterton Comprehensive and John Leggott College.
Horner Homes is seeking the go-ahead from North Lincolnshire Council to build 10 three-bedroom town houses in Cottage Beck Road.
"Dad will be so proud when we get the signs up - and so would uncle Alf," said the budding builder.
Mr Horner said the new homes, to be built in two phases, would be completed subject to approval by the end of 2009 and offered to first-time buyers at £120,000 each.
He revealed he got bitten by the house-building bug after renting out three newly-built homes in Winteringham last year.
He has told his two employees the car business will continue trading and will be relocated to another part of Scunthorpe by the end of 2009.
The site in Cottage Beck Road was originally intended for residential development, but was sold in 1966 to the Murco petrol company.
A petrol station traded on the site until 1996, and three years later Mr Horner opened up as Cottage Beck Car Sales, after borrowing £30,000 from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
A one-time lifeguard who wanted to be a PE instructor, he realised his future was in car sales when he was just 19.
"I bought a car for £150 and sold it within a week for £350, after giving it a good polish with my mum's tin of Pledge," said Mr Horner.
Mr Horner's proposed investment is the latest housing boost for Frodingham, the oldest part of Scunthorpe.
Fellow businessman Martin Exton will next month relocate his garage in nearby Rowland Road to Midland Road after 20 years of trading on the site.
The relocation comes after approval for 10 two-bedroom town houses to be built on the site.
In nearby Cliff Street, work on building five new town houses is near completion and a scheme to convert the former Frodingham Library in Trent Street into flats will start later this year.
ARMCHAIR EXERCISE
Scunthorpe Telegraph Tuesday 29th January 2008
Armchair exercises were demonstrated to a group at a recent meeting.
Members of Winteringham Women's Institute were shown the exercise technique by Joyce Bassingdale.The mystery parcels, given by Marianne and Yvonne Ogg, were won by Margaret Burton and Pam Wells.
Scilly isle home to better restaurants than Manchester
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent, Independent
Thursday, 24 January 2008
The 110 residents of St Martin's in the Isles of Scilly cannot complain that they have nowhere fashionable to eat. The Tean restaurant on the windswept island at the most westerly point of Britain, 30 miles from Land's End, has just won a Michelin star.
The distinction means the island, which measures just one square mile, officially enjoys better dining than the four million inhabitants of Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester, none of which has one restaurant with a star in the latest edition of the Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland, published yesterday.
Despite the spread of fine dining around the UK, 41 of the 122 starred establishments are in London. There are 11 in Scotland, two in Wales and only one in Birmingham.
Tean, located in St Martin's Hotel, is only open between March and October.
Diners who pay £50 a meal overlook an uninhabited island and dine on "modern British" dishes such as brill and lemon-poached lobster with potato salad, or cannelloni of leg, pea and mint purée and rosemary jus.
Under head chef Kenny Atkinson, the restaurant specialises in local produce, such as strawberries from the island of Bryher, St Martin's lobster, Newlyn mullet and Bodmin lamb. Derek Bulmer, editor of the 2008 Michelin guide, said: "It's the first on the Scilly Islands to be awarded a star and it's a remarkable achievement because they used to import all their produce from the mainland. What they are trying to do now is grow produce on the island with polytunnels and arrange for fishermen to deliver fish straight on to their jetty."
The hotel hoped the star would attract visitors to St Martin's, the northernmost of the six populated islands in the Scilly archipelago.
"We have become this culinary lighthouse and being awarded a star is fantastic news. It puts us on the map," said Keith Bradford, the hotel manager.
Tean is one of 15 new one-star establishments in the guide, among them the Rhodes W1 restaurant in Marylebone, London, run by the celebrity chef Gary Rhodes, and two in Dublin, increasing the Irish capital's star haul to six.
However, 14 restaurants lost their stars, including Winteringham Fields in Humberside, Waldo's at Cliveden country house in Berkshire and Jessica's in Birmingham, leaving Britain's second city with only one, the one-star Simpsons in Edgbaston.
There are no new two- or three-star establishments in this year's guide, so the top level of British gastronomy, three stars, is enjoyed by just three restaurants, two of which are in the Thameside village of Bray in Berkshire, the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn and Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck. The other is Gordon Ramsay's in Chelsea.
Across the country, Mr Bulmer, who has been a Michelin inspector for 30 years and the guide's editor for 10, detected a trend towards more casual dining and a more European style of cooking.
New one-star Michelin venues
ENGLAND
La Trompette, London
Rhodes W1, London
Quilon, London
Hibiscus, London
Wild Honey, London
The Goose, Oxfordshire
West Stoke House, West Sussex
Apicius, Kent
Nathan Outlaw, Cornwall
Tean, Scilly
The Sportsman, Kent
London loses lustre in new Michelin Guide
Fiona Beckett, Decanter.com January 23, 2008
London's status as one of the world's most vibrant and exciting dining out cities took a knock today with the publication of the 2008 Michelin Guide to Great Britain and Ireland.
The new Guide failed to award any new three or two rosettes to any restaurant in the four countries: England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Only Tom Aikens and Claude Bosi of Hibiscus, which moved from Ludlow to London three months ago, have any cause for satisfaction at the award of two 'rising stars', a category introduced in 2005.
And both would have more cause to feel disgruntled - Aikens at the fact that he again missed out on his widely tipped second star and Bosi that his second star hadn't travelled with him from the tiny gastronomic centre on the Welsh borders.
Bosi was making a brave face of it, saying that he hadn't expected a star so quickly. 'The Michelin Guide went to press two weeks after we opened. So we were very happy to be nominated a 'rising two star,' he told decanter.com.
The awards leave London lagging behind New York, Paris and Tokyo in the gastronomic hierarchy with only one three-starred restaurant (Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road) compared to three in New York, 13 in Paris and 25 in Tokyo.
The city also performs poorly at two star level with only five two-starred restaurants compared to six in New York, 13 in Paris and 25 in Tokyo.
The guide continues to recognise the performance of London's ethnic restaurants, awarding a star to Quilon which makes it the fifth Indian restaurant in the city to hold a Michelin star.
Other gains include Wild Honey, which joins its sister restaurant Arbutus as a one starred restaurant and La Trompette which gives restaurateur Nigel Platts-Martin Michelin stars for all his five London restaurants - The Square (which has two stars), Chez Bruce, The Ledbury and The Glasshouse.
Oddly there is no star for Scott's which won the 'Restaurant of the Year' award at the Tatler Louis Roederer Restaurant Awards earlier this week.
Outside London the chef to watch is Nathan Outlaw at the Marina Hotel in Fowey in Cornwall which gained both one star and a 'rising two'.
Outlaw was also ranked by the Good Food Guide as having the 12th best restaurant in the country. His previous restaurants The Black Pig and the St Ervan Manor in Padstow also had a Michelin star.
There are also two new one star awards in Dublin for Mint and Bon Appetit, bringing the city's tally of one starred restaurants to five.
Casualties of this year's guide, losing their only star, include Winteringham Fields which at one stage used to have two stars, The Orrery and The Savoy Grill.
Although 15 new restaurants have acquired a star this year, the 14 deletions and the relocation of Hibiscus which had two stars leave Britain and Ireland with a net loss of one Michelin star.
LONG SERVICE AWARDS
Scunthorpe Telegraph Friday 11th January 2008
Two more club secretaries from the Scunthorpe Dee Jays Sunday League are to get long-service awards from the Lincs FA.They are Tony Simons of Winteringham and Bernie Shaw of Auld South Yorkshire.
TRADE UNION LEADER SET TO STEP DOWN
Scunthorpe Telegraph Monday 7th January 2008
The leader of the trade union movement on the Scunthorpe Corus steelworks is to step down later this year, after 20 years in office.
Father-of-four Ray Hill has announced his retirement from the industry to coincide with his 60th birthday."I intend to enjoy life," he said of his future plans.
"I will be doing more work for the charities with which I am associated and also spend more time with my family."
Mr Hill, a former Glanford Borough Labour councillor, of Winteringham, would not be drawn over the date of his retirement, other than to confirm it would be later in the year.
However, he did say after 20 years in the chair of the Scunthorpe steelworks multi-union committee, he would hand the reins to his deputy Mick Fell.
Mr Hill served on the national executive of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, later renamed Community, from 1984 until his retirement last year.
He was elected national vice-president of the 44,000-strong union in 1992, and the following year served as president.
At the time of his election he said: "We will be fighting for manufacturing industry as, quite simply, our future and the union's future, and the future of Scunthorpe, depends upon there being a steel industry to fight for."
During his 35-year career in the steel industry as the works representative on the iron works, Mr Hill also served as a trustee on the British Steel Pension Fund.
He was the trade union co-ordinator for the local Labour Party and earned the respect of his colleagues as a tough negotiator when it came to settling annual pay awards and lump sum bonus agreements.
During the 13-week national steel strike in 1980, Mr Hill was on picket duty at Colchester Docks.
'STAR' STATUS AT RISK AS CHEF MOVES ON
Scunthorpe Telegraph Saturday 5th January 2008
The head chef at one of the country's top restaurants has been poached by another kitchen and left North Lincolnshire.
With the departure of 25-year-old Rob Thompson from Winteringham Fields, the restaurant's Michelin star might have gone with him.The next annual guide is due on January 25 with a pensive wait for restaurant owner Colin McGurran to see if his kitchen is included among the UK elite.
"The stars go with the chef," he said.
"If they know Rob has gone and Michelin want to take the stars away, then they can do that."
While the Michelin star is a cherished accolade, it is just one of those held by the Winteringham Fields.
It has gained its reputation as one of the best in Britain among guide books and critics and Mr McGurran wants to keep that reputation high.
He said: "The most important thing to me is looking after my 100-mile radius clientele."
Chef Rob was headhunted by the Cliveden hotel near Heathrow Airport, also a Michelin one star restaurant and home to the world's most expensive sandwich at £100.
Mr Thompson was one of the youngest ever winners of a Michelin star, and was tipped to be the youngest to win three stars by Winteringham Fields' previous owner, Germain Schwab.
No new head chef has been appointed at Winteringham yet but Mr McGurran is looking to recruit.
In the interim, the chefs have been given a little freedom and Mr McGurran has been in the kitchen himself lately using the skills he learned when he trained as a chef.
He said: "I've got 11 guys in the kitchen with no one having the responsibility.
"I don't want someone from outside coming in and changing what we do. The restaurant doesn't need to be reinvented, just reinforced."
Rob is now head chef at a hotel rated second in the UK and among the world's top 50.
"If a 25-year-old guy is offered big bucks down in London you can't blame him for going," said Mr McGurran.
"It was very amicable when he went."
As well as a Michelin star Winteringham Fields holds a high ranking in the Good Food Guide.
"We are still fourth in the country and when the next one comes I want to be third," he said.
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