Well I’ve been inundated over the past few weeks with kind readers sending me their frugal recipes – and I wondered if you wouldn’t mind if I added a section to my blog so you could all share them with each other? It seems a shame to leave them piled up in my email inbox – and I like the thought of fostering a community spirit here on my humble blog.
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I think this could be a great additional section and love the thought of how we could all help each other out. I know I’m not the only frugal cook in the world!
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If you’re happy to have your recipe included, if you have a favourite you wouldn’t mind typing out, with or without pics, or even any tweaks or alterations to mine – please drop me an email at jackmonroe@live.co.uk

Essex’s ruling Conservative councillors have voted down a Lib Dem plan to save council taxpayers £21,400.

At today’s meeting of Essex County Council, the Liberal Democrat Opposition Group proposed deleting the Special Allowance for the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group.

Chelmsford Lib Dem Cllr. Stephen Robinson said:

This post is just not required. The Conservative Deputy Leader of the Council receives £40,000, eight Cabinet members receive £35,000 and the Deputy Cabinet members receive £13,000 each. The Conservative group must recognise that they lost one third of their Councillors at the election and don’t need this extra allowance.”

The Liberal Democrat proposal was supported by Labour, Independent and Green Councillors; UKIP abstained, and the Conservative majority voted it down.

If you are interested in history, or in ships, you might like to read a new 22-page booklet called “London Gateway – A Maritime History”. You can download it here

Did you know that the first signs of river travel in the Thames area is actually a bronze age paddle found at Canewdon? It’s about 3,500 years old. Then there’s the wreck of a Roman ship found at Blackfriars with a cargo of stone, the Anglo-Saxon ship carrying hops, the navy ship “London” that suffered an explosion in 1665 killing 300 people, and many more wrecks from the last two centuries…. There were many ships and planes lost during World War Two….

From the District Council website:

More info here.

Lib Dem Brentwood Councillor Karen Chilvers has just been on the ITV quiz “The Chase”. See how she got on here.

David Mitchell writes about this today in the Observer, and he isn’t impressed:

Unfortunately, having identified the problem, Pickles’s attempt to solve it is perverse. He’s going to relax the planning rules which restrict how buildings are used. It will be a lot easier to use places currently classified as shops, restaurants, offices or leisure facilities as other things. For example, you’ll be allowed to use empty offices as residential property, convert anything into a school, or open a shop or restaurant in an agricultural building, all without planning permission.
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How is that supposed to help our high streets? They’re full of premises currently designated as shops, restaurants or cafes. For these areas to look and be prosperous, they need to be filled with profit-making shops, restaurants or cafes. We don’t want them converted into anything else, because then those streets won’t be high streets any more. And how is allowing people to open exactly the sort of business that was once the preserve of the high street in any barn anywhere going to drive commerce back to our historic trading hubs? Surely it will have the opposite effect.

By the way, this is the David Mitchell who is a comedy writer and performer. Which gives us an excuse to include one of his sketches:

Another new government announcement is that when a council operates a “Community Infrastructure Levy” on developers (which Rochford will introduce eventually) 15% of the money will be passed to the relevant Parish/Town Council where development is taking place with, apparently, no rules over how this cash can be spent…

Are you spending too much time on the computer, reading too many emails and clicking on too many facebook items? Need to relax? Try slowing down for two minutes and just listen to the waves of the sea….

Go to http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

Someone asked onlineFOCUS for the timetable for the no.3 bus service to Hyde Hall (a lovely place to visit, especially when the weather is good). We have emailed the timetable to that person, but for anyone else who is interested, here is the timetable. (click on the images to enlarge them)

Until now, councils could NOT serve temporary stop notices in respect of caravans being used as main residences. However, councillors learned at a training session today that the rules have been changed. Councils are now allowed to do this.

If you think there is somewhere that suddenly needs a temporary stop notice involving new caravans, contact the District Council planning enforcement team on 01702 318022 and also let your ward councillors know. If it is outside normal working hours contact the council after hours number on 01268 527317.

For any lawyers reading this, the new regulation is the Town and Country Planning (Temporary Stop Notice) (England) (Revocation) Regulations 2013.SI 2013/830.