Community members volunteer skills to help restore Ickleton pub
Work is under way to repair and refurbish the pub, which was a popular haunt for US airmen in World War Two. Some of the funds left over from the purchase of the pub, as well as a bank loan, have been put towards to pay for the supplies needed for the restoration. Rachel Radford, the chair of the community group, said: "We know what we are aiming for, we have a vision in our minds of how good it is going to look and slowly over the next few weeks and months we can get there. She added: "Together we have got a reasonable budget sitting there but it is a case of having to balance out what things cost with the amount of money we have. "It is very, very tight but the help of volunteers is going to make a huge difference."
The group said it anticipated some delays as plans needed listed building consent, but it "[was] not planning anything terribly controversial".It planned to hold an annual members meeting in the first half of the year, for all 415 shareholders to have a say in the running on the pub. Ms Radford said: "I'm sure people will make great memories. It will be a real sort of hub at the centre of the village again."
Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
5 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Martin Lewis recommends making one swap when paying by card on holiday
Martin Lewis shared a handy tip for holidaymakers who are keen to keep costs down when it comes to dining out abroad and it all comes down to how you pay Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has shared a nifty tip for globetrotters seeking to pinch their pennies - particularly when dining or drinking out overseas, and it all comes down to your mode of payment. On his latest instalment of The Martin Lewis Podcast on BBC Sounds, the financial guru offered key advice for those opting to use cards. In an intriguing segment titled "Should you pay in Pounds or Euros on plastic abroad?" Martin reveals his insider knack for cutting costs. Encountering the option to pay in either the local currency or Great British Pounds at checkouts and ATMs is common, prompting a decision every traveller faces. Martin, however, asserts that there's indeed an optimal choice here. Martin advised: "Well the correct answer is you should always pay in Euros or whatever the local currency is, because that means it's your plastic that's doing the exchange rate conversion, not the overseas shop or ATM." For getting true bang for your buck, Martin suggests acquiring a specialised overseas debit or credit card that offers "near perfect exchange rate" - a savvy move for any thrifty traveller, reports the Express. He elaborated: "But even if you don't have one of those, then even your bog standard UK credit or debit card that's adding about a three per cent fee onto the exchange rate, in all the experiments I've done and when most people go abroad, they do a pub crawl, I do an ATM crawl to check these rates." Summing up his findings, he said: "In all the experiments I've done, even a bog standard UK card is beating most overseas ATMs, or shops exchange rates so you want it to do the conversion which means you must always pay in the local currency." His advice was clear: "Pay in Euros, pay in dollars, pay in Dong if you're in Vietnam." Martin Lewis and the team at Money Saving Expert have detailed a number of the best travel credit and debit cards available. Find more information, here.
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
'They told me I wouldn't survive in football but 14 years later I'm still here'
Husband and wife John and Carolyn Radford have nurtured one of English football's steadiest success stories - no Hollywood showbiz, no firing managers every five minutes, just putting unfashionable Mansfield Town on the map She is the first lady of Mansfield who has presided over two promotions, a Wembley play-off final and English football's fourth longest-serving manager. Now she is having a new stand, padel courts, bars and restaurants built at the One Call stadium. Soon it will be a ground fit for a Stag party every week. And as the Lionesses prepare for their defence of England's Euros crown in Switzerland, she remains a shining light for girl power in boardrooms where women are still hopelessly outnumbered by men in suits. When Carolyn Radford was appointed chief executive at Mansfield back in 2011 aged 29, social media's sneering court of public opinion dismissed her recruitment as a 'publicity stunt.' She laughs at the cheap shot now. 'Some publicity stunt,' giggled Radford on a Zoom call from Mansfield's windswept training ground. 'I wonder if they think running around after my three sons at home is a publicity stunt as well.' Apologies to double Olympic gold medallist and queen of the pool Rebecca Adlington, another proud daughter of the Nottinghamshire hinterlands, but Radford and her husband John, the owner and insurance tycoon who lifted his home-town club out of the non-League long grass, are making the biggest splash in Mansfield now. Like Oldham's Frank and Judith Rothwell, they are the husband-and-wife double act at the sharp end of an EFL operation. Sadly, Radford does not hear many more female voices in boardrooms than she first observed when Mansfield were on their uppers 15 years ago. These days, the barbs are not as direct as comedians Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's reference point for sexists, the sketch with dinosaur pundits telling a female interviewer: 'Where's the bloke, love? Two sugars, please.' But apart from the likes of West Ham baroness Karen Brady, Bolton chairman Sharon Britton and Leicester CEO Susan Whelan, women at English football's top tables are still thin on the ground. 'Sometimes it's still a bit awkward, but we have come a long way in women's football, in terms of our visibility in the game,' she said. "It's been a male-dominated industry for 150 years and you have to learn to navigate your way through it. 'For a husband-and-wife team maybe it's a different dynamic. For us there's no separation. Business and family are always combined, I've got a voice here and if things go wrong it's always my fault! The Lionesses winning the Euros three years ago was massive and, without wanting to be the kiss of death, I wish them the very best of luck in Switzerland because of what they can do for women and girls in football as a whole. 'We need to celebrate the women who are out there driving the game forward, especially if they are juggling other parts of their lives, and we have each other's backs. I don't have a perfect recipe - there are days when one of the children is sick, for instance, and there aren't enough hours in the day to cope with it all. 'But I'm proud of the fact we have had the same manager for nearly five years. Nigel and his staff are so easy to work with, and continuity has its virtues. I'm glad we are not one of these clubs who sack the manager every few months because starting all over again means a new voice, a new culture, new methods… it must be like getting remarried.' Radford, now 43, has seen gates double at Field Mill on her watch and the fan zone, with its marquee, DJ, music and family atmosphere, has improved the matchday experience markedly. 'Mansfield is a close-knit community and I wanted to reflect that in our demographics on match days,' she said. 'You've got to be so careful when you are cultivating a football club because it matters to so many people. It's brilliant to put them on the map but a it's not a plaything. 'It takes over your whole life and consumes you, but you also have to enjoy it. But it's still a fantastic industry to work in. You keep smiling, you keep being resilient - there is no set formula, it's not like teaching GCSE maths.'
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Inside abandoned UK airport set to reopen with cheap flights to holiday hotspots
From being bombed in World War Two to ferrying business passengers to Amsterdam, a transport hub which is no longer in use could soon be ready for its next chapter This ghost town of an airport site could soon spring back into life thanks to a £500 million regeneration. If plans come to fruition, holidaymakers would be able to jetaway to European hotspots on low-cost flights for the first time in 12 years. The last scheduled flight left Manston Airport in Kent for Amsterdam on April 9, 2014 and since then its been used as a lorry park. Currently undergoing a major refurbishment, the revived airport is slated to reopen in 2028. The airport can be found in the village of Manston in the Thanet district of Kent, 14 miles north-east from Canterbury by the coast. It was used by the Royal Air Force during the World Wars after it opened in 1918, and was frequently targeted by bombs during World War Two's Battle of Britain. Manston has a single runway that is 2,748 metres, or 9,016 feet, long. Wide at 60 metres, it was designed to handle emergency landings for Concorde and the Space Shuttle. Initially, the revived airport will focus on cargo operations but plans are afoot to introduce passenger services. The multimillion pound revamp will include new terminals and upgraded runways. Tony Freudmann, main board director at controlling airport company RiverOak Strategic Partners, told Kent Online: "Looking at the way the passenger market is going, we are confident we can persuade one or more low-cost carriers to base their planes here. "It does not work for us if they fly in just once a day because that is not economic. If they base three or four planes at Manston, we will have rotations three or four times a day, as they have at Southend. "That will cover our costs and bring passenger footfall through the terminal all day and every day. We will reinstate the twice daily KLM service to Amsterdam Schiphol that we had before and that will give business people in particular access to almost anywhere in the world." Passenger routes to the the Netherlands, Spain, Cyprus and Malta could be introduced, flown by budget airlines including Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air. Survey work is underway at the airport site and expected to be concluded in early 2026. A public consultation into possible flight routes will be launched at that time. If plans go ahead, construction work is expected to be completed by early 2028, when recruitment for operational roles would begin. Demand for flights at Luton Airport and Stansted Airport is said to suggest additional additional passenger flights would be popular in the region. "Opening an airport – even one like Manston which already has in place a full-length runway, taxiways and airport buildings – takes a huge amount of preparation and planning first and so it will be many months before we are ready to welcome construction teams on site," a post earlier this year on the RiverOak website reads. Opposition to the proposal to revamp the airport has been loud and coordinated, with groups such as Don't Save Manston Airport noting that the travel hub previously failed commercially and arguing that it will do again. They have argued for increased aviation capacity is bad for the environment.
