Latest news with #Silverdale
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Paralympic athlete visits South Lakes special needs school
Children at a special needs school in the South Lakes had a visit from a paralympic athlete earlier this month. Bleasdale School in Silverdale welcomed Paralympian Azaz Bhuta MBE, who represented Team GB in wheelchair rugby in the 2016 and 2020 Paralympic Games. Advertisement The school caters for children and young adults aged 2-19 years, with profound and multiple learning disabilities, severe learning difficulties, and/or a diagnosis of autistic spectrum condition. Higher level teaching assistant Anna Hodkinson said: 'The pupils, staff and governors took part in different physical activities. It was great to see everybody getting involved, laughing and smiling. 'We had sensory circuits- balancing bean bags on our head to go round cones. We had timed circuits- one minute of press ups, spotty dog, star jumps and mountain climbers. To finish the session, we played wheelchair basketball, which brought out some positive competition between us!' (Image: Bleasdale School) Read more Advertisement Visiting the school on Friday, June 13, Mr Bhuta showed the children his gold medal, won at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics Games before taking questions from the pupils. The day ended with every child taking a picture with Mr Bhuta to remember the visit, alongside a signed photo of him.
The Sun
25-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Sun
I live on UK's best council estate – I wake up to the sound of cockerels & views of rolling hills, there's no ASBOs here
OPENING my front door I breathe in the smell of red and pink roses as I watch the sun rise over our woodland-side crescent. The only sound comes from the neighbour's chicken coop as I hear a rooster calling out cock-a-doodle-do. 10 10 10 It's like stepping into a scene from The Waltons as I make my way past fields and rolling hills. However, it is not a family homestead I live on but rather a council estate and Britain's nicest in my opinion. I live on Parksite, in North Staffordshire's Silverdale, a village near Stoke-on-Trent and in the suburbs of Newcastle-under-Lyme, my local market town. While naysaying locals will be quick to tarnish its name, they're just being snobs, if they didn't know it was a council estate they would be fighting for a set of keys themselves. Why do people look down on council estate tenants like me, I'll never know - who doesn't want a peaceful home surrounded by countryside? With cheap rent? And friendly neighbours? I live at the top of a steep hill on a long private drive in my shared ownership bungalow and pay my way with a little journalism, and state benefits like Universal Credit and PIP. It only costs me £380 a month and I boast two gardens to the front and back, with blossom trees and flowers, lovingly cared for & nurtured by myself and my boyfriend, an aspiring Capability Brown. It's not just our gardens that are green, floral and verdant with the neighbours pruning their rose bushes most mornings. There isn't a tower block in sight as Parksite has Keele - a small countryside University village - next door. And Scot Hay - another country village with a farm - to the other side. I feel incredibly lucky to live on Parksite and pinch myself most days to check I'm not just living in a dream. You'd never know I live in a council house thanks to how good it looks - I shopped in IKEA & an Amazon tip saved me cash Aside from Parksite's abundant nature, it is the residents that make the place. Far from teaming with chavs and ABSO-slapped teens you find friendly families and people have time to stop and say hello when they're taking a stroll. I've even put a tangerine and fuchsia egg chair outside my front door so I can greet passersby as I smoke one of my 40-a-day ciggies. There's a 2.5K-strong community of local Silverdale residents on Facebook, who help each other out with missing pets, free household items, and lost bank cards and smartphones. Far from getting mugged, on our council estate residents make it their mission to keep your valuables with you. Not long ago, local campaigners, academics and MPs also clubbed together to get a nearby stinking landfill closed down. They finally won, and it was closed last year. Today the air is more fragrant and the streets much cleaner here than when I lived in cities like Birmingham and London, too. The bins are always emptied on time (Hackney Council take note!) I've lived on several estates in my time, here in Staffordshire and all over London and none of them are a patch on Parksite. 10 10 10 In London, I lived in a shared, one-bedroom council flat on the Roman Road in Bethnal Green which I rented for £75 a week. I enjoyed the fish market and cheap winkles. But not the community. Once a car was blown-up on the estate at 2am. It was terrifying to wake up to a bang and flames lighting up the entire estate. Another time, while a student, I lived on one of the high rises on Shepherd's Bush Green. While it was lovely to be in central London, the flat always stank of weed and I'd often hear next door arguing. When I returned to Staffordshire to help care for my mother in 2010, I lived on the Highfields estate in Stafford for a year. It was cheap, but the one-bedroom flat had no flooring down and I found the grey pebbledash facade of my Cul de Sac really depressing. It's different here on the Parksite estate. Visitors always notice how quiet it is: "It's so peaceful here" They'll coo. What It's Really Like Growing Up On A Council Estate Fabulous reporter, Leanne Hall, recalls what it's like growing up in social housing. As someone who grew up in a block of flats on a council estate, there are many wild stories I could tell. From seeing a neighbour throw dog poo at the caretaker for asking them to mow their lawn (best believe they ended up on the Jeremy Kyle show later in life) to blazing rows over packages going missing, I've seen it all. While there were many times things kicked off, I really do believe most of the time it's because families living on council estates get to know each other so well, they forget they're neighbours and not family. Yes, things can go from zero to 100 quickly, but you know no matter what you can rely on your neighbour to borrow some milk or watch all of the kids playing outside. And if you ask me, it's much nicer being in a tight community where boundaries can get crossed than never even knowing your neighbour's name while living on a fancy street. Thanks to support from the local council, Aspire, I'm able to afford the rent and upkeep of the property. But the real difference from the pokey flats I once afforded is that it's the first time I've had my own garden, and my own drive. As I write this, the sun is rising over the council housing rooftops - all red-orange glow, and also rising over the green parkland and bushy trees of Silverdale. It's so peaceful. My favourite memories here include sitting outside when the sun's out on my secondhand sunlounger. I'll be in the back garden, surrounded by green and just soak it all up. I so enjoy all the forest, all the nature, all the woodland sounds like a sparrow or the breeze among the grasses and buttercups. The only other sound's the tiny waterfall in the pond we've built to the left, overlooked by a red, Japanese Acer tree and a big silver Buddha head I bought from TK Maxx some years ago. My boyfriend also bought a TV when he moved in but we tend to just watch the wildlife in the forest over the bank, from the bifold windows that frame our sitting room - squirrels, nuthatches, woodpeckers. We have a birdfeeder here and can sometimes hear an owl in the dead of night. I believe I'll be here until I retire now and - after decades of struggling with shambolic, overpriced rentals in inferior council flats and dilapidated terraces - I finally feel complete and at peace. 10 10 10
RNZ News
25-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Two Auckland PAK'nSAVE supermarkets plead guilty to breaching Fair Trading Act
PAK'nSAVE supermarkets. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson Two PAK'nSAVE supermarkets have pleaded guilty to breaching the Fair Trading Act. The Commerce Commission said it filed charges against PAK'nSAVE Silverdale and PAK'nSAVE Mill St in the Auckland District Court. It said they used inaccurate pricing and misleading specials that might have breached the Fair Trading Act. PAK'nSAVE Silverdale entered guilty pleas on seven charges and was remanded without plea on three further charges. PAK'nSAVE Mill Street entered guilty pleas on four charges and was remanded without plea on four further charges. The maximum penalty for breaches of the Fair Trading Act is $600,000 for a business, per offence. The Commerce Commission said it could not comment further while the case was before the courts.
BBC News
30-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Judicial review of Environment Agency's handling of Walleys Quarry
A woman who says fumes from a landfill site near her home have shortened the life of her young son has been given permission to pursue legal action against the Currie said she had successfully applied for a judicial review into the Environment Agency's (EA) handling of the Walleys Quarry site in Silverdale, organisation served a closure notice on the site in November, which had been at the centre of numerous protests and legal action over its impact on local residents.A spokesperson for the EA said they were unable to comment on ongoing legal proceedings. Ms Currie previously began legal action in August 2021 over the matter but ran into a dead end after an appeal at The Supreme Court, after earlier success in the High February this year, she said problems from the landfill extended beyond a "bad smell" and that pollution from the site were still affecting her son."Mathew's consultant has again reported that the pollution from Walleys Quarry is shortening Mathew's life - it's killing him," she EA has previously said its decision to issue a closure notice demonstrated its "commitment" to the local community. Ms Currie said Mathew was doing "really, really well" up until about January, but the emissions worsened and he worsened, meaning he had to be put back on antibiotics three times a week."It angers me. I'm angry. I'm really frustrated. The simple fact is, if the EA had [closed the site] four years ago, people in our community would've had four years of cleaner air."I just want somebody held accountable for what [the EA] have allowed the people who run the landfill to do."Somebody has got to be held accountable for what they've done." 'Levels underreported' Mathew was born prematurely at 26 weeks with a chronic lung disease and needed oxygen support for 19 months. In 2021 his doctor told the High Court that the landfill emissions were preventing his recovery and he risked developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the August, the EA revealed that its pollution detectors had been underreporting levels of hydrogen sulphide at Walleys Quarry as they had been incorrectly the time, documents showed levels in some parts of the site were exceeding guideline levels and warned those living nearby could experience headaches, nausea, dizziness, watery eyes, stuffy noses, irritated throats, coughs or wheezes, sleep problems and who had health conditions that affect breathing, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), may experience a worsening of their symptoms, it said. Speaking this week, Ms Currie said she was not seeking financial compensation."You can put £1m in front of me or my son's health, that hasn't even entered my mind. My son shouldn't be this poorly," she said.A judicial review involves a judge assessing the procedures used by public bodies to come to a will not judge whether the EA's decisions were right or wrong, but simply the lawfulness of the process used. During a public meeting in March, bosses said they were now using discretionary powers to manage the site, paid for with a £2.6m fund that it previously secured from the operator - Walleys Quarry Ltd - as part of its landfill permit Quarry Ltd went bust at the end of February, with the site falling to The Crown came after an failed bid by the firm against the EA closure notice. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
The Staffordshire men boxing to 'release the hurt inside'
A man who was previously addicted to drugs and alcohol says boxing replaced his vices and helped him turn his life European champion boxer Ewan Welsh made a bet in the pub with his friend that he was going to get into the epileptic seizure while in the ring meant the end of his time as an athlete, but coaching others gave him another avenue to went on to set up the "Brothers In Arms" group at Korefitness in Silverdale, Staffordshire, where men can learn to box and open up about their issues. Participant Ethan Mourn said the retired boxer's group was a place where he felt able to talk."I was in a kind of dark place, confused and bit emotional, but then I came here, spoke to Ewan and he's helped me quite a lot," he said. Another participant, Josh Shepard, said he lost his job after his dad and cousin died within the space of six felt boxing with the group helped him, and that he also benefitted from chatting to others."The gym just didn't do it for me," he said. "Just punching a bag really does just release a lot inside hurt."He said he was hooked after his first session, and the brew and biscuits at the end were an important reason for attending."There's nowhere I'd rather be," he added. Ben Betts, a mental health coach at the group, explained working out helped release endorphins, which in turn enabled the men to feel more able to open up."Even if you're having a really bad week, you can come here and hit the bag, release your evil energies," he said. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
