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Issue No 25 : February 2010January's RVA meeting was held for the first time in the Rusthall Club and was attended by about 40 members.
Speaker
He began with a general introduction about the newspaper and its various editions before examining the changing role of local newspapers in the multimedia world, moving away from 'straight news' such as car crashes which can be gathered from the radio and internet, to looking at issues such as ASBOs in more depth. As editor he has also aimed to make the paper more bold than before, grabbing people's attention with the unexpected, even if this means he has sometimes to spend time defending against the charge of sensationalising the news. He has also aimed to brighten the paper with light-hearted topics such as the recent feature by photographer Chris Marwood showing Lego Star Wars characters posed around Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge. The idea is to make local news entertaining, exciting and even occasionally shocking, while at the same time retaining accuracy, fairness and balance.
Read also sees the role of the Courier in the community as holding the authorities accountable and campaigning on local issues such as widening the A21. The paper aims to celebrate local communities like Rusthall and to this end holds regular surgeries in 'community hotspots' to gauge local opinion. He was pleased to report that Courier sales had risen in the past seven months, against a backdrop of generally declining newspaper sales. At this point Jenny Blackburn, Chair of the RVA, asked Mr Read what he sees as the Courier's role in reporting on politics and elections. He replied that the Courier is planning to stage a political hustings before the next General Election featuring candidates from the three main parties. Defending the decision not to include lesser parties such as the BNP, UKIP or the Greens, he said it was partly a space issue in the paper but also a reflection of the reality that none of the minor parties has any real hope of success in a Tunbridge Wells election! In reply to a query about who owns the Courier, Mr Read replied that it was part of the Daily Mail group but stressed there was no editorial pressure on the Courier to conform to the Mail's own political slant. When challenged about a recent front page story which suggested that if Rusthall gained a parish council it would add £7.20 to the Council Tax of other Tunbridge Wells residents, Mr Read denied that it was a negative front page but admitted that if the Courier was a purely Rusthall paper the story might have been presented differently. Because it covered the whole borough there was a need to take other views into account. Councillor Atwood raised the difficulty of writing in to the Courier in time to catch the next issue, the deadline for published letters being the end of the working day on Monday. Mr Read admitted that readers without email are unlikely to get any comments into the next issue of the Courier but argued that with letters and opinions this is not necessary and the delay can help prolong discussions of topical events. When asked what happened to the free midweek paper the Courier used to publish, he said that in the end it proved uneconomic and besides being unprofitable it distracted from sales of the main paper.
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Parish Council
A draft budget for a Rusthall Parish Council estimates a council tax bill of £153 compared with the current average of £192 for the same services. She admitted that this bill could rise if the Parish Council undertook projects such as re-opening the public conveniences in Edward Street or introducing new traffic calming measures like a new pedestrian crossing on Lower Green Road. Her argument though is that a Parish Council would have greater control over the budget than is now possible. Although it would cost about £40,000 to set up a Parish Council, this would be covered by a long term loan from Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, the repayment of which should be gradual and painless. Jenny Blackburn is currently looking into the exact figures concerned. The introductory stage of setting up a Parish Council requires a three month consultation period and the earliest possible election would be 11 May 2011. The only paid official would be the Parish Clerk, all other posts would be voluntary. With a local electorate of around 4,000 there would be 13 councillors.
Rusthall Going Green
Haiti Appeal
The news about a shop closing in Rusthall
RVA MEETING DATES FOR 2010
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Useful Numbers
Jenny Blackburn, Chair 01892 546520 Email jennyblackb@googlemail.com
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