More information has come to light regarding the bridge closure.

Although we’ve had no official notification Forest England have a notice on their facebook page saying it will be closed all week.

Rereading my email it says that work starts on the 24th. As of yesterday their were no notices on the bridge.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/ThetfordForest/

Sun Aug 23 2020 11:22:56 GMT+0100 (British Summer Time)

**Advanced notification**

The bridge within Santon Downham, Thetford Forest will be closed next week (24th -29th August) for essential maintenance work.

If you are wanting to access St Helens Picnic Site you will need to do so using the road from the A134. (Blue route on map) …

To access Santon Downham you will need to do so from the Thetford to Brandon road.

The bridge over the Little Ouse will be closed on Monday 24th August for emergency repairs (the actual bridge structure is safe)

The bridge edges have deterorated badly (see pics and now need replacing).

The work was scheduled for later in the year but has now been brought forward and is being carried out as “emergency works” by Norfolk Council.

The was reported on the 16th (to Suffolk) and both Suffolk and Norfolk councils responded quickly to sort the issue (well done).

The bridge did close for a week and repairs were carried out.

The bus service seems to be resuming on the 1st of September.

However we seem to be getting even fewer buses than previously and there seem to be none during the middle of the day.

See Coach Services website for up to date information.

The latest timetable (for September) can be found here.

The timetable says valid from 31st August with no end date so we have no idea if this is temporary or permanent.

This is the first car boot since lockdown began and it is new and a bit strange to all of us.

Please act sensibly and follow the signs and listen to the staff – if something isn’t quite working – suggest an alternative rather than complaining – they’re all volunteers and are doing their best to make sure everyone has an enjoyable and safe day.

The hall is well set up for social distancing and the hatches in the kitchen and the small room can work very well for serving without being too close.  

We will have a very much reduced offering but we will do the bacon butties, hot drinks, cold drinks, sausage rolls and at least 4 varieties of cake.  

We will be serving the hot drinks in compostible cups with lids these are larger 12 oz cups for £1

Bacon butties (£3.00)

Cakes £1.50

Some prices have gone up to cover the costs of social distancing etc but the cost of the pitches will remain at £6.

The Breckland Club reopened on July 4th

They’ve introduced a number of rules to keep everyone safe.

🖊 everyone must sign in at the door!
🧼 everyone must then sanitise their hands.
⬆️ there is a one way system in place.
💰 orders and money will be taken at one end of the bar.
🍻 drinks will be put on the opposite end of the bar for you to collect.
❗️we encourage you to maintain social distancing.

❌ no sitting at the bar, stools have been removed.
📺 Perspex screens have been installed across the whole of the bar.
🤚 bring your own hand sanitiser if you have it and wash your hands regularly.
🧽 tables and handles will be cleaned regularly.
👮‍♂️ be respectful to the bar staff. What the bar staff says …. happens!

For those of you on Facebook more details can be found here

Congratulations hope it all goes well.

The mobile library service has resumed which means it should next visit the village on Saturday 25th July.

Things will not be the same.

See the Suffolk libraries website for details.

It seems a number of things will not be allowed (from the above web page)

Online reservations will not be available immediately

No browsing of titles in libraries

You can return titles as per normal

Customers will be able to call or contact us online to request a selection of titles based on genre or author, which we’ll make available for collection . Use our Select and Collect service.

Not surprisingly the bus service has been disrupted by the pandemic.

Checking online suggests that Santon Downham has been removed from the route.

The latest timetable (6th July to 31st) shows the buses not stopping here.

A quick phone call to Coach Services confirms this.

They hope to restart the service when things return to “normal” but have no idea when this is at the moment.

The current timetable can be found here

At present the alternative is to use the Connecting Communities volunteer transport service (essential journeys only at the moment).

Garden waste collections are to resume

Due to the collection cycle our bin day has changed and will resume on the 12th of June

Your new brown bin collection day is Friday.

Your next brown bin collection is Friday, 12 June.

I have a Google search set up to Email me whenever Santon Downham crops up in the news. This is usually when we achieve some kind of weather record.

I knew it was hot yesterday but it looked like Heathrow was going to pip us at the post to be the hottest place.

Google proved me wrong. We achieved 28.2C ~ 83F which isn’t bad for May.

Normally if we get a record it appears on the EADT and regional ITV. Yesterday everyone seemed to pick up on it. Here’s an extract from the Google alert I recieved. (there were more)