Corby is ‘fastest-growing’ town

The town of Corby in Northamptonshire has the fastest growing population in England and Wales, according to new figures.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) based its findings on the number of council taxpayers in the borough.

They show that the number of average Band D council taxpayers in Corby has risen 9% between 2006/07 and 2009/10.

Kettering showed the third highest increase (6.4%) of any local authority.

Pat Fawcett, leader of Corby Borough Council, said: “The council’s ambition is to double the population of Corby by 2030 and so the news that our growth rate is the fastest in England and Wales is just excellent.”

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Fresh bid planned for university

A fresh application to create a university in north Northamptonshire is likely to be made in the new year.

Education leaders rejected a bid from Tresham College to set up the university in Corby.

But supporters of the plan say that with regeneration and a growing population, pressure is building for a new proposal to be approved.

They point to the success of the campaign to open a station in Corby as an example of what can be achieved.

Borough council chief executive Chris Mallender said: “Corby is a fast growing and fast improving place.

“We are aiming to double our population of about 57,000 people by 2030. Regeneration is already well under way with almost £2bn of investment secured for regeneration projects.

“We are also well on-track to deliver the homes we need with 12,000 of the 16,800 homes needed by 2021 either built or with full planning permission.

“An even bigger challenge is to deliver the 13,000 jobs needed to grow our economy. In this respect education is the best form of economic development we have got.

“Tresham College’s new £37m campus is pivotal to this, as is the recent opening of a national training headquarters in Weldon and the soon to be developed enterprise centre at Priors Hall.”
Full BBC Story

Corby pool opened by Olympic swimmer

He was the first person to take to the water and he swam the 50m length in 22.92 seconds.

He said: “I love seeing new swimming pools, I have spent my life in them and this is a fantastic facility.”

“What makes a fantastic pool for me is the light that comes in here and you have built a great facility here.”

The official opening ceremony took place this morning and the pool will be open to the public from 2.30pm this afternoon.

Source Northants ET Full Story and Video

Funding Secured for Corby Enterprise Centre

New businesses, skills and jobs are to be created in Corby following today’s announcement by North Northants Development Company (NNDC), the Urban Regeneration Company, that funding is in place to develop the £8.3m Corby Enterprise Centre.

East Midlands Development Agency (emda) is the major funder of the Enterprise Centre, putting in nearly £6.5 million to the scheme, which includes £1m from Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited. The balance of the cash comes from Corby Borough Council (c. £700k) and over £1.1m from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).  ERDF aims to stimulate enterprise and support the growth of successful businesses.

Following a development competition, a new site and design has been selected for the 43,000 sq ft flagship centre. It will now be located at Priors Hall, the major urban extension to the north-east of Corby, which is already home to the new £30m Corby Business Academy. It is expected that work will begin on site in late summer 2009 pending detailed planning consent.

The Enterprise Centre will be situated adjacent to the Academy in the planned employment area of Priors Hall, which has been praised by CABE* for its design philosophy. Located close to the proposed District Centre, it will be within five minutes walking distance of planned community, entertainment and retail facilities.

Bela Partnership, a joint venture between Bee Bee Developments and the Lagan Group, which is leading the development of Priors Hall, has been selected as the preferred site developer to build the Enterprise Centre. It has been designed by the Milton Keynes-based DLA Architects.

The building will provide 32,000 sq ft of lettable office, workshop and studio space. Its aspirational and environmentally-friendly design will offer start-ups and small businesses a truly flexible workspace including access to state of the art telecommunications and meeting facilities.

By providing opportunities for entrepreneurs to work within such high quality office and workshop space, it will have a major impact on the balance of the local economy, creating a significant number of highly skilled jobs in Corby.

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PM Visits Corby

Earlier this week, BBC News met three former Woolworths workers, struggling to find new jobs. After hearing that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had said that jobs were being created, one of them, Evelyn Downey, challenged him to “come to Corby and show me where they are, because I can’t find any”.

Mr Brown agreed to meet them. BBC economics reporter Steven Duke was in Corby to hear how the meeting went.

Sat in an out-of-town supermarket cafe, you get to overhear plenty of conversation tit-bits, but you tend not to hear, “When I meet the Prime Minister later I’m going to tell him…”

Three former Woolworths workers that the BBC interviewed a few days ago are having that very conversation.

The Prime Minister is in town to speak to students at the official opening of the impressive new Corby Business Academy, and he’s agreed to meet our jobseekers - Evelyn, Frances and Steve.

Full BBC Story

New Primark attracts shoppers to Corby

SHOPPERS are coming from far and wide to spend their money in Corby following the opening of the new Primark store in the town.

The number of visitors to the town was up 40 per cent on last week when the new Primark store flung open its doors on Wednesday.

A survey carried out by town centre managers Land Securities revealed people travelled from as far as Peterborough, Leicester, Wellingborough and Stamford to use the store.

And on Primark’s first Saturday, queues of traffic getting into the town added up to 20 minutes to some people’s journeys.

Land Securities centre manager Daniel Pickard said: “It’s been absolutely fantastic. Primark is an extremely popular brand for men’s, women’s and children’s clothing.

“It’s a welcome change from the doom and gloom in the news. The town’s just going from strength to strength.”

Mr Pickard said other retailers in Willow Place had seen an increase in shoppers through their doors.

Corby Council deputy leader Mark Pengelly, a manager at Busy Bee minibus hiring firm, said: “I’ve never seen anything like it. It took me 20 minutes to get to work through the traffic on Saturday. We are finding people from further afield are coming to Corby to see what it’s got to offer. It’s great for the town.”
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Webfusion Dedicated Hosting - Avoid At All Costs

First a word of warning: if you value your website do not touch Webfusion with a barge pole!

Last weekend our dedicated server which hosts a number of our larger sites suffered an extended outage.  Despite supposedly having mirrored disks, these clowns lost all our data and kept us waiting over 2 days before admitting what they’d done.

Firstly, the server was supposed to be monitored, but we had to alert Webfusion the fact it was down.  This was followed by 2 days of chasing Webfusion Customer Support for a response, resulting in them offering the unreadable disk for us to arrange data recovery (at our expense, obviously!)

Their solution was to give us a new server, minus all data - and with 2 completely new IP addresses.  That’s where their customer service ended.  We’ve had to restore almost 5GB worth of data, recreate all our accounts, email addresses, recreate and restore multiple databases and update all our DNS records (with the appropriate delay while DNS propagates around the globe).

Thankfully we had a recent backup to restore from.  Had we relied on Webfusion we would have potentially lost over 4 years worth of data, and our online offering would have been no more.

As if this wasn’t bad enough they absolutely refuse to offer any compensation, as in their eyes they have done nothing wrong - “I am sorry for the recent issues experienced on your account, however as we have provided a service in line with our terms of service, we are unable to offer compensation in relation to this” says Catherine Elliott from the ironically named “Customer Solutions” department.

Do yourself a favour and avoid these muppets like the plague.  We should have known when earlier this year their equally inept sister company 123-reg.co.uk managed to lose one of our valuable domain names!

Needless to say we are currently on the lookout for a new host.

Update 29/11/2008:
We have now moved hosts and thought we had cancelled our server with Webfusion. However, despite this they still invoiced us, not for 1 server but for 2!!

“We have been unable to debit 1973.72 GBP from the card ending
xxxx which we hold on file for your account. This is because the card has expired.”

Well thank goodness that the card had expired. One week later we are still trying to cancel our account, but it has, as ever, been a painful process. Do not trust Webfusion to do anything correctly.

Update 04/02/2010:

Thankfully we’ve had good service over the last 14 months from our new host, RealHosts.  Sadly though it seems that nothing has changed at Webfusion based on comments recently received.

Allen Ford Kettering

Today I had the misfortune to visit Allen Ford in Kettering. I’m interested in buying a new Ford S-Max, and thought I’d see what a local dealer could offer.

All was well until I asked if they could price-match an online quote from www.drivethedeal.com, a favourite site of mine. The salesman insisted repeatedly that Drive The Deal only sell imports, something I know to be untrue. He asked the price I’d been quoted (almost £5000 below list price) and said he had to talk to his manager. He returned several minutes later, “confirming” what he’d stated earlier that drivethedeal.com would supply me with a non-UK spec import!

By now I’d heard enough drivel, and decided to leave the dealership. Well Mr salesman, I suggest if you’re reading this that you take a look at their FAQs Page.

Oh, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had to pay for cold water at any car dealership, never mind a franchised dealer. 10/10 for customer satisfaction, not!

£5m sports hub - Envy of region

Plans to create a £5million sports hub at Rockingham Triangle to improve sport provision in Corby can be revealed for the first time today.
They include ambitious plans to open a beacon tennis facility – one of only 25 in the UK – with six new outdoor floodlit tennis courts at Corby Tennis Centre.

Just six months ago the centre was rescued from the threat of closure.

A new £1.5million sports hall with four badminton courts and the town’s only indoor cricket nets will also be built and the facilities could also be used for volleyball and basketball, sports hugely popular with the town’s growing eastern European community.

Eight new changing rooms and officials’ rooms will be constructed to encourage more children and women to play football on pitches there, and a £500,000 3G floodlit football pitch will also be provided alongside the new 1,000-seater Corby Town stadium.

A multi-purpose room will be used for dance, martial arts, health and fitness training and education, while doubling-up as a social club on match days.

And an Olympic-training standard weights room will be built to help local athletes hone their training methods.

Funding for the scheme will come from a range of grants from the council and various sporting bodies.

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Work starts on £10m rail station

Work on a £10.2m railway station for Corby in Northamptonshire has started this week.

Corby is currently the largest town in Britain without a station and the new facility will offer services to destinations including London.

Network Rail said it had appointed Dean and Dyball to build the new station.

Dyan Crowther, Network Rail route director, said: “This new rail link will give Corby the chance to take the greener option of the rail.”

See full BBC story.

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