Citizen Needs Your Stories!
The new St Neots Citizen wants you, the residents of the best town in Cambridgeshire, to get your jounalist hats on and contribute to the site!
The uploading of the old stories will be done soon, and we’ll be needing rewrites of the “lost” ones. But every good news site needs, um, news. Otherwise it’d be the St Neots History Citizen – and it’s not.
Until we get a proper submissions area sorted out (i.e. when we have permanent hosting) you can submit your story by leaving a comment to this post. Comments are moderated so it’ll appear as a proper story.
Please remember – no real names. And Bob Farms is still the only “madcap local councillor”…
Cheers and that!
The Citizen Editor
Welcome Home. Temporarily.
Welcome to the new temporary home of the St Neots Citizen. Over the next couple of days the archive will be uploaded and we’ll start re-writing the missing stories.
If you want to get involved, leave us a comment.
Our .co.nr domain provided by:
Grand Opening Of More Empty Shops
St Neots Council today proudly announced the addition of another fourteen empty shops to the town centre.
The Priory Mall and Jade Bridge, empty for over 8 years
“Empty shops now make up a third of the town centre,” said Councillor Maloy. “This is a very important industry for St Neots.”
When new shops are made available in the area, the pattern is usually that they remain empty for up to six months before being occupied. Local free newspapers then proclaim the new businesses as a lifeline for the town, before they are crippled by extortionate rates and close down. The shops are then let to either charity shops, estate agaents or warehouse outlet discount stores.
The Paines Brewery was due to be occupied by an unnamed “major retailer” in 1997, rumoured to be Marks & Spencer. However, the deal collapsed after board members of a local department store, who sit on the council, got worried about their profits.
The Priory Mall (pictured) was due to be rennovated and occupied by another “major retailer” last year, but the council spent three months in dispute over a listed wall, between the Priory Mall and neighbouring Jade Bridge restaurant – which has also been empty for over 8 years.
The Citizen presented the evidence to Cllr Maloy who simply said, “Why do you need national chainstores when you can buy everything you need from St Neots’ Favourite Department Store? It has all that you’re looking for.”
Maloy is a majority shareholder of the store which recently closed all but three of it’s departments.
Woman Cannot Park At Station
Local commuter Mo Ning arrived at St Neots station at 9.32 this morning, and was amazed to find there were no parking spaces.
“The car park was completely full,” said Miss Ning, who drove to the station after 9.30 to avoid the high parking charges before this time. “I don’t want to pay over three pounds to park my car. I only want to rent the space, not buy it.”
Fellow commuter John Sands, of Hail Weston, agreed. “It’s stupid,” he said. “People arrive at 7am and take all the spaces. It’s selfish.” When The Citizen suggested that this is necessary for people to get to work by nine, Mr Sands looked blank. “9? 9am? That means nothing to me,”
Council Cannot Find Site For New Traffic Lights
St Neots Town Council faced a dilemma yesterday as they failed to find a suitable site for some new traffic lights.
“I don’t know what we can do,” said Cllr Pete Gregory yesterday. “We haven’t installed any lights for at least three months now. Demand must be high somewhere, but there are just no suitable sites.”
Cllr Gregory has a history of always provding crossings to the people of St Neots, whether they need it or not. Local businessman I P Freeley, who owns the 50p shop in the High Street, said, “I know lights are a necessity. Maybe the council could look at another set in the hight street. After all, there are only six crossings on a half-mile stretch of road. This is dangerous.” However, added Mr Freeley, any new lights installed must be of a quieter nature.
“The beeping from the pelican crossings is a nightmare. It sets off my ‘whistle-for-your-keys’ keyrings and is driving me insane.”
If a suitable alternative cannot be found, St Neots Town Council may have to look at alternatvies, such as new speed bumps, to dispense the current cash surplus of 87p.
