Cash boost for communities

Batley and Spen District Committee agreed to help fund a Your Country Needs You WWI event at Birstall’s Oakwell Hall and Red House Museum in Gomersal with a £1,000 handout. The event on July 5 will be a re-enactment of pre-conscription recruitment to the Army in 1915.

Members of the public will be invited to take part and get measured up to see if they would have met the requirements.

An encampment will also show what field life was like at the time and will include a mock interrogation of a German prisoner of war.

During last Thursday’s district committee meeting, the Gujerati Writers Forum also received £950 towards its silver jubilee celebrations.

The group is planning to hold a festival of verse and publish a book of poetry to celebrate.

Thirty pupils from Batley Girls’ High School have been involved in the project and each of them has written a poem to contribute.

A summer programme of children’s activities at Oakwell Hall under the banner of Wacky Wednesdays also got support after the committee put £1,275 towards it.

Taking place across five days in late July and August, the events will include arts and crafts, wall climbing and tightrope walking, music and sports skills with the Batley Bulldogs.

The total cost of the programme is £4,000, but £2,725 has already been secured from the Community Heritage Team and Birstall-based paint company PPG.

The Fieldhead area is also being helped to set up a Cold Calling Controlled Zone – also known as a No Uninvited Trader Zone – to the tune of £1,197.50.

Created in partnership with West Yorkshire Trading Standards, this area be off-limits to all cold calling workmen visiting the area.

The plans were made following instances of intimidating rogue traders carrying out works unprofessionally.