Love it or loathe it, the former Darcy House site's re-development is starting to take shape. The developer Banner Homes have provided some artists impressions and information of the forthcoming houses on the site being marketed as Pemberley Place, a name clearly designed to relate to the heritage of our village.

Hampshire Highways have informed us that they are planning to do some road repairs in the village during the year, this will involve closing the main road through the village between the A32/A31 roundabout and Wolf's Lane.

Although the letter received states that they will close it "between the 15th January and the 19th January and again from the 20th January for one year, or until works are completed, whichever is the sooner (Believed to be 3 working days)", We understand that this is just the HCC way of saying that they will come some time in the spring to fill the holes and again during the summer for resurfacing works.

A number of historic pictures have been provided which date back to 1866, making them the oldest ones we have to date.
The pictuers have been published in the picture gallery.

A special thanks to David and Pene Whitaker for releasing these pictures to us.

Do you have any other historic pictures that you would be willing to share - if so, please contact us and we'll do the rest.

Looking after St Nicholas involves a small band of volunteers

If you would like to be involved, we would welcome help in areas such as flower aranging and church cleaning

Marion (89855) and Pam (84561) would be pleased to hear from you and let you know what is involved.

During November, there have been a number of cases of vandalism and theft in the village, these include :

• A broken window at the schoool
• Eggs being thrown at the school
• Damage to the sign on the village green
• Damage to the bin on the wall, by the village green
• Damage to the electricity supply on the village greeen (leaving it in an unsafe state)
• Damage to the steps of the school - by a large waste bin
• Theft of the wheel washing equipment at the Darcy House development.