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Shiverers and Hove MP Weatherley jointly launch 50m pool petition

Mike Weatherley & Mark Canon
Mike Weatherley & Mark Canon

Following repeated calls from residents for a 50m swimming facility in the city, Mike Weatherley, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Hove and Portslade, has launched a petition for a new 50m swimming pool at the King Alfred site with the famous Shiverers Swimming Club.

A petition backing the wishes of residents has been drawn up in order to highlight the desire locally for first-rate, flexible facilities.

Parents, swimming groups and a sports club have all backed the campaign for a dividable 50m facility and the petition was launched at the packed AGM of the Shiverers Swimming Club.

Due to popular demand, an online version will be available shortly.

Advantages of a dividable 50m swimming pool – with adjustable floors – include cost and flexibility. Crawley’s 50m pool is used in its 50m configuration every morning and is packed during gala situations. Alongside this, residents of all abilities, including the elderly and young children, use the flexible pool for all sorts of different purposes.

Mike said:

“It is abundantly clear that residents want a first-rate 50m swimming pool when the decrepit King Alfred is finally replaced. As well as embracing the Olympic legacy after the success of the London 2012 Games, it just makes long-term sense to provide children and adults in Brighton & Hove with the most flexible facilities.”

 

Simon Kirby MP to attend Pink News Awards

Simon Kirby MP for Kemptown & Peacehaven
Simon Kirby MP for Kemptown & Peacehaven

Simon Kirby, MP for Brighton Kemptown, is attending the first annual Pink News awards in the House of Commons this evening, Wednesday, October 23.

PinkNews the online LGBT news website is to host the ceremony in the State Rooms at the Palace of Westminster at the invitation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, The Rt Hon John Bercow MP.

The awards are timed to celebrate the Royal Assent of the Marriage Bill and will recognise the unique contributions of politicians, businesses, charities and unions at advancing equality for LGBT people.

Award categories include Parliamentary Speech of the year, Politician of the Year, Community Group of the Year, Advertising Campaign of the Year, and Business Network of the Year.

The guest list includes a number of chief executives of charities, business leaders and senior politicians. Mr Kirby has been invited to the awards as a key champion of equal marriage in the House of Commons during the passage of the Marriage Same Sex Couples Act.

Simon said:

“I am delighted to be attending the Pink News Awards to celebrate a fantastic year for LGBT rights in the UK.

“The passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act took the combined efforts MPs, Peers, LGBT campaigners, charitable organisations and business leaders and I am pleased that the excellent work of so many people will be recognised this evening.”

 

ALISON MOYET: Dome: Review

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Alison Moyet, the treacle voiced chanteuse of spiky pop, returned to her electro roots at a concert featuring cuts from her new album the minutes and a peppering of hits at the Brighton Dome.

As was the case with her performance at this year’s Brighton Pride, the singer’s first full return to electronica since the 80s, was heavily laden with songs from her eighth album, her highest charting since 1987’s Raindancing.

After a missed cue and some humorous repartee (“The good thing about this happening at the beginning, is I can start again!”), the now waifish singer stormed into Horizon Flame, a luscious piece of ominous electro-pop, harking back to the muddiest of her Yazoo recordings.

Not opening with something familiar was not only commendable, but a subtle hint that Moyet is shifting away from songs or arrangements lumbered upon her during the mid-to-late 80s. A more blatant hint would be in response to one fan request for That Ole Devil Called Love; “I’m not doing that bloody song!”

The naïve Nobody’s Diary, a song written when she was just 16, bridged the gap between the old and the new, the new represented by the blazing but wounded When I Was Your Girl, the first single taken from her new album.

The re-workings of her older material started off a little awry with Ordinary Girl (quite a Morrissey sounding tune in its original form) and Is This Love? slowed down to snail’s pace. It was worrying only in that it begged the question: Does Alison, now 52, still have the capabilities to perform the machine-gun delivery of the lyrics, “Had I planned them they never would be teasing me, as viciously as these.”

Where these re-imaginings failed, the show was restored with a brilliantly biting Winter Kills, which saw Alison thaw the 30 year old song with blistering vocals, before edging the the audience into a reworking of Only You (“Think of it as camping!”), which was turned on its head with a minor key that darkened its perkiness.

Moyet’s electronic palette was further expanded with the semi-operatic dub-step clunk of Changeling, a song at odds with the sorrowful (and almost untouched) minor hit This House from 1994’s Essex album.

While many of these songs are well-suited to the dance floor, we finally ‘moved out’ of our seats for Situation, sandwiched neatly between a bluesy All Cried Out, before we went full-throttle with those sublime opening chords of Don’t Go.

Conservatives call for free Christmas parking

Conservatives are calling on the Green Administration of Brighton & Hove City Council to offer free parking in selected Council owned car parks in the run up to Christmas in order to give local traders a much-needed boost.

The proposal will be put forward at tomorrow’s (24th October) Full Council meeting by Group Transport Spokesman – Graham Cox – and Group Leader – Geoffrey Theobald.

They will ask for free parking at Norton Road, London Road, Regency Square, High Street and Trafalgar Street car parks on Saturday, December 7 (‘Small Business Saturday’) and the 3 Sundays before Christmas (December 8, 15 & 22).

Cllr Graham Cox
Cllr Graham Cox

Cllr. Cox said:

“The city’s local traders could do with a bit of a fillip before Christmas and we think that offering their customers free parking in Council car parks will do just that. I very much hope that councillors from the other two parties agree with our proposal.”

 

 

Cllr Geoffrey Theobald
Cllr Geoffrey Theobald

Cllr. Theobald added:

“Local councils the length and breadth of the country offer their residents and visitors free or reduced parking in the run up to Christmas and I think Brighton & Hove should be doing the same. The Green Administration has hiked up parking charges so much in the last couple of years and this gesture would go a small way towards ridding the city of its ‘rip off parking’ tag.”

 

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