Hope HIV works in Sub-Saharan Africa through local partners in order to support vulnerable children and young people through: education, emotional support, economic empowerment and child rights. During their ten years of work the charity have touched the lives of countless young people in places a world away from leafy Teddington. It has turned them from victims into educated and enabled young people who are motivated to transform their local communities.

The teenagers at Teddington Baptist Church are pretty motivated themselves, and rose to the challenge. They baked cakes, printed invitations, organised refreshments, and put on a Summer evening of music and entertainment at the church. The evening, billed as “The Summer Session” included music from contemporary singer-songwriters, as well as their own compositions. In the end the sum raised by cake bakers, singers, song-writers and musicians amounted to an impressive £1000 – not a bad return on an investment of £30!

Church minister, Richard Littledale, was very encouraged by the whole experience. “Teenagers today get a lot of harsh and unwarranted bad press. Here we have seen a group of talented teenagers giving of their time and skills so that others a world away might benefit. It is a privilege to know them”.

Those wishing to donate to the charity can find further details at www.hopehiv.org.

Some of the fund-raising team members, left to right: Sonia Stead, Nathan Blyth, Charlotte Blyth, Luke Littledale, Louise Higgins

Tim describes how desirable his training base is on the river Thames by Teddington and how it wasn’t originally his plan to compete in a fourth Olympic games despite racking up medals during the last three games.

Having taken a break away from the sport to concentrate on his medical career and working towards specialising in emergency medicine, the once in a lifetime temptation to compete at his home country’s Olympic games proved to strong for Tim.

Journalist and keen runner Adharanand Finn recently stayed with the ‘Teddington Kenyans’ at their modest home near Tesco and was privileged to be given the chance to keep up with them in Bushy Park. The house is owned by Pace Sports Management as is one of the top training camps back in Kenya where young and talented athletes are signed up.

The runners base a lot of their meals around Ugali, a traditional African dish of maize flour and when not training they enjoy channel-surfing and kung-fu movies! Given that Teddington has the perfect grassland training ground and is near Heathrow for travelling to European competitions, they describe the area as “a mecca for running”.

Despite qualifying for the European Championships in Barcelona after strong comeback results, Jo Pavey has sadly now been ruled out due to injury and will not be able to represent her country along with Mo Farah in the 5,000m and 10,000m distances as planned this week. Teddington-based Andy Baddeley will also join the squad to compete in the 1500m distance.

Due to the recent hot weather cricket matches are drawing bigger crowds and Teddington’s prolific opening batsman James Keightley has broken the 1,000 run milestone for this season despite Teddington falling to a 43-run defeat to Hampstead.

In addition to targeting the Teddington branch of Barclays in April of this year, he is believed to have struck six times including re-visiting the same branch of Barclays for a second time in May.

On each occasion he has told employees that he had a gun in a carrier bag and threatened to shoot staff and customers if they refuse to hand over money.

Last Thursday there was yet another robbery at Barclays in Hampton Hill that followed this pattern but the suspect fled empty-handed.

Detectives believe these and other robberies including Halifax in Teddington last year and two attempted robberies in Whitton and Twickenham are all linked due to the similar nature and description of the suspect.

He is believed to aged between 45 and 55, approximately 5ft 10 and of medium build with pock-marked skin. He spoke with a London accent and wore glasses on each of the robberies.

If you have any information about this suspect please call the Flying Squad on 020 8247 4804 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

To minimise the impact, the first of the bridge repairs are due to start at the same time as schools break up for their summer holidays – work is planned from the 26th July 2010 for 15 weeks.

Buses will be diverted in a similar plan to the temporary closure earlier this month and when not fully closed, traffic will be managed by using temporary traffic lights below the bridge during Mon-Fri and weekends 8am-6pm.

Traffic using Upper Teddington Road will still be able to turn onto Vicarage Road, however due to safety concerns traffic exiting Vicarage Road will only be able to exit right onto the High Street.

This stretch of road is one that TFL is considering as part of a scheme for removal of traffic lights in efforts to get traffic moving more quickly all over London.

Dates of full closure of Upper Teddington Rd and full closure of one of the footpaths from 8am-6pm
Sat 31st July – Sun 1st Aug
Sat 7th Aug – Sun 8th Aug
Sat 14th Aug – Sun 15th Aug
Sat 21st Aug – Sun 22nd 8th Aug
Sat 28th Aug – Sun 29 Aug
Sat 16th Oct – Sun 17th Oct

If you require any further information about the scheme/diversion then contact:

Community Relations
Network Rail
London and South East
Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1 9AG
Helpline: 08457 114141

Despite signs that the scheme was doomed to be scrapped, opponents were still being asked to register their objections against the council planning application page which has probably smashed all records for the number of comments submitted!

His statement on the matter: “Plans to introduce car parking charges in these parks were the subject of fierce public opposition from the moment they were first proposed, some 18 months ago, and the local MPs have been lobbying me hard so, after discussing it with them and with the Mayor’s office, I’ve decided to scrap the idea immediately. Given the current economic climate, we will need to find alternative sources of income instead, but we will try to respect local residents’ views and preserve the environment of these wonderful and precious spaces too.”

One scheme being considered is a monthly farmers market in Richmond and Bushy Parks that may include the sale of park-reared venison.

One of the sights that will continue to be enjoyed for free: Diana Fountain at the centre of Bushy Park. Photo: 4orty7even

Opposition MPs such as Zac Goldsmith gave assurances before the election that the charges would be scrapped if Tories came to power and the new coalition Government has now honoured this pledge ensuring that visiting the borough’s parks will ‘never become a budget decision’.

Since the new Government has taken power some swift changes including this one have come into effect including the reversal of the planned luxury housing development on Twickenham Riverside – a piece of which was handed back to the public yesterday to be used as a sun terrace, with promises of more public consultation about the future use for the whole site.

Other changes however are in the form of huge cost-cutting to help public finances starting with the cancellation of almost £2billion worth of projects. Amongst those to be cancelled is Labours ambitious “Building Schools for the Future” programme – leaving over 700 planned school regeneration projects paused for the forseeable future.

Some schools in Teddington however are already undergoing Government and privately funded redevelopment and expansion this year so will surely be unaffected by these cutbacks. Teddington is certainly undergoing changes for the better – strengthening its reputation as a hotspot for excellent schools and regenerating run-down areas and buildings into more appropriate and attractive uses in some notable developments.

Teddington School is amongst those with planned major work over the summer holidays. To celebrate the end of the ‘old school’, pupils, staff and parents – past and present – are welcome to attend an exhibition and series of tours on Saturday, July 10th 11am-2:30pm. This will be the last chance to see the existing school before the new building is unveiled in September. For further info email: pta@teddington.richmond.sch.uk.

In addition to the sponsored Horses for Heroes ride at Ascot on the 10th of July, a ‘Heroes’ themed party is being held at Teddington Town Cricket Club (within Bushy Park) this Friday at 7:30pm.

Admittance is by ticket only which you can pre-book by emailing parklanestables@googlemail.com.

Prizes will be given out for the best dressed hero – which could be someone famous, an inspiring family member or friend. A band will be playing on the night, nibbles will be available and a raffle will be held with some fantastic prizes donated generously by local businesses including:

You don’t have to dress up and if you can’t attend, fear not you can still take part in the raffle by popping in to the stables and buying a ticket (or a few!). The prize-list is growing by the day and includes several restaurant meal vouchers, Teddington teddy bear, personal training power plate training session, acupuncture session, voucher for health treatments, breakfast for four, belly dancing meal for two, fine chocolates, full english breakfast for two, horse-riding vouchers, three Bowen treatments, £100 of theatre tickets, Build a Bear goodness and two months membership to Fitness First and a two tickets to the members enclosure at a Cowdry Park Polo match.

If you are a local business and can help this worthy cause by adding a raffle prize to add to the list then please get in touch by emailing

Thanks also go to:

[Update] Thanks again to businesses who donated prizes and the generosity of those attending the evening – raffle ticket winners were extremely pleased with their prizes and over £500 was raised for Help for Heroes which will be added to funds raised to this weekends Horses for Heroes day at Ascot.

The recession has hit commercial landlords specialising in office space hard and Teddington has not escaped this general trend – different uses for empty offices are increasingly being explored. Budget hotel chain Travelodge are seeking to secure a long-term 25 year commitment which is much greater than the normal short-term office space leases.

As for the need for a large hotel in Teddington, the planning application states that demand regularly outstrips supply in the area – aside from some bed & breakfasts, more upmarket Park Hotel and the Lensbury are the only notable hotels in Teddington itself. General tourism, being with short distance from Heathrow and subsequent easy access to London, Hampton Court etc would mean that rooms would be regularly filled, as well as other local draws such as Teddington Studios (audiences regularly travel from far-afield) and there is also a steady stream of visitors to the NPL who already has corporate rates in-place with other nearby Travelodges.

The existing building conversion will happen almost entirely internally only so will hopefully have little impact on the look of this prominent building – a separate application will be submitted for the advertisement signage. It will be converted into a 113 bedroom hotel and the smaller ‘studio’ building next door will be demolished and rebuilt as an adjoining four-storey annex which will contain an on-site bar/cafe – usable by hotel guests only.

The building sits within the CPZ and although the number of self-contained car-parking is well within the recommended ratio vs room numbers, there is a risk that guests will simply park on surrounding roads outside of the CPZ-restricted hours and add extra pressure on already-crowded roads.

Currently 140 office workers occupy the building (using three of the five available floors) – as a hotel, about 100 employees will work here and an estimated 150 guests per night will stay, benefiting the local economy alongside local suppliers.

Travelodge’s own survey shows that private bar/cafe’s are only used by a minority of guests – almost three-quarters prefer to eat at local cafes, pubs and restaurants instead. Guests on average add £35 every day to the local economy and the total economic benefit to the neighbourhood could be between £0.6 and £1.2 million each year.

It should be noted that this planning application is independent of plans for a similar project in the centre of Twickenham also involving Travelodge, who have expressed their intentions to secure hotels at both of these locations.

Given that the site is within a mixed-use area that includes residential properties a public consultation to these proposals is to be urged. The full detailed plans can be found here.

The timing couldn’t really be worse for sports fans – literally just before an all-important goal that helped England surge through to the next stage just as Teddington suffered an altogether different kind of surge and was plunged into the dark ages. Nearby towns such as Twickenham, Kew, Richmond, Strawberry Hill, Whitton were all hit simultaneously and fans had to get inventive to keep up with the score – using radios, phones or calling friends for updates.

Teddington itself only had a short outage but areas such as Twickenham suffered for much longer and subsequently police had to be called to some High Street pubs to calm angry World Cup fans.

Trains seem to be unaffected but some street-lights were not working – causing traffic snarl-ups. More importantly water pumping-stations were also knocked out of action leading to water supplies being unavailable into well into the evening (until 8pm for most).

Local shops such as Tescos sold out of bottled water pretty quickly as news of the water supply problems spread.

The latest information from Thames Water site at time of press:
Customers in postcode areas TW, KT, SW and W may be without water following a power cut in the area, which is affecting our pumping station.
We’re working to fix the problem and will restore supplies as quickly as possible.
We are very sorry for any inconvenience.
Updated: Wed 23 Jun – 6:47pm

Luckily the NPL Water Rocket Challenge seems to be unaffected by the lack of water in nearby roads

[Update] some official statements have been released – EDF Energy have said that the outage was down to a fault on a high-voltage cable network – cutting supplies to TW1-TW12 postcode area for up to an hour. Electricity was re-supplied to water works by 6:45pm and all properties had their water supply back to normal by midnight. An estimated 500,000 homes were left without water for at least several hours during this period.

Many Teddington businesses had to close early including Marks & Spencers and Pizza Express.

This particular work-around hasn’t officially been listed as one of the available options for the impending proper works but may be preferable to the other two options as it keeps at least one bus routes alive on Kingston Road.

It will see 281 buses diverted along Sandy Lane/Park Road and 285 taking the route underneath the lower bridge on Lower Teddington Road presumably along with general road traffic.

Click on this map for PDF

[Update] Network Rail are under scrutiny again – this time for making last minute changes to the plans that were announced just days before the public meeting – the 10 week closure plan has now been extended to 15 (including 7 weekend closures).

Which ever method is chosen, it is almost certain that the 281 bus route will be diverted along Sandy Lane because closing one lane under the bridge would only allow single-decker buses along this ‘angled’ road shape.

There is concern from Hampton Wick traders about the full closure option – particular concerning general trade loss as well as deliveries. A partial closure during the week then full closure on some weekends is expected to cause much confusion with motorists but may bring the least disruption in general.

Brasserie Blanc is expanding by moving into the pub market with the acquisition of the Kings Head lease in addition to the Queen’s Head in Weybridge. Up to £1 million will be invested in the Teddington location alone which will retain the long-running pub side of this business alongside the brasserie.

Ice-cream lovers who have been clamouring for news of the up-and-coming ice-cream parlour won’t have to wait much longer! Il Gelato is aiming to have its grand opening this Friday and if the weather forecast doesn’t change, it will be perfect timing – in the midst of the hot weather that we’re currently enjoying.

To celebrate the launch free ice-cream will be handed out to lucky customers.
[Update] this looks like it will take place at 5pm during their opening party on Friday, not necessarily during the day!

A few empty shop units are under offer – stay tuned for updates. One confirmed new addition will be British Bookshops which will be next door to Headmasters on Broad Street and sell discounted stationery, books, cards and newspapers.

They are currently recruiting for shop staff – if you’re interested then call 01273 507999 or email customerservices@britishbookshops.co.uk.