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.

The Nearby Landmark Arts Centre is always a sublime venue for the Midsummer Art fair which showcases work from over 80 talented artists including painters, photographers, print-makers, sculptors and more wearable items such as Teddington resident and designer of high quality jewellery Christine Savage.

A passenger helicopter delivers guests for a lavish birthday party at NPL Sports Club – landing under the curious gaze of historic Bushy House.

Photo: DodderyIceDry

A picture-perfect rabbit surveys the green and lush land in Bushy Park. Despite being extremely cute, out-of-control rabbit warrens delayed the official re-opening of the Water Gardens situated at the back of Upper Lodge.

Wildlife in the area isn’t limited to the local parks – this brave fox has been spotted making the daily commute across the main bridge from his home to more fruitful scavenging grounds on the other side of the tracks.

Sunshine Soon

One of Teddington’s more spectacular riverside properties (on Broom Water) enjoying the unusually hot sun we experienced in May that is forecast to return by this weekend.

Peter Denton

In this photo series, Peter heaps praise on his local all-purpose convenience shop (Gunters on Stanley Road) – “open from 5.45am to 9pm every day of the week. As you’d expect, here you can buy everything from cereals to cigarettes, water to wine. You want a newspaper, stamps, a sandwich, a bottle of wine, a top-up on your Oyster card? Here’s the place. It’s cheerful, friendly, and always there when you need it. Shops like this, where they know you by name, are worth their weight in gold – and are a thousand times more welcoming, human, interesting and full of character than any supermarket on the planet.

Stephen Darlington

Taken near the Half-Moon plantation (near the model boating lake – Heron Pond), a route taken regularly by this photographer on the pleasant commute to work. On this particular morning fog was forecast so Stephen set off extra early to catch a glimpse of deer combined with the weather and managed to catch this stag backlit by the morning sun as the fog slowly lifted.

The building was originally a residential care home for children with learning disabilities and more recently a respite care home but closed almost ten years ago. It’s current reincarnation as “St Johns” will support adults with learning disabilities to help them live normal lives within the local community.

Funded by the Orione Care, the state-of-the-art building will now be home to tenants nominated by Richmond Upon Thames Borough where residents will live as independently as possible with the help of Walsingham care agency.

This is one of the several buildings provided by Orione Care – an English charitable company funded by Catholic Congregation “The Religious Congregation Sons of Divine Providence” which was founded in 1893 by St Luigi Orione. His motto was “Do good to all; harm no one“

To commemorate the occasion the building was dressed up in colourful bunting as the new residents welcomed members of the organisation to make their appreciation known.

Bishop Howard Tripp, retired auxiliary Bishop of Southwark, led a liturgy for a blessing of Colombo House. Three of the Sons of Divine Providence clergy were in attendance as was Joe Moffat from St. Mary’s and St. Albans representing Churches Together in Teddington.

Past and present staff also attended – some of whom had worked in Colombo House when it was a children’s home and speeches were read by various guests as well as the Colombo family whose father Angelo originally donated the building.

“Whilst I appreciate that the residents were hoping to retain the old fence, safety must remain Network Rail’s highest priority. It is therefore imperative that we maintain fences to our standard. If fences no longer meet our safety standard, they have to be replaced. There have been instances of trespass and fly-tipping, and the fence line runs alongside the track, so it is vital that we protect the public.”

In addition to the fences recently installed, the last of the original blue iron fences will be also replaced with the newer standard chain-link fences.

Some good news though – the barbed wire will be removed, the platform will have additional planting and in partnership with South West Trains the footbridge will get a long-overdue windows replacement and re-paint.

Another high-street refurbish, slight extension and re-launch is under-way and from the looks of the submitted plans the ‘Auberge’ name will be dropped when the business re-opens as simply ‘Kings Head Pub Brasserie”

[Update] see here for info

SpaNails is now open for business in the place of Caroline Turner Shoes. Staff are offering a range of high-quality nail treatments/extensions for reasonable prices – pick up one of their discount cards and every 6th visit has a £5 discount.

Feedback has been very positive from early adopters which will be music to the owners ears – they chose Teddington as an ideal location for their new shop despite their commute from Elephant and Castle each day.

Tel: 020 8973 3758 for appointments (walk-ins also welcome). Open Mon-Sat but available for call-outs for special occasions on any day of the week.

The window of an empty shop has been at towards what sort of business may be moving in and we can now confirm that the High Street will be soon have its own authentic Italian ice-cream parlour! The owners of Cafe Cafe (a few doors down) are aiming to have this new venture open in June just in time for Summer. More details to follow.

John Tough (grandson of Douglas) first read a speech explaining how the memorial is dedicated to three main aspects of the evacuation:

1. The British Soldiers themselves – killed, injured and taken prisoner of war
2. Navy and civilian personnel who risked their own lives to pilot the boats during the evacuation
3. Men like Douglas Tough who organised the Little Ships

Photo: Brian Holder (Teddington Society)

Prince Michael met survivors of the little ships operation and Royal British Legion members and also gave a tribute speech which includes a quote from Churchill who described the event as “A miracle of deliverance”.

The memorial was due to be created for 10 years ago for the 60th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuations but objections were made to the wording of the monument for including phrases such as ‘victory’ and ‘Second World War’ which the Environment Agency thought would be inappropriate and offensive to foreigners. The agreed memorial has slightly changed text to read ‘How Teddington’s “Little Ships” helped win the Second World War’.

Video coverage by Alan Benns.

The unveiling also coincided with the 200th anniversary of Teddington Lock.

The fair has been in place all weekend and was joined by some overnight visitors in the form of a small military contingent who camped in the park. They will be providing visitors with demonstrations and the occasional firing of their full size cannon (take note dog-walkers).

Teddington’s Park Lane Stables will be joining the parade and afterwards offer pony rides which will be available with printed photo memento to take home. If your kids are fans of BuildABear then get down to the pony rides stand where goody baskets are waiting for the first customers.

If you’re joining the parade from the direction of the high street then pop into Astrora coffee roasters on the way where cookie and fresh coffee samples will be available to celebrate the event.

[Update] The sun only made an appearance or two but the slight chill in the air didn’t dampen spirits and the turnout was still impressive as always. Some new additions to the festivities proved to be a hit (Horse Rangers synchronised arrangements, military artillery and gun demonstrations and historic group with musket firing) but unfortunately this didn’t agree with the nearby horse rides which had to close early due to this.

Generous contributions to the various stands generated a lot of money for various charities including Help4Heroes and the Royal Parks fund to raise money for statues to complete the Water Gardens so thanks to all those who attended.

The military contingent was particularly strong this year – giving an apt tribute to the military history of the park. Since the tradition of Chestnut Sunday started again in 1993 it has been growing steadily in popularity – next year the main fair and attractions are planned to be twice as big as this year.

[Update] Video coverage of the day:

Car clubs offer privately owned ‘pool cars’ can can be booked by members at late notice (an hour before use) and be used for short trips or longer journeys of several days – proving to be cheaper than convention car hire. You can search for available cars near to your location then pay online or by phone per hour or distance travelled.

Car clubs are a great alternative for infrequent car users – negating the need and cost of owning a car which spends most of its life taxed, insured and taking up a parking space. Clubs are increasingly popular and are currently used by residents, visitors and businesses.

Richmond Upon Thames borough from three companies – City Car Club, Streetcar and Zipcar. Research has shown that each car club on average replaces 6-20+ privately owned vehicles.

Car club-only parking bays are installed with a 6 month consultation period in the borough before they become permanent. Also note that parking your own car in one of these spaces will result in a parking ticket!

Users normally pay a monthly or yearly fee, then per hours used / miles driven – you can calculate what making this switch might save you here.

Check the availability of nearby cars using this online map

A strange new phenomenon took hold of the nation – plane spotting! After a break of almost a week, residents are for the time-being at least acutely aware of low flying planes passing over the borough, especially during quiet walks in green spaces.

Planes return to the flight-path over Bushy Park

Heathrow is allowed a certain number of night-time flights (11pm-6am) each season and this limit was temporarily lifted so that airlines could make headway getting the backlog of stranded passengers home. Campaigners have however urged the Government not to use this precedent for non-emergency situations in the future.

Miles Couchman documented his own personal battle against the travel chaos that took him from his Teddington flat to Lanzarote to be with his wife – an epic voyage that included cancelled flights, overbooked Eurostar, an unexpected holiday in Paris, just missing the Spanish industrial strike, a late train and a mad taxi/dash for a plane.

Meanwhile back home, the glorious weather we’ve been experiencing has spurred many home and shop-owners to tackle the garden and get the paintbrushes out for a spring spruce-up.