First lets do what all residence of these Islands, weither it be the Isle of Man or the adjacent isles, talk about the weather, unlike the adjacent isle we managed to miss the worst of the storms earlier in the week, until last night and yet even with south to south west gales we appear to have escaped unscathed, well at least looking around Clagh Vane we seem to have, even though the windows rattled last night. The colour is starting to return to the estate in the form of daffs and primulas, and I few others I can not name, and they are holding up to the wind, on the subject of colour nice to see such a large number of orange wheel bins around for the recycling of grass clippings, well done Malew Commissioners.

Before taking my son off to Ballasalla School I was reminded that on Friday (14th March) it is ‘Fit Fruit Friday’ in conjunction with ‘National Skipping Day’ and ‘Water Aid’ hopefully a lot of loose change will be taken to create a cash river around the school hall, and that the children have fun, it still amazes me that children today love going to school unlike my day!! A long long time ago! Maybe if we had been encouraged to think about these world concerns and enjoy it as well, we might have been keener.

Maintaince has certainly improved around here and it is being done with a cheery smile, The only dark cloud seems to be the fact that I am told by a resident from Crossag Close that outside painting of their houses is planned very soon, a dark cloud why? I hear you say, well as residents from there will tell you unless the outsides of the walls are repaired first it will be a case of painting over the cracks! I am assuming there is no plans to paint the windows and doors as they are plastic. We shall see.

On the subject of empty houses just in case someone from DoLGE ever reads this numbers 87 and 103 are still empty and boarded up as they have been for 2 years, in fact the back door area of 103 is being used to store old tyres and pallets, looking at this as a lay person ,that is a loss of £13,000 pounds so far in rent, and now we have 101 having been empty for over a month. Talking of rent we were all informed that our rent was to be increased by 5% as from April again and yet again the reason for this is we are told the increase in rates, and yet for the second year rates in Malew are not increasing, I am aware of the answer why, repeated to us last year, it is worked out on rate increases around the Isle of Man, so to those who object to an all Island rate, let me inform you public sector tenants are all ready paying one. Residents of the older area of Clagh Vane will be aware of a recent questionnaire done by BADRA, the results will be on this site soon, one of the questions was ‘would you be in favour of Malew Commissioners taking over the estate as landlords?’ the result was 9 out of 10 in favour of Malew Commissioners.

On the long running story of Crossag Farm and the planning refusal, we are now informed that the developer J. G. Kelly Ltd are to take the decision to the High Court to have the decision quashed, obviously this is not being done because of their concern over the loss to the Islands residents of affordable housing , but their loss of money, I am informed that they have already lost a lot going through the planning process.

A quick reminder that the local elections are coming up in April so not long before you will have knocks on the door and manifestos through the door, if you have a question or concerns let your prospective commissioners know they are there for you, I shall remind you later, but please use your vote there is a lot going on here and if you miss the chance to be heard there may be no going back.
The ‘Malew Guardian’ formerly the ‘Malew’s News’ is coming back under new management and it should be with you very soon. If you have something you would like to add to the second edition don’t keep quiet get in touch.
A quick question a number of people have remarked about a DoT van with 2 people driving around the estate last week 3rd March to 7th March but they didn’t appear to actually do anything does anyone have an answer?
Well that’s it for this one, I have other far less interesting to do, the sun is shining but the wind is blowing, lets hope spring is on the way because Easter is nearly here.