Local People

Six Spelthorne schools started a competition on Saturday (6) for the chance to win their very own allotment.

The competition, which is co sponsored by the Staines Informer was launched at The Elmsleigh Shopping Centre and will see pupils competing for a raised bed allotment and seeds, gardening equipment and expert advice on how to get started.

Pupils from Buckland Primary School, in Berrycroft Road, Staines, Kingscroft Junior School, in Park Avenue, Staines, Manorcroft Primary School, in Manorcrofts Road, Egham, Shortwood Infant School, in Stanwell New Road, Staines, Hythe Primary School, in Thorpe Road, Staines and Stanwell Fields School, in Clare Road, Stanwell, will be encouraging people to vote for their schools.

More than hundred people could lose their jobs after workers at Bupa in Staines, Egham, and Ashford were told redundancies were being considered.

Workers at the healthcare company were told on Wednesday March 3 that a three-month consultation period had begun due to a need for the company to restructure their staff.

Staines Town fans raised £1,800 for St Peter's Hospital on Saturday (March 6) as they walked to Woking for their chairman Alan Boon.

Five runners and 11 walkers followed the 11 and a half mile trawl from Staines' ground in Wheatsheaf Lane, through Chertsey, Addlestone, New Haw, before reaching Woking's ground for the local derby between the two sides.

Residents in Spelthorne will face a 0% increase in council tax and staff will forgo any increase in pay or allowances as the budget for 2010/11 was announced on Thursday (24).

In a full council meeting held at the Civic Offices, in Knowle Green, Leader of Spelthorne council John Packman also declared that cuts were to be made to make savings in an effort to balance the budget.

Mr Packman stated that due to the economic downturn the council needed to help residents that were finding times tough.

Football fans and supporters of Staines Town FC supremo Alan Boon will be walking to Woking on Saturday (March 6) to raise money for a hospital unit.

The 63-year-old chairman of the club, who lives in Egham, suffered from a heart attack in May last year, and was taken to St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey where he was nursed back to help.

A one-time famous opera singer who had her career cut short after a tragic accident has lost her long battle with Breast Cancer.

Delinne Sue Woodger, of Langley Road, passed away on Friday February 5 at the age of 48 after a two-year-long battle with the disease.

Two young sports fans sang in front of 80,000 people, royalty, and world class rugby players at the start of the Twickenham Centenary Celebrations on Saturday February 6.

Aidan Parsons and Tom Ollason, both 13 and students at Matthew Arnold School in Staines, sang with 50 other people at Twickenham Stadium before the England versus Wales match in the Six Nations competition.

Two soldiers from Staines and Wraysbury have spoken off their desire to return home after their tour in Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Luke MacDonald, 28, from Wraysbury, and Lance Corporal Dan Robertson, 25, from Staines, are serving with the Chestnut Troop in Sangin ,and the Danish Army, on their first and second tour of the country respectively.

Two Spelthorne residents have been given awards for giving more than 175 blood donations between them.

Susan Burgess, of Lammas Road, Staines, and Linda Bishop, of Queens Walk, Ashford, were given a crystal decanter for more than 100 donations and a a crystal plate for more than 75 respectively at a National Blood Service ceremony.

It was a show of force usually reserved for suspects on the radar of MI5.

But when police used a helicopter, armed officers and dogs to swoop on a Staines home on June 28, 2008, it wasn't to arrest an Al-Qaeda operative.

Their target was an 18-year-old politics student who had put a poster outside the home of the town's Army Cadet Force, a youth organisation for 12 to-18-year-olds.