On this week in Great Cressingham, Great Massingham, Holme-next-the-Sea, King’s Lynn, Lexham and Walpole Cross Keys, November 5 -11, 2013

On this week, November 5-11, 2013

An amended plan to demolish Lynn’s former Zoots nightclub and replace it with 25 flats and houses has been given the go-ahead. The decision was taken by members of West Norfolk Council’s planning committee who voted unanimously for the proposal to go ahead having previously rejected an application from Freebridge Community Housing for 28 homes on the site. Freebridge have now dropped the number of homes to 25 and the extra space will be used to increase the number of parking spaces to one per property – and there will also be access to the site from John Kennedy Road.

Fishermen say the company behind an offshore wind farm in The Wash owe them more than £700,000 for damaging cockle beds. The row has erupted over the lucrative beds at West Mark Nock, near Walpole Cross Keys, which have been damaged by work to lay cables from an offshore wind farm near Skegness to a sub-station. The fishermen claim that Centrica is refusing to return to the negotiating table and both sides are disputing the amount of compensation due to 46 Lynn fishing boats, which have not been able to harvest the cockles from the site for more than two years.

Lynn’s Fawkes in the Walks firework display was watched by up to 10,000 revellers who packed into the park to enjoy the free spectacle. It was organised by West Norfolk Council in conjunction with Lynn Lions, with sponsorship from Tesco Extra, Hardwick Road. Along the coast, Hunstanton’s annual fireworks display went ahead with a bang despite the best efforts of Mother Nature. The organisers were forced to cut short the show because of safety concerns over fireworks drifting in the strong winds. The event was hosted by Hunstanton Round Table.

A team of eight Royal Navy bomb disposal experts have started work on looking for explosive devices in the redundant Moving Target Range near Holme-next-the-Sea. They will operate mostly on foot, supported by two 4x4 vehicles and the area will be surveyed by portable magnetometer to locate items of interest, which will then be excavated by shovel and identified. Any explosive ordnance discovered is likely to be destroyed in a series of controlled explosions.

Community groups in West Norfolk are being encouraged to list themselves in a new online guide to services for older people in the borough. There are already more than 700 listings in the Living Independently in Late Years (LILY) directory, but officials are appealing for the public’s help to make the guide as comprehensive as possible.

Nikki Scott is celebrating raising £1million in three years through her charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers. She was a 27-year-old full-time mum of two when her soldier husband Cpl Lee Scott was killed when serving in Afghanistan. Although her life was turned upside down by grief, Nikki was determined to channel her sorrow into something positive through the charity, which helps the children of fallen servicemen and women to smile again. Before the end of the year, she will see a clothing range she helped develop to raise more funds go on sale with Tesco.

Scores of pigs have been stolen from two fields in West Norfolk over the last few weeks. Farmers are counting the cost after 67 pigs were taken from a pen in Great Cressingham, and also the theft of pigs from a field in West Lexham – two sites both close to Swaffham. It seems to be a growing problem in the area, with 127 standard white pigs being taken from a field near Gayton in June.

Lynn’s King Edward VII School (KES) has become the latest West Norfolk school to be rated inadequate by Government inspectors. It means nine out of ten secondary schools in the west of the county have been rated as either inadequate or requiring improvement in their most recent full inspection. Almost half – 49 per cent – of all schools in the North West Norfolk parliamentary constituency have been judged as below par.

A three-hour free gala of non-stop Beatles music is to be presented by local Folkspot Radio and broadcast live to a studio audience by Norfolk-based musicians at Great Massingham Social Club. Up to 40 of the Beatles’ 186 songs will feature and there will also be a special live broadcast of Gareth Calway’s touring Beatles show – Beat Music: It was 50 years ago today.