This weekend, a local clinic will be raising money for the unit, by offering cut-price therapy sessions at The Forum.

Almost 6,000 babies were born at the N&N in 2012, up from 4,855 in 2003/4. In response, the hospital opened a new midwifery-led birthing unit in August 2011 to cater for 4 more pregnant women at a time on Blakeney Ward.

The idea of the new unit is to allow women with straightforward births to have a natural delivery in a more homely and less medical setting. The hospital provides a midwife service from its 12-bed delivery suite, and a home birth service from the hospital’s community midwives.

Baby Hattie Rose was born in the unit in January making her the 500th baby born there. Mum Aisha Heward, who is a bar-maid in Norwich, said: “It’s such a lovely tranquil unit, it really helped my to relax and be at ease. The whole positive experience of having both my children at the NNUH has led me to want to train as a midwife when my children are older.”

This Saturday (4th February 2012), The Orange Grove Clinic in Norwich will be raising money for the unit. They’ll offer a range of 15 minute taster sessions at The Forum including massage, reflexology and acupuncture for £5, with all money going towards buying more equipment for the unit.

Police Superintendent Paul Sanford issued this appeal: “With your help, I believe we can lessen the impact of this growing crime. We are always interested to know the details of any vans heavily laden with scrap metal driving around residential areas. Legitimate dealers can be quickly identified, whereas those collecting scrap without a licence – who are regularly found to be stealing metal – can be traced and prosecuted.”

Anyone with information can call the non-emergency number 101 with details of any suspicious vehicles.

Emergency arrangements were made late last night, after contractor The Fountains Group went into administration.

The Fountains Group plc held an £8 million contact with Norwich City Council to cover street cleaning, tree management and grounds maintenance at parks, cemeteries and open spaces in the city. The waste management company, Biffa, who provide the city’s rubbish collections, were subcontracted by them, leaving questions over what would happen next.

The City Council, who had been given no warning that the group would go into administration, started immediate discussions with the administrators, The Fountains Group and Biffa to make sure key services such as bin collections continue.

Alan Waters, cabinet member for resources at Norwich City Council, said: “Our absolute priority is that we continue to provide the waste and recycling collections and other important services to our residents. As soon as we were told, we went into immediate discussions about how to maintain the waste and recycling contract with Biffa so that people’s bins continue to be emptied and their recycling collected.

We also focused on how to deliver the services Fountains has been providing, such as street cleaning, tree management and grounds maintenance at parks, cemeteries and open spaces in the city. We have already spoken to the administrator as a matter of urgency to discuss the continuation of these contracts and what we can do to try and protect local jobs. Sadly, this is another major company which has ceased to trade because of the difficult economic conditions and these unforeseen situations are now a financial reality for large organisations like ourselves, especially in the public sector.”

150 staff at The Fountains Group were told they were being made redundant yesterday. The company subcontracted the waste and recycling element of the contract to Biffa, worth £3.3 million per year, delivered by 60 staff.

A spokesperson from Biffa said this afternoon: “Biffa’s senior managers and the council are discussing possible options for the short and longer term future of the refuse and recycling collection contract.”

Community groups and organisations can bid for up to £500 for five events coming up in 2012.

Norfolk County Council is making a pot of £30,000 available to help mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Weekend. Groups can also bid for funding to help mark the Norfolk leg of the Olympic Torch relay, The Paralympic Torch Festival, the final weekend of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and the planned return of the Tour of Britain cycle race in September.

The fund will help meet the costs of putting on an event. Funding is likely to go to events which are community focused, accessible and open to everyone.

James Carswell, Norfolk County Council Cabinet member for Cultural Services, said: ”2012 will be a year to remember for the whole country and we want to help communities to bring the party to Norfolk.”

Both the application form for funding from ‘Norfolk’s Year of Celebrations 2012 Fund’ and a handbook can be downloaded online.

The deadline for the first round of funding is Friday February 24th, with the closing date for the second round on Friday April 27th.

2012 dates:

Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Weekend: June 2nd – 5th

Olympic Torch Relay: July 4th-5th

Paralympic Torch Festival: August 28th-29th

London 2012 Cultural Olympiad: September 8th-9th

Tour of Britain, Norfolk leg: September date tbc

Pupils at City Academy Norwich (CAN) will move into their new landmark £21 million building over a two-week period this year. The programme of work looks set to finish on time and under budget, according to Mike Stewart, CAN’s Director of Finance: “The students are really excited about it. We will get the keys to the new building on 14th May which will then allow a month for the computers to be installed.”

City Academy has Specialist Status in English and Digital Technology. As a result the building will be fitted out with the latest digital equipment, having been awarded an additional IT grant of £1.8M. The entrance to the new curved, glass-fronted building will be a Learning Resource Centre, where pupils will be able to loan out IT equipment.

Although still a building site, both staff and pupils have been given regular access to see how the school is taking shape. Mike Stewart says it will make a big difference: “It will be a great educational centre point for this part of Norwich.”

The old school building, formerly Earlham High School, will be demolished during the summer holidays to limit disruption to pupils. Everything except the school’s swimming pool will be knocked down, although an application has been put in to the local authority to retain a building next door to it for use as by the local community.

Academies such as CAN were funded under a Labour government initiative to drive up standards in failing schools. The coalition government has gone on to encourage more schools to become academies, freeing them up from local authority control. Some concerns have been raised over the current academies programme, with calls for greater transparency and accountability.

The pool was shut for ten days over New Year for maintenance work and had only re-opened on Monday.

On Sunday a new component fitted last week in the jack which operates the movable floor in the shallow pool failed.

The pool opened on Monday after a planned ten day closure for maintenance work in the pool area and changing rooms. The shallow pool was closed yesterday to allow divers and engineers to inspect the damage and try to make repairs.

Acting Director, Maria Rowe, said: “We are really sorry to close the pool again just days after the planned shutdown. Our maintenance teams have worked extremely hard on improving the pool and changing facilities and are now working around the clock to rectify this problem as soon as we can. It is sadly one of those things which we could not have been prevented.”

The pool is likely to be shut until Wednesday 18th January although UEA Sportspark will update their website if they are able to re-open sooner.

In the meantime, urgent plans have been drawn up to tackle the hundreds of extra children needing school places this September.

The County Council is worked closely with schools to ensure there are sufficient places in reception classes this September – with schools agreeing to make 345 places available on a temporary basis.

There’s growing pressure on school places in the Norwich area, with numbers up around 25% this September: there are 1,266 children in this year’s reception classes compared with just 966 children currently in years five and six. Norfolk County Council attribute it to both increased birth rates and fewer people moving because of the economic situation.

Discussions have been held with headteachers and governors in the city to establish how to best make use of space, particularly in schools which changed their age range as part of school reorganisation in the county. Early discussions are taking place to see how infant and junior schools may be able to work together to use space capacity within the system.

In the longer term, a new school may be needed in central Norwich, close to the south side of the city. Preliminary discussions have been held with Norwich City Council to discuss a site. Any new school would be an academy, run independently from local authority control. As reported in May 2011, Norwich Free School are interested in opening a second sister school in the city.

Alison Thomas, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services at Norfolk County Council, said: “We are extremely grateful to headteachers and governors for recognising the impact on population growth, particularly in the Norwich area. The numbers of children nationally has been underestimated in recent years and this has meant acting quickly to ensure there are adequate places for the coming year and the medium term and we would not have been able to do this without the commitment and support of Norfolk’s schools.”

Norfolk County Council’s Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Panel will meet at 2pm on Thursday 12th January to look at the plans, in the Edwards Room at County Hall.

Read what’s been getting you talking in our Comment round-up.

From Saturday (31st December 2011) the Sportspark’s pool will be shut to allow work to be carried out on the shallow pool’s moving floor. Tiles will be replaced around the edge of the pool and work will be carried out on the changing rooms.

Acting Director of Sport, Maria Rowe, said “The Sportspark is now eleven years old, and with over 1.3 million visitors every year, we need to ensure we can carry out the maintenance requirements in the pool area.”

The pool will re-open on Monday 9th January 2012.

Here’s a quick guide to when to put your bin out:

Normal collection day                   Christmas/New Year collection day

Monday 26 December                      Wednesday 28 December
Tuesday 27 December                     Thursday 29 December
Wednesday 28 December                   Friday 30 December
Thursday 29 December                    Saturday 31 December
Friday 30 December                      Tuesday 3 January
Monday 2 January                                Wednesday 4 January
Tuesday 3 January                               Thursday 5 January
Wednesday 4 January                     Friday 6 January
Thursday 5 January                              Saturday 7 January
Friday 6 January                                Monday 9 January
Monday 9 January                                Tuesday 10 January
Tuesday 10 January                              Wednesday 11 January
Wednesday 11 January                    Thursday 12 January
Thursday 12 January                             Friday 13 January
Friday 13 January                               Saturday 14 January