Roll Up, Roll Up!

Tickets are now on sale for this Summer's latest production from Shakespeare in the Squares, All's Well that Ends Well, due to be staged in the Formosa Garden on Wednesday 12th June. This rarely- performed play has been described by the company's patron Dame Judi Dench as "beautiful & complex, summed up by the exquisite line: 'The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good & ill together'" As ever with Shakespeare in the Squares we can expect an imaginative re-working, with gypsy swing music & a fairytale twist.

The estate agents Chestertons are kindly sponsoring the event & the performance will begin at 7 pm, with the Garden open for picnics from 5.30 pm.

To buy your tickets via Eventbrite go to the following link: https://SITS-allswell-Formosa.eventbrite.co.uk.

All that remains is to bag your seat...& offer up a small prayer for good weather on the night! You may remember that last year's scheduled performance of Twelfth Night in neighbouring Crescent Garden was sadly rained off -- for only the first time in the company's entire eight-year history!

Increased parking charges for residents now looming

Bad news for local motorists -- Westminster City Council are still on track with their proposals to increase charges for residents' parking permits (along with the charge for pay-to-park casual kerbside parking). They say the aim is four-fold: to reduce air pollution in Westminster as part of its ambition to meet its net zero emissions target by 2040; to introduce a fairer & more proportionate system whereby vehicles are charged in accordance with the level of emissions they produce; to accommodate the growing number of electric vehicles & the different range of hybrid vehicles; & to bring Westminster into line with many neighbouring boroughs who have already implemented emissions-based charging.

The plans immediately provoked a backlash, with one resident claiming this was yet another tax on the poor motorist who was being used by the Council as a "convenient cash-cow" to subsidise its own inefficiencies.

Public consultation on the proposals ended on 14th February & subject to its findings the new residents' permits will be introduced on the revised date of 3rd June (with pay-to-park charges going up on 8th April).

War Veteran Hero remembered

One of the biggest stories of 2023 -- not just in Little Venice but almost it seemed throughout the world -- was the death of local resident Flight Sergeant Peter Brown, one of the last black "Pilots of the Caribbean" who came over from Jamaica aged 17 in 1943 & went on to fly five operations in Lancaster bombers. After he died alone aged 96 at his home in Warrington Crescent just over a year ago with no known family he seemed destined for a low-key funeral, but that was before a Council appeal to trace his relatives went viral & culminated in a hero's send-off at the RAF Church of St Clement Danes last May attended by hundreds of people. Now his friend & neighbour Paul Newman has organised a plaque on the bench at the top of Warrington Crescent where Peter often rested on his way to & from the shops. Our thanks to Westminster Council for providing the funding for this lasting memorial.