Further Ruddington Bus Cuts Revealed

With Ruddington’s population continuing to grow substantially, largely as a result of significant recent housebuilding on our former Green Belt, you might think there’d actually be the demand for more bus services to and from our busy village? Yet the cutbacks to NCT’s Navy 3 timetable, and the axing of CT4N’s number 22 and 23 services, tell a different story – one where increasing numbers of residents and village workers are choosing to hop into their cars and drive instead – or even to book a taxi – rather than take…

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Ruddington Shops Update

Earlier this month we revealed how a new ‘Farm Shop’ has opened at The White Horse Inn on Wednesdays to Saturdays. There are now further, exciting Ruddington shop changes to report – and some still to come. Firstly, ‘ASDA On The Move’ which RUDDINGTON.info reported a year ago would be coming to Euro Garages’ expanded Ruddington Service Station premises along Loughborough Road, has finally arrived!  It stocks up to 2,500 ASDA own brand, premium own-label ‘Extra Special’ and branded products – including bakery, fresh, chilled and ‘ambient’ groceries – along…

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Digital Recovery Grants Still Available

Ruddington’s high street businesses and established village centre business groups are being reminded they may still be able to receive support for their online presence from Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC). It’s thanks to the ‘High Street Businesses Covid Digital Recovery Grant’ which aims to help eligible traders to adapt further to improve their online profile or sales. Small to medium sized retail, hospitality, personal care, leisure, tourism and other enterprises here in Ruddington and elsewhere in the Borough can now access up to £1,000 – over and above other pandemic-related central government grant…

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A Plethora of New Village Businesses

Whilst many high streets up and down the country continue to struggle in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and people’s changing shopping habits, it seems Ruddington is coping better than many. Although there have been shop closures here, generally our retail units in the village centre don’t stay empty for long. Currently there are plenty of new arrivals. In fact the opening of ‘The Courtyard’ two years ago – an attractive new shopping precinct where mainly derelict old buildings used to be – plus the redevelopment of the former Barclay & Cook site…

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Ruddington Ally’s Grand Designs

A village resident who lost her job in graphic design during the Coronavirus pandemic has literally carved out a brand new career – which has proved so successful she’s been invited to showcase it to a national audience! Ruddington’s Ally Booker is over at the Birmingham NEC from this Wednesday to Sunday (5th – 9th October) for Channel 4 TV’s ‘Grand Designs – Live’ doing demonstrations in their ‘Sustainable Future Theatre’. Organisers found out about Ally and her upcycled furniture business Restoration Hut from her linked Instagram account. “They are really invested in discovering and promoting…

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The Bottle Top – Café, Beer & Eco Shop

When Glyn Thomas’s much loved Greengrocers closed its doors in 2018, locals feared the heart and been ripped out of Ruddington and that our village centre would never be the same again. It was clear that a shop dedicated solely to selling fresh fruit and vegetables may no longer be viable, nevertheless 2, High Street has now become a new hub of the community thanks to the vision of husband and wife team Anthony and Alex Preston. Together they brought to Ruddington a brand new business called The Bottle Top, which opened on May…

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COVID Is Not Over, Ruddington

Whilst it’s no longer a cause for alarm for most of us, villagers may still be interested to see this latest Government map – indicating a surge in COVID-19 cases detected in Ruddington this month. The latest statistics from the official Coronavirus website show our village went ‘purple’ again for the 7-day period ending 10th September 2022 – recording a case rate of 442.3 people per 100,000 of population – making Ruddington rather an unexpected UK ‘hotspot’ for current infections. Now that there’s so little testing done, it’s likely actual…

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Surgery Opening Hours Cuts Planned

Following an earlier consultation in January for patients registered at Ruddington’s Church House Surgery, it’s been revealed the next, proposed stage is to make our village practice part-time permanently. Pre-pandemic, the Shaw Street doctors was open from 8.30am to 6.30pm weekdays – except on Thursdays when it was 7am to 12.30pm. The latest plans from The Village Health Group (VHG) would see its hours halved to 8am until 1.00pm on weekdays on a permanent basis. A letter sent to VHG patients and stakeholders explains: “General practice has remained open throughout the pandemic and patients…

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James Peacock Plummets in Ofsted Ratings

James Peacock Infant and Nursery School had a two-day inspection last month under Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework (EIF), introduced in September 2019. It concluded that the Ruddington school has fallen from being ‘Outstanding’ (in 2010) down to ‘Requires improvement’ in every category – as shown below from its Ofsted school report. Ofsted ratings are: (1) Outstanding; (2) Good; (3) Requires Improvement; or (4) Inadequate. The report states that, until recently, there’s been both a lack of leadership at the school and with its Governing Body which led to “a period of…

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COVID-19 Rife Again in Ruddington!

With the horrendous situation in Ukraine dominating the news agenda at the moment, the ongoing issue of the Coronavirus pandemic is perhaps understandably no longer at the forefront of villagers’ minds. In the last couple of months alone, the Government (in England) has dispensed with the mandatory wearing of face coverings in most public settings, withdrawn ‘contact tracing’ and removed the legal requirement for us to take tests or self-isolate. Then, just last week, as it continues its plan for ‘Living with COVID-19’, even the need for taking COVID tests…

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