Advertiser review of the year 2020 - September

The bin collection saga, which has gone on to define 2020 for many residents, continued to rumble on in September.

First put down to ‘teething problems’ when contractor Serco switched back to weekly collections from fortnightly collections, the situation continued to escalate, with many residents not having their bins collected for weeks, leading to overflowing waste, maggots, and fears about rat infestations.

The mood among some residents in Dorney was not improved when a planning application to build a 400-bedroom hotel and renewable energy park in Lake End Road was submitted to the council.

Some residents took issue with the size of the development, which would be 10 storeys high, while others argued that it could improve the ‘eyesore’ site it would replace.

While that application remains in the planning stages, one major development was completed in September - Braywick Leisure centre, a new state-of-the-art sports facility, replacing the ageing Magnet Leisure Centre.

The new centre even includes a cafe that serves fresh pizza - perhaps making up for the closure of Pizza Hut in King Street. The restaurant had been closed since lockdown started in March but in September it was announced that it would never reopen its doors.

If you think hearts couldn’t sink any lower at that point, they could if you lived in Wooburn Green. A high tech radar scanner was lowered into a sinkhole in Sappers Field, determining that it was 45 metres deep.

After months of being stuck at home, the town’s school children were allowed to go back into class, but needed to adapt to the ‘new normal’ with many COVID-safe measures introduced in the classroom.

Cookham suffered ‘another nail in the coffin’ when it was announced its Nationwide branch was shutting down. The Burnham branch has also closed.

Meanwhile, the red light was shown to the council’s pride-themed rainbow crossing idea, after 82 per cent of residents rejected the idea, and a group of soroptimists raised money for Breast Cancer Now with some sponsored tea drinking.