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- Flintshire Chronicle
The Chronicle has a round-up of Flintshire people who have been recognised in the Queen's New Year's Honours list, including Kathleen Fox of Buckley who was made an MBE for her voluntary work and Brian Fleet, Airbus' UK senior vice-president, who was appointed a CBE.

- Daily Post
The Daily Post reports on developments in Rhyl over the coming year. As well as the Ocean Plaza development there will be various improvements along the promenade.

- The Leader
Flintshire Council will be forced to make millions of pounds worth of cuts as a result of the turbulent economic climate.

- Tizer
Oswestry residents could have to wait a further three months before they learn where the town's new supermarket will be located.

- Denbighshire Free Press
The number of people filing for bankruptcy in Denbighshire during 2009 was 280 - higher than the national average in England and Wales. The food and drink sector has been particularly badly hit with many publicans being forced to declare themselves insolvent.

- The Leader
Wrexham town centre's CCTV system has been so successful that it is now held up as a model for other areas of the country. Since it was switched on 13 years ago it has helped to catch nearly 21,000 wrongdoers.

- Daily Post
Wales and Sale Sharks rugby star Eifion Lewis Roberts married 23-year-old Nia Williams in a snow-covered chapel in her home village of Clawddnewydd, near Ruthin.

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Yes, we wanted to wish our contributors Nadolig Llawen and Blwyddyn Newydd Dda [Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year] as a way to say 'thanks' for all your help over the last year.

What with people's greater use of and all around better ability to share things across the web, you've given us a lot of great tales, photos and comments over the last 12 months.

Not wanting this to sound like another nostalgic look back on the year, but...

We should say thanks to our for .

As well as receiving , comments through the blog and Wrexham FC chat, we've had a great response from photographers, especially from those using .

This photo is personal favourite, Craig Smith shot a great little film of the murmuration of starlings over Marchwiel

These photographers have filled our galleries regarding - that's everything other than chocolate box images, well, maybe one or two got through - as well as the and, since gaining , we've received 200 photos of showing why it's so popular and the busiest on the UK canal network.

Once again, diolch yn fawr iawn - thanks very much.

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UPDATES - Winter wonderland - Inside a pop star palace - Monks and mills - Good Samaritan hands back £900 - Tweet, tweet - Am-drams and pantos - Wildlife on the Dee

[Here's a copy of the weekly newsletter sent to email subscribers]

Thanks for all your photos showing , from white water on the Dee to snowy views from the Clwydian Range.

Changing Rooms presenter Laurence Llewelyn Bowen takes a journey through the grand corridors of , which has gone from a Welsh noble's country seat to a family home full of 'showbiz bling'.

A man who found £880 blowing down the road in Oswestry has been praised for handing the cash in to police.

As pantomimes are in full swing at the region's main theatres, use our weblinks to find out what the are going to be doing this season.

How a Llangollen village became home to the monks of - and a fountain pen factory.

Experts reveal where to spot wildlife on the Dee estuary at winter.

Local diocese websites - and - provide links to the region's churches and service information over Christmas.

to find out what's being discussed on the web concerning this part of the world.

The band will miss out on the chance to represent Wales in the 2010 European Championships in Austria because it cannot afford to go.

Merry Christmas - Nadolig Llawen

Bye for now - Hwyl am y tro

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- Leader
A transport grant from the Welsh Assembly has resulted in Wrexham's train station becoming a PlusBus station on the national rail network. A new bus stop and shelter have been built near the entrance to Wrexham General to enable train passengers to catch a bus from the station to villages near Wrexham.

- Daily Post
89-year-old Jack Quirk, of Graigfechan, near Ruthin, has been presented with the Normandy Bar, an honour presented by the regional council of Lower Normandy to those who served in the region during the liberation of France, commemorating the 65th anniversary of the landings during World War II.

- Leader
People from arts groups all over Wrexham came together to set up a new forum which will work to enhance the town's arts scene.

- Tizer
Stan's Superstore in St Martins reached the finals of the Robert Wiseman Dairies Shop of the Year Awards for the second year running after again being nominated by its
satisfied customers.

- Leader
Christmas day in Flintshire will be 'bright, cold and cloudy' according to the Met Office, but chances of the white stuff are slim.
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A total of 92 grassroots projects from across Wales today share in the £340,875 awarded under the latest round of small grants programme - and how many of those are from our part of the world?

The answer is five. Three from Denbighshire, two for Flintshire and none from Wrexham:

1. Waen Parish Hall Charity, Denbighshire, £3,696
2. St Asaph Friendship Youth Group, Denbighshire, £4,967
3. The Kids Fun Club (Rhyl & District), Denbighshire, £5,000
4. LAFS (Lixwm Afterschool ) Club, Flintshire, £4,805
5. The Mold Darby and Joan Club, Flintshire, £5,000

BIG's press release says: "Recognised as one of the quickest ways to secure lottery funding, Awards for All is one of the most successful lottery funding programmes to date and has injected grants of between £500 and £5,000 into a wide range of community projects since its inception."

Other areas took up the offer and won't be disappointed with the latest round of payouts:

Anglesey, five projects receive more than £17,500
Carmarthenshire, 12 projects receive more than £40,0000
Cardiff, four projects receive £15,000
Conwy, eight projects receive more than £30,000
Gwynedd, four projects receive £18,000
And the list goes on.

The biggest of BIG's winners in this latest round is the , says the press release.

on the Awards for All website.

And the site has also got a to a group by county.

Meanwhile, if you need any kind of advice for your group, try an organisation like as they run all sorts of help and training courses. There are similar groups in other counties.

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- Leader
Hilary Fraser from Flint is not putting up a tree or cooking a turkey because son, Luciano Ciati, is serving with the Army in Afghanistan and will not be with her to celebrate.
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- ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 2 Jeremy Vine - 'Remembering the Troops' Christmas special

- Leader
That's the radical plan from Shotton town councillor Elwyn Jones who says a tunnel under Shotton could alleviate the nightmare jams.
- It's not the first time ideas have been dreamed up

- Daily Post
Brian and Andrea Wilson from Towyn were rocked last Christmas to discover their eight-year-old son Jack's head-cold was down to a potentially life threatening kidney disease. Now, Brian is preparing to donate one of his kidneys to Jack.

- Denbighshire Visitor
The Welsh Assembly Government have allocated £1.35 million of a £24 million north Wales regeneration project to be spent on regeneration in South Rhyl, Denbigh and West Parade, Rhyl.

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Having added to our photo pool, this morning got me thinking about some photos we added a few years back when our website looked like this.

Since then we've had quite a few updates to our site. And so I got to work making the most of our archive photos [courtesy of Wrexham Museum] as, I hope you agree, to better effect.

Thanks for the reminder Allhails.

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We've been talking about traffic problems for as long as any of us can remember [tag: ] but have we really seen much in the way of improvements?

This time, it's back on the , but now it's requiring a more 'act now or else' response from Wrexham Council due to a traffic study which predicts roads around the town centre will soon become gridlocked unless drastic steps are taken.

Today's seems to be the first to digest a which makes for grim reading.

"Without intervention, the existing network infrastructure will not be able to sustain the predicted future traffic demands," says the report.

The study said the traffic hotspots are set to centre on the west of Wrexham's town centre with major developments at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and Glyndwr University.

It says the focus should be on sustainable transport modes like walking, cycling routes, better public transport and maximising parking to help manage traffic flows.

They also want to delegate powers to chief transport and environment officers to suspend roadworks on any day if they are causing serious snarl-ups.

So, over to you - do these steps go far enough?

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- Daily Post
Three masked men wielding a baseball bat and a machete burst into the Spar store and Post Office on London Road in Sychdyn, near Mold, and threatened a terrified member of staff but escaped with only a small amount of cash.

- Rhyl Journal
More than 1,100 residents on the Park View Estate, off Dyserth Road, Rhyl, objected to plans to build a residential care home, day nursery and community centre on green space earmarked for community facilities on land off Ffordd Elan. The application has been turned down by Denbighshire Council.

- Leader
A 33-year-old man suffered seven per cent burns to both his hands when a small explosion occurred in an oil drum he was using to burn rubbish at The Car Clinic, in Queensway, Wrexham.

- Flintshire Chronicle
The service at St Mary's Church, Bagillt, won't have any carols says Rev Sarah Hildreth who tells the paper: "It strikes me that although Christmas is an exciting and happy time for most of us, for some people it can be very difficult."

- Oswestry Advertizer
Plans for a new weekend camping music festival, OsFest, at Oswestry, are being billed as "an affordable alternative to the 'V' and Glastonbury style festivals" according to its organisers, 7th Sense Event Management, who say they are in discussions with acts such as Tinchy Stryder and Calvin Harris to perform at the festival.

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Here's an aside as and locals meet tonight to amid concern about rising levels of the Dee.

It seems we've forever been trying to hold back the waters, according to a fascinating report, a , which was produced to highlight the historical importance of this waterway while recording archaeological features before they possibly disappear beneath the waves.

Survey authors Nigel Jones and Bob Silvester conducted their in 1996, concluding:

Most of the Clwyd coastline is stable, largely due to extensive artificial coastal protection schemes, but some is still low lying or even below the high water mark. Rising sea levels could have a serious impact on this landscape and its archaeology, as has the development of both light industry and tourism.

Regarding existing coastal protection and farming, they noted:

Reclaimed former salt marsh and their subsequent protection from the sea has greatly affected the nature of much of the coastline too. This is particularly true around Abergele, Towyn and Prestatyn on the Irish Sea, and the whole of the upper River Dee Estuary. Many of the seabanks built for this purpose still survive, in some cases continuing their function of coastal defence.

Long before decent roads, the Dee was an obvious means of travel, and from what I've gleaned so far, the 18th Century River Dee Company was charged with maintaining the waterway.

...virtually every inlet along the Dee seems to have been utilised as a quay, although most are now silted and disused.

As well as the better known Foryd Harbour at Rhyl and Mostyn Docks, the authors also mention Talacre Harbour [can anyone shed more light on this?].

They point out that many of these 18th and 19th Century quays were built to serve ironworks, steelworks, collieries, and lead industries, from nearby Point of Ayr all the way over to the Wrexham-Shropshire border which was peppered with coal mines.

Further up the Dee, on reclaimed salt marshes, many smaller jetties and landing stages were built to serve specific industries at Connah's Quay, Queensferry, Aston Quay and Sandycroft Quay.

In more recent times, the jetty at Connah's Quay was particularly busy, serving Shotton Steelworks, and then, in the 1800s, there was the ferry which gave Queensferry its name.

And then there was the time the Dee froze over, but that's a different story...

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- Daily Post
Triplets Lee, Logan and Sarah, born 10 weeks premature to Deeside couple Luke and Emily are 'doing exceptionally well' in hospital.

- Leader
The devastated partner of a keen Wrexham musician has told how he died in her arms after suffering a heart attack.

- Rhyl Journal
Rhyl is finally having its voice heard over the Royal Alexandra Hospital. That is the view of Cllr John Bellis after a meeting with the Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board at which he handed a 500-signature petition calling for the hospital to remain as a inpatient facility and for a walk-in minor accident ward.

- Daily Post
Locals living opposite a potential prison site say it would be a welcome boost for the area's economy.

- Leader
A family is facing another miserable Christmas a year after a gas blast wrecked their home. Pensioners Derek and Margaret Roberts and their son David, 42, are still suffering the effects of a terrifying blast that blew their Mold home to pieces.

- Flintshire Chronicle
Four council workers in Flint have been told they might not have jobs to come to back to after Christmas. The catering roles - based at County Offices, formerly Delyn House - have been made redundant by Flintshire County Council.
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