Belland Hill, which gained it’s name sometime in the last couple of weeks, is not named after anything in particular, according to councillors and developers.

However, the name is just one vowel away from a slang term for part of the male anatomy – or rather the end of part of the male anatomy. This has got citizens a bit riled up.

“This is disgraceful,” said Stone Hill resident Mick Trucknell, 42. “It’s bad enough living on roads called Hill when there’s only a 0.5% incline, but making the first part of the name this explicit? They might as well have erected a sign calling it Nobend Close!”

Councillors were, predictably, not forthcoming about the new name. “The thing is,” said former council leader Derek Miles, “it’s usually the councillors who suggest names for the new roads, so one of them is clearly having a giggle. Maybe it’s got something to do with all the cock-waving going on now we’re friends with the Tories?”

Lib Dem town and now District Councillor Steve van der Whitevanman, whose email address is now a record 746 characters long, strongly denied adjusting the final A on the roadsign to an E, despite having smudgy black marker-pen ink all over his hands. “I was, er, drawing a poster, yes that’s it,” said WVM yesterday. “I certainly didn’t change the sign to say Balland or any other connotation…”

In other news, the Citizen has resorted to nob gags, and is very sorry,

“My house is cracking up,” said Burnt Close resident Sarah Camistic, “and if it goes on much longer I will be too.”

“It’s blatantly the fault of them scientists,” said Eaton Socon man Max Speed. “There’s probably a black hole underneath Eynesbury, which is ever so slowly, imperceptably shrinking all the houses.

“Of course, cement and bricks don’t like being shrunk, so they’re falling to pieces instead.”

Long-suffering CERN spokesman Guillaume la Trec said in an email to the Citizen that he refused to believe the LHC had anything to do with the houses in Eynesbury sinking, and maybe if we had got French builders to build them they would be better quality. “That’s as maybe,” retorted Camistic, “but we’d still be waiting for them to finish their thirtieth Gauloise of the day, and thirty years on we’d barely have foundations.”

Local geologist Garph Jonas, 27, offered another explanation for the phenomenon. “I reckon there’s some massive stone-age caves under Eynesbury, or possibly a mass grave for plague victims from Huntingdon. We should probably knock all the houses down on a whim to check.”

In other news, the Citizen reported this story without speaking to any councillors. Well done us.

© st-neots.co.uk

Not wishing to be associated with the notorious North Cambridge estate, a resident’s group on the new site, sandwiched between Kings Hedges and the A14, managed to lobby the City Council to officially name the new area “Orchard Park”.

Eynesbury Manor is not quite the same, lacking as it does Orchard Park’s planned wealth of facilities, such as shops, schools, bus stops and even a post box or two; and being essentially a glorified housing estate.

Eynesbury Manor is not even the official name for the area, it is in fact just a district of St Neots – and then not until 2011 when the parish boundaries are redrawn. But the developers’ names for areas have a habit of sticking in St Neots, the Parklands area being the most notable example, and Love’s Farm being the most obvious – being built, as it is, on Love’s Farm. “It makes me chuckle a little bit,” said local property company Twiglet Homes marketing manager Ronald Lawrence. “Whenever someone builds a new estate – sorry, development – I come up with a pretty name to help flog it to people who have never visited the town. Some, such as Kingsmead (the Priory Park estate) do not stick, but most such as the Island and Eynesbury Manor do.

“Love’s Farm even looks set to become the official name for St Neots first new proper subdivision, which would be a bigger stroke of genius if I had actually made it up myself.”

But what monikor to slap on the much-maligned municipality, which in the past has been referred to variously as Eynesbury Floodplains and “What, they’re building underwater?” Eynesbury Riviera was mooted months ago by our own reporters, but new arrivals from out of town are adamant that the E-word is not acceptable – despite Eynesbury having been the original town upon which St Neots was founded.

“Well, I thought Eynesbury was a nice word when I bought my house off-plan,” said former Abingdon, Oxon resident Jean Batchworth, 53. “There was the added fun of guessing how to pronounce it – like Eye-ns-bury, Eensrough etc. Then I moved here and realised Eynesbury was looked upon as the ‘slightly dirty’ East side of town, and this is sure to drop the value of my townhouse which isn’t in town. Most upsetting.”

Most people questioned thought that a historical link would be appropriate, despite Eynesbury being a corruption of Ernulf’s Burgh, after the 12th century Bishop of Rochester. As we know, locals are wont to ignore this fact, rubbing the Bishop’s name into obscurity earlier this decade by changing the name of the local secondary school to something instantly forgettable.

“How about New Barford?” suggested June Harpendale, 39, formerly of Bolton, Lancs. “Sounds quite nice, and there’s that village nearby eh, Great Barford or Little Barford or summat.”

Town councillors immediately rubbished the idea. Steven van der Whitevandriverman, himself a long-serving Eastside resident, said “this is all bollocks. These people need to accept they have been sold a lie, and Eynesbury is not posh. Un fucking lucky mate, now, re-election yes? Good.”

The Citizen expects that in twenty years’ time, only people under the age of 30 now will remember the estate ever having had a name, especially since by this time it will mostly be sub-aqua anyway.

A spokesman said, “B&Q just don’t have that much green paint.” The DIY giant said that they would be happy to negotiate a discount on own-branded paints of other colours, but that a pink, blue and grey suburb would not be in keeping with the surroundings.

We had hoped to bring you more information from this conference, however someone else enquired into Cllr Miles rumoured breakdown, at which point the conference was declared finished.

From our Australian correspondant

Recent advertisements for an event Ernulf this weekend say that “Eynesbury is on the up and local residents, with support from Luminus Group, are staging a day of fun and information for residents to find out what’s changing in the area and how to get involved.”

This fuelled speculation in the area that, as much of Eynesbury is prone to flooding, the housing association was planning to raise all the houses in the area by three inches using hydraulic piles, or stilts, in a similar style to the canalside buildings of Amsterdam.

The 2004 film, starring Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts and the late Bernie Mac, among others, centred around the theft of the worlds oldest stock certificate and part of this plan involved raising an entire building by adjusting its underwater piles.

“It’s utter tosh,” said Deputy Town Mayor cllr Alan Runnings. “We mean Eynesbury is on the up in a social and metaphorical sense, not literally on the up.”

“Bugger,” said Caldecote Road resident Mary Lugden, 42. “I was looking forward to seeing George Clooney and his mob crawling around under my house. I’ll have to stick to repeats of ER on More 4 in the middle of the day.”

Development has already slowed on the Loves Farm development in the Far East section of the town, on account of nobody buying the houses. Larry Tate, spokesman for developers Slovis, said, “We’ve been having trouble selling houses on the Loves Farm Development so the council has decided the answer to this is to build another five thousand houses on the other side of the road.

“Anyone can see this is madness,” Tate continued, “Even we aren’t that fucking stupid.”

However, District Council spokesman Ian Thwaites said, “This kind of development is exactly what is needed in St Neots. Indeed, more houses might actually mean a population boost in the town.”

Unemployed former Town Council spokesman Dean Dexter, who was fired for his comments about the August Festival, said, “Obviously the District Council think that St Neots is some sort of well-connected urban centre. This is obvious because they said so. They must be living in a dream world. Clearly the East of England Development Agency are upset that their plans for Hanley Grange got overturned and want to shaft another small town instead.” Hanley Grange was to be the first so-called Eco Town in Cambridgeshire, but after Tesco pulled out plans were shelved. Local residents are also unimpressed. A local pyromaniac was quoted as saying, “Flaming heck, not more houses. D’you see what I did there?”

Developers Carrot Homes, however, were optimistic about the possibility of building a massive new estate behind the builders centre, and said, “If you let us do it we might build you a cinema.”

Even the most fervent supporters of St Neots lifestyle and living have been surprised at how exclusive these riverside apartments have now become.

However Twiggy Holmes, local property developer and housing magnate, showed little shock at this turn of events. ” We always knew that land prone to flooding, its own health centre, Tesco’s on the doorstep and a view of the bypass would attract massive interest from the million pound plus market.” She added, “Most people think Sandbanks is exclusive but actually all the properties are inhabited. So far only one person lives on the Eynesbury Riviera, how much more exclusive can you get?”

Ms Holmes was less forthcoming about the accusation that the development’s increased status had only come about due to Oi!! Magazine referring to it as “Eynesbury Riviera” rather than “Eynesbury Marina” and that this had resulted in Google searches returning it just above the Cote D’Azure. “What utter tosh,” she continued, “everyone knows what a rag that magazine is, frankly our marketing department identified its potential years ago and we’ve been promoting it as a rival to any of the world’s property hotspots for ages.”

Interestingly, the Riviera’s only occupant, Thundopolus P. Staker is in fact Oi!!’s infamous editor. In a rare interview Staker told us “Yer well, in this market my capital was well reducing so I came up wiv the Riviera moniker and now my gaff’s wurf about 5 mil- serweet! I thought I might call it Eastbanks but that just sounded like a telly programme”.

Prince Albert II of Monaco was unavailable for comment.

One of St Neots’ oldest and proudest traditions is the building, and importing, of empty shops into the High Street and Market Square. Typically these shops fulfill their purpose after around 18 months and become an opticians, charity shop or card retailer.

However, recently less and less empty shops have been required in town. “We’re not really sure what’s caused this,” said local business landlords CH Charford. “There’s always been a good market for empty units in the town but I suppose it’s something to do with the credit crunch.”

“Indeed,” commented economics expert Martin Lanes, of Longsands College. “It’s mostly down to the huge second-hand market opening up. When there’s units like the old Choices store and the Eynesbury Dry Cleaners shop available, no-one’s going to pay top dollar for a brand-new empty shop. The market is getting, if not saturated, certainly very damp.”

Developers Slovis announced that they were already dealing with the problem by building empty houses instead. Spokesman Larry Tate said, “Since the Cornwallis Drive fiasco of the early 90′s, when they built half an estate then went bust leaving it untouched for twleve years, there has beena  shortage of long-term empty properties in St Neots.” Slovis are combatting this by half-finishing the Loves Farm development, to the east of the railway line. “I am sure the people who have already moved in will be delighted to be surrounded by shells of houses for about the next decade,” said Tate, “before we finish them on the cheap and sell them for a ridiculous amount of money.”

Local taxpayers were sceptical though. One correspondant, who asked to be identified as only “Name and Address Supplied”, told the Citizen they were fuming. “These empty houses will only bring trouble. They’re not inside the town’s boundaries so all that empty-propert council tax will go elsewhere. They need to build at least another three roundabouts and five sets of traffic lights before I’ll be happy, as other developers have done in the past.”

The Citizen will, of course, keep you up to date with developments in the “Far East” section of town.

Leading UK architect Ben Shuttleworth said, “We’ve been very blinkered with the design of our commercial and residential property in Great Britain. It wasn’t until a resident of Eynesbury’s Humberley Close wrote to tell us about how their road was simply the best place to live for so many different reasons, that we had to visit.”

A delegation of top City experts was swiftly despatched northwards.

“The result was a no-brainer,” said Shuttleworth. “The stylish way that the properties of the Broadwalk back on to Hardwick Road, enhanced with cars on bricks, England flags, demolished caravans and disused car parks shouted Sixties chic. The low-rise tower blocks of Hall Road, with their simple straight-line design… such unique aesthetic aspirations are hard to find.”

He went on to say, “It’s thanks to such a talented team as the local authority designing such amazing residential properties, followed by world class deisigners such as Ivor Twigden, that this country has such architectural merits – and Eynesbury is honoured to be the hub of such greatness.”

With tourists starting to come thick and fast to see the latest amazing style, house prices have already rocketed, with the average property price in Ferrars Avenue being valued at nearly one Rowley Million, and the residences of Burnt Close receiving offers over £1.4m. It is also rumoured that many celebrities have already secured deposits and that Eynesbury could, as a reult, become the UK’s new footballer and trash-mag-royalty destination, usurping Primrose Hill as “the place to live”.

The announcement was not without it’s downside however. Eaton Socon’s Queens Gardens and Monarch Road areas were mostly developed around the same time as “New” Eynesbury, but have been largely overlooked by Shuttleworth and his associates. “I don’t see what the Eastside’s got that we haven’t,” said Daisy Fields of Crown Walk. “I’ve lived here since I moved up from Bethnal Green in ’72 and it’s clearly nicer than Eynesbury.”

The Citizen reserves judgement.

Story by Sarcamistic