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,

“Listing the stopping services only confuses the user,” said Rageoach spokesperson Elle Ington. “Our signs are specifically for the aid of the drivers who really haven’t got a clue. Bearing in mind that none of them generally last longer than 2 days in the job, we have to have contingencies to prevent them wasting time and fuel stopping anywhere useful.”

She continued “We’re sorry if our policies have caused any confusion but frankly all we care about is making shed-loads of money and actually letting people on and off can make a significant dent in our profits. The days when bus services were run for the customer are long gone. The only people on them now are the ‘chav’ and’ chav not’s’ who can’t afford cars. Most of them can’t write and if they can they can’t afford a stamp to send a complaint letter. No point wasting time and effort providing anything useful.”

The Citizen understand that the scheme to list all buses that do not stop will be rolled out across the town increasing the size of the average sign to approximately that of a small sail.

Local man Running Rob said, “At least it’ll be somewhere to shelter from the wind while waiting the odd 2 hours.”

Reg Varney was unavailable for comment.

STD have confirmed that a “senior manager” with little responsibility had taken it upon himself to release a statement about something they knew nothing about. Reading between the lines The Citizen believes that the statement was probably true, but STD had underestimated the reaction and has now put some poor junior in the firing line.

Reaction from the town was more varied. Self-thinking councillor Terence Dougall was incensed. “I can’t bloody believe it” he said. “I have a great idea to support local business and it falls at the first hurdle. I going to be thinking hard about it all weekend.”

However Cambridge Road resident L. Tisley, who we spoke to earlier this week, commented “Thank Christ for that. At least there’s an end in sight to my walking amongst the unwashed every morning and evening.”

SNTC plans to separate St Neots from the rest of England have been strongly denied (until Monday).

“I’m shocked!” said Cambridge Road resident L. Tisley. “When I bought this place I was promised a cinema, a super-dooper health centre and bridge so I wouldn’t have to walk amongst the chavs on the way to work. All I’ve got is a soccer pitch and a school and I hate football and haven’t got kids! It’s shocking!”

Thinking for quite some time, local councillor Terrence Dougall confirmed that not building the bridge would be good for local trade. “I’ve had a bloody good think about this,” he ranted, “and I’m now claiming that it was my idea to shelve the bridge plans thereby making people have to walk closer to the Town Centre. In fact I’m proposing that all routes to the station are blocked off unless they pass The Old Bridge. Which means everyone, even from Loves Farm, would only be able to get to the railway via Eaton Ford. That’ll help our struggling businesses. I thought of that myself you know.”

Sir Alec Guinness was unavailable for comment

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.”

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.