STORM Flies and Repeat Offenders will enter the valley in just over a month. Those are the names of just two of the groups that will thrill and excite the audience, as Marlow Bottom's own Rock Bottom festival returns for a second year. September 6 is the date, and the entertainment for young and old, on the playing field, will be continuous from noon until 9.30pm.

There are a host of other groups scheduled to be on stage during the day, but it’s best you visit the official website for the latest information and a lot more information about the arrangements. You can also get your tickets online.

Interestingly, there were some early worried public reactions before last year’s event – noise, traffic congestion and rowdy behaviour. In fact, on the day, there was no report of anything serious, and some older folk were delighted to join the crowds later in the evening and, reportedly, much enjoyed the experience. Visit www.marlowrockbottom. co.uk. This column will have further comments in future issues, but try to look at the website, it is very extensive indeed.

VALLEY Plus held yet another well-attended meeting last Tuesday. The hot weather induced the committee to distribute mugs of water to the audience to avoid any cases of exhaustion or dehydration – yes, we are having an exceptional summer.

The first speaker was Sara Loveday (you may remember her better as Sarah Diprose when she lived in the valley). Sarah is now the senior client liaison manager for the new Cliveden Manor Care and Nursing Home, just about to open on Little Marlow Road, near the A404 junction. This home is unusual in that it caters for residents of a very wide range of needs, from those who only want a comfortable retirement home, with no additional requirements beyond accommodation, to those in need of extensive attention for dementia or other age-related disabilities. In all aspects of their service, the home’s aim is to offer the highest quality available.

The high standards aspired to are exemplified by the management’s choice of Longhurst’s of Marlow Bottom as the butcher selected to supply meat to the kitchens.

The home opens for its first residents on August 6.

VALIANT wielder of the willow, Neale Hatch, previously of Thames Valley Properties, with help from the new care home, Cliveden Manor, is returning to the crease in support of the Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice.

He will captain a team to challenge the King’s Head Cricket Club, in a 30 overs match, followed by a raffle and a barbecue.

It all starts at 2pm on August 10 at the Church Road cricket ground in Little Marlow. It promises to be a great family afternoon out and should raise a respectable sum for the hospice.

Neale will be delighted to give you further information when you call 07767 700106 – he might even be encouraged to remind you of his former prowess in white flannels.

HANDY Cross was the subject of Graham Smith’s (from the Bucks Highways Department) presentation at Valley Plus. He was mainly concerned with the changes around Handy Cross related to the new development on the sports centre site.

Unfortunately, this seemed as if it should have been a follow-on session from a missing introductory exposition of the overall plans and strategy for the area.

He explained, with an admirable map, the procedures in place to achieve end results that were largely news to most of us – another fine information mess that WDC and BCC have left us in. There is to be no coach station, just a bus stop for Birmingham to London coaches. The sports centre will be much smaller, with minimal parking available. There will be a large Waitrose and a massive office development on most of the current parking areas.

The Park and Ride will move there, though it is possible that the new parking arrangements may be viewed by users as receiving a “negative outcome” – presumably council-speak that they intend to introduce charges.

Three sets of lights will be created between Handy Cross and John Hampden, one, an “upgrade” to the current sports centre junction, the other two to service two new entrances to the site (one of which is now under construction).

I assessed that most of the audience were less than completely satisfied with the content. A brief reference only to the current inadequacies of Handy Cross promised a new “intelligent” traffic light system linked to the roundabout, the new site entrances, the top of Marlow Hill, all with human monitored CCTV. The C100 issue will be considered in a traffic density survey at the beginning of next term.

It’s worrying that all these works are seen as belonging to each council or authority as its own isolated domain.

There is no apparent overall project management or joined-up thinking among the Highways Agency, BCC, Bucks Highways, WDC. Of course we, the public, are affected by the whole entity, but they don’t see things from our standpoint.

MARLOW Museum, which also represents the history of Marlow Bottom, as well as the other village communities in the immediate vicinity of the town, was the subject of the Valley Plus main talk, by Michael Hyde last Tuesday.

Next week, with more available space, I will talk about the museum’s plans for the future that he covered, particularly the subject of World War I, and the exhibitions over the next four years that will cover respectively the years between 1914 and 1918.