A 29 per cent drop off in the net growth rate of companies in Hemel Hempstead is nothing to worry about, say the experts.

Duport.co.uk, a business that helps other firms set up, has looked at the figures for 2012 and says the register of companies increased by 305 in the year, some 29 per cent down on the 431 increase in 2011.

Duport says the growth figure was affected by double whammy nine per cent drop in company formations and an 11 per cent rise in closures.

This, it suggests in Duport Business Confidence, means trading conditions are still difficult for companies in the area.

But both Duport.co.uk and Dacorum Borough Council were quick to accentuate the positives in the local economy.

Council leader Councillor Andrew Williams said it is clear that the economy is strong and prosperous.

Mr Williams, who has recently taken on the economic development portfolio at the council, added: “The net growth of new businesses did dip slightly in 2012 compared to the previous year, however there was a net increase of more than 300 new businesses.

“We have the lowest unemployment rate in the county and as a council we are firmly committed to doing everything we can to help the local economy to prosper.”

He added that work on the economy includes attracting further investment, offering care and retention support to our entire business community.

Mr Williams added: “The master plans that we’ve put together for the Maylands Business Park and Hemel Hempstead town centre show that we’re prepared to make the physical changes to the area that are needed to make Dacorum an increasingly attractive prospect for organisations and that we’re a borough that’s open for business.”

The work of the council was also praised by the boss of Duport.

Managing director Peter Valaitis said: “Although our report shows a dip in net company growth, the numbers seen in 2012 are far better than during 2009, when net company growth dropped to just 34. The local council is working hard to regenerate and modernise Hemel Hempstead – and I’m sure local businesses will reap the benefits in years to come.”

Visit www.duport.co.uk/hemelhempstead for more data.

Plans for a Maylands relief road to ease congestion at Hemel Hempstead’s prime industrial area are being seriously considered by Herts County Council.

Proposals for a new road, with an estimated cost of up to £5million, go back as far as 1999 but the area’s economic success is making the idea a priority.

Behind the scenes the government is devolving decision making power on major transport schemes to local authorities. The handover should be complete by 2015.

A new Hertfordshire Local Transport Body is already working on its list of priorities in readiness for that change.

The M1-Maylands Link NE Relief Road was considered at the body’s second so-called ‘shadow meeting.’

Hemel Hempstead MP Mike Penning, however, wants the planners to look more strategically, beyond the medium term and go for a new M1 Junction 8a.

The former transport minister said: “The area between the motorway and Maylands is going to be developed so they should look into the long-term and get the developers to contribute to a new Junction 8a.” He approved a similar scheme during his time in the post.

A business group is looking for good news stories from companies in Dacorum and has appointed a new person to dig them out.

Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, lead by acting chief executive Yolanda Rugg, is looking at promoting examples of best practice as a way of increasing confidence in the economy.

The Chamber’s appointment of Pippa Hutchinson in the role of business development and engagement manager for Dacorum marks a renewed presence in the borough for the group.

Mum of two Pippa, who lives in Berkhamsted, will be based for at least some of her time at Maylands Business Centre, in Redbourn Road, Hemel Hempstead.

The former Tesco and BBC marketing chief told a networking meeting at Metro Bank, in Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead that she is “extremely passionate” about local businesses and has been impressed by the work Dacorum Borough Council was doing to help companies.

She will help to enhance business performance by fostering alliances and partnerships across the business community and will encourage and work with companies to share success stories and case studies of best practice.

Pippa, who also has a small business of her own, will be providing advice and guidance and connecting them through networking opportunities.

Chris Taylor, group manager for strategic planning and regeneration at Dacorum Borough Council said:“I would like to welcome Pippa to Dacorum and I am looking forward to her working together with our team of passionate people who strive to make the economy of Dacorum thrive.”

In January last year Pippa developed and launched an online greeting cards business at www.charliecustard.co.uk.

She built the website herself and won a Mumpreneur award for her efforts.

Construction work for a state of the art new company headquarters building is due to begin in the next few months.

Henkel, famous for brands including Loctite and Sellotape, is planning on relocating its workforce from other sites in Aylesbury and Hatfield to Hemel Hempstead.

A spokesman for Henkel, which already occupies a site in Wood Lane End on the Maylands business park, said preliminary work has begun on making the site ready.

The spokesman said: “Preliminary work has begun and construction is scheduled to commence in the coming months with completion scheduled for Q3 (July-September) 2014 .

“The building will be the new UK headquarters for Henkel, reaffirming our commitment to Hemel Hempstead.”

The new building, for which planning permission was obtained last year, has been designed by a company called Cornish Architects.

They are aiming to get the wow factor in what is a prominent part of the estate.

The building currently houses a Henkel industrial process department. The new HQ will continue to house many of the functions already based in Hemel Hempstead.

Henkel, a German-owned company, owns 15,465 sq-metres of land immediately to the East of the decked car park which serves the Dixons building.

Needlecrafters who want a frugal way to update their wardrobe should pop along to an upcycling event on June 4.

The event, which is to be held between 9.30am and 11.30am in the Anglers Retreat pub, costs £10 and includes a coffee or soft drink.

Those who attend are asked to bring two items they would like to upcycle, plus a bag of scrap fabrics, beads, buttons, lace and ribbon to share.

To book, call 07761 222196.

Berkhamsted’s fine dining restaurant The Gatsby is looking forward to neighbouring cinema The Rex showing Hollywood’s latest adaptation of the famous F Scott Fitzgerald novel.

Baz Luhrmann’s film interpretation of The Great Gatsby, which has been in cinemas for almost a fortnight, has reportedly had little effect on the restaurant’s already good custom so far.

But Kate Marrin of The Gatsby said: “The book has always been mentioned to us over the last eight years, as it is so well-known, but we haven’t noticed anything different since the latest film came out.

“I expect once it is shown in The Rex cinema we will be bombarded.”

The Rex, next to The Gatsby on Berkhamsted High Street, will show the film from late July.

A camera and photography club is appealing for new members to join friendly Thursday evening meetings.

Tring and District Camera Club is holding a free open evening on Thursday, May 30 for newcomers to see what it’s all about.

The club runs weekly from April to September and holds regular competitions, practical hints and tips sessions and relevant talks from visiting guest speakers.

For more information, visit www.tringcameraclub.co.uk or call 01442 824580.

A dementia awareness group is holding its first meeting on Sunday, June 2, in Tring.

Dementia Friendly Tring will be at the town’s High Street Baptist Church from 6.30pm, and will include information via video and leaflets, plus discussion.

The session aims to give people an understanding of dementia, and what could make a difference to those affected in the community.

The Herts Falcons bounced back to form at the weekend as they recorded two wins in a double-header with second-placed Southampton Mustangs.

A disappointing sequence of results over the previous two weekends had seen the Falcons slip from the top of the National Baseball League standings down into third.

But they had a chance to put that right with the visit of the Mustangs to Grovehill Ballpark, and it was an opportunity they seized with both hands.

The first game was a tight affair, with no runs scored until the bottom of the sixth inning when Ryan Bird smashed a Gary Davison pitch over the fence for the only two runs of the game. Pitcher Robbie Unsell then secured the win with a shutout on the mound.

In game two, veteran pitcher Mike Osborn held his nerve to steer the Falcons through to a winning position, before Unsell came back to the mound to close out a 4-3 win.

At the other end of the British league – in the fourth tier – two Herts teams were in action and both came through to register big wins.

The Eagles were helped by solid pitching from Andrew Slater, before player–manager Duncan Hoyle claimed the win in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Herts Raptors, meanwhile, travelled to Finsbury Park to take on the London Marauders and emerged with an 18–13 win.

The results push both Herts teams into a three-way tie at the top of the standings.

Is your dad your hero? Superman will be flying in to Riverside Shopping Centre to give families a special memento in time for Father’s Day.

The mall in Hemel Hempstead town centre is offering children and their dads the opportunity to have their photo taken with the action hero on Saturday, June 8 from 11am to 4pm.

A pile of exercise books was set on fire outside Cavendish School in Hemel Hempstead last night.

Firefighters were called at 11.45pm by a neighbour of the site who reported a loud mystery noise.

Crew commander Mark Mannell said: “He said he heard a bang – he said it was a really big bang, like the one at Buncefield.”

Four or five books of schoolwork that had been set alight were extinguished. It is not yet known whether the pupils’ work was current or not.

In the third instalment of Curveballs and Sliders, Joe Gray explores the surprising history of baseball in Britain.

Baseball came to Britain in 1874, with a visit from the world-touring Boston Red Stockings and Philadelphia Athletics.

Two years later, domestic clubs sprung up in the Leicester area, but they faded from the record as quickly as they appeared, and it was not until 1890 that the first structured domestic baseball competition was organised, in the form of a four-team national professional circuit – won by a team run as part of the famous Aston Villa Football Club – and parallel amateur competitions.

The pro loop had been enabled by the financial backing of sports equipment mogul AG Spalding, who had taken a second world tour to Britain in 1889 and had his eyes on global expansion.

However, the importance of a baseball coaching programme provided by American collegians in the summer of 1889 should not be underestimated.

Sir Francis Ley, the first 19th Century inductee in the British Baseball Hall of Fame (BBHoF), independently funded a team from Derby in the pro league, building them a genuine diamond with all the trimmings, and later supported the Derby amateur team, which claimed three national titles in the 1890s.

Competition in the first half of the 20th Century was sporadic. A London loop, again with ties to soccer teams, ran between 1906 and 1911.

After that, baseball operations were of a limited nature for two decades, excluding the further visits from Major League touring parties – in 1914 and 1924 – and a peak of activity linked to the North American military and naval presence during World War I.

One notable domestic exception was the thriving local programme run in Chipping Norton by Fred Lewis, another BBHoF inductee.

A dramatic ramping-up of British baseball came with the financial backing of Sir John Moores, beginning in 1933.

Within a few years three regional pro leagues were being run, and the games were drawing large crowds – including an 11,000 gate at the 1937 national final.

Sir John also supported a Test series between England and the US Olympic team in 1938, which the home team won 4–1, thanks in large part to two shutouts from Ross Kendrick. (Decades later, the series was designated as the first World Cup by the International Baseball Federation.)

In 1938, Kendrick was also involved in what was arguably the greatest game ever played in Britain. As a member of the Oldham Greyhounds, he came up on the losing end of a 1–0 national final, in which he struck out 20 in a 15-inning complete game. Sir John and Kendrick were both enshrined in the inaugural BBHoF class.

World War II brought a sudden end to the booming domestic structure, and after the conflict, although the game has gone through oscillations of popularity, it has never reached the level that it attained in the 1930s.

Today, more than 50 adult amateur teams compete under the British Baseball Federation, and the reigning national champions are the Harlow Nationals.

>Joe Gray is the founder and co-ordinator of Project COBB, the home of the chronicling of British Baseball. To visit the website {http://www.projectcobb.org.uk/|click here}

Next week, “Curveballs and sliders” will look at Major League Baseball.

A 38-year-old was lucky to escape with minor injuries after his brand new car careered down an M1 embankment, through a fence and into a field.

Firefighters had to cut away the roof of his ‘13’ plate Vauxhall Corsa to rescue him and he was removed from the scene by stretcher.

He arrived at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital just before 6.20pm after paramedics were called to the smash – between Junctions 8 and 9 of the northbound M1 – at 4.50pm.

East of England Ambulance spokesman Richard Dunne said: “He suffered minor injuries to his neck and back.

“He was lucky to escape with minor injuries, by the sound of it.”

It is not known whether yesterday’s bad rain was the cause of the smash.

But Hemel Hempstead Fire Station crew commander Steve Bradford said: “We would like to remind people to be careful driving in difficult weather conditions.”

It’s set to be a right royal celebration in Adeyfield this weekend as the Big Coronation Lunch gets under way on Sunday.

The local neighbourhood action group has got together with Dacorum Borough Council to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation for an afternoon of celebration in Queen’s Square, Hemel Hempstead, between noon and 4pm.

All are welcome to bring their own food and refreshments and join in. Visitors will enjoy rides, stalls, facepainting, giveaways and performances from local groups.

A long table will be set up to encourage neighbours to share lunch together. The event is a national initiative which aims to bring communities together and strengthen relationships.

A hung-over mum who snapped and lashed out at her friend’s crying baby has been jailed for nine years.

Theresa Smith smashed the 14-month-old baby boy in the eye so hard that she fractured the toddler’s eye socket in three places.

The judge who sent her to jail said that her actions were unforgiveable – and the court heard that she had become so depressed in the wake of the crime that she has tried to take her own life.

When the child’s mother came home after popping out for just 20 minutes to find her son bleeding from his nose and his eye puffing up, Smith claimed to have no idea what had happened to the youngster.

But after he was rushed by ambulance to hospital, doctors discovered the extent of his injuries.

Smith, 36, a mother of two, was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the child at his home in Berkhamsted on December 8, 2011 when she appeared at St Albans Crown Court on Friday.

The child is under the care of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and 17 months after the attack he is still suffering a watering left eye because of damage that was caused to a tear duct.

The jury heard Smith had been to a Christmas party the night before.

The following morning the child’s mum, a friend of Smith’s, asked her to call round because she was feeling down.

Smith told the court she offered to give the mum a break while she went out, but then the baby began crying uncontrollably.

Passing sentence Judge John Plumstead said: “I think she (Smith) had too much to drink the previous night and was fragile.”

He said he was also sure she was stressed out over a relationship with her boyfriend.

The judge said: “The child’s crying was more than she could cope with and she lost self control because she was hung-over and fed up.

“She literally hit that baby as hard as she could. It was unforgiveable behaviour.”

Smith of Cobb Road, Berkhamsted, said she had looked after the child before and told the court: “I adored him, he was gorgeous, beautiful.”

She said when the mother left, the baby was ‘distraught’ and added: “As soon as she left the room he went to pieces.”

Smith claimed she spent the next 10 minutes trying to comfort the child by rocking him and walking with him in her arms.

She said she decided to give the baby his bottle and left him sitting on the floor by a cushion and beside his toys.

Smith said she went into the kitchen to make a bottle, but then the tone of his crying intensified.

Returning to the child, she said she noticed he had a small nose bleed and his eye looked ‘puffy’.

She said: “I picked him up and put him on my lap and popped his head back and cleaned him up with baby wipes, but it started getting much worse.” The boy’s mum then came home and they called an ambulance.

In hospital the extent of the injuries was spotted, and the child’s bloodstained Babygro was later found in Smith’s handbag.

The court was told Smith had suffered a nervous breakdown last year and she had attempted to take her own life.

Jailing her for nine years, Judge Plumstead told Smith: “This was in my judgement an act of extreme violence against a helpless and vulnerable child.”

The judge said the pictures shown in court of the child’s facial injuries after the attack were ‘shocking’.

Hemel Hempstead Boxing Club’s young guns delivered a knock-out performance as the club hosted its home show.

Each of the five Hemel representatives won their respective bouts – with Harley Webster, Cameron Scrimshire, Callum Mansell, Jamie Hurst and Ben Reed all recording victories.

Club captain Liam Loughran, whose own opponent pulled out just 24 hours before the show, said it was a fantastic achievement from the whole team.

A club spokesman said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our show sponsors, parents and supporters without whose help and financial assistance would not be able to put on a home show.”

The show capped off a fine season for the club, with Loughran crowned Home Counties champion for the third year running while also reaching the Junior ABA National Championships quarter-finals.

Mansell also went through as Home Counties champion and reached the quarter-finals of the National Schoolboy Championships.

At the club’s end of season awards night, Loughran won the Boxers’ Boxer of the Year award, while Scrimshire won Best Home Show Boxer, Reed was voted Most Improved Boxer, and Webster won the Clubman award.

The club is now looking for a main sponsor for the 2013-14 boxing season, and can be contacted via their website www.hemelhempsteadboxingclub.co.uk

A personal trainer will be putting his own fitness to the test when he takes part in a 100-mile bike event.

Will McAllister will be getting in the saddle for the Norwich 100 on Saturday, June 1 to bring in cash for the Hospice of St Francis.

He chose the good cause because it often looks after cancer patients facing the end of their lives and his own mother succumbed to the disease.

“It was such a traumatic thing. I thought I wanted to do it for a cancer cause,” said the 47 year old, who works as a personal trainer and masseur at the Beta Health Clinic in Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead and lives in the town.

“I just wanted to do something local for a local charity.”

The ride starts at Norwich Cathedral and takes cyclists up to the coast and east to the half-way point at Sheringham, then skirts the Broads before returning to the cathedral. Will hopes to complete the feat in under five hours. Visit www.justgiving.com/Will-McAllister

Taxi drivers have drawn up their own proposals for a new rank amid fears that council-led plans could damage trade and even put some out of business.

Initial plans show that Dacorum Borough Council is considering creating 21 taxi ranks that will be dotted across the borough.

It is part of town centre regeneration plans that involves moving the bus station to make way for a new leisure area and creating a bus interchange in Marlowes.

Almost 100 drivers turned out for a public meeting hosted by the local branch of the Hackney Carriage Taxi Drivers Association last Tuesday.

They backed the committee-led proposal for a rank that stretches along Waterhouse Street from Moor End Road to Combe Street, and will accommodate up to 40 cars.

Chairman of the group Tabrez Khan said: “We don’t really want to move but obviously if we have to compromise we are willing to do that provided they put use in a suitable place.”

However, under the council’s possible locations for ranks there are eight planned for the town centre. The one in Waterhouse Street would take just eight vehicles, another in Marlowes would fit six. There would be a further two in Riverside, one in Hillfield Road, Wolsey Road, Marlowes adjacent to the planned Morrisons supermarket and along the market access road.

But the group says this will not work as drivers will simply flock to the busiest rank.

Taxi driver Terry Carrington said: “Taxis are going to go to where the trade is so whatever rank is popular with the public that is where the cars will be and then we will have problems with double parking and blocking access and that is not something we want to do.

“We are being squeezed out.”

The drivers’ group is also calling for the council to carry out a feasibility study to see if there is already sufficient taxi provision in the area.

Mr Khan said: “There are currently 250 plus Hackney carriage drivers within the borough and we feel that it has reached saturation point and therefore something needs to be done otherwise it will cause safety issues within the town.”

Leader of the council Andrew Williams, who attended the meeting, said: “We had the opportunity to discuss the association’s concerns regarding the possible relocation of the rank and the council’s plans.

“We will be consulting the taxi drivers as plans move ahead and we are keen to work with them to find a suitable solution.”

The driver of a car that today hit an M1 barrier and overturned was lucky to escape with minor injuries.

Emergency services closed the northbound motorway just before the Junction 8 turn-off for Hemel Hempstead after a 999 call-out just after 11.10am today.

Paramedics reported that a woman in her 30s had minor injuries and was in shock after escaping from her black Ford Fiesta. She is now receiving treatment at Hemel Hempstead Hospital.

It is unknown what caused the car to flip over, but there was no other vehicle involved in the collision.

The two slower lanes of the motorway were reopened within 10 minutes, but the other two – which were blocked by the car – were closed until just before 12.40pm. The car was recovered just after midday.

The group behind a new school says it will ask the community for name suggestions.

West Herts Community Free Schools Trust was given the green light last week to open the new school at the empty Jupiter Drive site in Highfield, Hemel Hempstead. The previous school there was controversially closed by county bosses in 2007.

The project is currently called Hemel Hempstead Community Free School but that is just a working title.

Under the plans a new school will opened in September 2014 to cater for the increasing number of children needing places at reception entry level.

The trust, which already runs a school in Hatfield, will also consult on uniform and school hours.