Over the weekend St John’s Church in Epping celebrated the 100th anniversary of the construction of its tower, which is still Epping’s most important landmark: visible from the M25 and for miles around. I thoroughly enjoyed the celebratory concert, featuring the Epping Church Choirs Association, St John’s Church Choir and other musicians on Friday evening.

We are fortunate that those who commissioned the church and its tower were far-sighted enough to appoint an architect as good as G F Bodley, who is considered to have made a major contribution to church architecture.

The church is now raising funds to build a new extension, at the west end of the church where St John’s House is now. (Apparently this was going to be the original location of the tower until someone pointed out that the clock would be more visible if it could be seen from the High Steet.)

I don’t think anyone will miss St John’s House when it is pulled down - it is an undistinguished building - but whatever takes its place will have to be a very special design if it is to complement the existing church and serve the congregation and community as well as Bodley’s design has done for the past 100 years. From what I hear the architect is a big admirer of Bodley and up for the challenge.

If some of the worst news this week was contained in Alastair Darling’s statement of doom, the best news for me was the news that Allnutts Post Office is to re-open. On Tuesday my fellow Liberal Democrat councillor Janet Whitehouse rang to tell me that she had just come out of a meeting with Shanhaz Javid from Allnutts Stores and the county council. At the end of the meeting a contract had been signed to re-open the post office in about 20 weeks time!

It was a tremendous blow for local people when the post office shut in February 2008 as part of the Labour government’s Post Office closure plan. Hopes were raised when Essex County Council announced, in a blaze of publicity, plans to re-open some of the offices. My fellow ward councillor Janet Whitehouse received positive indications from county council officers. But so far only three post offices in Essex have actually started serving customers again. So when county council officials visited Allnutts Stores in February this year to say that the post office would remain shut it was disappointing, but not an enormous surprise .

Thankfully neither Shanhaz, who provides such an excellent service to her customers, nor Janet gave up. Janet pressed the county council for a meeting. She and Shanhaz travelled to County Hall in Chelmsford to put their case. The county council thought again and agreed to continue discussions. Local people expressed their support for the re-opening and described the problems they had experienced without a local post office. More meetings were held. The county council required Shanhaz to make changes such as a new shop front and changes to the internal layout of the store. At last, thanks to Shanhaz, Janet and the county council all working together, a deal was done and a contract signed.

As Janet said in a letter to local residents who supported her petition:

I am delighted that by working together we have achieved this fantastic outcome. It is now up to all of us to support Shanhaz and Allnutts Stores and to use the Post Office regularly when it re-opens in Autumn.

I was one of many people who attended the rededication of Epping War Memorial and Civic Service on Sunday afternoon. The service at the War Memorial was as moving as it is each Remembrance Sunday, especially when the traffic stops and members of the congregation stands in silence with their thoughts until the Last Post sounds.

The event was made particularly meaningful by the presence of the family of Georgie Sparks, who died fighting with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan, and some of his fellow marines from 42 Commando who have only just returned from Afghanistan.

I’m glad to see that after some grim predictions about the likelihood of recovering the £2½ million that Epping Forest District Council invested with the Icelandic-owned Heritable Bank, things now look slightly more positive. The council’s Director of Financial Services gave us an update on the situation at last night’s Cabinet meeting. He now expects that 70-80 per cent of the money will be returned. The FT takes a similar view.

Of course this will still mean a loss of up to £750,000, which is a very substantial amount and would go a long way towards funding some of the capital projects the council is involved in.

Unfortunately that isn’t all local taxpayers will lose. I asked whether the council would get back the interest due on its investment. The answer revealed that the council will only recover interest from the period between when it was invested until the date the bank went into administration in October. We’ll lose all the interest that would have been received from then until whenever  the money is finally returned. I can’t remember at what rate the money was invested, but any percentage of £2½ million is a substantial sum.