Wary on street name

A plea to name a street in memory of a Newark soldier received a lukewarm reaction from town representatives on St George’s Day.

The MP for Newark, Mr Patrick Mercer, the family of Corporal Ivano Violino in supporting the idea.

Corporal Violino died when the vehicle he was commanding was hit by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in September, but town councillors wanted further information before making a decision.

Some members of the town council’s planning committee, which met on Wednesday night, feared that making a snap decision would open the floodgates to many more appeals.

Corporal Violino, known as Sean Sutcliffe, lived in Newark from the age of five-17. He was educated at the Mount and then Magdalene schools.

With his brother and sisters, Corporal Violino (29) adopted the name Sutcliffe when his mother, Diane, married, but it was never officially changed, so he reverted to Violino when he joined the Army.

A member of the planning committee, Mr Chris Gangel, interviewed Corporal Violino’s sister, Mrs Sinel Loveday, who lives in Newark, and was satisfied that the Royal Engineer met the necessary criteria for inclusion on the town’s war memorial, thereby making him eligible to have a street named after him.

Mr Gangel suggested, as an alternative, a tree could be planted at the cemetery in her brother’s memory.

No recommendation was put forward on Wednesday night to name a street after Corporal Violino but his name was added to the list of possible candidates, on the basis that it will be removed if he is not thought eligible.

Mr John Clark said: “We need to go into his history some more.”

The committee chairman, Mr Peter Foster, said: “We can’t go down this path for every soldier that dies.

“We have got to be careful on this. He was not born here.”

Mrs Irene Brown said they needed to be cautious as there might be many other soldiers to die.

Town councillor Mrs Helen Gent supported the idea.

She said such individual sacrifices should be remembered.

She said a street naming would add local interest and be better than the bland River View or Trent Walk that the committee was usually asked to consider.

Corporal Violino is buried in Shipbourne, Kent, close to where the soldier lived with his wife of two months, Mrs Katey Violino.

The town council can make only suggestions on street names to developers.