Broxtowe Enews 30th May 2011

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem group on the borough council.
Thank you to everyone for your comments following the election results. Many people have taken the time to express your appreciation for this newsletter, and I do hope to continue this in exactly the same way that it has appeared before. The new cabinet for the council will meet for the first time tomorrow, and we will get down to the business of running the council. Portfolios will be allocated to members of the cabinet, and we will then get down to concentrate on our new briefs. I’ll report on who has responsibility for what next week.

1. Toton Bus Service
Trent Barton have announced that they intend to scrap the Connect Service in Toton from 23rd July. Many local residents are opposed to this and have launched a petition to oppose the closure. Trent Barton say that they are scrapping the route as it is uneconomical, but the County Council hope to find a new provider to run the service.

2. Homeless Youngsters
Congratulations to five youngsters from the borough who have been presented with an award for their work telling school children about their experiences of being homeless. All five have been awarded the Broxtowe Partnership Young Peoples award for this year. They are Emma Beresford, Sadie Adams, Christine Richardson, Fraser McNally and Emma Waywell. Some of them have given up to 40 talks each about other young people.

3. Missed Bins
The borough council have now added a new facility to their website so that, if for any reason your black or green bins are not emptied when they should be, you can now report the matter 24 hours a day. The website is at www.broxtowe.gov.uk

4. Kimberley Brewery
The SOBS Group in Kimberley, which was set up to try and protect the buildings in the old Kimberley Brewery site, have now met the new owners of the brewery and have said that they are very encouraged by the meeting. Hopefully the development of the brewery will move forward fairly quickly from now on.

5. Awsworth Youth Club
Volunteers in Awsworth are hoping to reopen the village youth club, three years after it was closed down in a row with the parish council. A new council has been elected and the youth club management committee hope that this will lead to a more open approach to negotiations.

6. Blue Plaques
I got a couple of details wrong in the article about blue plaques last week. Apologies for that. The plan is for a dozen blue plaques in the first round, which are being installed on a rolling programme which started last summer. The plans are for plaques to commemorate TH Barton, Arthur Mee, Arthur Cossons (and also the 14th century Beeston village cross which he rescued), Sir John Borlase Warren, General Ireton and Thomas Humber. Others are planned to Bendigo, the prize fighter; Dr John Clifford the Baptist Union President; Francis Wilkinson of Anglo-Scotian Mills; Edward Joseph Lowe, a founder of the Meteorological Society; and the Manor House.

7. Young Farmer
Congratulations to budding farmer Megan Taylor from Brinsley, currently a student at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire. She has won first prize for the National Placement Award for student placement farmers.

8. Victim Support Golf Day
Nottinghamshire Victim Support are organising a charity golf day on 15th June at Beeston Fields Golf Club. Entry fees are £39 per player, and all profits will be used for the work of victim support in Nottinghamshire. Further information is available from Jeffrey.fewkes@victimsupport.org.uk.

9. A453 Widening
The County Council have made an offer to the Government to part fund the dualling of the A453. The County Council have put forward £20 million towards the total cost of the scheme, estimated at about £164 million. Although this road does not go through Broxtowe it will affect us, first because improving the road is very important to the future prosperity of the whole of Greater Nottingham, and second because traffic that currently chooses not to use the A453 uses the A52 through Broxtowe instead. Without the funding from the County this work cannot begin by at least 2015, so the move may bring this work forward by several years.

10. Attenborough Visitors Centre
The announcement was made on election day, so it may have slipped past some people, but Attenborough Visitors Centre has now celebrated it’s 20,000th school child as part of it’s education work. Children from Bramcote Hills School, including my older daughter who managed to get her back into shot, appeared on TV to mark the occasion. Coincidentally I have just been appointed to the management committee of the visitors centre as the new representative from the council.

11. Castle College
The Government has now officially approved the merger of Castle College and South Notts College to form one new college for Nottinghamshire, and it will begin operating under the name of South Nottingham College from September. Although the move secures the long term future of the colleges I remain very concerned about the possible reduction of courses or venues within the borough as a result of the move, and will press the council to be as active on this issue as possible.

12. Beeston Railway Station
As part of a wider series of green moves by Stagecoach, who own East Midlands Trains, new recycling facilities will be installed at Beeston Railway station this summer.

Thank you to everyone for your support for this newsletter. As ever any feedback is gratefully received.

David