Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council.
It’s been a really busy week this week, and the high spot was visiting Buckingham Palace on Wednesday for a Royal Garden Party. I would never describe myself as a rampant royalist, but the building and the occasion really did take my breath away. We went with a couple of very long serving members of staff from the council, and I think that it is important that we do take the opportunity to recognise the role and effort of the people who make the council operate as effectively as it does.
1. A52 Roadworks
The Highways Agency are about to start work again on the A52. Work between the Bramcote and QMC islands starts on 17th July and will run through until the middle of November, so be prepared for disruption. The approaches to the Priory and QMC roundabouts is to be widened, and the A52 will be subject to a 30mph speed limit during the period of the works.
2. Beeston Carnival
Beeston Carnival takes place next Saturday, with entertainment in the Square from 10am and the parade starting at 1pm. The entertainment at Broadgate Park starts at 12.00. everyone is welcome to attend, and hopefully the weather will be better than it was for Long Eaton carnival last week, when my daughters dance troupe had to perform wearing their willies.
3. Easy Giving
A new website has been established to enable people to give to charities on line. The Community Foundation in Notts manages the Nottinghamshire arm of localgiving.com, which lists local charities so that people can donate to them. There are currently 17 Notts charities on the site, and if others want to be added please ring 01623 636365.
4. Car Parking
I was very disappointed to read some really inaccurate reporting by the Evening Post about the costs of wardens who we employ. These wardens police the car parks, but they also help in the town centres and operate the shop mobility schemes. They are a visible face of the council to assist local residents. The Post criticised the council because we didn’t take enough money in parking fines to cover the costs of the wardens. It was never expected that we would do, and to be honest if we were having to give out so much in fines for people overstaying in car parks I would be very disappointed. (I did say I was disappointed that we had taken £85,000 in fines as this meant there were a lot of people not parking properly, but the paper suggested that I was disappointed at how low they were. Not true, and I’ve sent a fairly strongly worded letter to the paper to say so.)
5. Kimberley Police Station
The town council in Kimberley have said that they are unhappy about plans to shut the front counter at Kimberley Police Station. Despite the low number of people who use the service the council believe that it is important that the service is maintained, and are calling on the police to rethink their decision.
6. Cutting Grass Verges
The County Council have announced plans to reduce the number of times that the grass verges on the roads will be cut. (At the moment the borough council do this for them, to the levels that they set, although from next April the County Council will do this themselves.) At the moment verges are cut six times per year, and this will now drop to five times per year. This is actually better than they had been suggesting, which was a reduction to four times per year.
7. Eastwood Award Winner
Congratulations to Amy Smith from Eastwood, who won the Gold Medal at the UK Beauty Therapy and Nail Technology contest in Cambridge. It is always good to see young people from Broxtowe being successful.
8. Adults with Learning Disabilities
The County Council have announced plans to privatise those parts of adult social care services that they currently provide internally. The council say that these will save them £1million per year. These are services such as tenancy support and practical help. My concern is that these are the services most used by particularly vulnerable people and privatisation often means service reduction. I hope that these plans will be examined very carefully to ensure that vulnerable people are not going to miss out.
9. Toton Exists
The Royal Mail has announced that they will now include Toton as a separate address on their database, officially recognising that it exists as a separate community. This is something that we managed with Bramcote a few years ago, but it does take a long time to be effective. There are still organisations who use Beeston as the address for Bramcote. Well done to all concerned for putting Toton on the map but settle in for a long slog to get it effective.
10. Carbon Footprint at the Leisure Centre
Efforts by the staff at Bramcote Leisure Centre have resulted in a reduction in the CO2 output by 300 tonnes. Congratulations to everyone involved for their efforts in this regard.
11. Heritage Days
The programme has now been published for the heritage Open Days which will take place in September. There are a load of good things in it and two require advance booking if you wish to attend. These are if you want to visit the Boots archive (phone 0115 939 3472 to book) or if you want to visit Chilwell Depot and see the memorial to the people who died in the 1918 explosion (call 0115 967 7260 to book).
12. Newsletters
As ever can I thank you for your support for this newsletter. We are read by many hundreds of people each week but I would like to really have a push on getting new subscribers as well. Our advertising so far has been primarily by word of mouth and so my request to everyone is that if you know other local residents who would enjoy the newsletter please pass the details on to them.
Best wishes
David
