Broxtowe Enews 31st July 2012

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. Many apologies that we’re a couple of days late with this but I’ve been snowed under with work over the past few days. May I also thank those people who follow me on Twitter for the messages of sympathy for my older daughter after the death of her guinea pig during the week. As we get into August many events tail off and so we have less news than usual, and my next edition will be on 1st September unless anything important happens in the meantime.

1. Housing Figures/Core Strategy
Regular readers will know that the councils core strategy for where we will allow housing to be built over the next 15 years has been a key area of dispute between the Lib-Dems and the Conservatives over the last few months. The Tories locally have said that they are opposed to our plans, but interestingly last week the Conservative controlled County Council this week backed our plans as the best way forward. Since then there has been no comment from our local Conservatives so I can’t tell you how they are responding to this. I‘m personally delighted that where they are not just trying to win some cheap votes the Tories have accepted that we are doing the right thing. The County Council have submitted what they refer to as a “holding objection” to the core strategy which they say explicitly is because they think we need to finish some ongoing work on transport assessments, but they are supportive of both the overall housing figures and the sites selected for development.

2. Town Centre Managers
At tonight’s cabinet meeting the borough council approved the appointment of a town centre manager with the responsibility for bringing new investment into Stapleford, Kimberley and Eastwood. Beeston already has the BID team doing much the same work (very successfully). This was something that I identified as a key priority when I took over the economic development portfolio last year and I’m delighted that we have been able to bring it to fruition.

3. Ambulance Stations
I reported last week about the plans by East Midlands Ambulance service to change the way that they operate and to close many of their ambulance stations. These plans have now been approved by their Trust. Ambulances will still be stationed across the County but they will be based at two centres in the County. The Trust hope that these changes will speed up response times for ambulances. Figures released this week show that the service is not currently achieving the target times that are set for it.

4. Moving Telegraph Pole
A telegraph pole in Middle Orchard Street, Stapleford, is to be moved by BT after a ten year campaign by local residents. Unfortunately the current location of the pole has resulted in it being hit on numerous occasions by vehicles, and residents feared that one day it would come down onto someone and could quite easily cause serious injuries. BT have now agreed to move the police, but they have been unable to give a timescale as to when this work will take place.

5. Kimberley Brewery
Just a quick reminder of a story I mentioned last week, that there will be a public consultation on plans for Kimberley Brewery taking place on Tuesday 7th August from 1pm to 8pm at Kimberley Parish Hall. Everyone is welcome to attend and discuss the proposals with the developers.

6. Happiness
A Government survey into happiness across the country says that Nottinghamshire is one of the most miserable places to live in the UK. I would have to beg to differ, this is a fantastic county to live in with a huge number of reasons to be cheerful.

7. Attenborough Community Action Team
The Attenborough CAT meeting, to discuss issues of concern to local residents, takes place tomorrow at Attenborough Village Hall, starting at 7.30pm. The special guest will be the Acting Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, Chris Eyre.

8. Proms in the Park
The seventh Proms in the Park will return to the bandstand at Dovecote Lane Recreation Ground, Beeston on Saturday 18th August, starting at 7.00pm and ending with a spectacular Firework Finale at 10.00pm. Everyone is welcome to attend. The event is outdoors so with the weather that we have had this year please remember to dress appropriately.

9. Olympics
Congratulations to Rebecca Addlington on her medal in the 400 metres swimming. Hopefully there is more to come. After the Olympics she will be taking park in a charity bike ride across Zambia to raise money to help children with Aids. If you want to contribute to this you can do so here: http://www.justgiving.com/ZambiaCycle. I spent part of my childhood in Malawi, which shares a border with Zambia, and both countries have been ravaged by Aids over the past couple of decades and so I hope many people will take the opportunity to help.
In other Olympics news may I say how fantastic I thought the opening ceremony was. I was expecting to be underwhelmed by it but was left absolutely blown away by the show. I did read a really nasty racist article about the ceremony in the Daily Mail and was so angry with it that I lodged a formal complaint with the Press Complaints Commission. I’ve had an email from them to say that they have had a substantial number of complaints about the same article.
I will be going to the Olympics with my family next week, and have agreed to do a couple of things on the media whilst I’m there.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter, and any feedback is gratefully received.
Best wishes
David
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