Broxtowe Enews 9th December 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. This will, I’m afraid, be the last scheduled edition for this year so may I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. This is quite a quiet news week this week as well so this is quite a short newsletter.

1. Stapleford Combined Services Fancy Dress Evening
Stapleford Combined Services club will be holding a fancy dress evening on Saturday, December 15th from 7-30pm until midnight, at The Chequers Inn at the Roach, Stapleford. Admission is free.

2. Book Launch & Exhibition
Local author Gill Morral will be launching her new book “Toton Revealed” at Coronation Hall in  Toton on Saturday 15th December together with an exhibition with the same title taking place between 10am and 1pm. Tea and biscuits are available.

3. Tram Jobs Drop In Session
The Borough Council have organised a jobs fair to highlight opportunities to work on the new tram scheme. This will take place at Eastwood Young Peoples Centre on Friday 14th December between 11am and 1pm. Space is limited and so advance booking on 0115 917 3618is recommended.

4. Drink Drive Campaign
Notts police have launched their annual drink drive campaign. In the first week they arrested 29 people for the offence. As a solicitor I’m well used to seeing the after effects on offenders in court, when the implications of a mandatory 12 month driving ban (at least) start to hit home. The only way to avoid a ban is simply to not drink and drive.

5. Rail Fare Increase
Rail Fares on East Midlands Trains will increase by an average of 4% on 2nd January next year. Under a system that has been in place for many years rail fares go up by the rate of inflation plus 2% to fund greater investment in services, but this year the government have restricted the increase to below that in recent years.

6. Winter Vomiting Bug
I caught this a couple of years ago and can confirm just how horrible it is. Figures just released show that last week 112,000 people in Notts caught the bug and are now suffering. The only way to really guard against this is to take extra care on personal hygiene issues.

7. Free Property Marking
Broxtowe residents can get their property marked with smart water for free in Eastwood on Wednesday. There will also be representatives from the council, the Fire Brigade, the police and the pensions service in attendance. The event will be at the Dora Phillips Hall on Wood Street between 11am and 1pm.

8. Arrests of Children
An interesting statistic that came out this week was that Notts Police arrested 4,460 children last year, which equates to 12 a day.  It is however significantly less than the peak year, 2008, when 7,008 children were arrested. The peak age for offending for both males and females is when they are in their teens, and so perhaps the figures should not come as a surprise. I still find them disappointing however.

9. Rare Birds in Chilwell
Bird watchers flocked to Chilwell (no pun intended) this week when 300 bohemian waxwings landed close to Attenborough nature Reserve. I have to say that it’s not a bird I have ever heard of before, but apparently they were stopping over on their flights north to Scandinavia.

10. Round Hill School
Congratulations to the staff, pupils and governors of Round Hill School in Beeston after they were graded as good by Ofsted inspectors. This is an improvement on the satisfactory rating that they had received previously.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter, and any feedback is gratefully received. As I mentioned at the start I’m not planning to do a further edition for this year, but there are two possible events which may occur this year that I will put a message out about should they happen. The first is if there is any significant news about housing proposals, and the second is if there is an announcement about the route of the HS2 railway line. The government did say earlier this year that they would announce the route before Christmas and if the route does affect Broxtowe, as it may, then I will send a message out.

Best wishes
David

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