Latest Newsletters >>
Newer Newsletters >>
Previous Newsletters >>

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited
by David Watts, the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Broxtowe Borough
Council.

7th January 2012

1. Cllr Tom Pettengell
One piece of very sad news from over the Christmas holidays was that Cllr Tom
Pettengell, who represented Toton on the County Council and who was for many
years the borough councillor for Attenborough, passed away over the Christmas
holidays. Tom was someone who had friends across the political spectrum and he
will be sadly missed.

2. Field Farm Meeting
STRAG, the Stapleford and Trowell Residents Action Group, have organised a
meeting next week for local residents to discuss the planning application for
Field Farm. It will take place at The Jaguar Pub, Hickings Lane, Stapleford on
Saturday 14th January from 2pm to 4pm. Everyone is welcome to attend. On the
topic generally of further housing developments in the borough I met this week,
in my capacity as portfolio holder for Planning on the borough council, with
representatives from SABRHE, the residents group from Brinsley, to express
their concerns and I’ve met with representatives from Toton for a similar
reason. STRAG did invite me to the meeting next Saturday but I’m unable to
attend and so I’ve offered to meet them on an alternative date.

3. Mayors Musical Supper
The Mayor of the Borough of Broxtowe, Lib-Dem Councillor Jacky Williams is
hosting a Musical Supper with the Beeston Musical Theatre Group at The Memorial
Hall in Church Street, Bramcote on 28th February at 7.30pm. The evening will
feature Songs from the Shows sung by the fantastic Beeston Musical Theatre
Groups 12 piece ensemble, as well as mouth-watering fish and chips provided by
Andy's Fish Bar, Stapleford. Proceeds will go to the Mayor’s Charities.

4. Policing in Bramcote
Residents in Bramcote wishing to meet the police are invited to do so on
Monday evening. Officers will be on Ranmore Close in Bramcote between 7pm and
8pm to answer any questions that residents have.

5. Fire Service on Twitter
Notts Fire Service now has its own Twitter feed. They are at @nottsfire and
Twitter users are invited to follow them.

6. Advice event for business women
The next meeting to the Broxtowe Businesswoman’s Network will be on January
18th from 5.30pm to 8.30pm at the Belfrey Hotel on Nottingham Business Park. It
will be focusing on understanding their employees strengths and limitations,
and costs £10 to attend. As I’m not a businesswoman I’ve never been, but
these meetings receive rave reviews.

7. Greasley Beauvale School
The former Greasley Beauvale School, which was attended by DH Lawrence, and
which closed last year, is to be auctioned by Notts County Council on January
26th. It is likely that an application will be submitted to convert it to a
residential use in due course.

8. Special Constables
Notts Police are holding an information session for any one interested in
becoming a special constable next month. It will take place at Beeston Town
Hall on Saturday 11th February froom 10am, and anyone interested is invited to
attend.

9. Beeston Barn Dance
The Stonebridge City Farm are holding a barn dance at Chilwell Road Methodist
Church in Beeston on Saturday 21st January at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £7 and are
available from the church office on 0115 943 1164.

10. Car Park Charges
The borough council are currently considering changes to car park charges. The
proposal is that some car parks should be designated as long stay, with a
considerably cheaper all day tariff. A report has been submitted to the cabinet
which will be debated and voted on next month. I was surprised to read that a
Conservative Councillor had been criticising this report before it was even
published. I’d much rather that comment was based on the actual evidence
rather than simply on dogma.

11. Wilkinsons petition
As I’ve mentioned here before the plans for the construction of the tram mean
that the Wilkinsons store in Beeston is likely to close at the end of March.
This will hopefully be only a short break in service, and is something that I
had been trying to avoid. However the campaign to ensure that Wilkinsons does
return has gone from strength to strength and Matt Goode, who writes the
Beestionia Blog, has organised a petition in support of the store which
collected in excess of 1,000 signatures when launched. If anyone wants to add
their name to this you can contact Matt via Beestonia.wordpress.com.

12. Free Swimming for the Olympics?
The borough council is discussing a proposal to provide free swimming during
the Olympics at the borough’s leisure centres. A decision will be taken on
this next month.

13. Kimberley School
Often have published their latest report on Kimberley School, which they have
ranked as good with outstanding features. This is not far from the top ranking
that could be achieved and everyone at the school should be very proud of what
they have achieved.

14. Crime Figures
The latest crime figures published by the police show that, after a steady
decline for a number of months, burglaries went up during October. At the same
time sexual offences have dropped and clear ups of these have increased. These
figures are for the whole of Nottinghamshire and I will get the figures for
Broxtowe in due course.

15. Coal Board Entry and Inspection Programme
The Coal Authority, which is responsible for discussed mines and mine workings,
is currently carrying out a major programme of inspections for these. They are
writing to every effected property in the borough, so if your property is on
disused mine workings they may be getting in touch with you. I have some
material which I can pass on top anyone affected by these, if you let me know.

16. Poetry Performance
On 30th January 2012, there will be a free performance of the poems and other
creative pieces which came out of Dave Wood’s historic Perambulation around
the old Sherwood Forest Boundary, a walk previously completed in 1662. The
first part of the celebratory afternoon will include British Sign Language
Interpretation. The afternoon will conclude with a piece of Instant Theatre.
The performance takes place at the Carnegie Centre in Stapleford, starting at
2pm. The audience are asked to be in place by 1.45pm.

17. Boots Carbon Reduction
Congratulations to Boots for winning the excellence in carbon reduction (large
Company) award at the Energy Awards 2011, just before Christmas. This was for
reducing the emissions at the Beeston site by more than one third. Well done to
everyone concerned with that.

As ever may I thank you for your support for this newsletter, and any feedback
is gratefully received.

Best wishes

David

17th December 2011

Happy Christmas to all our readers. This will be the last edition until the new
year and so I hope that the festive period is everything that you hope it will
be.

1. The Tram
The big news this week is undoubtedly that the tram has got the final go ahead
from the Government. The contracts are now all signed and work will begin next
month. In the first few months the programme is primarily one of site
clearances and moving of utilities. Once this is done the track will be laid
and there will then be an extensive period of testing before passenger services
begin to run. The first commercial trams should be running in about three years
time.

In Beeston 16 properties on Chilwell Road are to be demolished, and this should
happen towards the end of January. In February three properties on Gwenbrook
Avenue are due to be demolished. Also in January the park and ride site will be
cleared and this will become the storage depot during the work programme, and a
new children’s play area will be created in Chilwell to replace one that will
later be removed.

Although the work is being done by NET the borough council will be heavily
involved in making sure that things go as smoothly as possible. Pages have been
created on the council’s web site giving details of what is going on, which
can be accessed at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9764. It is
clear that there will be disruption for a significant period of time but we
will try and minimise it as much as possible.

One piece of very bad news is that the Wilkinsons store in Beeston will close.
The council have been demanding from the landlords (Henry Boot) that they
ensure that Wilkinsons have a new property to move into so that there was no
break in service, and they have promised us that this would happen. Sadly they
have completely let us down.

Finally on the tram you may have seen an email from Anna Soubry this week
saying what a great idea the tram is. This is a very different stance to the
one that she took in the general election, and that the local Conservative
Party still take, where even on Thursday we were sent an email from one of
their councillors saying that no-one wants the tram.

2. Stapleford Residents Parking
The County Council will be publishing proposals next week for new residents
parking in Stapleford. The first phase consists of changes to Cyril Avenue area
(removal of Fredereick Avenue), Bailey Street area (shortening of Wellington
Street) and Eatons Road areas. All areas will change to Monday – Saturday 9am
– 5pm and all bays and yellow lines will be removed except at junctions to
enable parking anywhere within the area by permit holders (as long as they
don't cause obstruction). They will also be adding new schemes on Horace
Avenue, West End Street and William Road (Mon-Sat 9am – 5pm), Albert Street
(Mon-Sat 9am-5pm + one way and other parking restrictions) and St James Terrace
(24 hour scheme). Residents will then have one month to submit any comments
before the County confirms whether or not it will go ahead. There may also be a
second phase covering other areas of the town at a later date.

3. Super Fast Broadband
I mentioned a week or so back that the Borough Council had declined a request
from the County Council that we donate £80,000 towards the cost of installing
super fast broadband in Broxtowe. Whilst the idea is a good one we simply
couldn’t afford the money. The County Council have now come back and asked if
we would pay £33,000 instead. This will be discussed by the cabinet at
Broxtowe next week.

4. Open Mike Night
I’ve been asked to promote this event in January:
Scion Presents...
January 11th 2012 at 7.30pm. Two main performers: storyteller, Richard Young
and poet, Dave Wood plus open slots of approx 5 mins each (but do bring some
time fillers too). Free entry. all performances in the round..venue-the old
cross, church street, stapleford. 7.30pm. also beer raffle for the rainbows
hospice and you may fancy donating to them too. relaxed way try out your
writing. email davewrite2002 @ yahoo. com or O77O 9977684. come to read or
provide an audience. there will be a beer raffle for rainbow's hospice and any
donations accepted to the hospice will be appreciated. no microphones - bring
voice and writing only

5. New Chief Constable
Nottinghamshire Police will have a new Chief Constable in September. He will be
Chris Eyre, the current Deputy Chief Constable, and he takes over from Julia
Hodgson who is retiring.

6. Libraries Over The Holidays
The County Council have announced that their libraries will all close for
Christmas on 23rd December and will reopen on 3rd January. The County Council
offices themselves will be open from 28th to 30th December.

7. New Nottingham TV Station
The Government have announced that Nottingham is to get a new TV station. The
city is to be a pioneer for a series of new local TV channels. Interested
parties will be able to bid for the licence to run it next year, with a view to
broadcasting beginning in 2013.

8. Food Voucher Scheme
A new food voucher scheme has been launched in Beeston. The Beeston and NG9
food bank is run by Hope Nottingham, and vouchers to obtain supplies can be
handed out by doctors surgeries and the Citizens Advice Bureaux to needy
residents. These can then be exchanged for food at venues in Beeston, Chilwell
and Stapleford.

9. Field Farm, Stapleford
The planning application for Field Farm in Stapleford has now been received but
is missing some documents and so has not yet been registered by the council.
Once the missing documents have been received the council will place it on its
web site and invite comments. I was surprised to read an email from the
Conservatives this week talking about planning which said: “We are still
waiting for Broxtowe Borough Council's report following the so called ‘public
consultation’; it was due to be published weeks ago.” This claim is simply
untrue. Nothing was supposed to have been published before now and the papers
actually go to the cabinet at Broxtowe next week to decide how to go further.

10. Broxtowe Youth Council
At the council meeting on Wednesday Broxtowe’s youth mayor, Tilly Stone,
reported that the County Council have decided to close down the youth council
as a spending cut. This is extremely short sighted as the youth council, which
has representatives from every secondary school in the borough on it, is a very
successful and useful mouthpiece for young people in the area. Only last week
Tilly was in Poland speaking to political leaders in Myszków, our friendship
town there, about the youth council as they are interested in copying our
model. However I’m glad to report that we hope that the borough council will
be able to make good the funding shortfall so that the council can continue.

11. Complaints about the police
An interesting statistic that I saw this week was that the number of complaints
against Notts Police has dropped in the last year by 29%. I hope that this
means that the police are getting better at doing their job, and is a much
bigger fall than the national picture, which shows a 4% drop in complaints.

12. Carol Services
A number of carol services are being held tomorrow and Monday. Tomorrow St
Michael's Bramcote hold two services, the first at 5.30pm and the second at
7.30pm. Please contact 0115 943 0137 for more details. Also tomorrow the
Salvation Army hold their Carol Concert at Albert Avenue in Stapleford,
starting at 6pm. Please call 0115 949 7059 for more information. On Monday 19th
December the Peace Light Carol Service takes place in Beeston, starting at
7.00pm at the 6th Beeston Scout HQ on Middle Street.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is
gratefully received. That can be sent by email, or by using the forms on the
Broxtowe Lib-Dem website at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk , or my
personal website at www.davidwatts.org.uk.

Happy Christmas

David

4th December 2011

As we get towards Christmas many services and events run down for the holiday,
and as a result there is less news to report than usual, but there are still a
number of things going on. Can I apologise for the typo in last week’s news
about Chilwell Conservation Area. I of course meant to refer to options if you
had missed the meeting, not if you had kissed it. Whoops.

1. Sale Of Care Homes
Sadly the District Auditor has decided that he will not intervene in the
decision of the County Council to sell six care homes, including Bramwell in
Bramcote, to a private company at a significant under valuation. My colleague
Stan Heptinstall had asked the auditor to look into this sale as it seems to us
that this sale does not represent anything like good value for local residents,
even leaving aside the question about whether the sale was right in principle
or not. You can see the letter from the District Auditor on our web site at
www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk.

2. Christmas Concert
There will be a Christmas Carol Concert at Chilwell Road Methodist Church in
Beeston on 17th December. As well as soloists the Eastwood Male Voice Choir
will be performing. Tickets cost £6 each and are available from 0115 919 6659.

3. Car Parking at Bramcote Hills Park
As people may have noticed the car park at Bramcote Hills Park is currently
being upgraded. The council had been looking at whether or not they should
introduce charging for this car park, but when the matter was discussed by the
council’s cabinet they agreed with the arguments put forward by the Lib-Dems
that this car park should remain free of charge.

4. Snow
The County Council have issued a statement this week to reassure motorists that
they are ready to cope with any snowfall this year. You may recall that last
year they ran out of grit in the really harsh winter that we have, but they
have been at pains this week to stress that they are well stocked with grit and
salt for this year. They have however told district councils that there is no
budget to install any further grit bins this year.

5. New Tree In Bramcote Park
Bramcote History Group have donated a new tree, a Juglan Nigra, to Bramcote
Park. It was planted this week by the group along with Broxtowe’s Mayor, Cllr
Jacky Williams, as part of National Tree Week.

6. Domestic Violence Victims
The Borough Council have launched a new campaign to provide help and support to
victims of domestic violence locally. New posters will appear in libraries,
Sure Start centres and doctors surgeries as well as others to raise awareness
of the issue. Further information and help area available from 0115 917 3028,
or from hlc@broxtowe.gov.uk.

7. Broxtowe Sports Awards
Congratulations to the young sports people honoured at the Broxtowe Sports
Awards this week. Amongst the winners were 15 year old Lauren Gill, a swimmer
from Kimberley, and 23 year old gymnast Sam Hunter of Chilwell.

8. Solar panels for the County Council
The County Council has agreed to install solar panels on eight of its buildings
to help generate electricity. These will cost £800,000 but should pay that
back many times over during their lifetimes. They will cut costs and also
enable the County Council ton get income from the Governments feed in tariffs
scheme. Sadly none of the buildings is in Broxtowe, but we should all benefit
from the move.

9. Health Walk at the Nature Reserve
Local residents are invited to take part in a health walk at Attenborough
Nature Reserve on Monday 19th December. The walk starts at 10am from the
visitor centre, is free to attend and will last for about an hour. Details are
available from the visitor centre on 0115 972 1777.

10. Kimberley School
The Governors at Kimberley school are currently looking at whether to convert
to an academy. However the National Union of Teachers have indicated that they
will ballot their members over strike action if the move goes ahead.

11. High Speed Broadband.
The County Council have approached Broxtowe Borough Council about contributing
to the cost of installing high speed broadband cables across the borough.
Unfortunately, whilst the borough council are supportive of the scheme, the
County requested far too much money from the borough. With resources being as
tight as they are the borough council simply cannot find almost £100,000 at
the drop of a hat. The County Council have suggested to the boroughs that they
should contribute on a 50/50 basis with the County, despite the fact that the
County get 90% of the council tax money.

12. Council Tax Survey
At the moment councils collect council tax over 10 months, which means that for
the last two months of the year we don’t pay anything. The Government is
currently consulting about whether this should change to collecting over 12
months. This would mean that people paid less each month but there would no
longer be the payment holiday at the end of each financial year. To help me
respond to this and accurately reflect people’s views I’ve set up an
opinion poll on my website and I’d be grateful if you could take a minute to
express your views. My website is at www.davidwatts.org.uk

13. Bramcote Hills Golf Course
Thank you to everyone who responded to the survey that I and my colleagues have
been running about a suggestion that land at the closed golf course in Bramcote
Hills should be used to build a retirement village. At the moment there is no
formal proposal but we wanted to know the views of residents about this scheme,
and overall we got just over 170 responses, with just over 100 people opposed
to the idea.

14. Major Oak Sapling planting
I’ve reported here before about Stapleford Poet Dave Woods “Creative
Perambulations Around Sherwood Forest,” walking the historic boundary of the
forest (the first person to do so in about 300 years). To mark the end of the
project Dave will be planting a sapling from the Great Oak on Ilkeston Road
Recreation Ground, Stapleford. If you’d like to come along to this historic
tree planting in Stapleford on 22nd December at 2pm, please let Dave know on
O77 O99 77684 or email davewrite2002 @ yahoo.com.

15. New Church web Site
St Michaels Church in Bramcote has a new website. You can view this at
http://www.bramcotechurch.org/. I’ve had a quick look round and it seems
quite good.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is
gratefully received. That can be sent by email, or by using the forms on the
Broxtowe Lib-Dem website, or my personal website, the addresses of which are
above.

David

4th December 2011

1. Bramcote Hills Park
I’m delighted to say that at the council’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday
(which I chaired as Cllr Milan Radulovic, the leader of the council, is still
unwell) Cllr Stan Heptinstall and I were able to persuade our colleagues that
proposals to charge for car parking at Bramcote Hills park should be dropped.
The council had been considering doing this as a way of generating extra
revenue to spend on the park, but it seemed to us that the negatives from this
greatly outweighed the benefits, and everyone else agreed. As a result parking
at Bramcote Hills Park will remain free of charge.

2. Returning Soldiers
Welcome back to 58 Royal Engineers who have returned this week to Chetwynd
Barracks in Chilwell, following a six month tour of duty in Afghanistan. Anyone
who attended hustings debates in Broxtowe before the general election last year
will know that I’ve always been opposed to military action in Afghanistan,
but that doesn’t for one moment diminish my respect for the bravery of our
soldiers in the field of operations.

3. Midland Main line Electrification
I was delighted to see this week that the new boss of Network rail for the East
Midlands has said that electrification of the line is his number one priority.
Whilst this is no guarantee that electrification will happen, which would have
a significant impact of providing faster travel times) it’s a step in the
right direction. A new report has also suggested this week that the overall
cost of the project could be in the region of £700 million, but that the case
for it was “very positive.”

4. Police Accidents
There was a quite eye-catching headline about accidents involving police cars
this week, although the details behind it provide quite a lot more insight.
There were 180 instances of police cars being damaged between 1st April and
31st October this year, which equates to one accident each day. Behind the
headline he figures revealed that negligent reversing was responsible for 52
accidents, 20 occurred where the police car hit the kerb and (more worryingly)
6 because the officer forgot to use the handbrake. However the good news is
that of all these accidents only 3 were where the police were involved in a
pursuit.

5. New Blue Plaque
A new blue plaque has been unveiled at Broadgate House in Beeston to mark the
former home of Edward Joseph Lowe, an eminent scientist and astronomer in the
19th century. More details about him are available here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Joseph_Lowe. Thank you to everyone from the
Beeston and District Civic Society and other organisations who have worked to
get this plaque erected.

6. A453 Widening
Although it doesn’t come into Broxtowe we will still benefit from the
announcement during the Chancellors Autumn Statement that the A453 widening
will go ahead. The whole of greater Nottingham needs this road to be improved
to ensure the continued economic wellbeing of the area, and so I’m delighted
that this is happening. The best estimate I’ve heard is that work might begin
in the next three years.

7. A52 Roadworks
This isn’t such good news. Just a couple of weeks after they told us that
they were on schedule the contractors doing the work on the A52 in Bramcote and
Beeston have announced that they are running late. Depending on which rumour
you choose to believe they have between three and six weeks more work to do.

8. Bus awards
Congratulations to Trent Buses, who provide bus services through much of the
borough, who won awards at the British Bus Awards 2011 for putting passengers
first and for marketing excellence. I’m not sure what the passengers who can
no longer access the Phoenix Flyer will think, but congratulations
nevertheless.

9. Mayors Tea Party
Thank you to everyone who supported the Mayors Tea Party in Stapleford last
week, organised by Broxtowe Mayor Jacky Williams. This event raised in excess
of £170 to put towards her charities for the year, which are the Rainbows
hospice and the Youth link café.

10. Bin Collection Changes
The council has recently reviewed all in’s black and green bin operations and
will be making changes to some routes in the new year. Some routes will change
their collection day and every house should have received a leaflet about it.
If you haven’t received one the details are available at
http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1346.

11. Chilwell Conservation Area
Sorry that I missed this last week. The council are currently consulting on
changes to the management of the Chilwell Conservation Area. There was a public
meeting last Thursday but if you kissed that the details are online and you can
send in responses to the council that way. The details are at
http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9904.

12. Oxjam Takeover
I reported back in October that the Oxjam event would be taking place that
month in Beeston, and it’s now been announced that this raised just over
£4,000 for Oxfam. Thank you to everyone who supported this.

13. Christmas tree Recylcing
The County Council have announced that they will provide a recycling service
for Christmas Trees again this year, and will use it to raise money for the
British Legion. Details are available at
http://www.veoliaenvironmentalservices.co.uk/Nottinghamshire/nottstreecyclecouk/.

14. Larkfield Junior School Eco Award
Some 60 pupils, parents and friends have are working on a project to help
Larkfields Junior School in Nuthall achieve the ‘eco green flag’ status.
The project, called Get Your Grown Up Growing, aims to transform wasteland and
neglected areas and get people involved in creating environmental areas to
benefit the community. This week they have been bulb planting, creating a
vegetable garden and woodland pathway and building a pond. Good luck to them.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is
gratefully received. That can be through email or via my website at
www.davidwatts.org.uk or the Broxtowe Lib-Dem site at
www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk.

David

Previous Newsletters >>