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.
1.
The Tram
The only place to begin this week is the official acceptance
that the tram construction programme is running late and the tram will not
begin operating later this year as intended. They now say that trams will begin
running early next year although they haven’t defined quite what that means. My
own view is that services will probably begin running this time next year, i.e.
about six months late. The consequence of this is that the consortium
constructing the tram will face quite significant penalty payments. The big
question will be where those payments go. They will be collected by the City
Council but I hope that at least some will be used to compensate the residents
along the route who have had to put up with so much hassle over the past couple
of years.
2.
City Council Boundaries
An article in the Nottingham Post this week by a Labour City
Councillor has called for the boundaries of the city to be expanded to include Beeston. We ran a survey about
this on our website at the end of last year. 97% of local residents who
responded (and we have had far more responses to this than any other survey
that we have ever run) said that they did not want to be part of an expanded
city council area, and I am disappointed that Labour are now reopening the
debate.
3.
Curate Moving
The assistant curate of St Helens church in Stapleford, rev
Peter Gilroy, is leaving the post. Rev Gilroy is moving to become the vicar of
St Luke’s Church in Liverpool. I wish him well on his new venture.
4.
Awsworth Fun Day
A family fun day will be held at Awsworth recreation ground
on Saturday July 5th. The event lasts from 11am to 11pm and features
stalls, vintage fire engines and a fun fair. Everyone is welcome to attend and
admission is £3 for adults and £2 for children. Car Parking is available at a
cost of £2.
5.
Nuthall Bus Plug
Notts County Council have revealed that so far 297 fines
have been handed out to drivers using the bus plug in Nuthall. Of these 96 were
given to Nuthall residents.
6.
Swap A Lock
Notts Police are offering people the opportunity to swap old
bikes locks for new ones, free of charge, in an attempt to reduce the number of
bike thefts in the county. Having had my bike stolen a couple of years ago I’m
all in favour of this. Broxtowe residents will be able to swap locks at Eastwood
Market on 7th July and Beeston Market on 14th July. They
will be replacing old locks with new D-ring locks and offering other crime
prevention advice.
7.
New council jobs
After years of everyone hearing about cuts, cuts and more
cuts I’m delighted to report that Broxtowe Borough Council are in fact taking
on staff. A reorganisation of the planning team means that new staff are being
recruited specifically to try and bring forward brownfield sites for redevelopment.
There are a number of sites in the borough which are derelict and for one
reason or another the owners have allowed them to decay. Last year the council
agreed that we would look at using powers of compulsory purchase to enable them
to be developed, and we are now recruiting staff to deal with this. Amazingly Unison,
whose role is meant to be representing staff, opposed the move. Draw your own
conclusions about that.
8.
Eastwood Cemetery Chapel
The borough council on Tuesday decided to draw up a scheme
for the full rebuilding of Eastwood Cemetery Chapel. This was the option supported
by the vast majority of residents in a survey by the council last month. Once
the scheme has been drawn up then the proposals will need to be voted on but
this is hopefully the next step in restoring the building after it was badly
damaged by fire earlier this year.
9.
3rd Bramcote Brownies
I saw a press report yesterday that said the 3rd
Bramcote Brownies were threatened with closure because the building that they
sub-let is due to be demolished. I have contacted the council today to ask that
we take urgent steps to ensure that the council does everything that we can do
to ensure that we help the brownies find an alternative site.
As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter, and any
feedback is gratefully received.
Best wishes
David
Follow me on Twitter at @DavidWatts12.
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