Broxtowe Lib-Dem News

Broxtowe Enews 21st January 2012

2012-01-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

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. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

It’s been a busy week this week. On Wednesday I attended a reception with Norman Baker, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, to mark the launch of NET Line 2. I had a chat there with the chairman of Tramlink, who are building Line 2, and have invited them to open an office in the Broxtowe Council building in Beeston, so that local residents have a contact poimnt for any concerns. The next day I was in London to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister, discussing a range of issues relevant to local government, and then had a session with Andrew Stunnell, a Minister at the Department of Communities and Local Government. It is this department that produces the planning rules that are causing so much of a problem for Broxtowe, and was there to lobby him for changes. Effectively I was doing what our MP should have been doing, but she has decided that it’s more fun to attack the council instead.

1. Beeston Town Square

There was an interesting interview with Henry Boot plc in the Nottingham Post this week. Henry Boot is the company who own the lease to Beeston Square. They were blaming years of indecision over the tram for the delays in redeveloping the square, but say that they are now committed to pressing forward. I don’t accept this fully as Henry Boot themselves have caused significant delays, but it does show how the delays around the tram have already had a knock on effect.

2. Tram works

Tramlink have now started to take possession of the properties in Beeston which they need to demolish to make way for the tram. Fifteen properties have so far been compulsorily purchased, and more will be needed over the next few weeks. After the years of delay things are now rushing ahead. Trees are also being cleared, and these need to be done now before the bird nesting season starts.

3. East Midlands Trains

East Midlands trains, who run through Beeston station, have a 92.5% punctuality rate, according to Network Rail. This is above the national average which is 91.6%. Well done to them but I hope that they will continue to press to achieve closer to 100%.

4. Broxtowe Youth Mayor

There is a really interesting piece in yesterday’s Nottingham Post by Tilly Stone, the Broxtowe Youth Mayor, about her work. This can be accessed here:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Today-s-teenagers-doing-bit-society-s-future/story-14984604-detail/story.html

5. Notts County Council

The County Council have decided to scrap their cabinet, and return to a system where decisions are made by a number of different committees. This was the way that councils used to work but the Labour Government of Tony Blair insisted that this system was scrapped. The coalition Government have relaxed this ban and said that councils can choose the method of operation which is best for them, and the County Council are one of the first in the country to change back. In Broxtowe the current system seems to work relatively well and we have no current plans to change.

6. Pensioners Electricity Bills

Age UK Nottingham and Notts have launched a new partnership with Eon to help pensioners claim fuel rebates that they are entitled to. Pensioners can often claim a £120 rebate on their fuel bills, and the new partnership is aimed to help them do this. Anyone who may benefit from this is invited to ring 0115 993 9982 for more details.

7. Road gritting

The County Council have issued a statement this week confirming that they are ready for any drop in temperatures, and the situation that was faced last year where they ran out of salt is unlikely to be repeated. So far this winter gritters have been out 31 times, compared with 72 times by this point last year.

8. Armed Forces Community Covenant

Broxtowe Borough Council has signed a community covenant with the armed forces, creating closer links between the borough and the military. I was present at the signing ceremony, which was presided over by our mayor, Lib-Dem councillor Jacky Williams. Part of this commitment will be making sure that proper provision is made for ex-service personnel within the borough. This is a very important step for the borough and it was very disappointing that not a single Conservative Councillor attended the ceremony.

9. Barncroft Day Services Centre

Work has started to refurbish the Barncroft Day Services Centre in Chillwell. This project, which is being carried out by the County Council, is costing approximately £800,000 and work will be finished by the summer. The centre is used each week by about 180 local residents, and this will increase after the work has finished.

10. Early Blooming Flowers

The County Council are asking for copies of photos flowers appearing in parks across the County because of the recent mild weather. Pictures should be submitted via the council’s Facebook site at facebook.com/Nottinghamshire.

11. Free swimming

The borough council have now confirmed that they will be offering free swimming again next summer to children aged under 16, throughout the summer holidays.

12. A453 Roadworks

The A453 will be closed overnight from tomorrow for four weeks. As a result traffic is likely to divert along the A52 instead, so drivers need to be ready for a significantly larger amount of night time traffic.

13. Eastwood Youth Centre

The new youth centre in Eastwood, which opened in September, is being credited with helping to reduce crime in the town. Crime in Eastwood has dropped by 20% overall, and the £2million spent on the youth centre will be seen as a very good investment if this continues.

14. Beeston Library

Beeston library has closed for four weeks for refurbishment. It is expected to reopen on 13^th February. The County Council says that a number of essential repairs are needed, and they are taking the opportunity to make some improvements as well.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback will be very gratefully received.

Best wishes

David

Broxtowe Enews 7th January 2012

2012-01-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

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. A special welcome to the new readers who signed up over the holiday and may I wish all our readers a very happy new year and I hope everyone had the opportunity of a good break over Christmas. Sadly I received yet more proof that I’m getting old, as the optician has dictated that I start wearing reading glasses! Apparently my argument that my arms just needed stretching a bit wasn’t persuasive!

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 28^th 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 18^th 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 26^th. 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 11^th 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 21^st 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

Broxtowe Enews 17th December 2011

2011-12-17T13:20:00.001-08:00

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.

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 23^rd December and will reopen on 3^rd January. The County Council offices themselves will be open from 28^th to 30^th 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.

David

Broxtowe Enews 11th December 2011

2011-12-11T15:43:00.001-08:00

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 17^th 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 19^th 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

Broxtowe Enews 26th November 2011

2011-11-26T14:22:00.001-08:00

Sorry that there was no enews last week but I was away for the weekend and didn’t want to publicise the fact, especially after we had been the victims of crime so recently in any event.

1. Constituency Boundary Review

The public consultation on new electoral boundaries closes on 5^th December. In Broxtowe the proposal is that we keep the existing boundaries but with the addition of some villages from south of the river, current part of the Rushcliffe constituency. You can make your comments on the Boundary Commission website at http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/.

2. Service of Remembrance at Bramcote Crematorium

Bramcote Crematorium will be holding a service of remembrance for friends and relatives to remember loved ones who moved away. They’ve done this for the last few years and this year it will take place on Sunday 11^th December at 2pm. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, please contact Bramcote Crematorium on 0115 917 3849, email bramcotecrem@btconnect.com or visit www.bramcotecrematorium.org.uk

3. Council Tax Rises

The County Council have announced that they will be accepting an offer from the government to keep council tax at last years levels. As the substantial majority of council tax collected goes to the county council this will have a significant impact on people. However the position is not as clear for councils as it was last year. The government last year committed to provide funds to the councils to keep council tax down, and that they would commit these funds on an ongoing level. However they haven’t made that offer this year so if council tax stays where it is then next year councils face either a loss of income or a substantial council tax rise.

4. Dr Margaret Colley

Bramcote residents may remember Dr Margaret Colley who was the village GP for 35 years. I’ve had a phone call from her son this week to inform me that she sadly lost her battle against cancer. There will be a private funeral in Suffolk, where she had been living, but a memorial event will be organised early next year in Bramcote which everyone will be welcome to attend. Dr Colley established a web site in her later years to reflect back on her life, and this is available at www.margaretcolley.co.uk

5. Christmas Choir Event

Carlton Male Voice Choir will be performing a concert at Chilwell Road Methodist Church in Beeston on3rd December 2011, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £6 (£5 in advance) and are available on 0115 943 1164.

6. Awsworth Buses

Residents in Awsworth are campaigning to have an improved bus service to the village. Following the withdrawal of the Phoenix Flyer there are now few buses running to the village, leaving many people feeling virtually cut off. Readers may recall that a couple of months ago I asked for suggestions for where the council might spend £500,000 of money we had available to use on public transport schemes. The most common suggestion was to use it to improve bus services, although legally this is the most difficult. The officers at the council are currently exploring whether we can overcome the many hurdles that there are, and if so services to Awsworth are on the list to address.

7. The Big Tree Plant

Beeston & District Civic Society, together with Broxtowe Borough Council, are launching a project to replace as many as possible of the large trees along roads that are missing. They plan to locate areas in streets and on small grassy patches in Beeston and district where extra trees will improve the appearance of the street ~ and they need your help to do this. When the sites have been chosen, the council will check suitability with regard to services below the pavement and liaise with Nottinghamshire County Council who have ultimate responsibility for the roads and footpaths. The council will apply for funding from The Big Tree Plant funding scheme. The Civic Society, with your help, anticipate planting the trees, which will be 8 – 12’ or so high (at planting), in Autumn 2012. At that point they will need TREE GUARDIANS - ideally the householder nearest the tree - to water and generally keep their eye on that tree for 2 to 3 years until it has matured sufficiently to be included in the council tree maintenance programme. If you would like to take part or want more details please email: babsel@ntlworld.com

8. Erewash Valley Landowners and Managers Event

If you own or manage land in the Erewash Valley then there is an event for you on Monday, from 6pm to 8.30pm, at the Town Hall in Beeston. There will be informal presentations on the Erewash Valley and the partnership developing the landscape for people and wildlife; Stewardship and funding opportunities; Business opportunities for landowners to buy into renewable technology concentrating on solar and wind, saving costs and an opportunity to see various displays. In addition free trees will be given out to all attendees.

9. Heat recycling at Bramcote Crematorium

Bramcote Crematorium is seeking the views of the public, Council employees and wider stakeholders on whether it would be appropriate to reuse the waste heat from its processes to heat its building. At present, all the waste heat is simply vented into the atmosphere, increasing global warming and costs. The Crematorium is considering installing a heat exchanger which would harness the surplus heat from its mercury abatement plant and turn it into usable energy for the rest of the Crematorium. This is a practice already used in a number of crematoria across the country. Views can be submitted on the councils website at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9876.

10. Beware of Bogus Charity Collectors

A bogus team of charity collectors have been doing the rounds in Bramcote again this week, claiming to collect for the Notts Air Ambulance. They have nothing to do with the air ambulance and so please do not give them anything.

11. Field Farm Stapleford

Westermans Builders have published information about their proposals to build a new estate on Field Farm in Stapleford. These are available at www.fieldfarm.info. They have not yet submitted an application but will probably do so shortly. The information that they are currently putting out is something that the coalition are requiring developers to do in the future, so that local people can be kept fully informed about what is being proposed. Once again I’ve seen an email from the Tory’s accusing the council of treating this as a done deal, exactly the same thing that they were saying about proposals to build in Toton even on the day that we dropped them.

12. Bramcote Hills Golf Course

Thank you to everyone who has so far submitted their views about the idea to allow building on the site of Bramcote Hills golf course. We have had over 130 responses so far, and I’ll publish the full results in a couple of weeks.

13. Paradiso Cinema

The film at the Paradiso Cinema, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, Friday 9th December will be “ The Bishop’s Wife” (1947). This is a change to the original advertisement as they were unfortunately unable to get a licence to show, "It’s a Wonderful Life". Instead they are showing this film, starring Cary Grant, Lorretta Young and David Niven. Tickets on the door £5 (£4 conc). Films start at 7.30pm. Come at 7pm for refreshments.

14. Milan Radulovic

The current leader of the borough council, Milan Radulovic, is unwell at the moment so may I take this opportunity to wish him a full and speedy recovery.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter, and any feedback will be very gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 12th November 2012

2011-11-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

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. A special welcome to the news readers that we have this week. We had pretty much plateaued in terms of readers for a number of weeks but over the past two weeks we’ve had a big increase in readers.

1. Bramcote Hills Golf Course

Readers in Bramcote may be very familiar with the problems at the golf course. It closed a few years ago and since then the owners have been trying to persuade the council to allow them to build houses on it (which we’ve always opposed). The latest idea that they have been talking about (although there is no application yet) is to apply to build a retirement village there, and make the rest of the site public open space. I have a survey running on my web site asking whether people would support this as an idea or not. As there is no application yet we can’t give any specific details about what the details would be, but what we would like is simply whether people would support this as an idea or not. If you’re a Bramcote resident would you take a minute to visit my website at www.davidwatts.org.uk to express your view.

2. Changes to the NHS

If you are interested in the changes that are happening to the NHS then come along to an event that is taking place at Beeston on Thursday 24 November at Chilwell Road Methodist Church, Chilwell Road, Beeston NG9 1EH from 7-9pm, or at St Mary’s hurch, hurch Street, Eastwood on 1^st December. Local GP’S will be responsible for buying health services from April 2013. 12 GP Practices in the Broxtowe area form Nottingham West NHS Clinical Commissioning Group. Representatives will be present for you to ask questions. Please register your place – email: nwc.admin@nottspct.nhs.uk or tel: 0115 883 5224.

3. New County Councillors Newsletter

My colleague Stan Heptinstall, County Councillor for Bramcote and Stapleford, produces a regular monthly newsletter. The November edition is out now and can be accessed from the Broxtowe Lib-Dem website at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk.

4. Beeston Wind Turbine

The County Council have announced that they are opposed to the proposals by Nottingham University to build three large wind turbines along the bank of the River Trent. The County Council say that there may be an ancient stream on the site.

5. HS2

MP’s have suggested to the Government that they should bring forward the date that High Speed rail trains run to the East Midlands. This is potentially very important for us in Broxtowe as Toton has been suggested as the East Midlands station for the new HS2 line. This is, at this stage, simply a report from MP’s and not government policy, but it is encouraging to see how the MP’s are supporting the scheme.

6. Growing Places Fund

The Government have announced that they are making £17.5 million available for schemes in Nottinghamshire to kick start building on infrastructure schemes. This is a very welcome investment but we will need to see what schemes come forward as a result.

7. Events at Rumbletums Café in Kimberley

Friday 18th November (6.00pm – 8.00pm) – Special evening opening for Kimberley Christmas light switch on.

Saturday 19th November (10.30am – 12.30pm) – Table Top Sale offering Christmas gifts, hand-made cards, second-hand goods and jewellery (cafe open as normal).

Saturday 3rd December (7.30pm to 10.30pm) – Open Mic Night for young people with disabilities, their friends and families. Bring your own CD’s, MP3’s and sing, dance, tell jokes or whatever

All the events above take place at Rumbletums Cafe, 2a Victoria Street, Kimberley... and don’t forget, we’re now open on Thursdays from 10.00am to 3.00pm as well as Fridays and Saturdays.

8. Fire Call Outs in Notts

Figures released by the Nottinghamshire Fire Brigade show that the number of call outs each year has dropped from 30,000 in 1995 to 13,000 now. Of those 13,000 call outs, 6,000 were false alarms. I’m not sure if there are any significant reasons for the fall but it is a quite staggering amount.

9. Valuables In Cars

The police have launched a new initiative to encourage people not to leave their valuables on show in parked cars. If the police find a car where valuables are on display then officers will record the number and will then write to the registered owners.

10. Crime Reduction

Congratulations to the staff running the County Council’s crime reduction team, whose targeting youth programme was the runner up in the national Youth Justice Board Innovations Award. This scheme works with a number of schools across the county and seems to have considerable success in reducing offending rates.

11. Kimberley Youth Gym

Kimberley Youth Gym have been awarded nearly £50,000 from the County Council for new equipment specifically for disabled users. This is excellent news and new machinery should start appearing shortly.

12. Children in Need

Three members of staff at the Charlton Arms in Chilwell are fundraising for Children in Need by spending 14 hours sitting in a bath of stout. I can’t begin to imagine how disgusting that this will feel at the end of their session, so hopefully they will raise the £1,500 they are aiming to.

13. Drug Seizures in Notts

The police have published figures showing that the number of drug seizures in Notts has gone up 11% this year, from 2,273 seizures last year to 2,528 this year. The police say that this is the result of better targeting and the better use of intelligence.

14. Eastwood Town

Health and safety officers have reduced the capacity at Eastwood Town’s Coronation park ground by 50%. The capacity is now 400 people, although the club have said that they are intalks with the County Council to address their concerns and to tackle this.

15. County Council Budget Consultation

I reported last week that the County Council were slashing ever more off their budgets. You can now comment on these online at https://secure.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/your--‐

council/consultations/budget--‐conversation/budget--‐proposals/

16. Bramcote Branch Meeting

If you’re a Lib-Dem supporter in Bramcote why not come along to our branch meeting on Tuesday at 7.30pm, at 8 Cranston Road. Everyone is welcome to attend.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. The next edition will be in two weeks time, but any feedback in the meantime is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 5th November 2011

2011-11-05T07:52:00.001-07:00

1. Toton Garrison

I read an email from Anna Soubry this week which claimed that the council were in talks with the MOD about plans to build 2,500 houses on the garrison. She even produced a plan of the alleged site. All of this is completely incorrect. The council are not in discussions with the MOD and the plan was actually one prepared by council officers for an all-party discussion held last week about places where we might look for new development. The garrison was rejected as a site, apart from anything else because the MOD have no plans to release the land. We have asked them to notify us if they are intending to sell any part of the site, but there has been no discussion other than that. I was disappointed to hear the claims being reported as fact on the BBC, although heartened to see them being dismissed by the Nottingham Post.

2. New website

Following the upgrade to the Broxtowe Lib-Dem website I’ve also updated my personal web site this week. Why not have a look at www.davidwatts.org.uk and tell me what you think. The site has the opportunity to report problems or volunteer to help, and I’m starting to build up a database of community links and groups. If you want to be added to this please let me know, with the relevant details.

3. Work on the A52

The good news is that work on the A52 is nearly completed. The bad news is that for the next week they will need to close the road at night between the Priory Island and the QMC. Road closures will be between the hours of 8pm and 6am from the 7^th to the 12^th November.

4. Winter Gritting

The County Council have produced a new leaflet on winter gritting. I‘ve put a copy on our website at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk where it’s available to download or read online.

5. Tree Planting

Tree planting season is upon us and a perfect time to plant trees to improve local communities and schools by making them more attractive, provide shade and improve biodiversity. The Greenwood Community Tree Planting Grant Scheme provides funding and advice to help schools, community groups and parish councils to carry out small-scale tree planting projects. The scheme has taken place for more than 10 years and in that time over 100 schools and community groups have received grants to plant thousands of trees.

The scheme is designed to be flexible and offers up to £250 to cover the cost of buying trees, shelters, tree stakes and ties. To be eligible, your scheme must:

· Plant native tree or shrub species (advice is available on suitable choices)

· Involve the school and/or local community

· Be situated within one of the following districts: Ashfield, Broxtowe, Gedling, or Mansfield.

· Be located on school grounds or publicly accessible land

Application forms for the 2011/12 planting season (November to March) are available from the Greenwood Community Forest Team. The deadline for applications is 16th December 2011, but funding is limited so apply early. For further details contact the Greenwood Team on 0115 977 2188 or email greenwood@nottscc.gov.uk.

6. Police Phone Number

Don’t forget that from Monday the police have a new non-emergency telephone number – 101. For emergencies dial 999, but everything else will now be on 101.

7. Cars in Bramcote Park

This is an example of how effective newsletters like this can be. A reader contacted me at the start of the week to raise problems with cars using the private road from the school across Bramcote Park during the school holidays. Dog walkers had to jump out of the way on at least one occasion. We’ve been able to raise that with the school and Kevin Dean, the Executive Head at the White Hills Park federation of schools has emailed to say that they will look at closing gates or constructing a barrier to stop cars out of school hours. Ideally we will still want pedestrians and cyclists to be able to use the route.

8. Bramcote Hills Park

Sticking with Bramcote Hills Park for the moment, resurfacing work will be carried out on the car park from mid-November through to late February. The car park will hopefully be open throughout but with a reduced number of spaces.

9. County Council cuts

The County Council have announced that they will be cutting back next year by a further £12 million compared to this years budget. Worryingly this includes cutting £10 million from Connexions, the career advice service for young people. At a time when youth employment is already far too high I think that this is a misplaced cut.

10. Council Housing in Stapleford

The Borough Council disclosed last week that the reason ten new council houses in Stapleford haven’t yet been occupied is because Severn Trent Water have failed to connect the water supply, despite having been paid to do this six months ago. Congratulations to my colleague Cllr David Grindell who highlighted the issue, and we will keep an eye on this to make sure things are now dealt with quickly.

11. Enterprise Zone

It was disappointing, if not altogether surprising, that the Enterprise Zone on the Boots site, part of which is in Broxtowe, was not allocated any money from the regional growth fund in the announcement this week. Added to that was an announcement from Network Rail that they had no plans to electrify the Midland Main Line and it’s been a poor week for infrastructure. We do need an improved transport network to Nottingham, and improving the A453 (which will have a major impact on Broxtowe even though it doesn’t come into the borough) and getting the HS2 Rail Line, would appear to be our best hope for the future.

12. The Politics Show

I’m on the Politics how on Sunday on BBC1 discussing the threat to the green belt. We recorded it on Friday and it seemed to go okay, although we were very pressed for time. The interviewer was Marie Ashby, and some years ago she interviewed me on the first ever edition of the Politics Show to come from the East Midlands. The point I was making this week was that changes being brought about by the Government threaten the green belt and the relevant ministers seem oblivious to the threat.

13. Trowell, Cossall and Greasley Events

The Trowell Christmas Special will take place on Friday 25^th November from 6.30 – 8.30pm at the Parish Hall. The Cossall Village winter market will take place the next day on Saturday 26^th November starting at 12.00 midday. Everyone is welcome to attend. There is also a craft fair at Greasley Parish Hall on 12^th November from 11am onwards. The Victorian Market takes place in Greasley on 26^th November from 10am onwards.

14. Broxtowe Business Women’s Network

The next meeting of the Broxtowe Business Womens network will be on 14^th November at the Belfrey Hotel in Nuthall, starting at 5.30pm. The speaker will be Jeannette Tokeley, MD of Dash Corporations, talking about how to gain, manage and retain clients. Details are available from the council on 0115 917 7777.

15. Christmas Lights Switch On

I mentioned these dates a few week ago but am repeating them because of the number of new subscribers we have had over the past couple of week. Christmas lights will be switched on as follows:

Kimberley 18^th November
Eastwood 22^nd November
Beeston 26^th November
Stapleford 1^st December.

Everyone is of course very welcome to attend.

16. Building on the Green Belt Part Two

After having read and heard so much over the last few weeks about how the Tories tell us they are going to save the green belt I was very surprised to heard last week that the Conservative controlled County Council had approached the borough to enquire about getting planning permission to build houses on green belt land the County own adjacent to Coventry Lane in Bramcote. They were told a very firm No.

17. CAT Meetings

There are a number of Community Action Team meetings coming up this month. Local residents are welcome to attend:

· Nuthall West – 10^th November, Church Hall, Back Lane

· Beeston Rylands – 15^th November at Beeston Rylands Community Centre

· Attenborough – 23^rd November at Lucy and Vincent Brown village hall

· Beeston Central – 23^rd November at Queens Road Methodist Church

· Nuthall East – 23^rd November, venue tba

· Stapleford North, 24^th November, Pastures Road Community Church

· Bramcote – 28^th November at Bramcote Memorial Hall

18. Belize Scam

Last week I reported an apparent scam from Belize. This was a message I had received via neighbourhood watch, which is usually a very reliable way of filtering out hoaxes. However I’ve been informed by the police this week that, whilst the scam was genuine, the phone number was closed down about 5 years ago and so is no longer a problem. Many apologies if this caused anyone any distress or worry.

19. Residents Parking In Stapleford

I am told that the County Council will publish their proposals for a resident’s car parking scheme in Stapleford this week. Hopefully I’ll be able to provide details next week.

20. Feedback

Each week I end this newsletter by saying that feedback is welcome. A reader from one of the web sites who carry this newsletter contacted me to say that there is no easy way to send feedback from them, which I accept. You can post feedback on either the Lib-Dem website or my personal website, both of which have their addresses above, or why not get the newsletter delivered by email and you can just use the reply button to send me a response. You can sign up on either of the web sites I’ve already referred to.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 29th October 2011

2011-10-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem group on Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

1. Future Development Sites

I was delighted on Wednesday night to move an amendment at the full council meeting to delete the Toton site next to the A52 from the list of preferred sites for future development in Broxtowe. I also explained some of the difficulties that the council find themselves in with Government regulations, which are forcing us to look at the possibility of redrawing the green belt boundary. The amendment was passed unanimously, which was great news. The Toton site was the subject of a significant amount of lobbying from local residents, and they deserve tremendous credit for having this site removed. Needless to say loads of people are now trying to claim the credit (I even had an email from someone in Poland claiming the credit) but really it was the efforts of the local residents which have borne fruit. It’s not simply a numbers issue, but the quality of the arguments that they presented which won the day.

2. A Bee Friendly Council

A second success for me on the council this week was the passing of a motion banning the use of neonicotiniod pesticides by the council and also banning their use by council house tenants and allotment holders. I previewed this last week but we were able to widen the terms of the motion to make it more comprehensive than I’d originally anticipated. Existing tenants and allotment holders will not be caught by the ban, although I hope that they will voluntarily follow it, but it will be a condition for any new lettings. Neonicotinoids are a relatively new form of pesticides, and there is fairly strong evidence that they are linked to the massive fall in the size of the bee population. Given that one in three items that we eat comes from crops pollenated by bees this is a significant issue. I’ve already received enquiries from other councils in the East Midlands wanting to follow suit. We will be making information available for those potentially affected to explain any steps that they should take.

3. Small Business Support

It was three out of three for me on the council on Wednesday when I also proposed a motion to help small businesses in the difficult financial situation at the moment, which was also passed unanimously. What the council has now committed to do is to ensure that we make every effort to pay all invoices within 20 days, rather than the usual 30, to help firms with their cash flow.

4. Trading Standards Scam

I’ve been asked by two separate people this week to pass on the following message:

A card is posted through your door from a company called PDS (Parcel Delivery Service) suggesting that they were unable to deliver a parcel and that you need to contact them on 0906 6611911 (a Premium rate number). DO NOT call this number, as this is a mail scam originating from Belize. If you call the number and you start to hear a recorded message you will already have been billed £315 for the phone call. If you do receive a card with these details, then please contact Royal Mail Fraud on 020 7239 6655.

5. Theft

Having mentioned the message above I’ll also mention that my family have been the victim of thieves this week. Someone forced an insecure gate at the side of my house on Thursday and stole two bikes, one adult (my wife’s) and one child’s (my daughters). My seven year old daughter is heart-broken as the bike was her birthday present from my wife and I last year. I’d like to thank Conservative councillor Mick Brown, from Mick Brown’s Cycles in Eastwood, for helping sort out a new bike so quickly.

6. Bulldog Security

Carrying on the crime theme the following message was sent from Notts police on Tuesday:

Bulldog Security sales people are operating in the area. It has been reported to us that they are making false statements about Nottinghamshire Police. That the police will not attend alarms, that neighbourhood watch is of no use whatsoever and that the police no longer attend due to lack of funding.

Nottinghamshire Police do not in any way endorse this company and have referred such claims to Trading Standards. The company have been contacted and are withdrawing their sales staff from the area and will be conducting an internal review.

Nottinghamshire Police do respond to sequentially confirmed alarm systems.

Neighbourhood Watch schemes in this area have provided early alerts for many suspicious people in the area, the local neighbourhood policing team has responded quickly and the individuals have been located and requested to leave the area. There has been very positive results for the scheme and if your area is not operating a local scheme then please contact PCSO Chris Archer, who can assist with setting one up locally.

Please report any suspicious salespeople in the area on the 0300 300 9999 number, or 999 if an emergency.

7. Green Energy at the Council

Broxtowe Borough Council are looking at a range of schemes to introduce green energy to its buildings. I’m hoping that we will opt for a fairly extensive scheme of PV panels on the roof. I’ll keep you informed of how that goes.

8. Road Safety Campaign

The County Council have launched a campaign to encourage road users to wear bright clothing when out on dark nights. They also want to remind cyclists in particular of the need to use lights when out after dark. This is a campaign I wholeheartedly endorse.

9. Awsworth Primary School

Congratulations to Awsworth Primary and Nursery School who have been given the British Councils International School Award for fostering links with schools in other countries. This is an excellent achievement.

10. Safeguarding Children

Chilwell Olympia is to run a course for football coaches and trainers working with young children on the issue of Safeguarding Children on 5^th November at 10am. The course costs £15 for borough residents (£25 for non-residents) and details are available by ringing 0115 917 3572.

11. Trick and Treat

If anyone wants a "No trick or treat" poster these can be downloaded from the councils website at www.broxtowe.gov.uk

12. Clocks

Don’t forget that the clocks go back one hour tonight.

Thanks for your support for this newsletter. As ever any feedback will be gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 23rd October 2011

2011-10-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

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.

A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week, and especially to those who’ve signed up via our new web site which we launched last week.

There’s a lot of material to report this week, as it’s a busy time of year. It is still 63 days until 25^th December but two of the events I’ve been asked to publicise are Christmas ones.

1. Housing Development

It’s been an interesting week, with Broxtowe Borough Council being discussed extensively in a debate in parliament organised by Anna Soubry, and extensive TV coverage here as a result. Some of the statements made however have been very wide of the mark, but the issue of where, if anywhere, housing development will take place in Broxtowe will be debated at the full council meeting on Wednesday. In the meantime if anyone wants to catch up on the debate in parliament it is here: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9134. If you’re interested in this (which I hope people are)then you are very welcome to come to the council meeting on Wednesday, which starts at 7pm at the town hall in Beeston.

2. Chilwell Arts Theatre

There are a number of events coming up at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School. These are:

Paradiso Cinema

Friday 11th November, “O What a Lovely War (1969)

Friday 9th December, It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)

Friday 13th January, “The Tree of Life” (2011)

Friday 10th February, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961)

Tickets on the door cost £5 (£4 conc) and films start at 7.30pm. Come at 7pm for refreshments.

Also at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Village Ventures productions present two shows, on Sunday 5th February, New Rope String Band, (see http://www.newropestringband.co.uk/) and on Thursday 29th March, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, (see http://www.coopeboyesandsimpson.co.uk/ ). Tickets in advance or on the door cost £8 (£6 con), £24 family (2+2). These are suitable for all the family. Concerts start at 7.30pm. Ring 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893 for tickets. Both bands are very popular so book early to avoid disappointment.

3. Rumbletums Café, Kimberley

Rumbletums have asked me to mention that they raised £36 for Macmillan Cancer Support from our participation in their World's Biggest Coffee Morning at the end of September, and they have recently started a Parents/Carers and Toddlers group at the cafe, every Tuesday from 1.00pm to 3.00pm and the cafe will be opening on Thursdays (we're currently only open on Fridays and Saturdays) from 3rd November. I’m delighted to do so and delighted that this venture is going so well.

4. Tram Works

NET have told me that they are expecting to let the contracts for Phase two in the next couple of weeks. They will be contacting all the traders on Chilwell Road over the next couple of weeks to talk about the compensation packages that are available. They will also be delivering letters to all the affected properties shortly. Once this is done I will post a copy of the letter on the Lib-Dem website so that anyone interested can see it.

5. Police Station Closures

Further to the item that I mentioned last week a number of people have asked what the political control is on the police authority. It is in fact Labour controlled, and the only Lib-Dem on the committee is my colleague Keith Longdon, the County Councillor for Eastwood. Keith worked very hard to ensure that Eastwood Police Station remained open, and deserves tremendous credit for this.

6. Support for small businesses

The Lib-Dems have proposed a motion which will be debated at the council meeting on Wednesday to help small businesses through the current difficult economic conditions. We’re asking the council to commit to paying invoices within 20 days, as opposed to 30 which is the current situation. This should help the cash flow of small firms who we deal with.

7. Protecting Bees

Over the past year the bee population of the UK is estimated to have declined by 17%. There are a number of reasons for this but one in particular is the increase in the use of pesticides. I’ve proposed a motion to the council to ban the use of particular pesticides (called neonicotinoids) by the council. This is a strain of pesticides particularly associated with the decline in bees so this seems to be a very practical step that we can take.

8. Events at Durban House

The DH Lawrence Heritage Centre at Durban House has announced the following events which are coming up.

Christmas at D.H. Lawrence Heritage

Event: Fairy Grotto (Part of the Eastwood Christmas Light Switch On Event)
Description: Meet our beautiful fairy and make a special Christmas wish!
Date: Tuesday 22nd November 2011, 6pm – 8pm
Venue: D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum, 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood, Notts, NG16 3AW
Price: £3.00 per child - Every child will receive a special Christmas wish, bauble, and goody bag!

Event: Victorian Christmas Tradition Tours
Description: Discover the many Christmas traditions that began in this period and soak the festive atmosphere of a Victorian Christmas.
Date: Thursday 1st to Friday 23rd December 2011
Time: Daily 11.15am Museum timed tour
Venue: D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum, 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood, Notts, NG16 3AW
Price: £5.00 Adults, £3.50 Concessions (5-15 year olds), Under 5's Free. Discounts for Broxtowe Leisure Card holder. Annual D.H. Lawrence Heritage membership available. Places limited available pre-booking advised

Event: Santa’s Grotto and Creative Christmas Craft
Description: Tell Santa your Christmas wish and receive a special Christmas goodie bag plus have a go at our special Festive Crafts.
Date: Saturday 10th December, 11am -3pm. Santa’s Grotto Open – 11am-12.30pm and 1pm until 2.30pm.
Venue: D.H. Lawrence Heritage, Durban House Heritage Centre, Mansfield Road, Eastwood, Notts, NG16 3DZ
Price: £3.00 per child, (1st Adult free, accompanying adult £1), £2.50 Broxtowe Leisure card holders, £1.00 for Santa for Annual Members

Further information for all these events is available on telephone 01773 717353 or by visiting www.dhlawrenceheritage.org

9. Improved Public Transport

This is a report back on an appeal I made last month. You may recall that the borough council has money available to spend on public transport, and I was asking for suggestions for how this might be spent. I received loads of really positive suggestions and so have now submitted a detailed list to the councils Chief Executive. In brief the suggestions fell into four categories:

a) Improved bus routes

b) Improved facilities for voluntary travel schemes

c) Improved cycle lanes and facilities

d) Mapping of existing services to identify gaps.

I know that officers at the council were reluctant to spend the money on bus routes as these tend to require a more long term funding arrangement, but it seems to me that if we can subsidise new routes for a year or so to see if there is a sufficient demand to make them viable then this would be a good use of money. I’ll keep people informed of progress.

10. Deliverers wanted

Could you help the Liberal Democrats by donating an hour of your time, four times a year? We deliver Focus leaflets to much of the borough and we’d like to increase our pool of deliverers. For those who don’t currently receive them, Focus leaflets are information leaflets telling people what is happening in their areas. They are like a printed version of this newsletter, paid for by the Lib-Dems and delivered by volunteers. We do it because of our inherent belief in community politics, in making sure that people are involved in issues and decisions which affect them. Every hour that someone gives us means more people able to receive leaflets. If you believe that people should be informed about things happening in their area then why not volunteer to deliver. Just contact me and I’ll make the arrangements for you.

11. Burglaries in Toton

I was sent this message this weekend which I thought was well worth passing on:

“As everyone is aware, Toton has suffered a significant number of Burglaries recently.

An unknown ‘gentleman’ was spotted by a resident in the Lichfield Close/Erdington Way area (Upper end of Banks Road) in the early evening acting suspiciously. A white man, approx 6’-2” tall, possibly in his 50s, greying hair, with either stubble or a ‘light’ beard, he was wearing ‘dark’ clothes with an Adidas style jacket and carrying some leaflets.

He twice walked the streets taking note of the houses. A resident was concerned and challenged him. The ‘gentleman’ claimed he was working for a double glazing firm and was looking for potential clients and ‘cold calling’ upon houses. Because the ‘gentleman’ had passed his house twice and NOT called or left a leaflet (his house has single glazing) he became more suspicious. The ‘gentleman’ offered the resident a leaflet. The resident took it saying he had missed him out, and gave the ‘gentleman’ a false address.

The resident returned home and immediately tried to contact the double glazing company. No reply on the telephone number – not even an answer-phone. The resident ‘checked-out’ the business website and the business addresses between the leaflet and the website did NOT match. The resident telephoned the police and reported the situation. The police took details and said they would patrol the area to look for him.

I can confirm that the Police did take action. My son came home from work just a little later and saw a Police van and several policemen on foot patrolling the streets.

The primary purpose of this note is to advise you of this ‘incident’ and ask you to be vigilant. We can help each other here in Toton. If you are unhappy with what you see – phone the Police. The second purpose of this note is to praise, and thank, the Police for acting swiftly. The Police are taking the Toton burglaries VERY seriously. So WE need to help them any way we can – be vigilant – take a note of peoples’ descriptions, vehicle registration numbers, AND contact the Police IMMEDIATELY if you have any concerns.”

12. Police Contact Number

Following on from that story, the police have announced that they will be adopting a new contact number. For emergencies (as above) the number remains 999, but for non-emergency calls the new police number from 7^th November will be 101.

13. Pampered Women

There will be a pampering and shopping evening for women in Beeston at the Pearson Centre, Nuart Road, on 11^th November from 7.30pm. The money raised will be used to fund activities for children aged from 4 to 18. I do have to declare an interest here as one of my daughters attends the Girls Brigade there, so obviously I hope as many women as possible will turn up. Tickets cost £2 in advance or £2.50 on the night, and are available from 0115 925 4112.

14. Crime Figures

The latest figures released by the Home Office show a reduction in recorded crime of 13.4% for Nottinghamshire. Burglaries fell 38%, which was the highest fall in the country. There is always a difference between the actual levels of crime and those which are reported to the police, but all the evidence shows that crime is falling quite significantly, which is very encouraging news. I haven’t had the detailed breakdown yet showing the situation here in Broxtowe so I will post that when I have it

15. Reporter Nominated

Congratulations to Nottingham Post reporter Alex Britton, who covers Broxtowe, on being nominated for the Exclusive of the year award by the National Council for the Training of Journalists Awards for Excellence 2011. The report which has earned Alex the nomination is his coverage of the mix up in May when the wrong winner was declared in the Eastwood ward for the borough council.

16. Heritage in Danger

A new report on architectural heritage in Nottinghamshire has identified three properties at risk in Broxtowe. These are the Summerhouse at the Yews, Kimberley Road, Nuthall, Bennerley Viaduct, Awsworth and Beauvale Priory.

17. Renewable Energy in Beeston

Greening Beeston, which promotes renewable energy in the town, is looking at sites for a community renewable power project and is wanting local residents to select from a shortlist of three. There will be a public meeting at Beeston Library on Saturday October 29^th between 1.30 and 3pm.

Thank you for your support for this newsletter. As ever any feedback will be gratefully received (although I was somewhat unimpressed when a Labour councillor phoned me up this week to swear at me (strongly) about the newsletter, as apparently I’d reported something that he wanted to take the credit for).

Best wishes

David

Broxtowe Enews 15th October 2011

2011-10-15T13:59:00.001-07:00

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

1. Web Site

Broxtowe Lib-Dems have a new web site. The address is the same as previously, www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk but every aspect of it has been redesigned. We will be adding more pages in the next few weeks as well, so please drop by and have a look.

2. Cabinet by internet

I’m trailblazing on Tuesday. It’s the cabinet meeting at the council on Tuesday but I have to be in London for a business meeting at 6pm. I’ve therefore arranged for a Skype link to be set up so that I can attend the cabinet meeting virtually. We’ve had a councillor attend via a video link from elsewhere in the council building before, where she has an illness which meant that she couldn’t attend the main meeting, but I will be the first person to attend from elsewhere in the country.

3. Police station closures

The police have announced their final plans for cutbacks, which have been modified following the public consultation. I’m pleased to say that the front counter at Eastwood Police Station will now remain open, but Kimberley and Stapleford Police Stations are to close, with the police working out of other local offices. These changes will save about £720,000 per year, or putting it another way it avoids cutting 50 front line officers. The police also hope to raise in excess of £800,000 from the sale of surplus buildings.

4. Roger Helmer quits

Arch-euro sceptic Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has resigned from his seat, saying that he is disillusioned with the way that the Tory party are going. Under the terms of the election system for MEP’s the Tory party get to appoint a successor to fill in the rest of the term.

5. Extra money for schools

The Pupil Premium, which was a key Lib-Dem policy in the general election last year, has resulted in an extra £684,000 for schools in Broxtowe this year, according to figures released this week. This works out as an extra £488 for every chid receiving free school meals, which is considerably higher than was expected to be announced. This is a very real illustration of the positive impact that the Lib-Dems are having in government. It wasn’t a Tory policy and without us there this money would never have been made available.

6. No Trick No Treat

Broxtowe Borough Council have partnered with Notts Police again this year to run our “No Trick No Treat” campaign again for Halloween. If you don’t want children to call trick or treating then there is a free poster you can download on the borough’s website at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9767.

7. Foil Recycling

The council has launched a 6 month trial allowing people to recycle used foil packaging. We have installed four recycling bins for these, at Sainsbury’s in Beeston and Kimberley, Morrison’s in Eastwood and the Co-Op in Stapleford. If these work then the scheme will hopefully be made permanent.

8. A52 Works

The Highways Agency have announced that the improvement work on the A52 is running to schedule and they expect the work to be finished by the end of next month. When finished there will be new traffic lights and pedestrian crossings at Thoresby Road and the Priory and QMC Islands.

9. Beeston Litterpick

Broxtowe Mayor Jacky Williams will be leading a residents litter pick on Monday in Beeston. This is part of the “Love Where You Live” campaign that the council are supporting. Residents are also urged to report any “grotspots” in the borough on www.broxtowe.gov.uk/lovewhereyoulive.

10. Register to Vote

The council have announced this week that there are approximately 11,000 people in the borough are yet to register to vote. If you haven’t done so yet it is important to do so, to ensure that you don’t lose the right to vote. Every household should have received a form to register, but if you’ve lost it contact the Democratic services team on 0117 917 7777.

11. EvoEnergy

Congratulations to Attenborough based business EvoEnergy who were named as the Solar Installer of the year at the 2011 Renewables Award.

12. Festival Of Comedy

Next Saturday, the 22nd of October, Beeston will be host to a massive bunch of musicians, comedians, poets and others, all for a good cause. Oxfam have chosen Beeston as the host of this years Notts Oxjam, part of a national fundraiser that, for one day, collectively becomes the UK's largest festival. All the details can be found at http://www.oxjambeestontakeover.org/p/oxjam-music-festival.html

13. Green Belt debate

Anna Soubry MP has arranged a debate in parliament on the future of the green belt. This will be on Tuesday morning. Anna has also arranged a couple of further public meetings in Broxtowe to discuss potential development sites, but I’m afraid that I have mislaid my notes on this so can’t say where they are. Hopefully Anna’s team will be able to send them through to me.

14. Dave Wood

I mentioned earlier this year that Stapleford Poet Dave Wood was undertaking a walk around the historical boundaries of Sherwood Forest. Dave is now on the last leg of this, delivering poetry readings and events as he goes. Details for the final leg are on line at http://creativesherwoodforestperambulations.blogspot.com/2011/03/home.html

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 9th October 2011

2011-10-09T14:42:00.001-07:00

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 a quiet week news wise this week, but there are a few things going on.

1. Twitter

I’m now on Twitter and will start tweeting (I think that’s the right phrase) from this week. If anyone wants to follow me I’m DavidWatts12. Updates from the newsletter will be tweeted as often as possible, including any significant decisions straight after council meetings. I hope people will join me there.

2. Paint

Thanks to a reader for alerting me to this. The household waste site at Beeston won’t take tins of paint, and on checking with the County Council they say that these should be taken to Calverton. This would be a 30 mile round trip just to get rid of a tin of paint! The County Council said that they are looking at alternatives and I’ll be pressing them to do this quickly. Unfortunately they tell me that it is unlikely to be before next summer.

3. Sale of Bramwell

I reported previously about how the County Council had sold 6 nursing homes, including Bramwell in Bramcote, massively under value. Lib-Dem County Councillor Stan Heptinstall has now written to the District Auditor asking them to investigate the sale. Councillors have a duty to act in the best interests of the whole county, and selling assets massively under value does not seem to be doing that. We’ll keep you posted.

4. Rumbletums Fundraising

A TRUSTEE of Rumbletums café in Kimberley is having all her hair shaved off to raise money for the charity. Wendy Tompkins, who lives in Bramcote, has raised £700 in sponsorship and is splitting the money between the café in Newdigate Street, which offers training opportunities to students with learning difficulties, and MacMillan Cancer. Well done to her.

5. Grants to Artists

Artists and community groups across Nottinghamshire are being urged to apply for funding from a pot of more than £30,000 from Nottinghamshire County Council. Grants of between £500 and £2,500 areavailable for a range of one-off arts projects from the Nottinghamshire Arts Fund. For more details and to apply for funding, visit Nottinghamshire County Council’s website at www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/artsgrants.

6. School Rebuilding

PRIMARY schools in Eastwood and Brinsley could be re-built as part of plans to give 55 of the county’s schools a makeover. Nottinghamshire County Council has applied to the Government for a slice of the £2bn it is making available to rebuild schools. The council will ask for funding to rebuild 11 secondary schools, two academies, one special school and 41 primary schools – including Lynncroft Primary School in Eastwood and Brinsley Primary School.

7. Council Customer Service Award

The Borough Councils customer service team have been awarded the Institute of Customer Service ServiceMark award for the second year running, showing the emphasis that the council places on dealing with members of the public to the highest standard. The council were also shortlisted for five awards at the Association of Public Service Excellence awards.

8. Money for Community Groups

British Land, who own the Giltbrook Retail Park, are making money available for community groups. They are looking to fund community projects between £1,000 and £50,000 as part of their community responsibility fund. My colleague Ken Rigby is the County Councillor for the area and will happily receive any ideas, which he will pass on to British Land.

9. Good news from the Post Office

One piece of good news this week is that the Padge Road delivery centre in Beeston has been guaranteed to be protected from closure. The Post Office have confirmed that they are closing other offices but they are moving the facilities to Beeston.

10. Wind Turbine in Beeston

Nottingham University have flown a blimp at the site they wish to erect three wind turbines on showing how high they will be, although protestors are complaining that the blimp was actually flown at the wrong height. I’m afraid that I didn’t see it to be able to comment.

11. New Kits For Priory Celtic

Priory Celtic Football Club in Kimberley have been awarded £5,000 from the Football Foundation to pay for new kits.

12. Brinsley Carnival

I’m afraid that it’s now been confirmed that Brinsley Carnival is over. The committee running it has been unable to attract new volunteers and so the carnival has been wound up.

13. Kimberley Leisure Centre

A new range of activities launch at Kimberley Leisure Centre tomorrow (10^th October) including street dance for adults and children, as well as Zumba. Details are available from the Leisure Centre.

14. Beeston North CAT

The Community Action Team meeting for Beeston North takes place at Boundary Road church on 11^th October from 7.00pm. Any local residents are welcome to attend.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback will be gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 1st October 2011

2011-10-01T15:34:00.001-07:00

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. Can I give a special welcome to the new subscribers that we have this week. I had a lot of feedback from last weeks newsletter and I’m very conscious that haven’t been able to reply to everyone yet. Please bear with me and I’ll get to you.

1. New car park in Beeston

It is likely that the multi-story car park will be demolished early next year as part of the process to build the new tram system, and so the council are making arrangements to find alternative provision. We looked at this at the council’s cabinet this week and have made arrangements for a couple of sites to be looked at further, so that shoppers visiting Beeston will not be unduly inconvenienced.

In addition to these the council will be consulting on changes to other car parks. We’re looking at the possibility of introducing a three hour limit at Bramcote leisure centre (but with no charge) to stop commuters leaving their cars there all day. This should mean that there are more spaces available for people who actually use the centre, which should be a good thing. Also in Bramcote we’re looking at whether the King George’s park car park should be limited to a maximum to three hours. This should again stop people leaving their cars there all day, so that users of the park have more chance of getting parked.

These are consultations at the moment and so I’d be really interested to hear peoples views.

2. Housing proposals

The council are still consulting on proposals for new building in the borough. These are still simply ideas and no decisions have been taken, despite what has been suggested by other people. I’ve also seen suggestions on the Tory party web site that the council is wanting to build all over the green belt, which is not true. The map shown on that site is not a plan showing where the council wants to build, but simply a record of where people have made enquiries about building in the past. The last government required that councils kept this sort of information. The consultation period is due to end on Monday but any submissions made after that will still be taken into account.

I’ve met Anna Soubry this week to talk about the housing plans. I think that Anna’s basic position is similar to mine, that the green belt should be protected wherever possible, but I have told Anna that I am unhappy about the way that she has gone about things.

3. City Council Housing Plans

The city council is also looking at where they will allow new house building within their boundaries. One area that they have identified is around the Nottingham Business Park next to the A6002. Their proposals would mean that new houses could be built stretching right down to the edge of Strelley Village, which is a conservation area. There is a little bulge where the border of the city crosses the A6002, and the city have decided to try and fill this full of houses. Their plans have no real impact on the city but will cause untold damage to the borough. I will be pressing for the borough to oppose these plans.

4. Sporting heroes

The Broxtowe Borough Sports Review will take place on 4^th December, and the organisers are looking for nominations for the boroughs sporting heroes. These will be people who devote time in the borough to coaching, volunteering or participating in sport. Nominations can be made by ringing 0115 917 3572.

5. Ebooks from the Library

Users of the libraries in Nottingham will now be able to download ebooks from the library web site at www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/libraries. This will make books available to those who are unable to visit the library in person, but each download does cost £1. I hope that this new service will be successful.

6. Black Bin Collections

The announcement from Eric Pickles that the government wanted councils to return to weekly black bin collections came completely from the Tory side and was nothing to do with the Lib-Dems, who have already announced their opposition to it. It also flies in the face of the Governments much cherished localism agenda, where they say that they will give local councils the freedom to do what they want to with their money. The announcement that Mr Pickles made was that the Government will give councils an extra £250 million, but only where they agree to return to a weekly black bin collection.

If the Government have £250 million to give away then councils will very happily find a use for it, but we should have the freedom to use it in the way which most benefits local residents. All the research says that where weekly bins are reintroduced recycling rates drop, which is something that we should avoid where possible.

7. Fire at Albany Court

As people may have seen on the TV this week, there was a fire at Albany Court in Stapleford where the fire service needed to rescue people from one of the flats. Once again I find myself in awe of the bravery of these people, and it’s thanks to them that no-one was hurt.

8. Bramcote Lib-Dems

If you’re a Bramcote resident and a supporter of the Liberal Democrats why not join us for a meeting this Monday, 3^rd October. It starts at 7.30pm and is at 8 Cranston Road, the home of Cllr Stan Heptinstall. All supporters are welcome to attend.

9. Stapleford Walk In Centre

Sadly the walk in centre is now shut, meaning that one of the best medical facilities anywhere in the region is no longer around. The Lib-Dems have led the campaign against the closure and we are really disappointed that it hasn’t succeeded. All the Lib-Dem councillors in Stapleford worked really hard on this, and we’d like to thanks everyone for the tremendous support that they gave us.

10. Goose fair

Just a reminder that the Goose Fair is on this week, running from Wednesday until Sunday. There will be extra bus and tram services put on, and parking around the site itself is very limited. If you’re going have a great time.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 24th September 2011

2011-09-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

There is quite a lot to cover in this edition as there was no news last week as I was at the Lib-Dem conference in Birmingham. It was an excellent conference, which seemed to confound the national media. They were there in droves, expecting us to engage in a civil war over the poor election results in May, but instead it was an extremely upbeat and entirely united conference by a party finally adjusting to being in Government. Enough of that though, lets turn to the news.

1. Boundary Change

The biggest story of the week was the Boundary Commissions proposed new boundaries for the Broxtowe parliamentary constituency. They are suggesting that the village of Gotham should be added to Broxtowe, despite the fact that it is the other side of the Trent with no direct connections to the rest of the constituency. I know that this will make the figures work for the commission, but frankly it seems a very odd idea to me.

2. Future Development

The consultation on housing in Broxtowe for the next 20 years closes in just over a week, so if you haven’t had your say yet please do. You can submit responses at www.broxtowe.gov.uk or by post to the borough council. I attended a meeting at Toton today organised by Anna Soubry, where some strong views were expressed. I contacted Anna some weeks ago suggesting that she and I should meet to discuss what might be proposed, and I’m pleased to say that we have been able to schedule the meeting for this coming week.

3. Greening Beeston

The Greening Beeston campaign, which promotes a greener lifestyle in practical ways, is to hold a meeting on Tuesday at the Baptist Church on Dovecote Lane starting at 7.30pm. The aim is to kick start the next phase of the campaigns work, and it would be great to have a large turnout of local residents.

4. Bramwell Care Home

Bramwell Care Home in Bramcotee is one of six care homes (valued at something like £19 million on the open market) which are being sold by the County Council for £2.5 million. There is a covenant that they are to be maintained as care homes for a specified period of time and they have been sold to a company which runs care homes, so that will provide some reassurance to residents. However not selling them at all would be a far better idea. My colleague Stan Heptinstall has been an active member of the Friends of Bramwell campaign which has opposed this sale, and all the Liberal Democrat county councillors voted against the proposals.

5. Chief Constable to Retire

The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police, Julia Hodgson, has announced that she is to retire next spring. The process of appointing her successor will be commenced later this year by the Police Authority.

6. Changes to County Council Procedures

The County Council are consulting local residents about whether they should change their method of operating to return to a system of committees that existed until about ten years ago. All councils used to work through a series of committees, but the last Labour Government forced them to abandon this and move to a portfolio based system. The coalition government have decided to allow councils to decide how they want to operate, and this is why the county council are now consulting about reverting to the previous system.

7. House Building

One way that central government provide funding to local authorities is through a scheme called the “New Homes Bonus,” which provides cash grants to local authorities based on the number of new houses built in the borough the previous year. The government have now announced that this year Broxtowe Borough Council is to receive £190,873. This is the lowest of any authority in Nottinghamshire, and a key factor is that Broxtowe just does not have spare available land. This is a flaw in the scheme which I have drawn to the attention of ministers until I’m blue in the face but I’ve got nowhere.

8. Lawrence Novels 100^th Birthday

The DH Lawrence Heritage Centre at Durban House in Eastwood (which will shortly start opening on Sunday’s, something that we have not been able to do for the past couple of years, are holding a special exhibition to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the publication of The White Peacock, Lawrence’s first novel. The exhibition is on now and will run until 30^th October.

9. Police Station Closures

The consultation being run by the police about their proposals to close a number of police stations, including Stapleford and Kimberley, is now half way through and they have published their initial findings. So far more than half of respondents have said that they are opposed to the scheme. If you haven’t responded yet may I encourage you to do so at http://www.nottspa.org/Welcome.html.

10. Green Guardians

Are you a green guardian, or do you know someone who is? Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust is still looking for nominations for their green guardians awards, which have a closing date of October 3^rd. Nominations can be made on www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/green-guardians.

11. Tesco Toton

Tesco’s at Toton have been ordered by the council to remove a new storage pod which they erected without permission. Tesco’s say that they will be appealing this decision.

12. Over 40’s Football

A new scheme has been launched by the borough council in Eastwood to encourage the over 40’s to get involved in football. This is being run with the Mars Just Play initiative. This is being held at the Eastwood Community Sports Centre, and sessions will cost £2 per person. Details are available on 0115 917 3572.

13. Redevelopment at Boots

Boots have set out their ideas for how parts of their site might be redeveloped. Although most of this is in the city some of it is in Broxtowe, and the proposals for us could include 500 houses being built. This is a long term aspiration, as far as I can tell, but if it comes to be it would ease the pressure on sites elsewhere.

14. The Crown Inn

Congratulations to the Crown Inn in Beeston, who have been named the East Midlands pub of the year by CAMRA, the real ale society. This is the second time that it has won the award in the past couple of years.

15. Pet Microchips

The Brinsley Animal Rescue Centre is offering cut price micro-chipping for pets to raise money for charity. This will be on 2^nd October and costs £10, with £9 of the fee going to Brinsley Animal Rescue. Details are available on 01773 712999.

16. City Council Proposals

The city council has unveiled it’s plans for new development within its boundaries. Significantly for the borough they are proposing new development around the Nottingham Business Park, to the west of the A6002 just north of Strelley Village. Due to a quirk of the boundaries there is a bulge of land to the west of the road leading to Nuthall Island which is part of the city rather than in Broxtowe, and the city council seem very happy to build on it. Effectively they seem to feel that if they build here it will be Broxtowe’s problem and not theirs.

17. Winter Gritting

Notts County Council have announced that this year they are ready for the forthcoming winter. The authority have stockpiled 9,000 tonnes of road salt, which should be enough to cope with a winter of the severity of the last couple of years.

As ever thanks for your support for this newsletter, and any feedback will be gratefuly received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 11th September 2011

2011-09-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

1. Public Transport Money.

Thank you for all the suggestions for how the borough council can spend the money it has available for public transport schemes. I’ve had more responses to this than to any other request I’ve ever included, which is why I just haven’t had time to send personal replies to everyone. I have read them all though. I will pass them all on to the borough council and will try and get as many of them implemented as possible.

2. Walking Round Sherwood Forest.

I’ve mentioned before that Stapleford poet Dave Wood is walking around the ancient boundaries of Sherwood Forest. He has now published his latest set of dates and anyone who wishes is welcome to join him. Phone Dave on O77 O99 77684 or email him on davewrite2002 @ yahoo.com for details.

3. Mayors Fashion Show

Broxtowe mayor, Lib-Dem councillor Jacky Williams, will be hosting a fashion show in aid of two young peoples charities later on this year. Tickets are on sale now and they are going fast. The show will be held on 15^th November at the Pearson Centre in Beeston. Tickets cost £7.50 and are available by ringing 917 3210 or by emailing civic@broxtowe.gov.uk.

4. Council Meeting

We had a very interesting full council meeting last week. The first main motion for us to discuss was one that I put forward about the riots last month, pledging the support of the council to the police in apprehending those involved in criminality and thanking the council staff for their contingency planning about this. I spoke about the need to avoid knee-jerk reactions but both the extreme left and the extreme right promptly demonstrated this. A tory member called for all people involved in criminality to be evicted from their homes (ignoring the fact that the council would then have a legal responsibility to rehouse them and we would be hot with the costs for this) and a number of Labour members tried to blame everything on the coalition, (even the fact that there is a 15 year difference in life expectancy between different pasts of Nottingham, which I really don’t think we can have created in the last 12 months). One of the most sensible contributions in the debate came from Tilly Stone, the youth mayor, who spoke about the need not to demonise young people.

The second motion that we had was another one I put forward calling for the Government to provide more support to local authorities about steps they can take to combat global warming. The coalitions new energy bill is extremely good in many ways, but a small injection of extra money could unlock a lock of new support for authorities, and whilst Broxtowe has an excellent record in tackling climate change more support is always welcomed. I thought that this would receive unanimous support but we had members from both Labour and the Tories speaking to deny that global warming was even happening! (To be fair to the Tories, the best contribution to the whole debate was from Conservative Councillor Graham Harvey, who clearly outlined the overwhelming evidence to show that global warming does exist.) The motion was passed but five Tories and one Labour member voted against.

The third motion was one from the Tories calling for protection for the green belt in Broxtowe and a reduction in housing numbers being proposed for the borough. Much of the motion is very good (they appear in fact to have used my words from the cabinet meeting in July when we looked at this) but the motion was premature as the time to discuss this is after the consultation has closed at the start of last month. Whilst I agree fully with the sentiment expressed by the motion the actual result had it been passed would have been the very opposite of what the Tories were asking for, due to the poor timing on their behalf. I therefore proposed that this motion be adjourned until the next meeting, after the consultation had closed, and this was carried (even though two Labour councillors got confused and voted the opposite way to which they wanted!)

5. Road Improvements

I was able to report at the council meeting that a programme of road repairs was being implemented by the council. I asked earlier on this year for suggestions from people as to roads in urgent need of improvement and the new list comes from that. We haven’t been able to do all the roads that we wanted to as their simply wasn’t enough money to do them, but I’ll press for further repairs to take place next year.

6. Katelyn Severn

Congratulations to Bramcote dancer Katelyn Severn, aged 18, who has been selected to represent the UK in an international ballet competition in South Africa next month. Katelyn, who trains at the Redhead Scott School of Dancing in Beeston, will be representing the UK at the Genee International Ballet Competition in Cape Town. This is yet another young person from the borough achieving great things.

7. Support for Abuse Victims

Broxtowe Womens Project is offering a 12 week course called the Freedom Project, aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence. The course runs in Eastwood on a Thursday and details are available on 01773 718555.

8. Stapleford Walk In Centre

I was delighted to learn that the county council refused to support the closure of the Walk In Centre in Stapleford. Lib-Dem councillors led the argument and were supported by the Labour party. The Conservatives voted in favour but the overall result was that the council refused to support the closure. Unfortunately this will not stop it happening, so it’s only a pyrrhic victory.

9. Beeston Wildlife Group

The Beeston Wildlife Group will be having a talk about safari’s in Botswana at their meeting on 19^th September. They meet at Trent Vale School and it costs £2. The meeting starts at 7.30pm and details are available from Bill Wheatley on 0115 925 0208.

10. Attenborough Health Walk

There will be a health walk around Attenborough Nature Reserve on Tuesday 20^th September at 10.30am. The walk will last 90 minutes and is free to talk part in. Further details are available from the visitors centre on 0115 972 1777.

11. Next Newsletter

There will be no newsletter next weekend as I will be at the Lib-Dem conference in Birmingham, so the next edition will be in two weeks time.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 4th September 2011

2011-09-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

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

1. Money for Public Transport

I’m starting this week with a question. Can you help the council spend a million pounds? I’m not kidding. Whenever significant new housing is built in the borough the council takes some money off the developers to pay towards improvements in public transport. At the current time we have a £1 million in the fund for this but the schemes currently proposed will only come to about £500,000. I’m therefore looking for (sensible) suggestions for schemes that we can use the rest of the money for. It is crazy that we can only use the money for transport schemes, as there are lots of other projects crying out for the cash, but I’m afraid that this is how the system works. Please let me have any ideas and I will pass them on.

2. Bramcote CAT meeting

Bramcote CAT meeting will take place tomorrow (Monday) at the Memorial Hall. All local residents are welcome to attend. Amongst the items being discussed are the councils plans for where new housing should take place in the borough.

3. Stapleford Walk In Centre

A County Council meeting will take place tomorrow to make the final decision on the closure of the Stapleford Walk in Centre. The Lib-Dems have fought an extensive campaign to block this, but to no avail. If, as expected, the County Council approve the closure tomorrow then the centre is likely to close on 30^th September.

4. Awsworth Composting Plant

I’m delighted to learn that the plans to build a composting plant in Awsworth have been withdrawn. The Parish Council has fought hard against these proposals and they and local residents are to be congratulated on their success.

5. Leisure Centre Offer

The borough council has launched a new scheme for full time students wishing to use our leisure centres. A new 9 month membership scheme has been introduced aimed solely at students, and will entitle them to use the facilities at Bramcote, Chilwell and Kimberley leisure centres. Details are available from any of the leisure centres.

6. Kimberley Institute Cricket Club

Congratulations to the Kimberley Institute Cricket Club, who have won a grant from the Cricket Foundation to invest in a non-turf wicket. This scheme has also been supported by my colleague Ken Rigby, who has donated £500 from his County Council funds to this project.

7. Walking For Health

Another good news story is that Broxtowe’s Walk and Talk Walking for Health Group received an award at the Greenwood Community Awards ceremony in Mansfield for their work in promoting a healthier lifestyle.

8. Attenborough Flood Defences

Work has commenced this week on the latest stage of the Trent Flood Defences through the village of Attenborough. Long time readers may recall that this was the most controversial part of the scheme until a compromise was reached last year, and I have been delighted to have played a part in finding a solution which offers the best for everyone. The work should be completed by next summer and once done the village should be protected from any further flooding for years to come.

9. Beestonia in Print

My favourite local blog, Beestonia, has now gone into print. Matt Goode who writes Beestonia, has now produced The Beestonian, a print version. Issue Minus One is now available and further information can be obtained from matt at info@beestonia.org.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 30th August 2011

2011-08-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

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.

1. Stapleford Walk In Centre

I’m afraid that the NHS has confirmed that Stapleford Walk In Centre will close at the end of September. This is a dreadful decision and totally ignores the very strong views expressed by people locally. The argument that Stapleford shouldn’t have a facility like this as other places didn’t have anything as good is one of the most ridiculous I’ve ever heard, Rather than get rid of such a good facility they should be raising standards elsewhere to match. We have fought this decision every step of the way but sadly to no avail.

2. Stapleford Carnival

Stapleford Carnival is next Saturday, 3^rd September. It takes place at the Washington Drive playing field and everyone is welcome. The Lib-Dems will have a stand there, so do come over and say hello.

3. Free Swimming

I’m delighted to report on a real success for the borough council. As readers may be aware, for the last two years we have offered free swimming for children up to 16 and pensioners during the month of August. I’ve just seen the figures for the first three weeks of the month and we have already had an increase in patronage of 15% compared to last year, and nearly four times the numbers that we had in July. Not only are a huge number of people using the free offer but we are also having record numbers of paying customers. Broxtowe’s leisure centres are a real credit to the borough and very popular. We are one of the few councils that does not need to subsidise the leisure centres, they are so popular that they pay for themselves.

4. Events at Chilwell School

There are two forthcoming events at Chilwell School which I have been asked to advertise. First there is an Outdoor car boot sale on Sunday 11th September 2011 at Chilwell School, Queens Road West, Chilwell (Will not go ahead if it rains) from 9am to 1pm. Car booters may set up from 7.30am and there’s no need to book. Cars cost £5, vans £7.50 and the fee for visitors is a donation to school funds. If the weather is uncertain see www.chilwell.notts.sch.uk

Also on Friday 9^th September 2011 at 7.30pm Paradiso Cinema presents Oranges and Sunshine, the story of Nottinghamshire social worker, Margaret Humphrys, and the Child Migrants Trust - http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/. This is at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets on the door - £5, £4 (conc). Come at 7pm for refreshments. Further details are at www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

5. DH Lawrence Play

The Phoenix Rising, a play about DH Lawrence, will be performed at Durban House in Eastwood on September 18^th. Tickets cost £12 (£10 concessions) and are available from 01773 717353.

6. Unemployment Figures

It was very disappointing to read this week that Nottingham now has the worst unemployment rate in the country. Thankfully matters are not as bad in Broxtowe as they are in the city, but the rate is rising and the council does commit a lot of resources to encouraging new businesses and support for firms in the borough.

7. Wildlife Photography

Attenborough Nature Reserve are running a session for budding wildlife photographers this coming Saturday from 8.00am to 10.30am. It costs £32 and pre-booking is essential. Places can be booked on 0115 972 1777, and if you’re going I will see you there. I’ve been taking photo’s for years but rarely of birds, and so I’ve signed up. (Some of my photo’s can be seen at www.david-watts-photography.org.uk if you will forgive the shameless plug.)

8. Brinsley graveyard vandalism

About 30 headstones have been overturned this week at St James the Great Church in Brinsley. This is despicable behaviour, and if anyone has any information to assist in apprehending those involved please contact the police. If you don’t want to talk to the police directly talk to me and I will pass information on.

9. Charity Website

A charity set up to help a Beeston resident has a new website for donations. The Sherwood Foundation are trying to raise £100,000 to send Andy Sherwood of Beeston to America for specialist treatment. The web site is at www.thesherwoodfoundation.org.uk).

10. Jessie Carter-Kay

Congratulations to Bramcote resident Jessie Carter-Kay who has won through to the finals of the Notts Outstanding Achievement Awards 4uth. Jessie set up her business Pulp Friction Smoothie Bar Project in 2008 and has turned it into a successful venture, bringing her bikes to various events where people can use pedal power to create their own smoothies. Both of my girls have had goes on them and think that they are great fun.

11. Register to Vote

Just a quick reminder that if you haven’t registered to vote yet you need to do so quickly. Forms were sent out earlier this month and people can register by post, phone or internet.

12. County Council Grants

The County Council are considering changes to the system that they use to administer grants to voluntary groups. The idea is to make the process easier and to provide more certainty for groups, and the County Council are currently consulting on their plans. Comments can be sent to county-grantaid@nottscc.gov.uk or by phoning 0115 977 3304.

13. Green Flag Parks

People now have the opportunity to vote for their favourite green flag parks. Bramcote Park, the flagship park in the borough, has held a green flag for years and I‘d encourage people to vote for it (or if not for one of the other green flag parks in the borough). Votes can be cast at http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/GreenFlag/GreenFlagAwardSites/EastMidlands/Default.aspx.

14. County Council investing locally

I’ve been critical of many things that the County Council have done recently, but I’m delighted to see that they have been able to increase the amount of goods that they buy from local supplies from 41% to 50%. This is very good news and the County reckon that every pound that they spend locally ends up being worth £1.97 to the local economy.

15. Foresters Arms, Newthorpe

I mentioned last week that local residents were collecting signatures on a petition in an attempt to stop Greene King building houses on the site where the Foresters Arms currently stands. That petition has now collected 732 signatures and has been passed to Anna Soubry MP.

16. Kimberley Police Station

Kimberley Parish Council have organised a public meeting to discuss plans to close Kimberley Police Station. This will be held at the Parish Hall on Newdigate Street on September 5^th at 7.00pm.

17. Safer Community Volunteers

The Notts Police Authority are seeking nominations from Notts residents who have been helped by volunteers giving up their time to make local communities safer for an award. The Jean Varnam award recognises outstanding achievements and initiatives in community safety, and nominations can be made by emailing Jackie.nash@nottinghamshire.pnn.police.uk

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. We haven’t had any new subscribers for the past three weeks so if you know of anyone who would benefit from reading it please mention it to them.

Many thanks

David

Broxtowe Enews 21st August 2011

2011-08-21T13:51:00.001-07:00

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. Planning Consultation

As we’re in the middle of August the news is fairly light this week, but can I start with something I raised last week, which is the consultation on where future building should take place in the borough. A number of people have commented that the consultation page on the borough council web site is not very clear or easy to use, and so to assist people I have put together a short summary of the key proposals, which is attached to this newsletter. Can I stress that this is not an official part of the consultation but simply me trying to help people. I hope this is helpful to people but feel free to get in touch if you need any further detail.

2. Footsteps Festival

The council have launched the 2011 Foosteps Festival, which began with the Mayor of Broxtowe, Cllr Jacky Williams, leading a group on the first walk. The majority of the walks will occur between 3^rd and 11^th September and there will be numerous events around the borough. The details are available on the councils website at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9337.

3. What’s On Where Website

The council has launched a new events website for events happening in Broxtowe. The site is a calendar for local events and is available at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=8971. Items it highlights coming up this week are the Beeston West Cat Meeting (Community Action Team) on Tuesday evening, the Awsworth Cat on Wednesday and the Tesco Football Skills Festival for boys and girls aged 8 to 11 on 31^st August.

4. Sponsored Walk

Stapleford Lib-Dem activist Tammy Booth is taking part in a 90 mile sponsored walk to raise money for the Anthony Booth Fund, walking from Skegness to Stapleford. If you’d like to sponsor her you can do so at http://www.justgiving.com/Tammy-Booth0.

5. Foresters Arms, Newthorpe

Greene King, who own Foresters Arms in Newthorpe, the last pub in the village, have applied for planning permission to demolish it and build seven houses on the site. Local residents have launched a campaign to save it and have formed an organisation called Save Our Foresters Arms. They are currently collecting signatures on a petition.

6. Hanna Bricklebank

Hanna is a 10 year old girl living in Attenborough who suffers from a rare medical condition called VACTERI. Despite this she manages to live a very full and active life, and her efforts have been recognised this week when she was named Bravest Child in the 7 – 11 age group at the national well Child awards. I’d like to add my congratulations to the many others that she has received.

7. Police station closures

Notts police are continuing to consult on proposed closures of police stations. Two are proposed in Broxtowe, in Kimberley and in Stapleford. A suggestion has now been put forward in Kimberley that the police might move into the Parish Hall and use this as their base.

8. Durban House Display

A new display of photographs of “ancient tombs and historical treasures” is on at Durban House from now until 28^th August. All were taken by local photographer Alan Clayden.

9. Moorgreen Show

The Moorgreen show is on next Sunday and Monday. This is an excellent and large scale event and the borough council remain the major sponsors. We’re delighted to be associated with it.

10. A Level Results

Can I give my congratulations to those students who have received good A level results this week. My nephew got 3 A*’s, so we’re all very pleased about that.

It’s a very short newsletter this week as is often the case in August. Any feedback is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 13th August 2011

2011-08-13T14:34:00.001-07:00

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.

First, many apologies that there hasn’t been a newsletter for the past couple of weeks. I’ve actually been away on holiday and didn’t want to broadcast that fact beforehand. Second can I apologise to Beeston Hockey Club. I meant to mention their great success this season a few weeks ago but forgot to do so. Sorry folks and well done.

1. Riots

The events of the past week or so have been truly shocking. I was horrified to hear that they spread to Nottingham and the police did receive intelligence that Beeston was to be targeted for an attack one night. Extensive police activity including targeting those known to be involved in the planning meant that the threat failed to materialise. I have tabled a motion to be debated at the next council expressing criticism of the rioters and support for the police. I know that some people say that there were complex reasons for the riots but frankly, crime is crime and the sort of behaviour that has been demonstrated over the past few days is inexcusable. That doesn’t mean however that I would support a knee jerk reaction with new laws or restrictions, but hopefully there will be a frank and dispassionate look at the situation afterwards.

2. Future Broxtowe Development

The consultation period on where new housing in Broxtowe will be built over the next 20 years is now underway and I would encourage as many people as possible to respond. The consultation information is all available on the councils website at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9265. I have insisted that the council looks at the best ways to ensure that all local communities are consulted as well and we will be taking various options forward over the next few weeks.

I have been very disappointed by some blatant political gamesmanship from the Conservatives over this. A Conservative Secretary of State insists that every council must look to allow new building and yet the local Conservatives have refused to say where they would support this happening in Broxtowe. I’m afraid that they can’t have it both ways, the Tories either support building or they don’t.

3. Walking in Broxtowe

A walking festival is being held in the borough at the beginning of next month to explore some of its delights. More than 35 different walks have been organised to suit all ages in the “Broxtowe Footsteps Festival.” The first walk is on 3^rd September starting at 11.30 at Bramcote Hills Park and walking to Stapleford Carnival.

4. Stapleford Carnival

As mentioned above, the next Stapleford Carnival will be on 3^rd September. There will be a parade through the town before the rest of the festivities at the Washington Drive field. The Lib-Dems will have a stall so please do drop in and say hello.

5. Community Action Meetings

The borough council currently holds Community Action Team meetings acros the borough. However attendance varies tremendously between different areas. In Bramcotee we will regularly get close to 100 people attending but in some other areas they have single figure attendances. As a result the council has agreed to switch from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to giving each local councillor discretion as to what happens in their own areas. At the same time the council will be exploring other ways of keeping in touch with people.

6. Sainsburys in Wollaton

Although this is outside of the borough the plans by Sainsbury’s to open a new store in Wollaton will affect many of our residents, especially those in Bramcote. The plans were rejected a couple of years ago but now they are back. Any comments on these should be sent to the city council.

7. Creative writing for teachers

A creative writing course aimed at teachers is being held at Durban House in Eastwood on 22^nd April from 10.30pm. It is organised by the British Library and the National Association of Writers in Education. The course is free and places are allocated on a first come first served basis. Details are available on 0115 917 3824.

8. Worlds Longest Names

I like to draw attention to the achievements of local residents, but the latest entry into the Guinness Book of Records by local residents is simply bizarre. Two Beeston residents have changed their names by deed poll to reflect their love of comic book super heroes, and are now apparently known as ‘Emperor Spiderman Gandalf Wolverine Skywalker Optimus Prime Goku Sonic Xavier Ryu Cloud Superman HeMan Batman Thrash’ and ‘Baron Venom Bairog Sabretooth Vader Megatron Vegeta Robotnik Magneto Bison Sephiroth Lex Luthor Skeletor Joker Grind.’ It will be interesting canvassing them in the next elections!

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter and any feedback will be gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 16th July 2011

2011-07-16T14:16:00.001-07:00

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.

There hasn’t been a huge degree of news this week, partly because things are winding down for the summer break, but three of the stories are particularly important.

1. Housing in Broxtowe

The council’s cabinet on Tuesday looked at proposals for where new homes might be built over the next 20 years. Four separate models have been prepared which all show that Greater Nottingham will need about 50,000 new houses over that period, and obviously some of them will need to be in Broxtowe. However the exact numbers are still up for debate. The Joint Planning Advisory Board, a working party from all the councils in the area, suggested that up to 5,700 houses might need to be in Broxtowe, but I think that this figure is too high. I’m pleased that the cabinet agreed with me that we should challenge that figure, and will work out how many houses we have space for and our infrastructure can support. The council also agreed with me that the way to go forward was by working with each parish and town, with every local community, to discuss how many new houses should be built in each place and where they should go.

One thing that the Government have made clear to all councils is that not building is not an option, given the need for new houses. I have therefore been very disappointed at the total failure of the local Conservatives to engage in the process. I have invited all councillors to make comments about the proposals but not a single Tory councillor has sent me anything! (It’s my portfolio on the council so it is me that they should be talking to.)

Part of the requirement of the Government is that each council must identify sites where new development can take place. We have identified two possible sites, one to the North of Toton and the other between Stapleford and Trowell, on Field Farm. With the Toton site I stressed that it should not be allowed to be developed right up to the roads, either Stapleford lane or the A52, and with the Field Farm site I stressed that the gap between Stapleford and Trowell must be maintained and the cabinet therefore agreed with my suggestion that the site should be limited to the Stapleford side of the brook, so there will be no proposals for the site to be developed on the Toton side. This is particular is a great victory for my colleague Ken Rigby, the councillor for Trowell, who has campaigned very hard for this gap to be preserved.

The plans will now go out to public consultation. The final point I stressed at the cabinet was that the proposed consultation, which was during the summer holiday period, was unacceptable and as a result the consultations have been extended until the end of September. People should receive information from the council but if you want to know anything in advance please don’t hesitate to contact me. (By the way, the reference in the local paper to us consulting on other sites on Coventry Lane and Bilborough Road is misleading. The council has made it clear that we would not support development on those sites.)

2. Stapleford Walk In Centre

I was deeply disappointed to learn earlier this week that the Secret ary of State for Health has refused to intervene in the decision to close Stapleford’s Walk in Centre. This provides an excellent place for people to have minor injuries and ailments treated, and the result of it’s closure will be to send more patients to the QMC, even though the managers at casualty there say that they struggle with the numbers already attending. Local residents have fought an excellent campaign to keep the centre open and it is a real shame that the decision of the unelected quango who decided to close it, despite the universal local opposition to their proposals, has not been overturned.

3. Trees in Toton

There’s better news for residents in Toton. The landowner who illegally felled all the trees on the sidings has lost his appeal against the order that the trees need to be replanted. However the appeal panel have varied the timetable to see if natural growth will replenish them. As a result the site does not need to be restocked for five years, which I feel is a very long time for local residents to wait. Steve Blackwell and all those involved in the Toton Environmental Protection Society deserve immense credit for winning this, although I know that they are equally concerned about this five year period that has been allowed.

4. Greener Beeston

Greening Beeston, the council supported group aiming to improve the environment in Beeston, has challenged all residents in the town to cut their carbon emissions. Volunteers are being sought to publicise the initiative and they want people to cut their energy use and install things like photo-voltaic cells to cut electricity consumption. For further details ring 0115 925 6368.

5. Bramcote Church Tower

Anyone driving through Bramcote or down the A52 in recent weeks will have noticed that the church tower is surrounded by scaffolding after loose brickwork was discovered during an inspection. The church need to raise £95,000 to get the work done and they have raised half of this during the first month. If anyone else wishes to help the contact number is 0115 922 1443.

6. Police and Councillors Meeting

A series of meetings have been arranged for local people to discuss issues with the police and local councillors. These are at Attenborough village hall on 3^rd August, Awsworth parish hall on August 24^th, Queens Road Methodist Church in Beeston on 27^th July, Beeston Rylands Community Centre on 19^th July, Beeston Town Hall on August 23^rd (for Beeston west residents),and Inham Nook Methodist Church on July 28^th. All meetings start at 7pm apart from the Beeston rylands one which is a 7.30 start.

7. Road Resurfacing

I was pleased to announce to the council last week that a series of repairs are scheduled to tackle the worst of the pot holes in Broxtowe. Eastwood in particular has benefited from the work that my colleague Keith Longdon has done, and elsewhere in the borough many people responded to a request I sent out on this newsletter early on this year asking for their views ofn the worst roads. All of this has fed into the discussions to ensure that the money is being spent where the need is greatest.

8. Get Fit in the Summer

The council are offering discount rates to local residents who sign up to get fit at the various leisure centres in the borough. Joining fees have been dropped and free induction sessions are being offered. The number of people using the leisure centres has increased dramatically over the last few years so why not take this opportunity to join a growing trend?

9. Nottingham Credit Union

Further to my mention of the credit union last week they have asked me to mention that NCU has Money Surgeries in the area - 1-3pm on Mondays at the Council Offices in Foster Avenue, Beeston, and 10-12 noon on Thursdays in the Carnegie Centre, Stapleford, as well as a Collection Point at the Methodist Church, Inham Nook, 10-12 noon on Tuesdays.

There is also a Money Surgery at the Council's Office in Eastwood, 1.30 to3.30 on Mondays, and we are desperate to find new volunteers to help staff that (training provided).

Enquiries are welcome at all the Money Surgeries and Collection Point, where people may apply for NCU membership or loans. Anyone interested may like to go to the NCU website www.nottinghamcu.co.uk.

I’m very happy to pass this on.

10. Police Stations

I have heard a rumour this week that Stapleford Police Station is to close altogether in the near future. The public counter is already shut and I understand that the officers will be working out of an office at the Co-Op rather than having their own building. I’m quite comfortable with this provided that the level of policing is maintained, I’m not really that worries where their offices are. However if the levels of policing drop I will be at the front of any campaign to get them restored.

11. High Speed Rail

Following the decision of the council last week to call for HS2 to be developed with a station in or close to Broxtowe I’ve been pleased to see that the call has been supported this week by local businesses and by the local economic partnership, the collaboration of businesses and local councils.

12. Fake Air Ambulance Leaflets

I received a leaflet this week asking for donations to an organisation calling itself Air Ambulance Services. This leaflet is wholly misleading and is, frankly, a fake. Please don’t be taken in by it and if you have already given anything to them please let trading standards know.

13. Crime Levels

Crime in Nottinghamshire dropped 14% last year, the second year running that Nottinghamshire has had the largest fall of any county in the country. There are lots of reasons for this but well done to everyone who has helped to make this happen.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is, as ever, very gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 10th July 2011

2011-07-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

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. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

1. Typo’s

There were a couple of typing errors in last weeks newsletter, for which I apologise. First there was an error with the reference to wellington s, embarrassingly recreating a typing error which has occurred previously. I can’t even blame a rogue spell checker as they were typed on different PC’s. I think I will follow the advice off one reader who suggested that I stick to writing “boots” in the future.

More important was an error in the reference to the Broxtowe wardens. I wrote that they ran the shopmobiliity scheme, which is incorrect. I had meant to say that they helped the scheme, which would have been right. I’d like to apologise for any upset that this caused the shopmobility volunteers, and I certainly didn’t wish to dismiss the excellent service that they offer.

2. More on Wardens

Readers may recall that last week in the Nottingham Post (I’ve been gently told off in another blog this week for calling it the Evening Post. Guilty as charged.) the Conservatives were criticising the amount spent on wardens and saying that it does not cover the cost of the service. I was therefore very surprised at the council meeting on Wednesday when they called for more wardens to be recruited. This was a fairly quick U-turn.

3. High Speed Rail

Also at the council meeting on Wednesday was delighted to second a motion calling for support for the proposed high speed 2 rail line and for a station to be established in or around Broxtowe. This was supported unanimously by the council. S I said at the meeting the benefits that the line can bring to the East Midlands and to the north are massive, and we must ensure that we don’t allow the self-interest of a few council’s in the south of England to stop such a major development and opportunity for us.

4. Your Say on the NHS

A public meeting will be held in Stapleford on Tuesday 19^th July from 6.30pm to 8.30pm at St Helen’s Church all where residents can meet members of the local patient participation group and have their say about how the NHS operates. You can register on ppi@nottspct.nhs.uk or by ringing 01623 673333.

5. Future Building in the Borough

On Tuesday evening the cabinet at Broxtowe will take the next steps in deciding how and where future building in Broxtowe will take place. The council will have to decide on the policies it wants to take forward, something that we are seeking to do jointly with the other councils in Greater Nottingham. If the council agree to take things further then the next stage is for there to be a full public consultation. The proposed timetable for this in the council papers is over the summer holidays, and I will be proposing that this is extended into the autumn so that everyone gets a proper chance to have their say. If people want to read the report that is going to the council it is available at http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=21949&p=0

6. County Council Children’s Centres

Notts County Council have announced that they will be retaining all 59 of their children centre’s across the county and that they will be seeking to expand the range of services that are available. I’m delighted to welcome this news. In an age of austerity it is good to see investment being made in our future.

7. Caretaker Vacancy

Trowell Parish Council are looking for a temporary relief caretaker for the parish hall, on a six month contract. Application forms can be obtained by ringing 0115 973 0713.

8. Independents Day

The Beeston Improvement District (which exists to improve trade in Beeston) has launched Independents day, a campaign to promote independent traders in the town centre. The aim is to stress the benefits that independent traders can bring. Further details are available from the BID team.

9. Nottingham Credit Union

Nottingham Credit Union, which has a base in the council offices in Broxtowe, have announced that they are now opening about 100 new accounts a month. The credit union provides a vital service and helps to provide options for people who might otherwise be unable to obtain credit or other services.

10. Newthorpe Road Works

Dawson Close in Newthorpe will be disrupted due to gas main works between Monday 11^th July and 25^th July.

11. Unemployment in Broxtowe

New figures have been released which show that there are currently 8.6 people in the borough claiming Jobseekers Allowance for every vacancy that there currently are at the Jobcentre plus. This is an increase from 6.6 people 12 months ago. These figures are obviously disappointing, but they do show why the council is right to deploy a significant amount of resources into job creation and business development.

12. Car Park Charges

The borough council is now starting the process of reviewing car park charges. The key questions are whether car park charges should be retained, and if so whether they should be applied universally or whether there should be different rates for different car parks. Whilst it would be very easy to say that we should just get rid of them if we do this we need to determine where we find the £300,000 that they generate for the council. We have always said that we would review the charges after they have been in operation for 12 months, and we are now doing this.

13. Lowes Estate Family Fun Day

The Lowes estate in Beeston will celebrate it’s family fun day next Saturday, 16^th July, from midday to 4pm. There will be go-karting, bouncy castles and a barbecue.

14. New Homes in Eastwood

40 new houses have been built on the site of the old Moon and Stars pub in Eastwood, which has been derelict for many years. The houses are all being provided by a housing association and will significantly increase the amount of rented property available in the town.

15. Nottingham University Hotel

Nottingham University have confirmed that they are about to start work on building a hotel in University Park. I mention this solely because when the University built new student accommodation in Beeston a few years ago we did ask them why they weren’t looking to build in University Park and we were told that covenants on the land prevented them doing this. Clearly this wasn’t correct.

16. News of the World Controversy

I can’t lament the passing of the News of the World, and I hope that it will lead to Rupert Murdoch’s attempts to buy the rest of Sky TV being rejected. Broxtowe MP Anna Soubry has also called for a change in the law to introduce better standards in the media. This is something I support, as I think that the standards of reporting in the national media have been appallingly low for many years. Quite how this can be accomplished though may be a difficult question to answer.

17. Pakistan Floods

A badminton tournament will be held at Chilwell Olympia on 17^th July to raise money for the victims of the floods in Pakistan. The event runs from 11am to 6pm and costs £25 for teams of two. Bookings can be made by ringing 07814 104310.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 3rd July 2011

2011-07-03T13:59:00.001-07:00

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 17^th 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

Broxtowe Enews 26th June 2011

2011-06-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

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. Responses

Thank you to the various comments that I received about last week’s newsletter. I’ve been really busy at work this week so I apologise that I haven’t replied to everyone yet, I will do so this week. I have been celebrating getting Olympic tickets this week, and whilst I know that not everyone was happy with the system I was delighted with the events that we managed to get tickets for.

2. Broxtowe Youth Homelessness

The Broxtowe Youth Homelessness charity has announced that it is to be supported by John Lewis in Nottingham for the next two years. The charity fulfils a vital role in helping young people facing homelessness and so this commitment to funding is very good news. When I was visiting another project for homeless young people last week one of the things that came out from the discussions was how little the young people knew about the services that were there for them, and so the more that can be done to help promote these organisations the better.

3. Free Swimming

I’m delighted that the borough council have decided to provide free swimming for children under the age of 16 and adults over the age of 60 during August. This was something that we introduced last year after national funding for free swimming was withdrawn by the Government, and the decision has been taken this week to provide the same again this year. We will explore whether it is possible to extend this up to the whole of the summer holidays next year.

4. New School Crossing

The County Council have announced that they have recruited a new crossing patrolperson for Toton Law in Stapleford outside Fairfield Primary School. Local parents have been campaigning for this for a number of months.

5. School Fair

Staying with Fairfield School, their school fair is on Friday 1^st July from 3pm and all are welcome to attend.

6. Middle Street Resource Centre

The County Council have announced their plans for care services in Nottinghamshire, and I’m delighted that the threat to close the Middle Street Resource Centre in Beeston has been lifted. There has been a strong campaign by users and local residents to keep it open and this has succeeded. Everyone connected with the campaign should be delighted.

7. Bramwell Care Home

Less good is that at the same time the county have announced that they are closing the day centre at Bramwell Nursing Home in Bramcote. This is despite an equally active campaign which attracted all party support locally. I think that a very strong argument had been made to keep Bramwell open and I am very disappointed at this announcement. The closure plans are to be debated at a council meeting on 30^th June so there is still a chance that this may be changed, but I am not optimistic.

8. Parkinson’s Disease

A drop in information session on Parkinson’s Disease will be given at the Pearson Centre in Beeston on 5^th July from 1.30pm to 3.30pm. If you are suffering from this, know someone who is, or want to learn more about it you will be welcome to attend.

9. Fostering Open Day

An event outside of Broxtowe, but open to local residents, is a fostering open day at Worksop Crossing Gate Centre on June 29^th between 9.30am and 12.30pm.If you are interested in fostering then you will be welcome to attend. It is being put on by Team Fostering, who organise fostering for Children in Notts, Derbyshire and Yorkshire.

10. Health Hub Bid

Boots have announced plans to create a health hub at their sight in Beeston. This is where the new enterprise zone is being established and Boots believe that this could be a base for new and developing health care businesses.

11. Art Market

George Spencer School in Nottingham are holding their first art market and are inviting local artists to submit paintings. The event is on Saturday 9^th July and further details are available from artexhibition@mail.com

12. Greasley Wind Turbine

The Borough Councils development control committee voted on Wednesday night to give planning permission for a new 132 metre high wind turbine in Newthorpe. The turbine will generate the equivalent power used by 1,300 houses each year, as well as saving over 2,000 tonnes of CO2.

13. Eastwood Exhibition

An exhibition on textiles has opened at Durban House in Eastwood and will run until 10^th July. It is in the Rainbow Gallery and is put on by the Second Textile Turning Group. I did see that a Labour MP had a photo shoot at Durban House last week to claim credit for saving the building despite the fact that, whilst I was looking at this as leader of the council, she didn’t contact me once about a decision which fell to me to make.

14. Fire Brigade Consultation

Plans to reorganise the fire brigade in Notts will be going out to public consultation next month. Following action by the Liberal Democrats plans to close a number of stations, including at least one in Broxtowe, have been dropped although it is still proposed to cut 100 fire fighter posts.

15. Japanese Event

Ganbare Japan are organising a thank you event at Oban House, the home of the Voluntary Action Broxtowe, for all the support for Japan given by local people. It is on 16^th July from 6.30pm and includes Japanese drumming and a meal and costs £25 for adults and £5 for children.

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

David

Broxtowe Enews 19th June 2011

2011-06-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem Group on Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week, on what has undoubtedly been a good week for the Lib-Dems. We have had big wins this week on NHS reforms, delivering what we as grass roots members of the party had demanded, and we also managed to fend off a proposed backward step on recycling which Eric Pickles had been trying to force on local councils. Over the last few years in Broxtowe we have made huge steps forward on recycling and I’m delighted that these will be protected.

I hope that you all had a great Fathers day. Mine got off to a great start when we discovered that the worlds greatest mouser had left a fathers day present for us in the en-suite!

1. Awsworth Party on the Park

The Awsworth Party on the Park will take place on Saturday 2^nd July from 11am to 11pm. All local residents will be welcome.

2. Charity Garden Party

Wollaton Road Methodist Church in Beeston will be holding a charity garden party next Saturday from 10am to noon, in aid of the Nottinghamshire Hospice. As well as refreshments there will be cake stalls, bring and buy and home made greeting cards. Everyone is welcome.

3. Pro-tram walk

The Kentag campaign group, who are seeking to bring the tram to Kimberley and Eastwood, are holding a walk along their suggested route next Saturday, starting from Phoenix Park at 11am. Everyone is welcome.

4. Attenborough Nature Walk

The next of the monthly nature walks at Attenborough Nature Reserve will take place on Sunday 3^rd July at 10.30am. It departs from the visitor centre at the nature reserve, and walkers are asked Not to bring dogs with them. The day before, 2^nd July, there will be a talk about insects at the centre at 1.30pm. That one costs £5 per person. Details are available on 0115 972 1777. Finally at Attenborough they also have a wildlife training course next Saturday, 25^th June, from 10am to 4pm. This costs £25 and can be booked on the same phone number.

5. Eastwood Election Mix Up

The hearing in the High Court which is required to correct an administrative error which led to Hazel Charlesworth, rather than her husband Bob, being declared winning new councillor for Eastwood North, will take place on 22^nd July. Unfortunately on the final results sheet the votes for Hazel and Bob were transposed, and so the wrong person was declared as the winner.

6. Eastwood Arts Festival

The Eastwood Arts Festival takes place throughout July. Information is available from the borough council on arts@broxtowe.gov.uk or by ringing 0115 917 3695. It will kick off with a band of marauding Vikings giving out leaflets with all the details on next week, and includes a family fun day on 16^th July.

7. Broxtowe CAB

A long running campaign to protected the Citizens Advice Bureaux in Broxtowe has been overwhelmingly successful. Unfortunately the Tory run County Council slashed the grant they provide to the CAB, which really threatened it’s future. The Government have now announced that they will be providing a grant of £85,000 to enable it to keep going. Congratulations to everyone who has been involved with this campaign.

8. Stapleford Air Cadets

Stapleford Air Cadets have a new Commanding Officer. He is Flying Officer Gareth Fowler, who has until now been the training officer at the Beeston branch.

9. Greasley Breast Screening Unit

A group of local residents have collected a petition containing more than 200 signatures calling for the return of a breast screening unit which closed in March following complaints about the noise from it’s generator. The residents have asked Nottingham University Hospitals Trust to reverse their decision.

10. Foxwood School Sweet Shop

Foxwood School, which educates children with learning difficulties, has opened a sweet shop in Beeston which will be staffed by pupils from the school, to help them gain work experience. The shop is called Sweet Treats and is in Beeston Square. It was opened last Friday by Anna Soubry MP.

11. Cedar House

Cedar House is a home for homeless young women in Beeston. It was my pleasure to visit there on Friday along with Anna Soubry and Milan Radulovic, the leader of the Labour Group in Broxtowe. We were able to meet with a number of the residents and listen to some of their experiences. (They had very diplomatically provided red, blue and yellow buns to eat.) In particular it looks like we have been able to identify a way to significantly increase some of their funding, and Anna has agreed to take forward some issues that they had as well.

12. Village Ventures

On Sunday 3rd July at 2pm Village Ventures are putting on Cowboy Baby, a western yarn for children aged 4 to 8, by Sue Heap. This will be at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets cost £2 (child), £5 (adult), in advance from the school on 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893 or on the door. The show lasts 50 minutes, and will be followed by a free fun workshop for parents and children (30mins). Further details are at www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

13. Paradiso Cinema

On Friday 8^th July at 7.30pm Paradiso Cinema present Get Low, starring Robert Duval and Sissy Spacek. This is on at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets on the door cost £5, £4 (conc). Refreshments are available from 7pm. Further details are available at www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

14. Car Boot Sale

On Sunday 10th July the Chilwell School Partnership will be holding an Outdoor car boot sale from 9am to 1pm, at Chilwell School, Queens Road west, Chilwell. Sellers can arrive to set up from 7.30am and the cost is £5 per car or £7.50 per van.

Thank you for your continued support for this newsletter, and any feedback is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 11th June 2011

2011-06-11T14:30:00.001-07:00

Can I start by apologising that there was no edition last week. It’s rare that we don’t produce one but I’m afraid that time just got the better of me. I’ll try and cover all the important news for the past two weeks here. Today was the 10^th Hemlock Happening, and everyone involved deserves to be congratulated as it has been another fantastic event (even though my daughters cuddly toy did manage to end up very firmly in the jaws of a passing great dane!)

1. Keith Hanbury

Many people in Broxtowe will have known Keith, who was the county council’s youth worker for the area for many years. He had to retire on health grounds a couple of years ago, and I’m sorry to have to report that he passed away this week. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with him on many projects and he always struck me as someone who really did have the interests of local children and young people at heart. He will be sadly missed.

2. Chilwell Olympia Stake Park

I’m afraid that the condition of the skate park at Chilwell Olympia has now deteriorated so badly that the council have had to close it. The decision was only made on Friday so it is too early to say yet what the long terms plans will be for a replacement but I will report them when I know.

3. Right of Way Across Toton Sidings

Campaigners in Toton have been trying to get a right of way recognised across part of Toton Sidings. This is part of the campaign to oppose the actions of the land owner who chopped down the trees and closed of access to the site. After a year the County Council, who have responsibility for the decision, had still done nothing, but the Conservative administration did promise progress immediately after the Easter Holidays this year. Sadly we’re now in mid-June and there is still no news.

4. Erewash Valley Trail

The Erewash Valley Trail, which goes through Broxtowe and Erewash borough’s, was officially opened at the Hemlock Happening today. My colleague Stan Heptinstall, who deserves tremendous credit for the work he does on the Hemlock Happening, cut the ribbon and a group of cyclists started a ride round the whole trail. The trail takes in some of the most beautiful areas of the East Midlands and I would encourage people to walk all of part of it.

5. Safer Roads for Children

Children from Bramcote Primary School will join with others from across the country on Wednesday as part of a campaign calling on traffic to slow down to create safer roads for children. The march will also be at attempt to set a world record for the longest walking bus ever.

6. Awsworth Recycling Plant

A planning application has been submitted to build a compost recycling centre in the green belt close to Awsworth. This will be dealt with by the County Council as waste management is a county, rather than a borough, responsibility. The Borough Council will however be able to make representations on the matter.

7. A453 Report

The Government have told Anna Soubry MP that they will not publish the result of a public enquiry into dualling the A453 until after a decision has been made as to whether the road project is to go ahead. I am disappointed by this and, given that it was funded by public money and was a public enquiry, I think that the decision is wholly wrong.

8. Forcing Magistrates to Retire

Another issue that our MP has been involved in this week is the question of a compulsory retirement age for magistrates and judges. At the moment they are obliged to retire when they reach 70 years of age, and Anna has called for this to be lifted. In her speech in parliament she referred to long standing Kimberley Councillor Roy Plumb, who has recently been forced to retire as a magistrate because he is now 70, and she feels that people like him should be allowed to carry on further.

9. Attenborough Visitors Hide

The new path to a hide at Attenborough Nature Reserve, installed last autumn, has proved to be a great success. Figures just released show that more than 5,000 visitors have used it since it opened. This was paid for by Cemex, who donated nearly £5,000 for the work.

10. Broxtowe Women’s Network

Local business women are invited to the next meeting of the Broxtowe Womens Network on Monday evening from 5.30 – 8.30, at the Belfrey Hotel on Mellors Way. It costs £10 and the theme is time management. Details are available from the council on 0115 917 3446.

11. Dave Woods Forest Walk

I mentioned before that Stapleford poet Dave Wood was planning a walk around the ancient boundaries of Sherwood Forest. I’m very pleased to read that the Arts Council have now provided £10,000 lottery cash to help fund the project. The last time anyone walked this route was some 350 years ago, and Dave will be seeking to involve local schools and groups as far as possible.

12. House Prices

House prices in Nottinghamshire are continuing to fall, and the latest figures from the Halifax show that prices fell 4.2% in the last year here.

13. Police Swimming

Congratulations to the Notts Police women’s swimming team who won a national life-saving competition in Blackpool this week. It’s the first time in the competitions 56 year history that the Notts team have won.

14. Electric Car Charging

I was interested to read this week that the Belfrey Hotel will be one of the first in the country to install a charging port for electric cars. If this sort of new technology is to succeed then we need to ensure that the infrastructure is there for it, so I‘m delighted at this announcement.

15. Clayfields House

Residents and staff at Clayfields Secure Children’s Home have won the Best Creative Contribution Award from the Kids Count Charity at the House of Commons after they produced two murals at the centre.

16. Meet the police in Beeston

Residents in Beeston will be able to meet their local police officer on 26^th June. There will be a “patch walk” on Thyra Grove, Dagma Grove and Henry Road from 3 to 4pm and people will be able to raise any issues that they want to with the officers.

17. Mayors Coffee Morning

Stapleford Mayor Ray Darby will be hosting a charity coffee morning on Friday 24^th June from 10am to noon. Money raised will go to his charities, Rainbow Hospice and Stapleford Link Youth Café.

18. Pre-retirement Course

There will be a pre-retirement course for those getting towards the end of their working lives in Beeston between 27^th and 29^th June. Details are available from Linda Whitt on 0115 922 3824.

19. Fire Station Open Day

There will be an open day at Highfields Fire Station in Beeston between 11am and 3pm. There will be games for children and demonstrations by the fire service.

20. Delays to work in Kimberley

I’m afraid that the upgrade to power cables in Kimberley, which I reported on previously and which was brought about by my colleague Ken Rigby, has been delayed. There were difficulties in getting the cable installed and work will now begin on 20^th June for three weeks. This will mean that there are road closures during that period in the town, but hopefully everyone will see the benefit of the work thereafter.

21. MP’s Expense Claims

The latest figures for MP’s expenses have now been published. Anna Soubry claimed £4,146 for the first two months of 2011, whilst Gloria De Piero claimed £7,809 for the same period. The last time I reported on MP’s expenses claims it provoked a furious reaction from Miss De Piero, who claimed I was being selective with the figures, but I’m reporting them exactly as they were published.

22. Recycling targets

The city and county councils have published their new waste strategy, which includes increasing recycling targets from 50% to 70%. This will now go out to public consultation and I hope that the public will support this.

23. Wind Turbine Decision

The borough councils development control committee will meet on Wednesday 22^nd June to decide whether or not to grant planning permission for a wind turbine in Newthorpe, which would be 130 metres high in total. Both Greasley Parish Council and the County Council have objected to the application.

24. Stapleford Town Garden competition

Stapleford Town Council is inviting entrants from town residents for their annual town garden competition. Entry forms are available by ringing 0115 939 1818. Entries need to be in by 30^th June.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 30th May 2011

2011-05-30T14:36:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem group on the borough council.
Thank you to everyone for your comments following the election results. Many people have taken the time to express your appreciation for this newsletter, and I do hope to continue this in exactly the same way that it has appeared before. The new cabinet for the council will meet for the first time tomorrow, and we will get down to the business of running the council. Portfolios will be allocated to members of the cabinet, and we will then get down to concentrate on our new briefs. I’ll report on who has responsibility for what next week.

1. Toton Bus Service
Trent Barton have announced that they intend to scrap the Connect Service in Toton from 23rd July. Many local residents are opposed to this and have launched a petition to oppose the closure. Trent Barton say that they are scrapping the route as it is uneconomical, but the County Council hope to find a new provider to run the service.

2. Homeless Youngsters
Congratulations to five youngsters from the borough who have been presented with an award for their work telling school children about their experiences of being homeless. All five have been awarded the Broxtowe Partnership Young Peoples award for this year. They are Emma Beresford, Sadie Adams, Christine Richardson, Fraser McNally and Emma Waywell. Some of them have given up to 40 talks each about other young people.

3. Missed Bins
The borough council have now added a new facility to their website so that, if for any reason your black or green bins are not emptied when they should be, you can now report the matter 24 hours a day. The website is at www.broxtowe.gov.uk

4. Kimberley Brewery
The SOBS Group in Kimberley, which was set up to try and protect the buildings in the old Kimberley Brewery site, have now met the new owners of the brewery and have said that they are very encouraged by the meeting. Hopefully the development of the brewery will move forward fairly quickly from now on.

5. Awsworth Youth Club
Volunteers in Awsworth are hoping to reopen the village youth club, three years after it was closed down in a row with the parish council. A new council has been elected and the youth club management committee hope that this will lead to a more open approach to negotiations.

6. Blue Plaques
I got a couple of details wrong in the article about blue plaques last week. Apologies for that. The plan is for a dozen blue plaques in the first round, which are being installed on a rolling programme which started last summer. The plans are for plaques to commemorate TH Barton, Arthur Mee, Arthur Cossons (and also the 14th century Beeston village cross which he rescued), Sir John Borlase Warren, General Ireton and Thomas Humber. Others are planned to Bendigo, the prize fighter; Dr John Clifford the Baptist Union President; Francis Wilkinson of Anglo-Scotian Mills; Edward Joseph Lowe, a founder of the Meteorological Society; and the Manor House.

7. Young Farmer
Congratulations to budding farmer Megan Taylor from Brinsley, currently a student at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire. She has won first prize for the National Placement Award for student placement farmers.

8. Victim Support Golf Day
Nottinghamshire Victim Support are organising a charity golf day on 15th June at Beeston Fields Golf Club. Entry fees are £39 per player, and all profits will be used for the work of victim support in Nottinghamshire. Further information is available from Jeffrey.fewkes@victimsupport.org.uk.

9. A453 Widening
The County Council have made an offer to the Government to part fund the dualling of the A453. The County Council have put forward £20 million towards the total cost of the scheme, estimated at about £164 million. Although this road does not go through Broxtowe it will affect us, first because improving the road is very important to the future prosperity of the whole of Greater Nottingham, and second because traffic that currently chooses not to use the A453 uses the A52 through Broxtowe instead. Without the funding from the County this work cannot begin by at least 2015, so the move may bring this work forward by several years.

10. Attenborough Visitors Centre
The announcement was made on election day, so it may have slipped past some people, but Attenborough Visitors Centre has now celebrated it’s 20,000th school child as part of it’s education work. Children from Bramcote Hills School, including my older daughter who managed to get her back into shot, appeared on TV to mark the occasion. Coincidentally I have just been appointed to the management committee of the visitors centre as the new representative from the council.

11. Castle College
The Government has now officially approved the merger of Castle College and South Notts College to form one new college for Nottinghamshire, and it will begin operating under the name of South Nottingham College from September. Although the move secures the long term future of the colleges I remain very concerned about the possible reduction of courses or venues within the borough as a result of the move, and will press the council to be as active on this issue as possible.

12. Beeston Railway Station
As part of a wider series of green moves by Stagecoach, who own East Midlands Trains, new recycling facilities will be installed at Beeston Railway station this summer.

Thank you to everyone for your support for this newsletter. As ever any feedback is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 21st May 2011

2011-05-21T12:23:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dem group on Broxtowe Borough Council. I’m sorry that this edition is a little late in coming but immediately after concluding the negotiations over the future control of the council I flew to Portugal on business (managing to cause tremendous problems at home as I’d inadvertently put my wife’s door keys in my pocket as well!)
Portugal is a beautiful country but it shows exactly what happens if an economy collapses. There are weeds growing through the pavements, unfinished building projects (there was even a newly built hospital close to my villa standing completely empty and unopened) and everything about it says clearly that the money has run out. I may not agree with everything that the coalition is doing nor how they do it but the last few days have convinced me that tackling the deficit was absolutely vital for our country.

1. Council Elections
The final mix of councillors in the borough council election left us with 18 Conservatives (no change), 17 Labour (up 7) and 9 Lib-Dem (down 5)councillors. There are no independent councillors (down 2). This means that for the third election in a row Broxtowe has no one party in overall control. We have held discussions with both other parties and have agreed a partnership with Labour, which was confirmed by both parties at meetings on Tuesday night. As a result of this I will no longer be the leader of the council, that falls to Labour’s Milan Radulovic, but I will remain as the leader of the Lib-Dem group and will hold a portfolio on the cabinet.
I have read some wildly inaccurate reports of these negotiations, which is surprising given that those of us actually involved haven’t spoken to anyone about the details. Suffice to say that within the Lib-Dems no-one threatened to quit or throw a tantrum if we went one way or the other, and the reason that we spoke to the Tories first was because they invited us to first. (They had a meeting on the Saturday and as a result of that invited us to have a discussion, which we held on the Monday. Labour’s equivalent meeting wasn’t until the Monday evening and we met with them on the Tuesday.) Nor did we come with an impossible list of demands. We didn’t come with any demands, we listened to both parties and did ask for clarification and confirmation of certain items (such as making any agreement public) which we received.
I’d like to say a public thank you to my three colleagues who lost their seats and to our new candidates who didn’t get elected. Our disappointing performance was entirely due to the national picture and nothing to do with local effort or representation.

2. Bramcote Hills School
I’m delighted that the County Council have announced that Bramcote Hills school is to receive a very significant investment for repairs and rebuilding. This is badly needed as much of the school is currently unused. Serious problems were found in the buildings a few years ago and parts had to be demolished, and so this rebuild is badly needed. It is being funded for the most part by cash from the Government.

3. Eastwood North election
A footnote to the elections is that in Eastwood North the wrong candidate was declared the winner. Bob Charlesworth actually won the seat for the Liberal Democrats but inadvertently the results were transposed on the official forms and his wife Hazel was declared the winner instead! Everyone now accepts that a mistake was made but it does need a hearing at the High Court before the result can be corrected.

4. Avoiding Trips and Falls
The Broxtowe Partnership, the organisation that brings together the council, voluntary groups and other agencies in Broxtowe, has produced a leaflet for elderly residents of the borough to give advice on avoiding trips and accidents at home. These can be obtained from the council on 0115 917 7777.

5. Touchscreen Kiosks
Beeston Business Improvement District, which represents business interests in the town and promotes business development, has applied for planning permission to install two touch screen display booths in the town showing all the businesses and other activities in town.

6. Attenborough Nature Reserve
Staff at Attenborough Nature Reserve have reported problems in recent weeks with people playing bird sounds on their mobile phones, which are disturbing the real birds in the reserve. Please do not do this as it is causing real problems.

7. DH Lawrence Exhibition
A new art exhibition highlighting the work and life of DH Lawrence is now on at Durban House in Eastwood, until May 29th. This features work by art students at Nottingham University. Admission is £3.

8. DH Lawrence Society
I’m pleased to hear that the DH Lawrence Society will be moving their meetings to Durban House, which they describe as the ideal venue. This is one of the first tangible results of the partnership between the council and Nottingham University for the running of the building.

9. Kimberley Power Supply
Central Networks, who run the national grid, are to replace a 400 metre stretch of cable leading into Kimberley which is faulty, and which has led to a number of power cuts in recent months. Hopefully this should alleviate the problems that local residents have found.

10. Blue Plaques in Broxtowe
A coalition of the Beeston Civic and Historical Societies and the Stapleford Local History Society have launched a programme to install blue plaques on buildings where notable residents have previously lived. The first two to be unveiled will be to commemorate historian Arthur Cossans and Admiral Sir John Borlaise Warren. Hopefully others will follow in due course.

11. University Wind Turbines
About 130 people attending the latest meeting with Nottingham University to discuss their plans to install wind turbines. Although there was significant opposition the university still expect to submit a planning application by the end of May.

12. Stapleford Helpful Bureau
I’ve received the following message from the Helpful Bureau in Stapleford, which I’ll pass on verbatim:
“Hi All

Our organisation has successfully entered the `Cash for your Community 2011 shortlist. We are in with a chance of a share in £35,000!
From Wed. 25th May, our organisation will appear in a feature in the Nottingham Evening Post. People can then collect coupons on our behalf, coupons will be printed daily from Wed. 25th May until June 17th.
Any coupons need to be sent/handed to us directly so that we can send them in to Nottingham Evening Post by 21st July.

We would very much appreciate your support with this as the more coupons we collect, the bigger share of the £35,000 we will have.

So, could you please forward this info on to anyone you think may be interested in helping us.

Thanks,
Kind regards,

Margaret Bowen
Manager
The Helpful Bureau
Tel. 0115 9491175”

13. Beeston Rylands Methodist Church
Congratulations to the members of Beeston Rylands Methodist Church, who are celebrating their sixtieth anniversary this weekend. There are special anniversary services tomorrow at 10.30am and 6pm tomorrow.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter and any feedback will be gratefully received. The next edition will be on Monday 30th May, bank holiday Monday.

David

Broxtowe Enews 30th April 2011

2011-04-30T13:31:00.001-07:00

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

1. English Defence League

Most people will be familiar with this organisation, which seems to be composed entirely of right wing thugs and who seem to cause problems wherever they go. Recently the membership details for this organisation were made public. However there are errors and a resident of Bramcote, who is an upstanding member of the community with no links to the EDL whatsoever has been wrongly identified as one of their leaders. Apparently someone with a similar name who used to live in Bramcote was connected with the EDL but it’s not the person who lives there now. As a result this man has received more than 400 telephone calls (all abusive) over the past few days and the police have had to be involved. Please rest assured that no-one on the leaked list is a Bramcote resident.

2. Litter Pick

Thank you to the dozen or so people who attended the Bramcote litter pick, which was a very successful event. We’ve collected several bags full of rubbish. The weather was perfect for it. I had read in a leaflet by the Conservative candidates for Bramcote (none of whom live here) that they were supporting the litter pick, but that was obviously just supporting it in the spiritual sense as not one of them attended. Anna Soubry did come and participated fully but none of their borough election candidates.

3. Future developments at Attenborough Nature Reserve

Notts Wildlife Trust are currently working on plans for a new phase of development and are asking local residents for their views about how they should proceed. A survey can be completed online at www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org.uk and the last day for responses is Friday.

4. Election Day on Thursday

This Thursday is local election day. My plea is that you will use your vote for the Liberal Democrats. This election is not about national issues or national people, but who you want to run the council here for the next four years. The Liberal Democrats have run it for the last four years and I think we have done a good job. We’ve kept council tax low and maintained services. We’ve managed to reduce expenditure without any compulsory redundancies. We also have great plans for the future, to ensure that Broxtowe keeps progressing and to maintain this area as one of the best places in the country to live. As Liberal Democrats we want to keep people informed about matters which affect them, which is why we produce this newsletter every week and why every Lib-Dem councillor in Broxtowe produces a newsletter (“Focus”) at least quarterly. No other party offers this.

Moreover the facts show that Lib-Dem councillors work harder. Here in Broxtowe our councillors attend 85% of all meetings with Labour on 71% and the Tories on 73%. Seven councillors attended less than 60% of the meetings that they should have done, and not one of them was a Liberal Democrats. The lowest rate of attendance was a conservative councillor in Greasley who only attended 3 meetings in 12 months (but still received her full allowance, which equates to more than £1,300 per meeting) but also the two Labour Councillors in Stapleford John Bell and John McGrath attended only 11 out of a possible 21 meetings, and 7 out of a possible 18 meetings in the last 12 months respectively. This means that John Bell received £370.52 per meeting whilst John McGrath received £582.21 per meeting.

5. Changes at Ikea

The council’s development control committee voted on Wednesday to permit a new catering hub to be built at the Ikea shopping centre. For those who know the site it will be where the current administration office is, diagonally over the roundabout from the existing catering units. I voted against the proposals as they include the loss of 27 car park spaces and I’m well aware of how difficult it can be to park there at busy times. However it was passed by 5 votes to 3.

6. Fair Votes Referendum

Also on the 5^th May is the referendum on switching to the alternative vote system for electing MP’s. If you are happy with MP’s having jobs for life, about duck houses, moat cleaning and expense fraud, then vote no. If you are happy that the most common result under the existing system is that the Conservatives win a majority of seats with a minority of votes (no wonder they are against it)then vote no. However if you want MP’s to work hard and to be accountable, for a fairer system for electing MP’s where your vote really counts, then please vote YES. I have read some real rubbish from the no campaign recently, including a claim that the change will cost £250 million. This is nonsense and is based on an assumption that new computerised counting machines will be necessary, but this simply isn’t the case. They also say that the new system is too complicated, but it’s really not that difficult to put people in order 1,2 and 3. Finally they tell us that it makes coalitions more likely, but the Australians, who have the AV system, had less coalitions during the 20^th century than the UK did. I don’t think that AV is the best system of selecting MP’s, but it’s the best on offer so I will be voting yes on Thursday.

7. Comments from Nick Palmer

I was very disappointed to read comments by Nick Palmer during the week suggesting that campaigns to save Bramwell Nursing Home and the Stapleford Walk In Centre weren’t followed through. Even worse, when I challenged him about this he said that the campaign on the walk in centre was just political posturing and that he didn’t want to discuss it with me. So much for the positive politics he used to claim to represent. These comments were desperately insulting to everyone who has worked so hard to save these centres, and the fact that we haven’t won yet does not mean that we are not trying our hardest to ensure that we get the right result in the end.

8. Another new supermarket in Eastwood

The man in Space pub in Eastwood, which has been empty for some time, is to be converted into a new Sainsbury’s Local and also a vets surgery. Surprisingly the law doesn’t require planning permission to be obtained when converting from a pub to a supermarket, and so the council was powerless to stop this happening.

9. Basil Russell Recreation Ground

Nuthall Parish Council have received a grant from the County Council to improve the Basil Russell Recreation Ground. The £40,000 grant will be used to install new paths, revamp the toilets, and add to the size of the children’s play area.

10. Beeston BID

The Beeston BID scheme, which aims to promote businesses in the town centre, has a new office on the High Road. It was opened last week by Anna Soubry MP and Anne Davies from East Midlands Today.

11. Town Centre Stalls

Thank you to everyone who has visited our stalls in Beeston and Stapleford over the past few weeks. We have given out hundreds of balloons and copies of our manifesto’s. Labour were planning to have a stall in Beeston as well today but unfortunately only one of their members turned up to run it.

12. Ramblers

Broxtowe Ramblers are organising a free four mile walk as part of national get Walking Day on 15^th May. Anyone wanting to take part is invited to meet at the car park in Bramcote Park at 10am. Details are available on 07999 978638 or you can just turn up on the day.

13. St Johns School, Stapleford

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Governors and head master at St Johns School in Stapleford were consulting parents about whether the school should move to a new site, where Frederick Harrison School used to be. This consultation has now concluded and the governors have decided that the school will be staying where it is.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter, which has once again set a new record for the number of readers that we have. Any feedback is gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 23rd April 2011

2011-04-23T14:20:00.001-07:00

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

A special welcome to all the new readers that we have this week, it’s been a good week for people signing up. Also may I apologise that there wasn’t a newsletter last week. I was working in Cornwall and I thought that the technology would allow me to still post a short newsletter but although it left me it didn’t seem to appear anywhere else!

1. Community Litter Pick

We have organised a community litter pick for Bramcote next Saturday, 30^th April, from 2pm to 4pm. Meet at King George Park car park. (Don’t forget that the top of Town Street is closed.)We hope that as many local residents as possible will assist us in this, to make Bramcote look as smart as possible. The council have provided us with litter pickers, gloves and rubbish sacks.

2. Election Web Site

Broxtowe Lib-Dems have given our web site an election makeover at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk. A copy of our manifesto and a list of our candidates are available there.

3. Another election website

The local Beestonia Blog, which is highly recommended reading for Beeston residents, have launched their own website to cover the local elections at http://beestoniabattleofbroxtowe.wordpress.com/. I’m not just plugging this because it carries a rather nice profile of me this week but because I think it is genuinely independent. Matt who writes the blog got a couple of the facts wrong in our interview but basically it’s a really good read.

4. Beeston Wind Turbine proposal

About fifty local residents attended a meeting in Beeston last week to discuss the plans by Nottingham University to erect three 125 metre high wind turbines in the Rylands. Two of the three are actually in the city and the city council will need to make a decision on these, but the third is in Broxtowe. One of the concerns expressed was that these may in fact be the stalking horse for a much larger number of turbines, but when I met the senior staff at the University a couple of months ago they assured me that the wind flows meant that it would only be possible to erect the three proposed.

5. Paradiso Cinema

On Friday 13th May at 7.30pm Paradiso Cinema presents Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. This is suitable for the whole family and is at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets on the door cost £5, £4 (conc). Come at 7pm for refreshments. Further details are at www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

6. Improvements to the Parks

Broxtowe Borough Council are looking to make a number of improvements to local parks across the borough. The most significant is to relay the car park at Bramcote Hills Park and to provide marked spaces. We are not intending to introduce compulsory parking charges there but there will be an opportunity to pay a voluntary charge which will go to charity, the same way that things work at Attenborough Nature Reserve. The total cost of the changes is £93,500, and I hope that this helps to kill off the myth that councils are only about cuts and nothing more. We are making sure that we spend the money that we have wisely but we are still investing in our local communities.

7. Life Drawing Class

Starting Wednesday 4th May a Life Drawing course will take place at Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL for ten weeks every Wednesday from 6.30pm to 9pm. It cost £120 (concessions for OAPs and A level students £100) and is suitable for beginners and experienced artists. For further details email davidhallows@onetel.com or ring 0115 9730838 or 07941423782.

8. Village Ventures

On Thursday 5th May at 7.30pm Village Ventures presents “Jo Freya meets Maalstrom,” an informative funny show with exceptional music drawing from folk, world music, jazz and classical references. See www.freyamusic.co.uk for details. This takes place at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets cost £8, £6 (conc) or £24 family (2+2) in advance from the school on 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893 or on the door. Further details are at www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

9. Gloria de Piero Letter

I’ve just received my first letter from Gloria De Piero, the Labour MP for Ashfield. In the past I’ve invited her to get in touch to discuss issues such as Durban House, but she never has done. Still, she has eventually found something to write to me about. The thing that she considers more important than any issue I deal with as the leader of the council is that she is unhappy about how I reported her latest expenses claim. To save people rushing back to see exactly what it was that has provoked her to eventually write, here is the whole item that so invoked her ire:

“11 MP’s Expenses

Figures published this week show that Anna Soubry MP claimed £3,875 expenses during November and December 2010, whilst during the same period Ashfield MP Gloria De Piero, whose constituency includes Eastwood and Brinsley, claimed £8,615.”

You can draw your own conclusions on whether this was really something that should have caused offence.

10. Attenborough Exhibition

Nottinghamshire Artist Ann Harrison is holding an exhibition at Attenborough Nature Reserve from now until the end of the month. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend.

11. Royal wedding

There will be 15 street parties held across Broxtowe next Friday to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. I’m afraid I don’t have details of the locations for these.

12. Hemlock Happening

The 2011 Hemlock Happening, the 10^th, will take place on Saturday 11^th June from 2pm. Details are at http://www.hemlockhappening.org/

13. Boxing Fundraising

Soldiers from the Mercian Regiment are taking part in a charity boxing tournament against local amateur boxers on 5^th May at Chetwynd Barracks. If you are going don’t forget to vote first. Doors open from 6.30pm. Tickets cost from £25 and are available from 0115 946 5417 or from www.themerciancharityevent.com

14. Election Hustings

We took part in the first ever hustings for a local election that I can recall last week. You can read a report of it on http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Candidates-battle-Broxtowe-borough-hustings/article-3455295-detail/article.html

15. AV Referendum

If anyone wants to help deliver extra leaflets for the YES campaign just let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the local organisers. I’ve received a mail shot from the No campaign this week and it consists of nothing more than a mix of half-truths and complete lies. They claim that an election under AV will cost an extra £250 million, but they can only get to this figure by claiming that complex counting machines will be needed, which is simply not the case. Their other argument is that it will lead to more coalitions, but during the 20^th Century there were more coalitions in the UK with First Past The Post than in Australia with AV. To my mind a Yes vote is complete common sense and will help to create a fairer country.

The other fascinating thing about the referendum is who is funding the campaign. The Yes team have always published who their donors are but the No Campaign have been very reluctant to do this. What information they have published shows that the No campaign is virtually totally funded by senior Tory party supporters. Given that the most common results under First Past The Post elections is a majority Tory government with a minority of the vote that is perhaps not a surprise.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. If you are reading it on one of the web sites that carries it then you can subscribe directly to receive it to your inbox by following the link on our website.

Best wishes

David

Broxtowe Enews 10th April 2011

2011-04-10T14:54:00.001-07:00

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

A special welcome to all new readers that we have this week. I did mention last week that the amount to report will slow down between now and the election as the council is prohibited from dealing with controversial items during the campaign period. Nevertheless there are still a number of things to report.

1. Election Candidates

The nominations have now closed for the borough council elections on 5^th May. The Lib-Dems will be fielding 39 candidates across Broxtowe. Amongst the surprises with the nominations are that eight of the existing councillors are not seeking re-election. Included within this list are the two independent councillors who represent Nuthall East and Strelley, so there are definitely going to be new faces on the council there. The BNP, who fielded a number of candidates (and won a seat which they were subsequently stripped off when their councillor failed to attend for in excess of six months) have totally disappeared and I don’t mourn their passing. The Green Party are fielding about six candidates and there are a couple from UKIP. We also have one ex Lib-Dem councillor standing as an independent. He was deselected by the Lib-Dems and now accuses us of selling our souls (strangely not something he said when apply to stand in the election for us, but there you go). I’ve put a full list of Lib-Dem candidates at the end of this newsletter.

2. Election Hustings

The Evening Post has organised a hustings this coming Thursday at the New Ventures Social Club, Technology Drive, Beeston, starting at 7.30pm. Entry is free and everyone is welcome.

3. Wind Turbine display

Nottingham University have, as many people will know, applied to install three wind turbines in Beeston Rylands. Two are within the boundaries of the city, but the third is in Broxtowe. The University have now announced an exhibition and public meeting about the plans. The exhibition will be at Beeston library between 16^th and 21^st April, with a public meeting on Thursday 21^st April between 11.15 and 12.45 pm.

4. CampaignTables

The Liberal Democrats launched our formal election campaign this week with street tables in Beeston and Stapleford. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come over and to take literature or have a chat. We actually gave out our total stock of balloons for Beeston on the first day, so we’re having to restock on those. One gentleman came over at the end and clearly wanted to have an argument, but other than that there was a pretty good response from people.

5. School Move

St Johns Church of England primary school in Stapleford are looking at the possibility of relocating to a new base. The school is currently at a site on Nottingham Road but the County Council have asked them whether they want to relocate to the site of the former Frederick Harrison school, which closed in 2008. The school are currently consulting parents, which to my mind seems to be the right thing to do, but it has generated strong feelings in some parents.

6. Rail Times

Notts County Council and Nottingham City Council have submitted an application to the Government (on behalf of East Midlands Councils) for funding to speed up rail journey times on the Midland Mainline. Is successful this would result in journeys from Nottingham to London being about 15 minutes quicker than at present.

7. Beeston Hockey Club

Congratulations to Beeston Hockey Club who have won the national championships for the first time in their history. They beat East Grinstead on Sunday to secure their title.

8. “What The Hell Have The Liberal Democrats Done”

I was sent a link to this web site this week. I think it is excellent and is saying the things that the national media seem to be intent on ignoring, and I fully recommend that you visit:

http://whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/

9. Residents Parking Petition in Stapleford

A Stapleford Labour Councillor will present a petition to the County Council tomorrow calling for action on the proposed residents parking scheme for Stapleford. Whilst I welcome the petition I can’t help but be cynical over the timing. I do hope that this is not just an election stunt and that it will in fact achieve something.

10. Chilwell Road Traders

I attended a meeting along with Anna Soubry MP and Richard Jackson, County Councillor Highways Portfolio holder, with the traders from Chilwell Road in Beeston. They were all broadly in favour of the tram coming but did want reassurances about their trade during the construction phase, and I think that they went away quite reassured.

11. MP’s Expenses

12. Stapleford Walk In Centre

The County Council have decided to ask the Secretary of State for Health to look again at plans by the Primary Care Trust to close the walk in centre in Stapleford. This is good news, and Anna Soubry MP and I have already discussed going to see him to make the case for keeping the centre open. We will try and secure a meeting as soon as possible.

13. Victim Support Award

Broxtowe Borough Council have awarded a safe Borough Award to Victim Support for its work with crime victims in the borough. The award was announced this week.

14. Lib-Dem Candidates

The full list of Liberal Democrat candidates standing in the elections are:

Attenborough – Stephen Rule
Beeston Central – Paul Fox, Stella Fox
Beeston North – Steve Carr, Chris Salter
Beeston Rylands – John Patrick, Trish Taylor
Beeston West – Brian Taylor, Graham Hopcroft
Bramcote – Stan Heptinstall, Ian Tyler, David Watts
Brinsley – Martin Shaw
Chilwell East – Amanda Hull, Jane Lachhar
Chilwell West – Barbara Carr, Helen Grindell, Brenda Houldsworth
Cossall and Kimberley – Elaine Cockburn, Goff Walt, Steph Walt
Greasley –Lee-Ann Foreman, Nigel Morgan, Kevin Wilkinson
Eastwood North – Bob Charlesworth, Hazel Charlesworth
Eastwood South – Josie Forrest, David Hallam, Keith Longdon
Stapleford North – Mark Elvin, Brian Wombwell
Stapleford South East – Jacky Williams, David Grindell
Stapleford South west – David Pearson, Kevin Thomas
Toton and Chilwell Meadows – Bob Pembleton, John Rule, Christine Wombwell
Trowell – Ken Rigby

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Word of mouth remains our best form of advertising and I’m grateful for all the positive comments that are made. As ever any feedback on any of the above will be gratefully received.

David

Broxtowe Enews 4th April 2011

2011-04-04T13:21:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the new readers that we have this week.

We are now in the official pre-election period, when the council is by law prohibited from making any controversial or significant decisions. As a result the news is a bit quiet this week, and will be for the next few weeks. However the work of the council does go on, although all the big stuff now has to wait until after 5^th May. That being said, there is still plenty happening in the borough.

1. Stapleford Walk In Centre

The scrutiny committee at the County Council has today agreed to a Lib-Dem request to refer the decision to close the Stapleford Walk In Centre to the Secretary of State for Health. As I mentioned last week Anna Soubry and I are already trying to arrange to see him so that we can put the case for retaining the centre, which serves the whole of south Broxtowe as well as patients from further afield. We may have lost the first round but the fight goes on.

2. Election Hustings Debate

The Evening Post has organised a debate between representatives of the parties standing for election in Broxtowe on 5^th May. This will take place on Thursday 14^th April at 7.30pm in the New Ventures Social Club, Beeston, and everyone is welcome to attend. I will be attending for the Lib-Dems and I imagine that Richard Jackson and Milan Radulovic will be speaking for the Conservatives and Labour respectively, although I haven’t had this confirmed. The election debates in the run up to the general election were good fun and good natured, and I hope that this will be as well.

3. Hickings Lane Trees

I mentioned last week that vandals had attacked and destroyed the trees planted last year on Hickings Lane park in Stapleford. We have now had an estimate of the cost of the damage that they caused, which came to £1,600. The council will have to pick up the cost of this. If anyone has any information about those responsible please ring Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 or let me know and I will pass it on.

4. Sherwood Forest Walk

Stapleford writer (and subscriber to this enews)Dave Wood is to begin a very ambitious walk in June, covering the historic boundaries of Sherwood Forest. Apparently the last time that this walk was completed was in 1662, and Dave is going to highlight the disappearance of trees and will run workshops with local residents.The walk will take about three months to complete. Further details are available from Dave on davewrite2002@yahoo.com.

5. Preferred Bidder For Tram

The preferred bidder to construct Lines 2 and 3 of the tram (coming through Beeston and Chilwell) was announced this week. The Tramslink Consortium includes amongst it’s members Trent Barton buses, and so hopefully they will coordinate their bus services to tie in with the trams when they are up and running. If everything goes according to plan work will start early next year and the first trams could be running by the end of 2014.

6. Attenborough Easter Holiday Club

The Magic in the Woods holiday club will run between 26^th and 28^th April at Attenborough Nature Reserve , enabling children to explore the beauties of the nature reserve. Classes run from 10.15 to 12.15 each day and cost £5. Further details are available from 0115 972 1777.

7. Greasley Multi-Use Games Area

The multi-use games area owned by Greasley Parish Council has been a source of irritation to local residents since it was installed because of the noise generated from there. The borough council have checked and it does constitute a noise nuisance, and so we have had to serve a noise abatement notice on the parish council. The parish council say that they are now taking steps to reduce noise levels. It is a shame that we had to take this action before they have taken these steps.

8. Grow Your Own Food

A five year project to encourage people to grow their own food has been launched in Broxtowe by Rural Community Action Nottingham. Coincidentally I was reading a paper this week about the benefits that this can bring and was wondering how we could develop the idea here, so I’m delighted that someone has beaten me to it. A development officer has been appointed and he will work with allotment holders and other community groups to promote the scheme, and will be holding veg growing workshops. Details are available on 01623 727600.

9. Planning Advice

From 1^st April Broxtowe will charge for planning advice to potential developers. The scale of charges is weighted so that local residents wanting to build extensions or alterations to their properties will pay the least, with big commercial developers paying the most. This change, which was supported by all three parties on the council, is part of our efforts to ensure that the council can maintain services as well as cut our costs.

10. County Council Redundancy Costs

As part of their cost saving measures the County Council have made a number of senior officers redundant. In the last six months this has meant that they have paid out £940,000 in redundancy payments.

11. Beeston Bid

Beeston Bid, which was set up a couple of months ago and works to promote businesses within the town, has recruited a new apprentice because of the amount of work that they are dealing with. The apprentice post is to help set up projects and events in the Bid area.

12. Giltbrook Bus Route

Trent Barton have varied the route of their No 27 bus so that it now runs through the Giltbrook Retail park. This runs every 30 minutes between Kimberley, Awsworth and Ilkeston.

13. Cheques

The Lib-Dem team on Notts County Council have called for cheques to be retained and for banks to scrap their plans to phase them out over the next few years. I think that this is an excellent campaign and I’m happy to throw my full weight behind it. The Lib-Dems have already collected 2,000 names on a petition in support locally.

14. Manifesto

The Broxtowe Lib-Dem manifesto for the borough council elections will be available on our web site (www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk) later this week, together with full details for our candidates. A full list of all the candidates will be published by the borough council on Wednesday. An attempt has been made to sabotage the Lib-Dems in the city by bombarding their freepost address with empty envelopes. As a result they have had to suspend their freepost address. We had to drop our freepost address a few years ago after similar problems. I will repeat what I have said many times before, that I hope strongly that we will have a good natured and well behaved election campaign. We will certainly not engage in this sort of tactics, or anything else below the belt.

15. London Protests

I’ve been asked if I can comment on the protests in London last week. First, the violence was wholly unnecessary and I can’t be the only one who wondered why it was that the few people smashing windows seemed to be surrounded by hundreds of representatives from the media. Why does one small piece of bad news attract so much publicity when the main thrust should surely have been about the extent of the protests. Turning then to that, when so many people do protest I think that it is incumbent on the Government to look again at what it is doing to see if there are any better alternatives. This doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly become a deficit denier or that I necessarily believe that there is a better way to go forward (we couldn’t carry on spending the staggeringly high figures that the last Government did) but I firmly believe that the Government must listen to people’s concerns and engage in regular soul searching about whether they are doing the right things. I hope that they are doing this and I hope that one of the first changes that may come about is a revamp of the health policy.

16. Libya Crisis

I’ve also been asked my views about the military action in Libya. As regular readers will know I am very much against military operations unless absolutely necessary and have long advocated the immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. However I do believe that the situation in Libya is different ton either Afghanistan or Iraq, and has much more in common with Yugoslavia in the 1990’s, when the UN did nothing and allowed massacre after massacre to take place. The action in Libya is supported by a UN resolution (in sharp contrast to the illegal war in Iraq) and so prior to the vote in the House of Commons I spoke to Anna Soubry on the phone and said that I would not criticise anyone who voted in favour of the action.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is gratefully received. Readers of this from the web sites that carry it may subscribe directly by contacting me at davidwatts@broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk

Broxtowe Enews 26th March 2011

2011-03-26T14:13:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, bought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of Broxtowe Borough Council. A special welcome to the many new readers that we have this week – it’s been a while since we had so many people join in one week. It has also been a week for big news stories locally, some good and some bad.

1. Durban House

Let’s start with some unqualified good news. The DH Lawrence Heritage Centre, based at Durban House in Eastwood, now has a much more certain long term future after we entered into a partnership with the University of Nottingham. For the next two years, and hopefully for many years after that, we will be sharing the running costs of the building with them and they will use the centre for teaching and community activities, as well as placing some of their extensive archive of DH Lawrence Papers on display. Opening hours for the public will be extended (we will be opening on Saturdays now which is not currently done) and I hope that this will help to attract many more visitors. It was my pleasure to be able to meet with the staff at the centre on Tuesday to tell them, and then announce the story publicly the next day. We’ve been working on this deal for the past few weeks and I’ve been bursting to tell people, but both sides agreed not to release anything until everything was agreed so that we didn’t raise peoples hopes prematurely.

2. Stapleford Walk In Centre

We’ve done the good so now let’s do the bad. The Primary Care Trust (PCT) the unelected quango responsible for running much of the local health service has decided to press ahead with plans to close the Walk In Centre in Stapleford, despite the near unanimous local opposition to this scheme. The Walk In Centre is well used, popular and convenient, and the financial case put forward to justify closure only works if more than half of all patients currently attending decide simply not to seek medical assistance. There has been an excellent campaign organised and run by Stapleford Liberal Democrats against the plans and this will continue. We have not given up the fight. The next stage is that the decision will be looked at by the County Council so we will be lobbying them, and I am also trying to arrange an appointment to see the Secretary of State for Health to ask him to personally intervene.

3. The Tram

We’ve done the god and the bad so now the one which will generate the most divided opinions of anything. On Thursday the Government confirmed that the necessary savings had been found for the tram and this can now go ahead. The preferred bidder is likely to be announced in the next few weeks (i.e. the firm who will actually build it) and there are then likely to be some months of negotiations before contracts are signed and work can begin. When it starts the first stag is to move he services under the tram tracks, and this is likely to start in Beeston in early 2012. If everything goes to plan trams should be running through Beeston by the end of 2014. My view is that this is very good news which will help Beeston, and the whole of the south of Broxtowe, to grow and flourish.

4. Enterprise Zone

In the budget on Wednesday George Osborne announced the creation of new enterprise zones, and the next day David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced that the first one would be at the Boots Site in Nottingham, much of which is of course in Broxtowe. We’re still waiting for the full details of what this will mean but it may result in many new businesses locating in Broxtowe, bringing with them new jobs and a significant financial boost to the local economy. On the other hand we had explored the possibility of putting up to 1,000 homes on that site and so we will now need to find out if this will be viable. If not then thy will need to go elsewhere, which of course increases pressure on the green belt. I have always opposed building in the green belt and do not plan to alter my stance now.

5. The Budget

There was much in the budget that reflected Lib-Dem priorities, including our number one aim to take the lowest paid out of tax altogether. The raising of tax thresholds means that a further 500 people in Broxtowe will no longer pay income tax, with 52,000 local residents receiving a tax cut. No-one will, in this budget, move from being a lower rate to a higher rate tax payer.

6. Potholes

Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for information about pot holes. I’ve received loads of comments, so many apologies that I haven’t been able to respond to everyone personally. I have however sent all the suggestions to the County Council and I will monitor this to ensure that they are being addressed. The Coalition Government has made extra money available for this work and I am determined to ensure that Broxtowe receives its fair share of this. The County have told me that they plan to send the money over the summer so hopefully we’ll see lots of road works in Broxtowe whilst it is being done.

7. A52 Road Works

Talking of road works I’ve had a letter from the Highways Agency this week to say that they will be carrying out work to the A52 at Priory Island between 2^nd April and the end of May. This will involve weekend lane closures between 8.30am and 5pm on weekends, and possibly between 9.30 am and 3pm on weekdays. The aim is, I believe, that most of the work should be done at weekends. Also on the A52, concern has been expressed about the amount of litter on the verges. We have checked with the Highways Agency who tell us that they will be carrying out lane closures to cut the grass on 14^th April and so we have arranged for council staff to clear all the litter at the same time.

8. Vandals

Vandals in Stapleford have attacked and destroyed a large number of trees planted last year in Hickings Lane Park. This was a totally mindless act and I’m absolutely appalled at the behaviour. It is too late in the season to replant this year, but we will look at replacing all these trees next year. If anyone knows who is responsible please pass the information to the police or, if you don’t wish to do so, let me know and I can pass it on for you. The original trees were planted by the Brownies and I imagine that they are very upset.

9. Election leaflets

The local elections will be on us shortly and I’ve started seeing leaflets from other parties. One of the bits of feedback that I get with this newsletter is that people prefer it when I‘m covering the positive things that we are doing rather than responding to the other parties, but sometimes their claims are so fanciful and, this time, plain dishonest that they need to be drawn to people’s attention so that you can use this when deciding who to vote for. After all, if parties are willing to lie to get your votes what else will they do? Don’t get me wrong, I understand fully that people will put their own angle on things but there is a difference between that and downright lies. First in Bramcote we had a leaflet from the Tories saying that they had arranged for buses to stop during school hours on a route that they previously didn’t. That’s now a very old story but it was my Lib-Dem colleague Stan Heptinstall who did that. In the same leaflet they claimed that they had arranged to have graffiti removed from the disused golf club. That was me (and regular readers may recall reading about both of those in this newsletter). They also repeat a false claim that we are in favour of building over the golf club.

Even worse than this though is the Labour leaflet currently being distributed in Stapleford. This claims that they have organised the campaign against the closure of the walk in centre. This is wholly untrue. Although the campaign was on a non-party political basis it was organised and run by the Stapleford Lib-Dems. Labour did absolutely nothing (their current councillor for Stapleford South agreed to host a meeting about this and then didn’t even turn up, leaving people locked outside the building!) and to lie so blatantly is breath-taking. The same leaflet complains about the rise in council house rents even though every Labour councillor (including the Eastwood councillor who wrote the leaflet) voted for them. There are many other untruths in the same leaflet, but I think I’ve made the point with these.

10. A Fair Council

Broxtowe Borough Council has just been inspected for our approach to equality and diversity and has been graded as “achieving” which is excellent news. In other words we are doing the right things in the right way. I’m sure when we get the detailed report through they will be able to identify some things that we will be able to do better and we will try and take these on board, but I’m delighted at the recognition of our efforts to make the council open and inclusive.

11. Forthcoming Events

On Friday 15th April at 7.30pm Paradiso Cinema presents A Shot in the Dark starring Peter Sellers as the Pink Panther. Suitable for the whole family. At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets on the door - £5, £4 (conc). Come at 7pm for refreshments. Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

Friday 8th & Saturday 9th April at 7.30pm Orchard Theatre Company presents: Bouncers A comedy by John Godber. Adult content (15+) At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets £7 on the door or in advance from the school on 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893. For further details ring 07976 746906

Starting Wednesday 4th May Life Drawing course At Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. For ten weeks every Wednesday from 6.30pm to 9pm. Cost £120 (concessions for OAPs and A level students £100). Suitable for beginners and experienced artists. For further details email davidhallows@onetel.com or ring 0115 9730838 or 07941423782.

Thursday 5th May 7.30pm Village Ventures presents: Jo Freya meets Maalstrom An informative funny show with exceptional music drawing from folk, world music, jazz and classical references. See www.freyamusic.co.uk At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets £8, £6 (conc) or £24 family (2+2) in advance from the school on 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893 or on the door. Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

12. Census

Now is the time to complete your census form for this year. The Government use the information in the census to allocate resources across the country so there is definite financial benefit to Broxtowe if as many people as possible return their forms. Please do so now.

13. Clocks

Please don’t forget that the clocks go forward by one hour tonight.

14. Energy Share

I’ve received this message. I’m posting it exactly as I received it. I haven’t checked this out but it seems quite an interesting idea:

Dear Councilor,

Please could you help us let people in your area know about the energyshare grant fund which has just launched with up to £500,000 for community renewable energy projects? We’re calling for communities across the UK to register their interest . It would be great if you could you help us spread the word by forwarding this on to any contacts you have or putting us in touch with the most appropriate team in your local authority.

energyshare is a 100% renewable energy community giving everyone in the UK the opportunity to get involved in sourcing, using, and generating your own renewable energy.

This is just the beginning. energyshare’s founding partners, River Cottage and British Gas are committed to finding more funding. As a start British Gas are committed to distributing a further £3m to community renewable projects through the energyshare fund over the next 3 years. By getting involved in energyshare you can help decide which projects get funded.

We’ve got lots of other features on the site for households and communities, including case studies on the site of really successful community projects like Woolsery Community Hall who have cut their running costs by 90%, and MOZES where each household is saving an estimated 20% per year on their energy bills!

Please forward this on to anyone you think might be interested. We hope to see you onwww.energyshare.com soon!

15. Marie Curie Swimathon

Bramcote Leisure Centre will host a swimathon for Marie Curie Cancer on Saturday 9^th April from 5.30pm. Similar events will be being held up and down the country, and swimmers can register to do 1.5km, 2.5km, 5km or more as an individual or 5km or more as a team. To participate ring 0845 36 700 36 or visit www.swimathon.org.

16. Bramcote Litter Pick

Following a request from a local resident we are organising a community litter pick in Bramcote village. Our provisional plan is to meet at 2pm on 30^th April (the day after the Royal wedding) to see how much we can get done in a couple of hours. The council are providing the equipment and we hope that many Bramcote residents will join us for the event.

17. Tsunami Appeal

As I reported last week there will be a fundraising effort for victims of the tsunamin in Japan on Saturday 9^th April from 10 am to 3pm at Oban House, Chilwell Road in Beeston.

18. Road Safety

Figures released this week show that the level of fatal or serious accidents on Nottinghamshire’s roads in 2010 was the lowest since records began. The County Council (who do deserve some credit for this) say that it has been achieved by road improvements, lower speed limits and educational programmes.

19. County Council Newsletter

The latest edition of the county council newspaper has been distributed over the County this week and the Labour opposition on the County Council have complained about the content, saying that it was misleading. They take objection to the lead story about the budget, where it says that changes were made providing extra money for some areas. In fact what actually happened was that the level of cuts was reduced and services were not expanded as Labour say the article suggested.

20. Concessionary Bus Passes

If you currently have a concessionary bus pass issued by the borough council when you get a replacement it will come from the County Council. They take over responsibility for these from 1^st April as part of a national change in the way these are run, and they will also be responsible for dealing with new applications. Existing passes remain valid so you don’t need to get a replacement until your existing one runs out.

21. Stapleford Blue Plaque

A blue plaque has been unveiled in Stapleford to commemorate the life of local author Arthur Henry Mee. He edited the Childrens newspaper and wrote the Kings England, a guide to towns and villages in Britain. The plaque is located on the Arthur Mee Centre, the Castle College buildings in Stapleford which were named after him.

22. Eastwood School Scientists

Congratulations to young scientists from Eastwood School, who won the Crest Experience Prize at the national Big Bang Science Fair, organised by the British Science Association. They collected their prize in London last week. Their winning entry was the wind turbine that they designed and built from scratch for their school.

23. New Classrooms at Bramcote C of E School

Bramcote Church of England School will celebrate the opening of two new classrooms by releasing 250 balloons with the pupils names on in a great balloon race this coming Wednesday. The pupil whose balloon travels the furthest will win a book token, and the opening of the classrooms will be performed by the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham.

24. Broxtowe Warm Zone

I did a plug for this service a couple of weeks ago, but have now used it myself and can add a personal recommendation. The aim is to ensure that homes in the borough are as well insulated and also that they are as water efficient as possible. I telephoned in the morning to enquire and they came later that day. By the time they had left I had a new more water efficient shower head and adjustments to all three toilets, and an arrangement for them to call in a few weeks and install extra loft insulation. This is the only bit of the service that anyone has to pay for and this is subsidised, so it is costing me £130 to have the whole house done, which is way below the proper cost. The service is available to everyone in the borough so you can contact them via http://www.broxtowewarmzone.com/. The scheme is provided by the borough council and is part of our commitment to ensure that everyone in the borough can have a high quality home. It is funded primarily by the utility companies.

As ever thank you for your support for this news service. Our best advertising is recommendations from existing readers, and we really appreciate your support. As ever I am very grateful for any feedback. Readers of this on the web can sign up for the email version by emailing me at d.k.watts@ntlworld.com.

David