The Bradley Stoke Journal

A remarkable U-turn by Tesco public affairs consultant Dan Bramwell has seen the supermarket group agree to hold a public consultation over the naming of Bradley Stoke’s new town centre currently under construction at Savages Wood Road. The move comes less than two weeks after Mr Bramwell stated on Radio Bristol that “having a competition now would delay the building of the town centre”. In the radio interview he also stated that a decision to call the development “The Brooks Centre” had been made back in March, when Bradley Stoke Town Council had been informed that no competition to choose the name would now take place, despite an earlier promise in a Tesco press release.

In a fumbled attempt at embarrassing Tesco, the Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) planning committee had unanimously objected to a planning application by Tesco for advertising signage that sported the “Brooks Centre” name. In doing so they overlooked the fact that South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC) consultation period for the application had already expired. The planning committee’s grounds for objection served only to demonstrate their ignorance of planning law, the grounds being dismissed later by SGC planning officials as “irrelevant”.

In an address to Thursday evening’s Special Council Meeting, Mr Bramwell confirmed that the town centre development is “on schedule” for opening “later this year”. Marketing of the retail and office units is well underway, he added. However he also made several references to the imapct of the “economic slowdown”, which could be taken to mean that the developers are struggling to find tenants for some of the units. No mention was made by Mr Bramwell of any progress made in agreeing a joint BSTC/SGC drop-in centre in the new town centre.

Tesco’s local marketing team is due to take over the reins from Mr Bramwell in six weeks time.

The public competition to choose the name of the development will be launched early next week. The judging panel will be formed of two representatives from Tesco and two fom BSTC, with the winner receiving a £50 voucher and the right to nominate a local school to receive a personal computer donated by Tesco.

The Special Meeting had earlier held a fractious discussion about the Council’s ongoing dispute with Northavon Bowls Club over their rental agreement at Baileys Court. Unusually, members of the public had not been given the chance to speak at the start of the meeting and chair Julian Barge was adamant that the discussion should exclude the views of the assembled group of over 30 onlookers, including many members of the Bowls Club. Councillor Mark Forsyth began the meeting by summarising the discussions that had taken place between the Council’s working group and the bowlers. Expressions of disapproval from the audience eventually resulted in the meeting being adjourned for the Bowls Club to appoint a representative to speak on their behalf.

Once the meeting resumed (but still officially in an “adjourned” state), Brian Newland of the Bowls Club refuted many of the allegations made by Councillors earlier in the discussion and repeated calls for an independent arbitrator to be brought in.

With the meeting then officially reconvened, the Council resolved by a majority verdict to inform the Bowls Club that no change would be made to the “originally proposed agreement” (incorporating an 8% annual increase) and that the Club be given a further ten days to accept it or “that would be it”.

The Bradley Stoke Journal has learned that tonight’s Special Meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council [agenda] has already attracted the attention of the local media. A source within Northavon Bowls Club has told The Journal that a reporter and cameraman from the Bristol Evening Post will be at the meeting. The source also revealed that the Club has been asked to take part in a discussion on Radio Bristol tomorrow (Friday) morning at 8:15am.

The Special Meeting, which takes place at 7:30pm in the Jubilee Centre, Savages Wood Road, has been called to discuss the ongoing bowls dispute and issues surrounding the new town centre development.

Tesco representative Dan Bramwell is expected to attend for the town centre discussion.

Bradley Stoke Town Council’s 2007/2008 Annual Report, currently being distributed to homes in the town, may now be viewed on the Council’s website:

• Annual Report 2007-2008 (3.03MB PDF)

The Annual Town Meeting takes place at 7:30pm on Wednesday 14th May 2008, at the Jubilee Centre, Savages Wood Road.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has announced that works on the Patchway Railway Bridge, due to start on 19^th May 2008, will require closure of the southbound lane of the B4057 (shown in red in the map above) for a period of approximately six months. The northbound lane will remain open to vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes only.

The bridge links the interchange on the A38 Gloucester Road with Patchway Roundabout, from which the Highwood Road dual carriageway leads on to The Mall and Cribbs Causeway.

The announcement on the SGC website states that:

Traffic diversions will be put in place for the duration of the works and details of the diversions can be found at www.southglos.gov.uk/patchwaybridge. Pedestrians will be able to cross the bridge safely on a separate footway. Bus services will continue as normal but will follow the same diversion routes as the traffic.

The bridge will need to be closed completely overnight for two periods of up to 15 days and also for two whole weekends. Exact closure dates are not yet known and signs will be erected on site to provide advance notice of when this will happen.

Traffic from Bradley Stoke and Little Stoke wishing to reach Patchway and The Mall will be directed southbound down the A38 before making a U-turn under the Rolls Royce flyover and heading back towards Patchway Roundabout. The M5 motorway route may be more convenient for some journeys.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has approved a “controversial” planning application for advertising signage in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre development. As reported in The Journal’s article on 30^th April, Bradley Stoke Town Council’s (BSTC) planning committee unanimously agreed to oppose the application at a meeting on 23^rd April, but the committee apparently overlooked the fact that SGC’s consultation period for the application had already expired on 15^th April.

An online objection was lodged by The Town Council on 28^th April, followed by a written objection (also received by SGC on 28^th April). However, a decision to recommend approval of the application had already been made by the SGC case officer with the issuing of a Circulated Schedule Report on 25^th April. The final decision to approve was made on 2^nd May after no requests were made by SGC councillors (or BSTC) to “call in” the application for a site visit or for determination by the SGC planning committee.

Quite why none of the SGC councillors representing Bradley Stoke chose to “call in” the application remains a mystery, particularly when four of these councillors are also members of the Town Council, including two (John Ashe and Sarah Pomfret) who sit on the BSTC planning committee that opposed the application.

The new town centre development is one of two topics to be discussed at a Special Meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council on Thursday (8^th May). The ongoing dispute between the Town Council and Northavon Bowls Club over the Baileys Court rental agreement is also on the agenda. The press and public are invited to attend the meeting, although it is noted that recent deliberations on both of these matters have taken place “in camera” (i.e. the press and public have been asked to leave the room during the discussions).

Tesco has released detailed drawings showing the internal layout of the new Tesco Extra store currently under construction within Bradley Stoke’s new town centre development. The plans have been on display in the entrance of the existing Tesco store since late last week.

The new store, which will have a floorspace nearly two-and-a-half times that of the existing store, is due to open in “late autumn”. The steel framework of the new store is already in place and the roof and side walls are currently being added.

Retail space in the new store will be split over two floors. The ground floor will provide a range of goods and services similar to that available in the existing store, but with a wider choice of product lines. One new feature will be an opticians, located towards the rear of the ground floor. A “travel money pod” is also listed.

The upper (mezzanine) salesfloor, occupying only about one third of the store footprint (the remainder being given over to storage and offices) will be devoted to non-food items. Principal product groups on this floor are listed as clothing, electrical and home entertainment. Dedicated areas for products such as laptops, cameras, MP3 players and SatNav units can be made out in the plans.

New services advertised on posters in the car park of the existing store include a Tesco Direct desk (acting as a contact point for the supermarket group’s catalogue sales operation) and photo-processing.

More town centre news (including maps, plans, images and press releases) can be found in our dedicated New Town Centre pages, accessible from the sidebar of this website.

Residents of South Gloucestershire are being urged to have their say on the future development of the district following proposals from the South West Regional Assembly (SWRA) which could result in the building of nearly 31,000 new homes by 2026.

While some of this development will be met from existing major new planned development areas at Northfield (Filton), Emersons Green East, Harry Stoke and Wallscourt Farm (Abbey Wood), nearly half of the growth required is expected to be provided from four new major new greenfield development locations, most of which would see land developed which is presently safeguarded as Green Belt.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC), which has not accepted the levels of growth and development locations proposed by the government through the SWRA, has produced a “Core Strategy” document setting out a long-term vision for South Gloucestershire until 2026. The document suggests where new housing and jobs might go; it also identifies land that the Council believes should be protected.

Details of the Core Strategy and the public consultation (which closes on 13^th June 2008) can be found on the SGC website. Paper copies of the main “Issues and Options” document may be viewed at all South Gloucestershire libraries.

SGC is holding a public event on Tuesday 13^th May 2008 (2pm to 7:30pm) at Brook Way Activity Centre in Bradley Stoke, when residents will have the chance to find out more about the proposals and talk to a member of the Council’s planning team.