The Bradley Stoke Journal

Bradley Stoke has for years had just a single health centre within its boundaries, serving a population that has now reached 20,000. It is widely agreed that further provision is necessary, but progress towards that goal has been slow and fraught with political in-fighting.

In 2005, South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) thought it was scoring political brownie points by announcing that it was providing valuable land, at a “knockdown price”, for the construction of a new health centre in Savages Wood Road. [Read the announcement on the Bradley Stoke Town Council website.] The land in question is a one acre site that remains undeveloped on the left of the access road leading to the existing Tesco store from the Three Brooks roundabout, between the new David Wilson Homes development and the 3 metre high “acoustic boundary” fence that has recently been erected alongside the public footpath leading towards Manor Farm Crescent.

However, hopes were dashed in 2006, when South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) decided not to develop the site, but instead to invest in expansion of three existing health centres already serving the town. This change of direction by the PCT, coupled with a change in the political make-up of SGC in May 2007, led to a public spat between SGC and the PCT, as evidenced by documents issued by both parties in September 2007. [SGC letter to PCT; PCT press release]

November 2007 saw a formal planning application for the expansion of the existing Bradley Stoke Surgery in Brook Way. The Town Council’s Planning, Environment & Amenities Committee had “no objection in principle” to the plans at their meeting of 28th November 2007, save to point out that they would “drastically reduce the number of parking spaces that is already inadequate and the extension will further conceal the existence of the Community Centre to the rear of the site”.

South Gloucestershire Council refused the application on 24th December 2007, citing, in addition to the parking concerns of the Town Council, that the “cramped form of the development would have a detrimental effect on the streetscene”.

The Surgey management has appealed the SGC decision and the case will now be examined by the government’s Planning Inspectorate, with a decision expected in May 2008.

Plans for Bradley Stoke’s new town centre approved in October 2007 included a ‘Council Drop-in Centre’ to be located on the ground floor of one of the ‘town centre units’ positioned around the new town square. The intention for Bradley Stoke Town Council to have a presence in the new town centre is clear from various meeting minutes on the Council’s website and is confirmed as an ‘objective’ in its Strategic Performance Plan for 2007-2010.

However, in a recent application for a variation to the approved plans, the previously-shown Council Drop-in Centre seems to have disappeared from the plans. At a meeting of the Council’s Planning, Environment & Amenities Committee on 27th February 2008 (minutes yet to appear on the Council’s website) a blunt “no comment” response was given to a resident’s question about how plans for the Drop-in Centre were progressing.

Strangely, the Council Drop-in Centre would appear to be back on the agenda, if the information leaflet about the new town centre development (available from last week in the existing Tesco store) is to be believed. Readers should note however, that Tesco has a track record of publishing out-of-date information - as evidenced by notices in the existing store claiming the new store will open in October 2008 and their own Tesco Bradley Stoke website that still states it will open “by the end of 2007″.

The new Tesco filling station in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre development is set to open on Monday 7th April, according to staff at the existing station a few yards down the road.

As the photo above shows, there is still much work to do on the new station, with the fuel pumps yet to be fitted and access roads yet to be constructed, but staff on site seem confident that the target opening date will be met. Plans suggest that traffic will enter the station from the main town centre access road but leave onto a side road in the car park of the Three Brooks public house, which currently leads to the construction site offices. This side road will eventually be the access route to the service yard of the new Tesco store.

The access road into Bradley Stoke’s new town centre is soon to be re-routed to make space for the development of the new town square (with associated shops and offices) and a block of five non-food retail units. The red line on the map above shows how the new access road will branch off to the left of the existing road at a point just beyond the new Tesco filling station (green rectangle). The road will follow the south-western, western and northern boundaries of the site before reaching the car park of the existing Tesco store close to the mini-roundabout.

Read more about this story and see an interactive version of the above map on our New Town Centre : Interactive Maps page.

The latest newsletter from Bradley Stoke Town Council has finally appeared on the Council’s website. The print version has been available to callers at the Council’s offices since mid-February and is currently being distributed to homes in the town.

— Click a thumbnail image to view a larger version —

An imposing 3.1 metre (10ft) high wooden fence on two sides of the site of Bradley Stoke’s new town centre is now complete. The structure begins on the access road opposite the new filling station and initially follows the line of a public footpath, skirting first the vacant site originally reserved for Bradley Stoke’s new health centre and then a couple of houses in Manor Farm Crescent. An overlapped gap in the structure allows access from Manor Farm Crescent and Shepherds Walk. The fence then continues up to the corner of the site near the Little Green flats, where there is a second access point for pedestrians and cyclists. The public footpath leaves the town centre site at this point, and continues to The Hedgerows and Dewfalls Drive. Beyond this, the fence continues unbroken to the far corner of the site, behind houses in Dewfalls Drive. There is no access to the site along this stretch of the boundary, in particular at the end of The Hedgerows between the Little Green and The Pasture apartment blocks.

In the detailed town centre plans, the fence is referred to as an “acoustic barrier”. It is intended to protect houses in Manor Farm Crescent, Shepherds Walk, The Hedgerows, Little Green and The Pasture from noise generated within the town centre complex, in particular from the five non-food retail units located on the west side of the site. The service yard of the non-food retail units will be very close to houses in Manor Farm Crescent and Shepherds Walk and the planning permission forbids deliveries to/from these units (but not the new Tesco store) outside of the hours of 08:00 to 20:00.

The access road to the town centre site will, in the coming months, be redirected to follow the line of the new boundary fence. This will allow a start to be made on construction of the new town square and surrounding shops/offices, the site of which overlaps the existing access road, between the new and old filling stations. The planning permission requires the town square and buildings on its southern side to be complete before the new Tesco store is allowed to open.

Work on laying a major sewer pipe under the line of the new access road has been progressing for several weeks, from time to time necessitating the use of temporary traffic signals opposite the new filling station. The resulting traffic delays are believed to have put some customers off visting the existing Tesco store and it is noticeable that the traffic signals are generally removed at weekends, when traffic is heaviest.

Please use our Contact Us form if you have news or questions about the new town centre development. There are lots more photos in our PicasaWeb Gallery.

Children in Bradley Stoke are to benefit from a £454,400 grant awarded to South Gloucestershire Council by the Big Lottery Fund. The money is for the construction of a series of so-called “Beacon Playgrounds” in accordance with the council’s Play Policy (available on the Play Website).

Play Development Officer Michael Follett told The Journal: “These projects aim to provide a different approach to creating places to play for children. This is based on the idea of designing a whole landscape, which is fun to play in, combining natural and man made features. The result should be attractive, useable by people of all ages and unique to the site.”

Michael points to the Free Play Network Website as an example of the approaches that are likely to be followed in the developments of the parks.

Jubilee Green, Savages Wood Road is the site earmarked for the Bradley Stoke park. The design process will begin in April with the park due for completion by March 2009.

It is not yet known how much of the green will be given over to the new playground and whether this will have any significant impact on the community activities that take place there throughout the year.