The Bradley Stoke Journal

Local residents are being given the opportunity to scrutinise the financial dealings of Bradley Stoke Town Council. Any person interested has the opportunity to inspect and make copies of the Annual Return and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts etc. relating to them. The documents are open to public scrutiny from 20th July 2008 to 14th August 2008. More details in the Notice of Electors’ Rights [MS Word] published on the Council’s website.

Observant residents of Bradley Stoke may have noticed the appearance of a series of numbered oak posts at various locations throughout the Three Brooks Local Nature Reserve. Enquiries by The Journal have revealed that the posts will form a permanent orienteering course (the first in South Gloucestershire) that is due to officially open in September.

A page on South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC’s) website dedicated to the new orienteering course in Bradley Stoke explains that: “Orienteering is a challenging outdoor adventure sport that exercises both the mind and the body. The aim is to navigate in sequence between control points marked on a unique orienteering map and decide the best route to complete the course in the quickest time. It does not matter how young, old or fit you are, as you can run, walk or jog the course and progress at your own pace.”

A special orienteering map of the nature reserve has been surveyed and drawn by Dudley Budden of Bristol Orienteering Klub. Once the course opens, individual maps and activity packs for groups will be available from Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre. It will also be possible to download a copy of the map from the SGC website.

The Bradley Stoke Orienteering and Nature Trail was developed in partnership with Bristol Orienteering Klub, British Orienteering, Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group, BTCV and Castlebeck.

Funding has been provided through the BBC’s Breathing Places fund and South Gloucestershire Council’s Wild Roots project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Tesco has begun advertising part-time positions available at its soon-to-open Tesco Extra store in Bradley Stoke. A flyer being distributed at the existing store lists vacancies in the following categories:

• Service
• Grocery Replenishment
• Fresh Food Replenishment
• Night and Twilight Replenishment
• Non Food

The advert states that part-time positions covering morning, afternoon, evening and night shifts are available.

Potential applicants should contact the dedicated Tesco recruitment centre at Aztec West. For contact details and location map see our dedicated New Town Centre Jobs page.

Plans for extensions to Bradley Stoke Community School (BSCS) have been submitted to South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC’s) planning department.

The proposed scheme involves the construction of a new sixth form centre (A) at the south-western end of the school’s curved frontage plus the addition of a dance studio (B) and further changing rooms (C) at the rear and side of the existing sports hall.

The proposed sixth form centre would cater for up to 200 students in the 16-19 age group. Documentation supporting the planning application predicts that, without the new centre at BSCS, the deficit in provision for post-16 education within the local ‘Group 3′ schools (BSCS, Patchway Community College and Filton High School) might range from 51 to 195 places in the academic year 2011/2012. The lower figure is calculated using the current ‘Group 3′ stay-on rate of 32%, while the upper figure reflects the highest South Gloucestershire stay-on rate of 70% seen at Castle School, Thornbury.

The school states that it would like to have the sixth form centre up and running by September 2010, so that the current Year 9 students (the oldest currently at BSCS) will have continuity of provision when they reach Year 12, should they so desire. The exact combination of post-16 courses to be offered at BSCS will be determined in consultation with other members of the Concorde Partnership, a larger conglomeration of schools that includes Castle School, Marlwood School, New Siblands Special School and Filton College, in addition to the two other ‘Group 3′ schools. Offerings are expected to include BSCS’s specialisms in Performing Arts and Modern Languages as well as the new Diploma courses being rolled out nationwide from September 2008.

The proposed dance studio is thought to be intended to support the school’s specialism in the performing arts, while the additional changing rooms are said to be needed to support the additional demand from sixth form students and allow for greater community usage.

Comments on the planning application may be made by following the ‘Comment on Application’ link at the top of the case file page on the SGC website. The deadline for comments is given as 6th August. The SGC target date for a decision on the application is 2nd October.

Obtaining planning permission is a prerequisite for applying to the Learning and Skills Council for funds to implement the proposed developments.

One of the UK’s largest pension funds has acquired a 50% share in the Willow Brook Centre, Bradley Stoke’s new town centre currently under construction at Savages Wood Road. Supermarket group Tesco has announced that it has agreed an £80 million joint venture with the massive BP Pension Fund, whose assets were recently valued at £14.7 billion.

The fund, which has 12,000 active members, is one of the few in the country that remains open to new members and has assets which exceed its liabilities by 35%. In fact it is so well over-funded that the BP company is not currently making contributions into the fund.

The joint venture, which enables Tesco to release funding for other development projects elsewhere, is reported to generate a yield of 5.35% for the fund.

Tesco’s press release claims that the deal “highlights the investment that Tesco brings and attracts, even in the in the present [economic] climate.”