The Bradley Stoke Journal

A notice of election for the Town Councillor vacancy in Bradley Stoke’s Meadowbank parish ward has been posted on the Town Council’s noticeboards around the town. Should the vacancy be “contested”, i.e. should there be more than one candidate, the election will take place on Thursday 2nd October.

Nominations papers must be submitted to the Returning Officer at South Gloucestershire Council by noon on Friday 5th September.

Click on the thumbnail image to view a photo of the election notice.

Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) has not seen fit to publish the notice of election on its website, despite press spokesperson John Ashe admitting to the Bradley Stoke Examiner that the Council’s publication practices are decades behind the times. Mr Ashe’s comments came after a number of readers contacted The Journal to complain that the Meadowbank vacancy had not been advertised on the BSTC website.

Do you live in the Meadowbank parish ward? Check out the interactive map of parish ward boundaries on The Journal’s Contact your Councillor page.

[Postscript - Monday 1st September] The Journal is pleased to note that BSTC has responded to residents’ concerns and made the notice of election available on its website.

Local bus operator First Group has announced price rises that come into effect on Sunday 31st August. The company is blaming the price hike (said to average six per cent) on increased fuel costs.

Most standard adult and child single and return fares will rise by 10p, while the prices of FirstDay tickets for Bristol zones 1 & 2 go up by 20p (the new adult price is £4.20 on-peak, £3.90 off-peak).

The latest rises follow a 4.1 per cent increase in January.

Elsewhere, South Gloucestershire Council has announced that the 487 school service to The Ridings, Winterbourne, has been withdrawn with the 963 service being re-routed via Bradley Stoke to provide an alternative service. The revised 963 service runs from Wednesday 3rd September.

Related Links: The Journal’s guide to bus services in Bradley Stoke

The Willow Brook Centre, Bradley Stoke’s new £80 million shopping centre, is now just weeks away from opening its doors to the general public. Construction of the complex, which includes a Tesco Extra store, a shopping mall and further retail outlets around a new Town Square, has progressed rapidly over the Summer months and the centre could be ready to open as early as mid-October.

The Journal has been documenting progress on construction of the complex since work began on the site in December 2007 – a photographic record of the development can be seen in our PicasaWeb Gallery, which now includes over 700 shots taken from public spaces around the site.

With the first phase of the project nearing completion, The Journal was last week invited into the complex by centre manager Scott Lahive to record scenes inside the shopping mall and around the feature Town Square.

These fascinating shots (complete with explanatory captions) can now be viewed in our PicasaWeb Gallery:

• Album
• Slideshow (broadband recommended)

Read the step by step account of our guided tour …

Bradley Stoke Town Council is considering the deployment of razor-sharp security spikes at its flagship Baileys Court Activity Centre, following reports that youths have been regularly climbing onto a flat section of the centre’s roof. Last week’s barely quorate meeting of the Council’s Finance & Leisure Committee heard Town Clerk, David Chandler, claim that youths had even staged barbecue parties on top of the recently expanded building.

Having dismissed the potential use of anti-climb paint as “ineffective and requiring regular replacement”, Mr Chandler proceeded to recommend deployment of a security system known as Razor-Spike® (photo above left), marketed by its manufacturers as “the most aggressive security spike ever produced.”

The Clerk then produced a sample of Razor-Spike® from a cardboard box and offered Committee members the opportunity to examine it. As the vicious-looking length of galvanised steel was gingerly passed around the table, Councillors were heard to raise concerns about the prospect of a child becoming impaled on the barrier, but the Clerk assured them that the system had Police approval (subject to proper installation and warning signage) and had been recommended by a security expert at South Gloucestershire Council.

The Committee was told that installation of the system would cost £4,500 for protection of the most vulnerable part of the roof or £5,500 for its entire perimeter.

The unnerved Committee members declined to make a decision and referred the matter to Full Council.

A Councillor vacancy on Bradley Stoke Town Council has been announced on the Council’s noticeboards throughout the town. The vacancy is for a seat representing the Meadowbank parish ward, previously occupied by Caroline Charlton (Conservative).

Ms Charlton had been a member of the Council since May 2007 and served as the Council’s press spokesperson until earlier this year. She was also a member of the Finance & Leisure Committee and contributed to the drafting of the Council’s embryonic Business Plan.

The notice states that an election will only be held to fill the vacancy if a notice of request is made to the returning officer at South Gloucestershire Council by 1st September. The request must be signed by ten local electors.

Should no application for an election be made, the Council will fill the vacancy by “co-option”, a procedure in which members of the Town Council choose a replacement Councillor.

A number of residents, having heard of the vacancy “on the grapevine”, have contacted The Journal to express their surprise that it has not been announced on the BSTC website. Having checked the website, we too have been unable to find any trace of a formal announcement. The last entry in the website’s Latest News and Anouncements section is dated 1st July and concerns events at Bristol Zoo Gardens. Consequently, we are happy to publish a photograph of the Councillor vacancy notice (dated 11th August), which can be viewed by clicking on the above thumbnail image.

Asked if the local Lib Dems might be minded to force an election for the vacant seat, local party member Jon Williams told The Journal:

I think it would be fair to say that the Lib Dems have been concerned with the way that the Town Council has been run since the Conservatives took control and [we] will be putting forward a candidate to fight the vacany. The Lib Dems want to see Bradley Stoke residents representing the town and running the council for the benefit of local people.