The Bradley Stoke Journal

Councillors could be in for a hard time at tonight’s meeting of the Bradley Stoke Safer and Stronger Community Group, where a number of residents are expected to protest against the recently completed part-night switch-off of street lights in Bradley Stoke.

The programme to adjust the lights so that they switch off between (nominally) midnight and 5am began in April but has only just been completed after work was halted on two occasions.

Work stopped for a week in April after a surge in complaints to South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) about malfunctioning street lights. The programme was then halted for a second time at the beginning of May, when “too much sun” was blamed for confusing new photocells fitted in the lamps, causing them to switch on and off at irregular times.

SGC later blamed a “software anomaly” in the new photocells and 2,000 lights had be be revisited by maintenance teams so that the faulty units could be replaced (at the expense of the supplier).

The aim of the scheme is to cut electricty bills and reduce CO2 emissions but a number of residents who have contacted The Journal have questioned whether the inconvenience and feeling of insecurity caused by the switch-off can be justified by the savings being made.

All the residents who have contacted us say they were unaware of the public consultation run by Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) in the final months of 2010, despite the fact that every household in the town should have received a copy of the Council’s newsletter, which included a two page spread about the proposed scheme.

The Council also advertised the consultation prominently on its own website and held a public drop-in session in December 2010, where large scale versions of the plans were displayed.

Read on for news about one resident’s Twitter campaign against the Bradley Stoke street light switch-off »

A software “anomaly” is the latest snag to hit the roll-out of part-night street lighting in Bradley Stoke.

South Gloucestershire Council says it will now have to revisit 2,000 street light columns that were recently fitted with special part-night photocells because a software anomaly in the units can lead to “erratic and varied” operation of the lights.

Between 28th April and 2nd May, residents in Bradley Stoke reported lights turning off at odd times or failing to turn on at all for several days.

The issue was initially put down to “unseasonal weather confusing the time clocks” but now a leaked memo from SGC says the supplier of the photocells has confirmed that faulty software is the root cause.

The Council says the supplier will exchange all 2,000 units already installed and pay for the cost of replacing them in the lighting columns.

The remedial work will commence on Monday 6th June and the Council warns that lights may stay on all night for two to three nights whilst the new units calibrate themselves.

Read on for more news about the troubled part-night street light scheme »

The roll-out of part-night street lighting in Bradley Stoke is once again on hold after newly-fitted photocells in the lamps started to malfunction.

An upgrade programme to adjust the lights so that they would turn off for five hours a night between midnight and 6am, with the aim of saving money and cutting carbon emissions, began in early April.

Work was halted for a week in mid-April after a surge of complaints from confused residents, many of whom said they hadn’t been aware of the public consultation on the big switch-off that had taken place months earlier.

Then, at the end of April, a number of Journal readers left comments on an earlier article to report lights turning off at odd times or, in one case, failing to turn on at all for several days.

The matter was raised by a resident at the Town Council’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday 11th May, where Town Clerk Sharon Petela blamed the problems on unseasonal weather, saying:

“It’s all down to the amount of sunlight we’ve had. The time clocks can’t work out what time of the year it is because we’ve had too much sun.”

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has now issued a statement attributing the problems to the new photocells:

Between 28th April and the 2nd May 2011 some of the part-night photocells began to malfunction. This malfunction was not restricted to South Gloucestershire and also occurred in other areas in the South West.”

Read on to find out how the local roll-out programme has been affected by the malfunctions »

Bradley Stoke Mayor Ben Walker has raised £10,005 for his chosen charity, St Peter’s Hospice, during his year in office which came to an end last night at the Annual General Meeting of the Town Council.

A cheque for the record amount, raised throughout the year at a number of events, including the Community Festival and Fireworks Display, was presented to Wenda Hillier, one of the charity’s Community Fundraisers.

Cllr Walker said:

“It has been an honour to serve as Mayor this last twelve months and it is an even greater honour to present such a large cheque to this very worthy cause. I’m very grateful to everyone who has donated and supported our events throughout the last year.

Wenda Hillier of St Peter’s Hospice replied:

“We’d like to thank Ben for choosing St Peter’s Hospice as his charity of the year, as well as the people of Bradley Stoke for taking on his challenge to raise vital funds for us.”

“The cost of providing our unique and specialised service free of charge to the people of Bristol is over £6 million per year, so every penny raised by the people of Bradley Stoke will make a huge difference to people with terminal illness.”

The formal business of the meeting saw eight new Town Councillors sworn in following their election on Thursday 5th May. For the first time in the town’s history, all 15 members of the Council are Conservatives.

Read on to find out who will serve as Mayor in the coming year »

Four former-Mayors are amongst seven current Bradley Stoke Town Councillors who have chosen not to stand for re-election on Thursday 5th May.

Cllrs Julian Barge (Mayor 2003/04, 2005/06 & 2007/08), Ronnie Conway-Haskins (2006/07), Mark Forsyth (2009/10) and Sandra Hobson (2005/06) have all chosen not to contest the upcoming Town Council election that sees a total of 29 candidates fighting the 15 available seats.

Cllr Barge, a Town Councillor since 1999, currently represents the Conservative party, having defected from the Liberal Democrats in 2006 when he accused his former party of “negative and sometimes nasty campaigning”. He was Mayor at the time of the Council’s very public bust-up with the Northavon Bowls Club in 2008, which ended with the club being disbanded and landed the Council with an ongoing £7,200 p.a. bill for the upkeep of the Baileys Court bowling green, previously paid by the bowlers.

Cllr Conway-Haskins has been a Town Councillor since 2003, initially as a Liberal Democrat – until a row in a row over a wrongly attributed quote led to her resigning from the party and becoming independent. She says she is giving up because she feels she has already given enough to the community (having previously been a Councillor in Newton Abbot) and because of deteriorating health.

Cllr Forsyth (Conservative) has been a Town Councillor since 2007. He has chaired the Council’s Finance Committee for a number of years and may be best known to residents for his multi-lingual “meine Damen und Herren” addresses over the PA at the annual fireworks display.

The fourth retiring Mayor is an ex-call girl (BBC, 2004) – read on »

The implementation of a scheme to switch-off most of Bradley Stoke’s street lights for five hours a night has resumed following a one week suspension after South Gloucestershire Council experienced a surge in complaints

The big switch-off started in early April after members of Bradley Stoke Town Council voted for the scheme to be implemented following a public consultation in which 54% of respondents expressed unqualified support.

A Journal reader reported on 10th April that the lights in Stean Bridge Road had started switching off at around 1:10am and it is believed that around one-third of the town, working up from the south, has now been converted.

However, last night’s meeting of  the Town Council’s Finance Committee was told that numerous residents had phoned SGC’s Streetcare department to complain about the new lighting regime, only to be told: “it’s nothing to do with us, you need to contact your Town Council”.

In fact, the switch-off scheme is an SGC initiative and the Town Council’s only involvement was to organise a public consultation on the proposals.

Read on for more news about the switch-off »