A public meeting in Bradley Stoke on Tuesday night (29th November) will see Councillors decide how to spend the area’s allocation of £50k for local transport schemes.

The meeting of South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC’s) Southern Brooks Area Forum, at the Jubilee Centre (7pm start) will consider a total of 28 potential schemes, proposed by residents, Councils, Councillors and schools.

Seven of the proposed schemes lie within the Bradley Stoke town boundaries, these being:

• Kerb works near Pear Tree Roundabout on Woodlands Lane
• Improved school signage in Breaches Gate, near Baileys Court Primary School
• Noise and speed reduction measures in Woodlands Lane, near Woodlands Park
• Speed reduction measures in Ormonds Close, near Bowsland Green School
• Introduction of a pedestrian crossing on Brook Way between Braydon Avenue and Baileys Court Road
• Cycle track measures in Webbs Wood Road, near St Mary’s Primary School
• School ‘keep clear’ markings and traffic orders in Webbs Wood , near St Mary’s Primary School

The Bradley Stoke schemes are pitched against five from Filton, five from Patchway, six from Stoke Gifford and five from Winterbourne.

With the estimated cost of all 28 schemes amounting to over £340k, the chances of success are slim. At the equivalent meeting last year, five schemes were awarded funding, including one to install a raised table at the zebra crossing in Bradley Stoke’s Pear Tree Road.

A second round of public consultation on the Pear Tree Road scheme ended last week and the results are promised soon. Subject to no objections being received, implementation of the raised table is planned for January 2012, according to the latest information from SGC.

The last Southern Brooks Area Forum in August saw a fair amount of politically-motivated voting when it came to allocating the Forum’s capital grant budget to local organisations, with Tory Councillors from Bradley Stoke, Stoke Gifford and Winterbourne talking down applications from Labour-controlled Filton and Patchway – and vice versa.

More info: Agenda for Tuesday’s Area Forum meeting (SGC)

The Editor comments

At least this time, should any of the Bradley Stoke schemes win funding, we’ll hopefully be spared the unseemly squabbling over which political party can claim the most credit – as happened twelve months ago when money was allocated for the Brook Way raised table crossing near Wheatfield Drive. That’s because the Conservatives now hold all the Bradley Stoke seats on SGC, having taken the Liberal Democrat’s sole (North Bradley Stoke) seat in the May 2011 election.

Town Councillors have urged residents concerned by proposed changes to bus services in Bradley Stoke to attend tonight’s Southern Brooks Area Forum meeting in Filton.

Residents attending last week’s Town Council Planning Committee meeting were advised that the changes were a commercial decision by the operator, Wessex Connect, and not South Gloucestershire Council (SGC).

Protests by bus users and Journal readers have already resulted in an amendment to the originally proposed route of the new peak-hours-only U8 service that replaces the hourly 71 service from 18th September. The new U8 service will now additionally pass through the south of Bradley Stoke, enabling that area to at least maintain a link with Bristol city centre at peak times.

The recent changes can be seen by comparing the (original) version 2 and (latest) version 4 issues of the U8 timetable on the UWE website, although Cllr Keith Cranney warns that “the situation is liable to change from day to day.”

Town Councillors agreed to “write to Wessex Connect raising concerns, on behalf of the residents of Bradley Stoke, with regard to the withdrawal of bus services from the town.”

The Southern Brooks Area Forum meeting takes place tonight (Tuesday 30th) at Filton Community Association, Elm Park, Filton BS34 7PS [map], starting at 7pm.

The main business of the Area Forum meeting will be to allocate the £26,607 of capital grant funding available to voluntary organisations in the Southern Brooks area, which includes Bradley Stoke, Filton, Frenchay, Patchway, Stoke Gifford and Winterbourne, for the 2011/2012 financial year.

Organisations from Bradley Stoke that have applied for grants include Bradley Stoke Bowls Club, the 1st Bradley Stoke Scout Group and Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association.

Bradley Stoke Bowls Club has asked for £500 to purchase a tea trolley, six table cloths and four ‘bowls gatherers’. A new tea trolley is required because the “wheels keep falling off the old one”; bowls gatherers are said to be a “real must” because the club’s oldest member is 90 years old, while table cloths are needed to match the standards of other clubs in the area so that the Bradley Stoke bowlers are not seen as “the poor relations.”

The Scout Group is seeking £3,000 for tables, benches and an equipment trailer “to enhance activities and events.” The assessing officer at SGC recommends that £2,780 be awarded for the tables and benches, with the group being left to finance the trailer from its own funds or other sources.

Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association wants £3,000 (for a project costed at £2,920!). The money would be used to purchase a portable mixing desk and associated equipment that would enable schools and other organisations in Bradley Stoke to record radio shows in their own environment. The Area Forum has already funded the group to the tune of £5,500 in previous years, including the purchase of a studio mixing desk, so SGC officers have recommended that £1,850 be allocated for laptops, portable MP3 recorders, a gazebo, tables, chairs and a generator.

More info: Agenda for the Southern Brooks Area Forum meeting on Tuesday 30th August 2011 (SGC)

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) is now making it even easier for people to recycle their cardboard waste by providing local residents with a free bag.

According to information on the SGC website, the bags are now available for collection from Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre and Bradley Stoke Library on a “one per household, first come, first served basis whilst stocks last”.

Executive Member for Communities, Cllr James Hunt said:

“We have listened to the views of residents who are keen to recycle as much cardboard as possible and these bags will help us to increase the amount of cardboard that is recycled, reduce contamination of the green bin and make the streets tidier.”

“We are aware that some residents do not want additional containers therefore cardboard presented neatly at the kerbside in other containers will continue to be collected as normal.”

Cardboard is no longer collected from the green wheeled bin as it is now being recycled, rather than composted down with garden waste, allowing it to be used again and again, which is more environmentally friendly – according to the Council.

The Sort It! civic amenity site in Station Road, Little Stoke, is to begin closing on Wednesdays when new operating times come into force on 1st August.

The news was buried in the footnotes of a South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) press release titled “Improvements to Sort It! Centres” put out on Wednesday (26th July).

In common with other Sort It! sites in Mangotsfield, Yate and Thornbury, the Little Stoke site will benefit from extended opening hours between April and September, remaining open until 6:30pm, but whereas the other sites will continue to open seven days a week, Little Stoke will now be closed on Wednesdays throughout the year.

Over a whole year, the other three sites will see a 25% increase in opening hours but for Little Stoke the total yearly hours will remain more or less unchanged.

Council says Little Stoke mid-week closure will pay for longer hours at other sites

Challenged by The Journal over the seemingly geographically-biased decision, a SGC spokesperson said:

“The reason for closing a SORT IT!* Centre for one day is to help to pay for extended hours on all sites.”

“The reason why Stoke Gifford [Little Stoke] was chosen was that it is a small site, which already has a vehicle height restriction and trailer ban in place for health and safety reasons. Wednesday was also the obvious day to close the Stoke Gifford site as data analysis showed this to be the least busy day at this site.”

“When we met with the local members for Stoke Gifford earlier this year they agreed the extra hours more than compensated for the day closure.”

Asked for their views on the changes, Bradley Stoke South Glos Councillors Ben Walker, Brian Hopkinson, Sarah Pomfret, Robert Jones and John Ashe commented:

“The Wednesday closing is a trade off for longer hours on the other six days of the week. We would encourage local residents to let us know what they think of the new times and whether they prefer to have longer opening hours every day except Wednesdays or if they would rather revert back to the previous arrangement of Wednesday openings but shorter hours every day.”

“Of course, in an ideal world, we would want to see longer opening hours including on Wednesdays, but this is unrealistic in the current financial climate.”

No progress on building a replacement for the inadequate Little Stoke facility

SGC accepted in its 2008 Waste Strategy document that the Little Stoke site was providing an inadequate service for local residents, stating:

“A replacement Sort It! Centre for Stoke Gifford is needed to provide an appropriate service to the local population. The search for a suitable site continues and may not be completed until the Council’s Green Belt policy has been reviewed”

Asked about the progress made in the search for a replacement site, an SGC spokesperson told The Journal:

“The Council’s plans to identify alternative land on which to build a replacement Sort It! Centre for the Stoke Gifford area are still very much work in progress. Since 2005 the Council and SITA have carried out extensive searches on available land so far without success due to planning and highway restrictions. Until recently this project has been on hold pending the review of both Green Belt and other industrial sites to see what alternative and suitable land becomes available.”

“Securing land on which to build a new site is still a key objective of the council’s local waste strategy and is now incorporated in the Council’s Core Strategy document, policy CS27, relating to development East of Harry Stoke, which provides for a ‘waste transfer and recycling facility’. It is now hoped that with more housing developments being built that this will open up further opportunities and discussions with developers. However, even if we manage to identify suitable land going forwards, delivering a new site is still going to take several years to complete.”

Ratepayers in Bradley Stoke will see no increase in the amount of Council Tax they pay in 2011/2012 following decisions by all four charging bodies to freeze their respective tax demands at 2010/2011 levels.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC), Avon and Somerset Police and Avon Fire & Rescue have all decided to set zero percent increases, thereby securing ‘Council Tax Freeze Grants’ from central government, worth £2.8m (equivalent to a 1.6% tax rise) to SGC alone.

Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC), which is not eligible for the government sweetener, has also declared an unchanged precept – leading to a unaltered total bill of £1,580 for the ‘average’ band D property in the town.

Opposition groups supported Conservative-led SGC’s tax freeze but were critical of the lack of detail on proposed cuts and the need to dip into the authority’s reserves.

In setting a budget of £196 million council, SGC says it will implement a set of initiatives to help it run more efficiently, which it hopes will save taxpayers just over £9 million during 2011/12.

The projected savings include £6.6 million through simplifying its ‘back office’ function (rising to around £10 million per year eventually); £1.2 million through reducing the number of senior managers working at the Council (rising to around £2 million eventually) and £1.4 million by procuring goods and services more efficiently (rising to between £7 million and £9 million eventually).

The efficiency savings will see more than 300 Council jobs axed over the next two years.

In addition to the projected savings, the Council will need to take £2.3 million from its reserves in order to balance the books.

The Town Council’s 2011/2012 budget also foresees a shortfall – of nearly £19k (equivalent to a 2.3% precept rise) but Councillors voted unanimously to set a zero percent precept rise and fund the defecit from reserves.

Referring to SGC’s injection of an extra £58k into youth club provision in Bradley Stoke, Mayor Ben Walker said:

“This budget is good news for the people of Bradley Stoke. Not only are we receiving some much needed extra investment for our young people but the Council Tax freeze dovetails nicely with the Town Council precept freeze as a shining example of Conservative efficiency.”

Expressing his disappointment that opposition councillors, including Bradley Stoke North representative Cllr Jon Williams (Lib Dem), didn’t support the budget, he added:

“It beggars belief that a representative of Bradley Stoke would not support this budget. Cllr Williams should have put politics aside and voted with the Conservatives on this one.”

Cllr Ruth Davis, Leader of the Lib Dem group on SGC, said:

“Many of these savings have yet to be worked out and until you make the details public there will be no guarantee that these savings will not actually be cuts. What we know is that it really is a case of the devil is in the detail.”

SGC Labour Group Leader Cllr Roger Hutchinson said:

“The Tory-led Government has South Gloucestershire in a headlock. We support a Council Tax freeze for hard-pressed families but we are being bribed with our own money in the form of a one-off special grant to achieve it. It is a political con trick. The Government has made it clear that it will penalise us if we do not do what it says. This proves the emptiness of its commitment to localism.”

Footnote: Bradley Stoke Councillor Robert Jones (Conservative) was forced to make an apology after he published an insensitive message about “not making enough cuts” on the social media website Twitter prior to SGC’s budget setting meeting.

Four Bradley Stoke organisations will be hoping to win a share of a £28,161 grant fund at this Tuesday’s meeting of the Southern Brooks Area Forum in Winterbourne.

A total of 26 applications totalling £43,888 have been received from organisations in the Bradley Stoke, Filton, Patchway, Stoke Gifford, Winterbourne, Frenchay and Stoke Park areas covered by the Forum.

The South West Winterguard Academy (SWWA), which meets at Meadowbrook Primary School and promotes ‘Colourguard’ (a dance based activity using flags and other equipment), is asking for £2,168 to cover the cost of hall rental, equipment, travel and insurance.

Bradley Stoke Bowls Club (BSBC), based at Baileys Court,  is looking for £2,500 (half the annual cost of green and room rental that it pays to Bradley Stoke Town Council) so that it can reduce its membership fees and hopefully attract new members.

Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association (BSCRA), which has recently occupied a studio at the Willow Brook Centre, wants £3,000 to pay for the official licences that it needs to broadcast over a 28-day period covering the Community Festival in June.

Finally, the Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group (TBNCG) is seeking £400 to pay for bee friendly flowers that will be planted in the community orchard behind Bradley Stoke Community School.

All four of the groups have received previous grants from the Area Forum over the last two years, with SWWA getting a £1,250 capital grant, BSBC a £1,500  capital grant, BSCRA a £2,500 capital grant and a £1,500 small grant and TBNCG a £391 small grant.

Council officers’ recommendations are that the Conservation Group receive the requested amount in full and the Winterguard Academy £1,333 to cover hall rental and insurance.

The Bowls Club and Radio Association have been assessed less favourably with £500 recommended for the bowlers and just £375 for the radio enthusiasts, who are advised to “seek support in applying for funds elsewhere”.

Tuesday’s meeting takes place at the Greenfield Centre, Park Avenue, Winterbourne, starting at 7pm.

More info: Agenda for Tuesday’s meeting (SGC)

Liberal Democrat Councillors have welcomed news that South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) is to think again about its revamped cardboard recycling collections.

Since November, local residents have no longer been able to put cardboard in their green wheelie bin, instead being asked to put it all inside a larger cardboard box or place it under another bin.

Speaking after a meeting at which the Conservative-run Council said it was “looking again” at arrangements for collecting cardboard, Bradley Stoke Lib Dem Councillor Jon Williams said:

“On a windy day, cardboard put out by the road gets blown all over the place, making a terrible mess. People are getting fed up and putting their cardboard in the black bin instead, which means it will end up in landfill. This is no way to encourage recycling.”

Bradley Stoke Lib Dems’ latest Focus newspaper contains more criticism of the new recycling collections, claiming that on a ‘green bin day’, residents watch no fewer than three different vans turn up – one for the green bin, one for food waste and cardboard and a third for the green box (containing paper, glass, tins and more). Other areas manage with fewer vehicles, they say.

Labour Councillors, meanwhile, have criticised the fact that SITA, the Council’s waste contractors, will not empty residents’ plastic recycling bags if they contain anything other than plastic bottles.

Previously, residents could deposit any type of plastic container made of Type 1 (PET) or Type 2 (HDPE) at recycling banks but the Council has now withdrawn many of these, saying they are not needed.

But have you received your new bins and recycling bags?

South Gloucestershire Council’s new kerbside recycling collection service for plastic bottles and food waste begins next week (Monday 22nd November) but not all households have received their new bins.

A package of two grey bins for food waste and a white bag for plastic bottles should have been delivered to all homes in the area (except flats, which will not initially receive the new services) but residents in some streets of Bradley Stoke say they don’t yet have the new containers.

A recorded message on the Council’s StreetCare hotline (01454 868000) was last week advising residents not to be concerned as deliveries of the new bins would continue over the weekend (Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st November).

The Council also says that “supplier problems” with the white recycling bags may mean they are not available in time for the first collections.

The current two week schedule of alternating green and black bin collections will continue, with plastic bottles being collected in the same weeks as the black bin. Food waste will, however, be collected every week.

A further change being introduced is that cardboard, which could previously be placed in the green bin, must now be put out separately for collection.

More information:

• South Glos gears up for new recycling services (SGC)
• Your new collection service (SGC)

Bin collections days are to change soon for many streets in Bradley Stoke as part of a package of measures designed to improve recycling rates.

About 43,000 households in South Gloucestershire are to to see their rubbish and recycling schedules change during the last week of September.

The changes are being made in preparation for the introduction of weekly food waste collections and fortnightly plastic bottle collections, planned for November.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGP) says:

“If your household is affected, you will be notified with a bin hanger on the black wheeled bin, or by information posted through your letterbox, that will inform you of your new collection arrangements.”

You can also check your next black bin collection on the Local Connections page of the SGP website.

To assist with extra waste resulting from the schedule changes, the Council says it will collect a maximum of one bag of household waste left next to the black bin for the first collection following the switch.

The Council also advises:

“The time of day that your collections are made may also change, so please make sure that your containers are out at their normal collection point by 7am on the morning of your collection.”

Further information about reducing and recycling household waste is available on the Sort IT! page of the SGP website or by calling 01454 868000.

A number of clubs and organisations that operate in Bradley Stoke will tonight (Tuesday 31st) learn the fate of grant applications made to South Gloucestershire Council’s Southern Brooks Area Forum.

The Forum, which has £23k to allocate from its Capital Grant Funding scheme, has received 17 applications totalling £37k.

Organisations with Bradley Stoke links that have applied for funding include South West Winterguard Academy, Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association, 1st Bradley Stoke Scout Group and Bradley Stoke Bowls Club.

The Winterguard Academy, which meets at Meadowbrook Primary School, is a group that promotes a dance-based activity called ‘colourguard’ – using flags and other equipment to perform a routine to music. They are looking for £2,000 to purchase equipment.

Bradley Stoke Community Radio Association is asking for £3,000 to purchase recording equipment so that it can create programmes and interviews for a radio broadcast planned for October. They say they will work with Bradley Stoke Community School and the local youth service to run workshops to train young people to use the radio equipment to produce jingles. The association previously received a grant of £1,500 from the forum and was recently awarded £400 by Bradley Stoke Town Council.

The 1st Bradley Stoke Scout Group wants £3,000 to pay for a steel storage container to store scouting equipment at a location close to their meeting venue, Holy Trinity Church. The group has already obtained planning permission to site the container alongside the compound at the rear of the Brook Way Activity Centre, for which the Town Council has agreed to charge a ‘peppercorn’ rent of £52 per year.

Bradley Stoke Bowls Club is seeking £1,500 to buy sets of woods (bowls) “to enable players that are new to bowls to join the club without the expence of paying for new woods”. The recently-formed club says it now has 80 members, of which 20% are new to the sport and don’t have the required equipment.

Tonight’s meeting takes place at Filton Folk Centre, Elm Park, Filton (7pm start).

South Gloucestershire Council has opened a public consultation on the latest version of its draft Core Strategy, which is the main planning document for guiding and managing new development and change in the district up to 2026.

Committed or proposed new developments in or around Bradley Stoke include:

• The North Fringe Rapid Transit scheme (shown purple in the plan above)
• Committed housing developments at Filton Northfield/Charlton Hayes (2) and Harry Stoke (5)
• A proposed new neighbourhood east of Harry Stoke (E)

A series of documents is available on Core Strategy consultation page of the Council’s website, of which the most readable is the Plain Guide leaflet [PDF, 461KB].

Hard copies of the Core Strategy may also be viewed at the Council’s ‘one stop shops’ and public libraries (note, however, that Bradley Stoke Library is closed for refurbishment from Monday 7th June to Sunday 11th July).

The consultation runs until Friday 6th August and comments can be made online or by post.

More information will be available at a staffed public exhibition to be held at the Willow Brook Centre on Wednesday 23rd June (11am – 3:30pm).

The exhibition will be repeated at the next meeting of the Bradley Stoke Safer and Stronger Community Group at the Jubilee Centre on Tuesday 20th July (6:30pm start).

A meeting of the Southern Brooks Area Forum this evening (Tuesday 2nd March) will allocate funding of £29,220 to a selection of projects proposed by local voluntary organisations under the Small Grant Scheme.

A total of 27 applications have been received, from organisations which include:  Four Towns Play Association (£3,000 for equipment, staff training and publicity), Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group (£391 for bat walk equipment), Holy Trinity Youth Group (£3,000 for equipment) and Willow Brook Townswomen’s Guild (£500 for hall hire).

Area forums, organised by South Gloucestershire Council (SGC), give local people the opportunity to talk about issues and concerns that affect their neighbourhoods. They champion local needs and aspirations and gather the views of residents about specific community issues.

Other items on tonight’s agenda include a presentation on emergency planning and consultation on the South Gloucestershire Compact, a partnership agreement between the statutory sectors and the voluntary and community sector.

The meeting takes place at Patchway Community College, Hempton Lane, Patchway (7pm start).

More info: Agenda (SGC)

The increase, agreed at last Wednesday’s Full Council meeting, is well below the government’s favoured CPI (Consumer Prices Index) measure of inflation, which registered 3.5% in January. It is however higher than the expected average Council Tax increase for all English authorities, which has been estimated at 1.8% [source: CIPFA].

The Council’s budget includes an extra £2 million a year to improve the maintenance of roads, pavements and drains in the district. Savings will be made by reducing the Council’s workforce by 317 posts and introducing a new IT system to improve efficiency.

Elsewhere in the region, Bristol City Council and North Somerset Council have both agreed 2.0% rises.

Bradley Stoke Town Council has already decided to raise its precept by 1.8% for 2010/2011, following a year with no increase in 2009/2010.

The Avon & Somerset Police Authority will be raising its precept by an inflation-busting 4.2% in 2010/2011, blaming the increase on a shortfall in funding from central government.

Related link: Reactions to the South Gloucestershire Council budget and council tax announcement (SouthGlos Post)

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has opened a public consultation on plans to change the Traffic Regulation Order governing parking restrictions in Pear Tree Road.

The move is associated with the introduction of Civil Parking Enforcement, which moved the responsibility for enforcing parking regulations from the police to local authorities.

Council officers say that enforcing parking restrictions is difficult if the markings on the road do not match the restrictions described in the relevant order.

In Pear Tree Road, a 47m stretch of road between Aspleys Mead and Cooks Close currently has no double yellow lines on either side of the road, whereas the order describes restrictions for the same stretch.

The Council is proposing to bring the order into line with the road markings, i.e. reduce its scope. There will be no change to the double yellow lines on the road.

Illegal and inconsiderate parking along Pear Tree Road has been a regular issue of discussion at Bradley Stoke’s Safer and Stronger Community Group meetings. Customers visiting the Tesco Express and other stores at Bradley Pavilions are said to be the biggest culprits.

The Council’s consultation runs until Thursday 25th February 2010.

More information:

• Have Your Say – Amendments to Waiting Restrictions Order (SGC)

South Gloucestershire Council says it has “temporarily suspended green bin collections to allow crews to concentrate on the black bin waste”.

The combined effect of the Christmas holiday and recent bad weather means that black bins that would normally have been emptied on Friday 8th January were in fact collected last Friday (15th January).

A notice posted on the Council’s website on Friday (15th January) reads:

“Today, most crews are collecting the black bin waste from Friday 8th January (which would normally have been collected on Monday 11th January  according to the revised holiday schedule but have been delayed by weather conditions).”

“In some areas we are running behind this schedule because the roads are too dangerous to access but in other areas we are beginning to catch up slowly. For this reason it is impossible for us to say with certainty when we will be able to get to any specific property.”

“The best advice we can give at the moment is to put your black bins out for collection according to the Christmas holiday schedule and we will get to you as soon as we possibly can. We are catching up but it is slow and variable progress.”

Dry recycling (green box) collections are also said to be running a whole week late.

The Council says it plans to start picking green bins up again in the week commencing Monday 25th January.

Householders are reminded that they may take waste to the Council’s Sort It! centres, the nearest being Little Stoke.

Related Link: Bradley Stoke Weather

Local Liberal Democrat Councillor Jon Williams has slammed the Conservatives for, he says, wrongly claiming credit over the approval of a new pedestrian crossing on Brook Way.

The row follows a campaign by parents of children at Wheatfield Primary School, who said they found it dangerous  getting to the school from Saxon Way and other roads on the west side of Brook Way.

The issue was first raised at a meeting of the Bradley Stoke Safer and Stronger Group in February, where concerned parents complained of the difficulty of crossing Brook Way near the mini-roundabout junction with Wheatfield Drive.

Parents also pointed out that the central refuge at existing crossings were too narrow to accommodate pushchairs and that there were no school warning signs on Brook Way.

Cllr Mark Forsyth (Conservative) shocked the meeting when he suggested that the parents might like to “buy some fluorescent jackets and act as lollipop persons”.

A more constructive response came from Cllr Williams, who offered to work with the parents to see if the school’s Travel Plan could be updated with a view to attracting funding for a new crossing.

Cllr Williams says he subsequently spoke to the school, attended the school’s Travel Plan Committee, arranged for a Highways officer to attend, and encouraged the school to resubmit its Travel Plan.

Plans for a new ‘raised table’ crossing were then put forward to the Southern Brooks Area Forum meeting earlier this month, where the parents and Cllr Williams were succesful in obtaining approval for the estimated £20,000 cost.

But a press release put out after the meeting by South Gloucestershire Conservatives – subtitled “Councillors welcome moves to encourage safer route to school” – has angered Cllr Williams, who says the Tories “do nothing and then claim the credit”.

Cllr Williams told The Journal:

“It appears that the Conservatives are rewriting history again. This time they are claiming credit for getting a new, safer, crossing across Brook Way between Courtlands and Wheatfield Drive. The truth is that it was parents at the school and the school’s Travel Plan Committee who should take the credit.”

“Not once did a Conservative councillor make contact with the school or the parents over this matter and the only thing they did to support the scheme was to vote in favour of Cllr Williams’ proposal to proceed with the scheme at last week’s Area Forum meeting.”

“I’m disgusted that these two councillors have the cheek to claim credit for this crossing. I was the only councillor to support these parents and publicise their plight. I attended two Travel Plan meetings at the school and made sure that officers correctly described the scheme in the paperwork to the Forum last week, so that councillors present were able to make an informed choice.”

“I’m sure local residents will realise before long that it’s the Liberal Democrats that get things done and not the Conservatives, despite their Press releases.”

The new crossing will be installed during the 2010/2011 financial year.