The Bradley Stoke Journal

‘Snowball’ the gritting vehicle is on standby this weekend after weather forecasts showed an increased likelihood of snow through Saturday night and Sunday morning.

The vehicle, one of eleven new gritting vehicles recently purchased by South Gloucestershire Council, was given its name by pupils at Baileys Court Primary School following a district-wide ‘name your gritter’ competition.

The competition was staged as part of a campaign to highlight the importance of winter road safety and the vital role of the winter gritting fleet.

The Council’s gritters treat approximately 14,000 miles of South Gloucestershire’s roads each year and the new vehicles use state-of-the-art technology to ensure fast and effective gritting coupled with lower fuel consumption and carbon emissions and more effective use of road salt.

More than 6,000 tonnes of salt – enough for an entire winter’s gritting in South Gloucestershire and sufficient to cover more than 40,000 miles of roads – are currently held in storage and the winter maintenance team uses a sophisticated forecasting system to anticipate weather conditions and plan salt runs.

Read more: Council readies gritters for weekend snow

Related links in The Journal:

• Bradley Stoke Weather
• Bradley Stoke Snow Watch
• Bradley Stoke Snow Photos (PicasaWeb)

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On Saturday I lost my purse whilst shopping at Tesco in Bradley Stoke.

I was really impressed with the helpful attitude and the genuine concern shown by two staff in the store: Steve, the checkout supervisor and AJ on Customer Services.

However, the real hero of the day is the gentleman who found it. He picked it up off the floor, found my address on my driving licence, drove home to fetch his Sat Nav, then brought my purse complete with all the contents to my home. He did not do this for a reward, but out of genuine kindness.

Proof that Bradley Stoke is a good place to live!

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South Gloucestershire Council has drawn up plans to invest £2.2 million of its own (i.e. Council Tax payers’) money in providing broadband infrastructure capable of delivering “much faster” speeds.

The news is revealed in a press release put out by the Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council, ahead of a Cabinet meeting on Monday 6th February.

The investment is in addition to the £710k grant allocated to South Gloucestershire by Government agency Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK).

It is also revealed that around 82% of premises in South Gloucestershire will be upgraded by commercial operators, leaving the remaining 18% (21,000 premises) in need of Council subsidy.

We are told that the Council’s aim is to provide superfast (> 24Mbps) broadband to 90% of premises in South Gloucestershire by 2015, with the remainder promised a minimum of 2Mbps by the same date.

More details and analysis will follow in The Journal once we have more information.

Read more: £3m for superfast broadband roll-out in South Glos

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A story about a horse rescued from the car park of a Bradley Stoke supermarket three years ago has appeared in local papers around the country.

Bambino’s tale has featured in publications as diverse as the Littlehampton Gazette and the Rutland & Stamford Mercury after the Press Association syndicated a press release put out by the HorseWorld rescue charity in Bristol.

Bambino was just eighteen months old when HorseWorld staff were called out to rescue a group of five horses from the car park. The horses had been rounded up on the roads by the police on several occasions before, so they were taken back to the charity’s welfare department at Whitchurch.

When the owners arrived to collect the horses, they said they didn’t want poor Bambino and left him behind.

He has now found a loving new ‘loan home’ in Oxfordshire.

More: New year, new start for horse found in supermarket car park

Do you remember the original incident? Leave a comment to let us know.

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Merlin has been missing from Wheatfield Drive since Monday 12th December 2011. He is just over two years old and is micro-chipped and neutered. He is grey and white with very distinctive green eyes. He was wearing a black leather collar with metal paw prints on it and has a black heart shaped medallion with his name and contact number on it. He has also got an infra red key coloured blue on his collar. He is a lovable cat with a quiet nature.

If anyone has any information please contact Roz on 07864 700765.

Please could people check their sheds, garages and cars in case he is locked in somewhere.

We are devastated and miss him dreadfully. We have only lived in Bradley Stoke for 15 months and we arrived here with two cats. Milly, our other cat, went missing last October never to be seen again and we cant believe this is happening again. We are appalled at the number of cats that have been advertised as missing or lost in the time we have been here and are wondering if there is something going on that should be investigated.

Please help Merlin get back home.

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An inquest to decide whether Bradley Stoke balcony leap father John Hogan unlawfully killed his son is expected to start next week.

Mr Hogan plunged 50ft with daughter Mia, then two, after pushing six-year-old Liam to his death following an argument while on holiday in Crete in August 2006. Mia survived the fall.

A Greek court cleared Hogan of murder in January 2008, deciding that the former tiler had been suffering from “an earthquake of insanity”.

After 16 months in a Greek psychiatric hospital, he returned to the UK and received treatment at the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at Callington Road Hospital in Brislington, as a voluntary patient.

An inquest by the Avon Coroner in March 2008 recorded a verdict of unlawful killing but two High Court judges later quashed that verdict and ordered another inquest. They indicated that a “really quite serious error of law” had occurred because the question of Hogan’s mental state “was simply not addressed”.

The new inquest is due to start at Flax Bourton Coroner’s court on Monday (28th November). It will be presided over by the new Avon Coroner, Maria Voisin, with no jury.

Read more: Date set for new hotel leap inquest (Evening Post)