The Bradley Stoke Journal

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

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.

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.

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)

Has anyone else notice that the street lights are turning off earlier, at 23:40?

I watched them this week in Wheatfield and Bradley Stoke Way.

This isn’t even taking into account the 1 hour difference?

Bit concerning for people walking back from pubs etc.

What on earth happened to the power tonight (Weds 16th Nov)?

There’s been three power cuts in less than an hour so far.

Have South Glos council decided to cut power to our houses as well as the street lights now?