‘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)

The Willow Brook Centre has announced that it is suspending its Mummy’s Breakfast Morning club – just seven months after its inaugural meeting at the Harvester restaurant.

The club, which provided free hot drinks for mums and free activities for children, was previously held on the last Tuesday in every month.

Membership of the club also brought the benefit of discounts at selected stores within the Willow Brook Centre.

The club celebrated its 200th member in September but a source at the Centre told The Journal that it “wasn’t compatible with our revised marketing strategy”.

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!

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

Hedgehogs are on the decline, and climate changes might be affecting the way they hibernate.

We have a large hedgehog population in Bradley Stoke, so if you see one from the 1st February onwards, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society want to know.

Follow the link below for more information, and record any sightings:

http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/news.php/22/hedgehog-hibernation-emergence-survey

There are also some great ideas on the website on how to help hedgehogs.

Related links:

• Hedgehog Rescue (The Journal)
• Hedgehog Rescue Bradley Stoke (Facebook)

Photo: Courtesy of Ian McGuire of Wild Owl.

A Journal reader reports that he had both number plates stolen from his vehicle last night (Tuesday 17th January) while it was parked in Juniper Way.

According to the AA, number plate thefts have more than doubled in the last five years and there were at least 40,000 cases last year.

Directgov, the government’s information website, explains that stolen number plates are often switched to other vehicles – by those who don’t want to be found out when they commit such offences as:

• Speeding
• Illegal parking
• Not paying congestion charges
• Driving away from a petrol forecourt without paying (“bilking”)
• Not paying for parking tickets or speeding fines
• ‘Disguising’ a stolen vehicle

The AA advises:

“If the number plates are stolen from your car you should report it straight away – you might start receiving parking fines, speeding fines or worse as number plates are used to disguise the identity of cars used in a wide range of crimes.”

In the Avon and Somerset Police area, 818 number plate thefts were recorded in 2009/2010.

Bradley Stoke Community School is celebrating achievements made by a number of its students over the last few weeks.

Dani Williams (Year 10) competed in the Junior Mixed Pair category for Harriers Acrobatic Gymnastic Club at the British Open Tournament in Stoke-on-Trent. Dani and her partner qualified for the final and came first, receiving Gold and the title of Great Britain Junior Mixed Pair 2011.

Corne Human (Year 8) received his black belt in Shotokai Karate on 11th December 2011 after 6 hours of grading. He also received the trophy for the best student of the day (Ippon Trophy).

Andrew Sotheran (Year 10) has been awarded his Royal Life Saving Society Award of Merit. Andrew also has his First Aid at Work certificate and is a recognised first aider within Scouting.

Read more about these achievements in the latest school newsletter.

Got news to share about other achievements by young people in Bradley Stoke? Please contact us with the details.

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.

Members of a Bradley Stoke-based martial arts team enjoyed a significant medal haul at the PUMA British Championships last weekend.

Whitlock Martial Arts (WMA) fighters collected eight medals at the national event, which took place at the Oasis Centre in Swindon.

Oliver Kimberley enjoyed the highest honour of the day by collecting a gold medal in the blue belt men’s sparring category.

Fellow WMA competitor James Wild also claimed a bronze in the sparring category, while Sarah Davis stepped up to the plate to win a bronze in the female blue belt patterns category.

The club’s Little PUMA and Taekwon-do sections meet at Bradley Stoke Community School.

Read more: Eight-medal haul makes it a great day for Bradley Stoke team (Bristol Evening Post)

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.