Bradley Stoke Journal | Patchway Town Council

Posts Tagged ‘Patchway Town Council’

Closed meeting to decide fate of Brook Way toddler groups

Posted on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 at 1:10 pm by SH (Editor)

A closed meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council’s Youth Sub-Committee will tonight confirm whether or not toddler groups and other daytime users will be allowed to continue to use Brook Way Activity Centre after the town’s youth clubs relocate to the centre in July.

A statement that day-time users would have to quit, made by Town Clerk David Chandler at April’s Finance & Leisure Committee meeting, was later retracted at the Annual Town Meeting in May.

That meeting heard Cllr Mark Forsyth apologise to leaders of a Brook Way toddler group, who said they had raised a 251-signature petition against eviction.

Cllr Forsyth told that meeting that the council “would not want to see youth work impact on daytime users” and claimed it “never intended” to stop daytime users from being able to hire the centre.

But now it seems that this was not the last word on the matter and tonight’s meeting will once again discuss the thorny topic.

The involvement of Patchway Town Council (PTC) in the youth club project was thrown into doubt when a meeting of its Finance Committee heard that councillors had “many concerns”, noting that it would “set a precedent if one parish charged another for its residents to use a community facility”. The PTC Finance Committee was due to discuss the matter again at a meeting last night (Tuesday).

Meanwhile, the process of awarding a new contract for the supply of youth work in Bradley Stoke has moved on a step, with the publication of an “invitation for initial expressions of interest” by South Gloucestershire Council (SGC).

SGC now says it expects the new contract will be in place by November, although it is understood that the move to Brook Way is still planned to take place in July.

MP and residents call on Town Council to provide allotments

Posted on Thursday 4th December 2008 at 6:50 am by SH (Editor)

Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) has received a petition from a group of electors calling on it to provide allotments for local residents, as required by the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908.

The petition was received at last month’s Full Council meeting and has been backed by local LibDem MP Steve Webb, who has written to the Council in support of the campaigners.

Under the 1908 Act, a Council is obliged to take such a petition into account when deciding if there are sufficient allotments available to meet demand.

With no current allotment provision in Bradley Stoke, residents have traditionally taken allotments in neighbouring areas such as Patchway or Stoke Gifford. However, both of these areas now have a policy of giving priority to their own residents when assigning available plots.

A recent decision by Patchway Town Council to charge non-residents three times the standard (residents’) rate for use of its allotments is understood to have triggered the Bradley Stoke petition.

BSTC Clerk, Davd Chandler, reported to last week’s Planning Committee that there are currently 16 Bradley Stoke residents leasing allotments in Patchway with a further 15 residents on the waiting list in Stoke Gifford (where there is currently no surcharge for non-residents). Taking 32 tenants as the minimum potential demand gives a requirement for at least two acres of land, assuming a standard plot size of 1/16th of an acre.

With no suitable land available within the boundaries of Bradley Stoke, the Council is going to have to look further afield. Councillors expressed the hope that South Gloucestershire Council might be able to provide an appropriate parcel of land at a “peppercorn rent”, with sites at Old Gloucester Road and Trench Lane being suggested as possibilities.