The Bradley Stoke Journal

Bradley Stoke’s first-ever dental practice remains on track to open early next year in the town’s new Willow Brook Centre.

Residents seeking treatment currently have to travel to Patchway, Stoke Gifford, Winterbourne, or Filton to find an NHS dentist, but from April 2009 a two surgery practice will be available in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre.

South Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) recently placed a tender advertisement for the new practice in the British Dental Journal and a PCT spokesperson has given the following update to The Journal:

All the bids are in and South Gloucestershire PCT is in the process of looking at them. A paper will go to the the PCT’s Trust Board at the end of September with recommendations of the preferred supplier.

Meanwhile a new dental helpline has been launched to help people in Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath & North East Somerset find their nearest available NHS dentist. The NHS Dental Helpline can be reached on 0845 120 6680 and is available Monday to Friday, from 9am to 6pm.

The new telephone enquiry service complements the online dentist and GP search facility available via the NHS Choices website

Tesco has submitted a planning application which would see the number of ground floor units in the new shopping mall at Bradley Stoke’s Willow Brook Centre increased from ten to fifteen. The proposed changes are to be achieved by sub-division and reconfiguration of the layout proposed in the original plans.

The company claims that the amendments will “offer greater opportunities for a variety of occupiers, and in meeting the demands expressed to the developer from prospective tenants will ensure that the space is fully occupied.”

The move follows an earlier planning ammendment that saw the number of ground floor units in the new town square increased from five to seven. That alteration was also achieved via an internal reconfiguration.

The changes are likely to be interpreted as an indication that the company is having difficulty attracting larger retailers to the new development.

An announcement of the anticipated opening date of the new Tesco Extra store, mall and town square complex is expected to be made shortly. In view of the deteriorating economic climate, it is thought unlikely that all the mall and town square units will be occupied when the centre opens.

Related Links:

• New town centre press releases
• New town centre planning applications
• New town centre jobs

Tesco has begun advertising part-time positions available at its soon-to-open Tesco Extra store in Bradley Stoke. A flyer being distributed at the existing store lists vacancies in the following categories:

• Service
• Grocery Replenishment
• Fresh Food Replenishment
• Night and Twilight Replenishment
• Non Food

The advert states that part-time positions covering morning, afternoon, evening and night shifts are available.

Potential applicants should contact the dedicated Tesco recruitment centre at Aztec West. For contact details and location map see our dedicated New Town Centre Jobs page.

One of the UK’s largest pension funds has acquired a 50% share in the Willow Brook Centre, Bradley Stoke’s new town centre currently under construction at Savages Wood Road. Supermarket group Tesco has announced that it has agreed an £80 million joint venture with the massive BP Pension Fund, whose assets were recently valued at £14.7 billion.

The fund, which has 12,000 active members, is one of the few in the country that remains open to new members and has assets which exceed its liabilities by 35%. In fact it is so well over-funded that the BP company is not currently making contributions into the fund.

The joint venture, which enables Tesco to release funding for other development projects elsewhere, is reported to generate a yield of 5.35% for the fund.

Tesco’s press release claims that the deal “highlights the investment that Tesco brings and attracts, even in the in the present [economic] climate.”

The campaign to find staff for Bradley Stoke’s new Tesco Extra store has stepped up a gear with the opening of a dedicated recruitment centre on the Aztec West Business Park.

According to information on the Tesco Careers website, the Bradley Stoke Tesco Recruitment Centre in the Rombourne Business Centre, 130 Aztec West [map] is now open and is scheduled to operate until 6th October. The telephone number of the centre is 01454 629623.

The same Aztec West office was recently used to recruit staff for the new Tesco Direct store that has now opened on the old B&Q site at Cribbs Causeway.

The new store in Bradley Stoke is scheduled to open in “late autumn”, in time for the peak Christmas trading period; the supermarket group is expected to announce a more precise opening date within the next few weeks.

Construction of the new store has been underway since January and progress is said to be “on schedule”. The exterior of the store is at an advanced state of completion and work is now focused on fitting out the interior. Elsewhere on the site, construction of a shopping mall (attached to the northern side of the new store) and town centre units (around a new “town square”) continues.

The new store is approximately two-and-a-half times the size of the existing Tesco store in Bradley Stoke and just 5% smaller than the Asda Wal-Mart store at Cribbs Causeway.

A separate campaign to recruit mangers for the new store has been running since June, and the closing date for these positions is now given as 21st July on the Tesco Careers website.

For the latest news on jobs available in Bradley Stoke’s new Willow Brook shopping centre, check out The Journal’s dedicated New Town Centre Jobs page.

A planning application for an astonishing 856 illuminated and non-illuminated signs in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre has been submitted to South Gloucestershire Council by Tesco Stores Ltd.

The schedule lists items ranging from large signage gantries to anti-ram bollards and “no smoking” signs.

Notable items are the signs for vehicle set down points (along the northern side of the mall), bus stops (on the edge of the town square) and taxi ranks (in front of the five non-food retail units).

Interestingly, the detailed plans show the “Brooks Centre” moniker on some of the signs, despite this having been scrapped in favour of the “Willow Brook Centre“, following a public competition to choose the name of the new town centre. The Planning Committee of Bradley Stoke Town Council, which kicked up a stink when Tesco seemed to be set on sticking with the earlier name, can however rest assured that the plans were drawn up before the naming competition had been judged.

One of the signs carries the message “Please do not take your trolley beyond this point; trolleys have been fitted with a locking device”. This would appear to confirm suggestions that Tesco intends to implement a system to prevent trolleys being taken off site, an issue that was raised at the local Stronger and Safer Community Group meeting on 10th June. A representative from Tesco is to be invited to attend the Group’s next meeting on 30th September in Bradley Stoke Community School to discuss issues relating to the new town centre development.

The application deadline for management positions at the Tesco Extra store currently under construction in Bradley Stoke’s new town centre has been extended to 11th July 2008.

When originally advertised, the closing date was listed as 19th June. This was later extended to 30th June, before being changed once more to the current deadline.

It is not known if the application deadline changes reflect any slippage in the construction timetable for the new store, which is scheduled to open in “late autumn [2008]“. The projected opening date for a dental practice to be located in the shopping mall attached to the new Tesco Extra store recently slipped from December 2008 to April 2009.

The Journal understands that applications for shopfloor positions at the new Tesco Extra store will open later this month.

Links:

• Advertisement for management positions at Tesco Extra, Bradley Stoke
• More new town centre stories in The Journal
• More new town centre information in The Journal

Photos of the new town centre construction work can be seen in our PicasaWeb Gallery.