Yate Community Music Festival a resounding success

The Echoes on stage at Kingsgate Park

The Festival was packed out today, with everyone enjoying the music and the sunshine. A big thanks to the performers and to everyone involved in putting it on. Don't forget, there's more tomorrow (Sunday) starting with Praise in the Park at 10.30am, organised by local Churches. Then finally there's 'Picnic in the Park' from 3pm to 5pm featuring the Apollo Big Band. So please come along, relax with a picnic and chill out to the big band sound.

Temporary traffic lights in Westerleigh

There will be temporary traffic lights on Westerleigh Road, at the twin railway-over-road bridges on Tuesday 29th June to enable a bridge inspection to take place.

25th Chipping Sodbury Festival - another success

The 25th Chipping Sodbury Festival ended today with a range of activities. Statistics of the day:

• 60 cyclists in the Bike Rides
• 10 duck races in Jubilee Park
• 120 doughnuts eaten
  (cycling and duck racing makes you hungry)

A big thank you to the Festival Committee and all the volunteers who give up so much of their time to make the Festival so successful.

The Wildlife Trust Duck Races in full swing
(Apparently plastic ducks go faster if you shout at them)

Living (dlc) exhibition

Living (formerly the Disabled Living Centre) are holding an exhibition of new equipment from 10am-3pm on Thursday 1st July at The Vassall Centre, Gill Avenue, Fishponds, Bristol BS16 2QQ. Admission is free and all are welcome. You can find out more on their website.

FREE Community Music Festival in Kingsgate Park, 26/27 June

Yate Town Council's free 2-day Community Music Festival will take place in Kingsgate Park, Yate on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 June.

The event starts at 1pm on Saturday afternoon with lots of local bands. There will also be a performance area for local dance groups and clubs. Plus children's rides, side shows, craft and food stalls, face painting, play areas and a beer tent. Kingswood Bus Project will also be there for the afternoon providing a range of activities for young people.

On Sunday there will be a Praise in the Park event at 10.30am, organised by local Churches. The 2-day event will culminate with a 'Picnic in the Park' from 3pm to 5pm featuring the Apollo Big Band. So please come along, relax with a picnic and listen to the big band sound.

Photos from the Chipping Sodbury Festival Parade (slideshow)

A few photos from this afternoon's parade.

Well done to Chipping Sodbury Lions and everyone who took part!



If you would like to see one of the pictures enlarged, just click on the photo when it comes up.

Yate Minor Injuries Unit opens on Tuesday 22 June 2010

The Yate Minor Injuries Unit opens at the Yate West Gate Centre this coming Tuesday, 22 June 2010.

It has lots of extra facilities for the town, including X-ray equipment. This could save you a VERY long wait at Accident and Emergency!

It will be open every day including bank holidays (Monday - Friday 2.30am - 7.30pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am - 2am)

The MIU treats:

• sprains and strains
• cuts and grazes
• arm, lower leg and foot injuries
• bites- human, animal or insect
• minor burns and scalds
• minor head injuries
• broken noses and nosebleeds
• eye problems such as scratches, foreign bodies in the eyes

They have a very helpful web page on the NHS South Glos website.

How can we get YOUR opinions on the things that matter to YOU?

At the Abbotswood Week of Action drop-in morning today real "members of the public" were very few on the ground. Almost everyone seemed to be representing an agency, a committee member of a residents association, a councillor, or had some other official role (apart from the young lady making the excellent tea and coffee - many thanks!)

We all did some useful networking but it reinforces a view that consultations have to be taken to places and events where people are already going.

South Glos had done some pre-publicity. They had leafleted the surrounding properties, but the leaflet was a bit of a turn-off - It was headed "Yate and Dodington" and "Abbotswood" wasn't prominent enough. There were no posters in shop windows, and the entrance was hidden away behind the vegetation so we weren't even visible  from the shops. There was no A-frame board out in front of the shops to grab the attention of the (few) passers-by. There was a press release but it majored on the World Cup activities that have been going on in the Youth Centre, so the Evening Post and the Gazette ran with that.

This can't just be a trend for our area - may you have some ideas about how we can all learn how to do this better. I appreciate that this wasn't a Town or Parish consultation, it was S Glos, but we're all in this together.

All comments welcome, both from local readers and those further afield!

Abbotswood - have YOUR say this Saturday

As part of a week of action organised by South Glos Council, there will be an open morning at St Nicholas Church on Saturday from 10.00 am to 12.00 am. Police, Fire & Rescue and representatives of the NHS will be there too.

This is a chance for local people to say what they're concerned about in the community. Maybe for example you would like to go along and say what YOU think should be done about the Rodford Way crossing situation, where there was the fatal accident and another serious accident recently? Or maybe you're concerned about the crumbling steps or rubbish?

If you would like to make a difference to the rubbish situation, especially the morning after an England football match, you can join an "early bird" litter pick from 8 am until 9 am, meeting on the Chargrove side of St Nick's. South Glos will be providing bags and gloves.

During the week of action there will be quite a few young people's World Cup-themed activities going on at the St Nicholas Youth Centre. It's not all football either - there will also be a World Art Day and a World Food Day.

Chipping Sodbury Festival - Music in the Street TONIGHT!

The ever-popular Music in the Street is back tonight, Tuesday 15 June, starting in Broad street at 7.30 pm.

The event kicks off with the winner of the School Battle of the Bands. The headliners are Vegas with their great music from past and present.

And of course the Chipping Sodbury Festival website has details of many more events for all the family.

Get on your bike next weekend!

The Chipping Sodbury Festival Bike Rides have come around again - they're on next Sunday, 20th June. Both rides start from the Clock Tower:

11.30 am - 25 mile ride
12.30 pm - 12 mile family ride

Both rides will finish in Jubilee Park by about 2.00 pm - just in time for the Wildlife Trust Duck Race (great fun for the kids!)

For more details of the bike rides please contact Bob Keen of the U3A Cycle Group. You can email him on r2-keen@blueyonder.co.uk or phone him on 01454 881966.

Check out the Chipping Sodbury Festival website for details of many more events for all the family.

Fancy an easy bike ride, but can't make it on Sunday? That's no excuse!

Downend and Bromley Heath Parish Council is running its annual bike ride (with walking alternative!) on Saturday 19 June, starting from Lloyds bank in Downend at 2pm. The ride will go to Frenchay Village Museum, returning by about 4.30 pm.

Waiting restriction review - have your say!

Now that South Gloucestershire Council's Badminton Road offices are open, the new waiting restrictions that were introduced on the surrounding roads are being reviewed. If you have any comments to make, please email mouchel.highwayconsultation@southglos.gov.uk by
Wednesday 30th June 2010.

Wapley Bushes Nature Reserve - evening walk, Tuesday 22 June, 7pm

Come and join an evening walk round Wapley Bushes Local Nature Reserve with Rupert Higgins of Wessex Ecological Consultants, the expert who has just revised the Reserve Management Plan. This will be an opportunity to find out about how the Reserve is looked after and the plans for the next five years. Everyone welcome - meeting at the Shire Way gate. Please wear suitable footwear.

The big event has started! No, not that one...

CHIPPING SODBURY FESTIVAL
http://www.chippingsodburyfestival.org/

BAC 100 Centenary Parade this Sunday

This Sunday a cavalcade of vehicles, old and new, will drive through Bristol as part of the BAC 100 centenary celebrations, marking 100 years of transport development in the Bristol area. Vehicles will set out from the Rolls Royce site on Gypsy Patch Lane between 1.30 and 2pm and return between 2.30pm and 3.30pm. The static display will be open from 10.30am until 5pm.

Work starts on Yate Youth Cafe

Local Focus Team councillors involved in the project check out initial work at the Youth Cafe site. The JCB has just finished laying the underground services, including sewage for the Youth Cafe.

Construction work for the building itself will start on the green area behind in July, but the services have been put in early, while Station Road was being dug up. This will avoid this bit of road being dug up twice - an amazing outbreak of common sense!

The £1.3 million complex is being jointly funded by Yate Town Council and South Glos.

This Gazette article has more details about the Youth cafe project.

Walk the River Frome in a day - Sunday 4 July 2010

Take the Challenge!
Follow the River Frome for 20miles from its source at the edge of the Cotswolds to the River Avon in Bristol. A lovely walk along the river valley that winds its way through a variety of attractive landscapes, filled with wildlife and local heritage.

A coach to the start point leaves Bristol at 8am. Additional pick ups at Frenchay, Winterbourne, Frampton Cotterell, Yate and Chipping Sodbury. Finish at your coach pick up point for a shorter walk

Walk starts at 9am. Approximate finish time (Bristol): 7pm

For more information and to book your place, contact:
Paula Spiers, Avon Frome Partnership Officer
Tel: 0117 922 4325
paula.spiers@bristol.gov.uk

Maximum 60 places
Cost £3 per person, payable on booking

You are welcome to join at the start point but parking is limited and you must make your own return transport arrangements.

Core Strategy - S Glos housing numbers just don't add up

Local Focus councillors at Yate Rocks -
if the Core Strategy goes through, almost all the fields
behind them would disappear under a sea of houses

The Core Strategy - South Glos's new master document - was constructed under the last government's massive housing proposals. They're proposing 3000 extra houses for North Yate alone.

But now the new government has now announced that local planning authorities can decide their own housing requirements. Where are all the 3000 families clamouring for a house in Yate? It's time for S Glos to go back to Square One and reassess the real need.

You can have your say about the Core Strategy - either online (see our previous item) or by visiting one of the VERY temporary exhibitions:

• This Thursday (10 June) at Yate Shopping Centre, outside Boswells 11.00 am - 3.30 pm
• Tuesday 29 June in the Old Grammar School, Chipping Sodbury 3.00 pm - 7.30 pm

Maybe they don't realise that people in Yate actually work!
Please go along, find out more, and tell them that they've got to think it out again!

Who's got it in for our kids?

Over the weekend two swing seats in Lilliput Park were stolen for the third time in a year - they were only replaced in April. This follows just a few days after a brand new toddler springy horse ride, costing nearly a thousand pounds, was ripped off its foundations and thrown into the stream.

There's also been serious vandalism recently at Woodchester Park, which has delayed the revamp.

It's not just young children doing all this - this is adults trashing play equipment. Not to mention the posh wooden gate that's just been stolen from the Shire Way entrance to Wapley Bushes.

Has someone got it in for our local kids? Please contact the police if you see anything suspicious.