PARKING & PUBLIC TRANSPORT

*** Parking restrictions are now being enforced again

*** From 15 June - next Monday - you will need a face covering to use buses or trains.

Here are a couple of links to guides on how to make them, whether you make a 1 layer basic or a 3 layer one. It also has links to where to buy them. But rather than using those sources to buy there are a number of residents in Yate who have been making and selling them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52609777

https://www.creativebloq.com/news/how-to-make-a-face-mask

train problems this spring

News from GWR affecting our local trains this spring. 

• Track renewals affect trains between London Paddington and Bristol or South Wales on Saturday 29 February and Sunday 1 March
• Track renewals also affect trains between London Paddington and Bristol or South Wales as well as Gloucester and Bristol Parkway on Sunday 8 March
• Bridge replacement and tunnel work will affect trains between Bristol Parkway and Newport over the Easter period from Saturday 11 to Sunday 19 April
• Further work affects trains between Bristol Parkway and Newport as well as Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway on the weekends of 25/26 April and 2/3 May
• Trains also run to an amended timetable when only two tracks are available between Bristol Temple Meads and Filton Abbey Wood on Sunday 17, 24 and 31 May

More details are at  gwr.com/Bristol

Rail closures 27 October to 18 November

Network Rail will be doubling the tracks between Bristol Temple Meads and Filton Abbey Wood over the next few weeks, which will mean that from Saturday 27 October to Sunday 18 November buses will replace trains between Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway, and some services will be diverted.

Please check with National Rail Enquiries www.nationalrail.co.uk before you travel how your journey will be affected.

 

Christmas and New Year - Train services

The Christmas and New Year bank holiday period (23 December 2017 to 2 January 2018) is traditionally the time when a considerable amount of improvement and engineering work is undertaken on Britain's rail network. 

Many train companies will also be making changes to their timetable to match service levels to the number of customers travelling. Please plan ahead and check if your journey is affected as some services will be added, some will be restricted, and some will not be running during this time period.

For more info click here

Bristol Parkway Upgrade - station AND M4 MOTORWAY weekend closures in November

Update from Network Rail 10/11/2017: "Due to the progress made with our electrification work on the M4 Blue Bridge last weekend, the motorway will not be closed at Junction 19 this weekend (11/12 November) as previously planned.

We will keep you informed of progress with our upgrade works around the Bristol Parkway area which continue this weekend (11/12) and next (18/19) with no trains calling at the station. Please check before you travel at gwr.com/bristol2017 or crosscountrytrains.co.uk"

Network Rail say: "Our work to increase capacity at Bristol Parkway will continue over the first three weekends of November during planned closures of the station"

"The project includes the extension of the three existing platforms and the construction of a fourth to serve GWR’s new fleet of Intercity Express Trains. We’re also improving the track layout to allow more trains to use the station. The new platform is due to come into use in December 2017"

Bristol Parkway Station will be closed as follows:

• Sat 4 - Sun 5 Nov
• Sat 11 - Sun 12 Nov
• Sat 18 - Sun 19 Nov

M4 Motorway closures

Network Rail continue: "To carry out installation of electrification equipment on the blue railway bridge over the M4 motorway we need to shut the road. To limit disruption we are doing this overnight"

The motorway is scheduled to be closed as follows:

• Fri 3 Nov 11 pm - Sat 4 Nov 7 am
• Sat 5 Nov 9 pm - Sun 5 Nov 8 am
• Sun 5 Nov 10 pm - Mon 6 Nov 5 am  
• Fri 10 Nov 11 pm - Sat 11 Nov 7 am
• Sat 11 Nov 9 pm - Sun 12 Nov 8 am
• Sun 12 Nov 10 pm - Mon 13 Nov 5am  

Foundation Piling progress

"We made great progress with the electrification of the railway between Swindon and Patchway during the line closure in August/September. However, we still have a number of foundations to install, along with the electrified overhead line equipment"

"Piling between Patchway and Bristol Parkway stations is taking place every Saturday night until February 2018. Our hours of work will be between 21:00 – 07:00. We will also be making the most of an opportunity to install a number of foundations during the daytime in this area on the 11 and 12 November"

"We also have a number of foundations left to install in the Acton Turville, Chipping Sodbury and Old Sodbury areas"




Filton Abbey Wood Station

"Work is continuing to prepare Filton Abbey Wood for more trains as part of our project to double the number of tracks on the Filton Bank between Bristol Parkway and Bristol Temple Meads.  We will be adding a fourth platform to the station, with ramped access to the existing footbridge"

"To support the embankment, we are currently building a retaining wall between the site of the new platform and the residential area that backs on to the railway. We’ll then return at a later date to extend the three existing platforms and lay the new track"

"Pedestrians approaching the platforms from the car park side are being diverted via Nutfield Grove while the existing footpath is closed until the end of 2017"
 

Railway modernisation - Great Western main line

GWR have told us that work to widen the platforms at Bath Spa has now been successfully completed and Network Rail have moved on to work on the track around Swindon and Chippenham.  This will affect rail services through Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham and Bristol Parkway over the late May bank holiday (27-29 May) and the weekend of 10 and 11 June.  Full details of the revised arrangements are on their dedicated web page www.gwr.com/Swindon2017

There will then be further work at Chippenham from Saturday 8 July through to Sunday 16 July.  Services between London and Bristol Temple Meads will be diverted and there will be a reduced service for Swindon and Bath Spa during this period.  More details are on www.gwr.com/Chippenham2017 where they also set out arrangements for weekend replacement services to Westbury and Melksham.

There will be additional staff at stations to help customers and they are using both traditional and social media, as well as information at stations and at ticket sales points, to highlight the changes. 

GWR say: "We want the electrification upgrade to be as painless as possible, of course we recognise that any timetables changes, however temporary, cause some inconvenience, but these works will allow us to put brand new ten car trains on this route in 2017, and the work has to be completed while we continue to run services"

Useful information this Christmas

With the festive season getting underway, here is some information you might find useful over the Christmas and New Year period.

Christmas Last Posting Dates

Tuesday 20 December - 2nd Class and Royal Mail Signed For®
Wednesday 21 December - 1st Class and Royal Mail Signed For®
Thursday 22 December - Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed®
Friday 23 December - Special Delivery Saturday Guaranteed

Waste and Recycling

There are some changes to waste and recycling collection over the Christmas period.

If your collection should be on:	It will instead take place on:
Monday 26 December	Tuesday 27 December
Tuesday 27 December	Wednesday 28 December
Wednesday 28 December	Thursday 29 December
Thursday 29 December	Friday 30 December
Friday 30 December	Saturday 31 December

You can check your precise date and what will be collected on the South Glos website.

Your tree might not even be up yet, but once the festivities are over you can recycle real trees in a number of ways:

• If you have subscribed to the garden waste service, you can put your tree into or next to your green bin.
• You can buy a single use garden waste sack for £2 from your nearest library and attach it to the tree.
• You can take it to one of the Sort It recycling centres and put it in the garden waste (not wood waste) skip.

Whichever you do, don't forget to remove all the decorations, pots and stands first and if it's over 6ft tall you must cut it up into smaller sections if you're having it collected. 

Out of Hours Pharmacies Times

Over the Christmas and New Year period, many pharmacies are closed. You can find out which ones are open here.

Trains
As we posted earlier this month, from Saturday 24th December until Thursday 29th December London Paddington will be closed to all rail services.

This will mean that GWR rail services will start and finish at Ealing Broadway, from where you can take the underground or a bus. However, the station does not have step-free access. So if you are travelling with heavy luggage or find steps difficult for any reason you will need to change at Reading and use services from there to London Waterloo. Unfortunately that will mean a longer journey.

You can find out more on the GWR website.

Bus services
Over Christmas and the New Year some buses will be running to different timetables from normal. You can find out more on the TravelWest site.

Bank Holiday rail disruption

Network Rail is carrying out further work in South Wales and the South West this August Bank Holiday weekend, to install new signalling as part of their Railway Upgrade Plan.

The work will take place from 27th to 29th August and will require a temporary closure of the lines in both directions between Bristol Parkway and Swindon, Newport, Bristol Temple Meads, Gloucester and Severn Beach. Trains will be diverted and in some cases replaced by buses. More information is available here.

Useful information this Christmas

Here's a round-up of links to Christmas opening times and other information you might find helpful during the holiday period.

Contacting the council

• The South Glos customer services contact centre will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from 1pm) until 8:45 am on Wednesday 30 December 2015. The offices will also be closed on 1 January 2016. Please note that the adult care contact centre will be open until 5pm on Christmas Eve. When the offices are closed calls will be diverted to a service which deals only with emergencies.
• One Stop Shops will be closed from Christmas Eve afternoon (from 1pm) until Wednesday 30 December 2015. They will also be closed on 1 January 2016.
• You can continue to report issues or apply for services using the council's online forms which will be dealt with after the offices reopen.

More information on council services over Christmas and the New Year period is available here.

Recycling and waste

• Check when your waste will be collected here.
• Information on how to recycle your Christmas tree.
• The Sort It centres are open 8:30am to 4:30pm every day, apart from 25, 26 December 2015 and 1 January 2016.

Libraries
You can find the Christmas and New Year opening times for the local libraries here.

Bus times
Bus timetable information is available from Travelwest.

Train times
The Network Rail website provides information on travel during the holiday period.

Health services and pharmacies
South Gloucestershire CCG provides this advice on what to do if you are injured or feel unwell. They also have details of pharmacy opening times for Christmas and New Year. They advise anyone with long term health conditions to get their medication before Christmas Eve.

Don't forget Yate Railway Station reopening celebration this weekend!

Celebrate 25 years since Yate Railway Station was reopened! This Sunday (18th May) from 12.00 noon till 3.00 pm the Friends of Yate Station have organised a special event with stalls, a brass band, afternoon tea, vintage and railway display, and a heritage tent to share artefacts and memories.

 

Yate Station reopening 25th anniversary coming up!

 

Yate Railway Station was one of the first in the country to reopen after the Beeching closures of the 1960s. This year is the 25th anniversary of the station's reopening in 1989 after a major campaign by local people.

On May 18th 2014 from 12.00 noon till 3.00 pm there will be a special celebration event organised by the Friends of Yate Station. It will feature stalls, a brass band, afternoon tea, vintage and railway display, a heritage tent to share artefacts and memories and a visit by Baroness Susan Kramer, Minister of State for Transport.

See Yate Town Council's website for more information as it is confirmed.

Westerleigh - more work on double railway arches

Network Rail have submitted notices to carry out works on the double railway bridges over Westerleigh Road, as you enter the village from Yate. The works are in 3 stages and will involve the use of two way temporary traffic lights. The dates are 30th January until 8th February, 17th February until 26th February and 5th March until 7th March 2014.

Hopefully we will not have the problems we had last time as the road will not be closed.

Yate to Westerleigh road now open again

Network Rail have now finished their work at the double railway bridge and the road is open again. They struck some problems but brought extra people in to finish off the work.

Traffic chaos alert - Yate to Westerleigh road to be closed for 10 days from 30 September

Between 30th September and 9th October, Westerleigh Road will be completely closed at the double railway arches, i.e. between the bridge after Nibley Lane to Besom Lane, for repairs to falling masonry on the railway bridge.

This means that for ten days you won't be able to get through from Yate to Westerleigh in either direction. The work is urgent and it’s not possible for Network Rail to close just half the road because of the size of the machinery they need to use.

There will be warning signs about the closure at the entrance to Nibley Lane from Badminton Road and at the Shire Way roundabout.

This is likely to put a lot more traffic on Badminton Road, so please allow extra time if your journey to work takes you that way.

Update 23/09/2013: Just to stress that you WILL be able to get to Wot-Not and adjancent premises, but only from the Westerleigh side.

Update 26/09/2013: Westerleigh Parish Council has been told that there will still be pedestrian access through the works.

Update 09/10/2013: The work looks set to continue tomorrow (Thursday). Fingers crossed that they will be clear for Friday, but if we hear anything we'll let you know.

Better security, more information for Yate station

Sue Walker and Ruth Davis try out the new information help point

Yate rail campaigners have welcomed the news that CCTV cameras are to be installed at the town's station. The Friends of Yate Station were told at a meeting on Monday that eight cameras will be installed to increase security at the site, which has suffered repeated vandalism.

Lib Dem councillor Sue Walker, who chairs the group said, “I'd like to thank everyone who has worked to make this happen. Yate rail users were left out in the wet and cold this winter because the shelters were damaged, which shows how a few mindless vandals can make waiting for a train a misery for everyone. I hope criminals will think twice when these cameras are in place."

She added, "The station has been without a ticket machine for some time thanks to vandalism. First Great Western said they wouldn't replace it while there were no CCTV cameras on site. I hope once there are that they will think again."

Meanwhile, a new station information machine is now in action. It has a real-time information display, and you just have to press a button to talk to the information line. Sue Walker said "It's great. We could have done with it last week when the train to Cardiff didn't come - the Friends of Yate Station have been trying to get this for more than two years"

Yate rail shelter repair just in time as temperatures tumble

Yate rail campaigner Chris Willmore with fellow
Town Councillors Wully Perks and Mike Drew

New glazing for station shelters was put to the test this weekend. As we reported recently, First Great Western have finally followed local rail users' suggestions and replaced the broken shelter glass with the metal mesh with small holes that has been used successfully on bus stops for years.

And just in time too! Even during this weekend's plummeting temperatures, the renovated shelters were still warm enough for passengers to sit down instead of wandering around stanping their feet to avoid frostbite.

And they're secure too - just look at the photo above. It's even possible to see right through TWO layers of the mesh, so people waiting needn't feel unsafe.

Rail shelter fixed at last as First Great Western see sense

We have won! The Yate Station shelter has been repaired! OK, it has taken from September until this week - but First Great Western have listened, thanks to Lib Dem Cllr and train user Chris Willmore.

Instead of replacing it, yet again, with glass or plastic that gets broken, we told them to spend to save, and put in the metal mesh with small holes that Lib Dem Yate Town Council has been using successfully on bus stops for years.

They have listened. This is far harder to vandalise (and no, that is NOT a challenge) and people can still see in and out so it feels secure - so with luck our train users should get shelter for a long time. And perhaps First Great Western might even learn the lesson and use this mesh in other places.

Campaigners hopeful of winning battle on rail shelters

Local rail campaigners are winning their battle to keep Yate commuters dry this winter. Last month, rail user Chris Willmore slammed First Great Western’s decision to leave Yate commuters with no shelter from the rain after Perspex panels in the shelters were destroyed by vandals. At Monday’s Friends of Yate Station meeting, she and other campaigners met representatives of the rail company face to face to push for action.

After the meeting, Chris Willmore said, “First Great Western are now investigating using the sort of metal mesh with holes that Yate Town Council has used successfully on its bus shelters, such as the one on Church Road. We are delighted, as this will give a longer term, vandal-resistant solution. Anyone who has waited for a train in the recent wet and windy weather will be keen for the shelters to be fixed as soon as possible.”

The photo shows local rail campaigners and Lib Dem Focus councillors Chris Willmore, Wully Perks and Martin Monk doing a  spot of amateur weather forecasting - currently an essential skill for Yate rail passengers. 

By the way, this is the 700th item posted on our blog since it started in January 2007. It's nice that it's some positive news. Best wishes to all our regular readers!

Yate station - First Great Western dig their heels in, refuse to repair shelter panes

Yate Town Councillor Chris Willmore
shows the extent of the damage

First Great Western are still refusing to replace the broken shelter glazing at Yate Station despite protests by passengers, even though winter is on its way.

They say it's too expensive to keep replacing panes broken by vandals. But on the same logic they wouldn't replace broken office windows or train windows.

We wouldn't tolerate bus shelters or phone boxes being left smashed up. But just because the station is tucked out of the way, First think they can get away with penny-pinching at the expense of their customers who pay very high fares.

Get your act together, First!

The Yate Station Users Group will be meeting shortly to decide the next steps to be taken.

First Great Western Refuse to repair Yate Station Shelter

Rail user, Chris Willmore, has slammed First Great Western's decision to leave Yate commuters with no shelter from the rain whilst they wait for their train.

At the best of times it is a scramble for the hundreds of commuters waiting for morning trains from Yate to Filton and Bristol to find space in the tiny shelter. But now, even the shelter will not protect them from the rain. All but one panel of the shelter is broken, and rail users were horrified when First refused point blank to repair them.

Chris Willmore, who was the person who reported the problem and asked for action said "This is mad. It leaves users with no shelter. There had been some vandalism, but the police have caught the culprit. Now we need the shelter back. Otherwise we are saying the countless decent rail users, who pay huge sums to use the train must wait in the wind and rain, unprotected. I can see why they didn't repair it whilst the culprit was at large, now he has been caught they should restore it"

"We will be taking it up with First face to face at the next Yate Station Users Group - but frankly First seem more interested in trying to persuade passengers to plant flower beds than actually providing a service to train users."