Have your say on One Stop Shops and South Glos customer contact centre

In another of the consultations on cuts, the council is asking for your views on how to save money on the One Stop Shops and customer services it provides.

The ruling Conservatives' preference is to close the Thornbury One Stop Shop and replace it with a  "digital by default" option. This despite previously saying that the council was committed to retaining a presence in the town. The alternatives suggested are keeping Thornbury open part-time and making either Yate or Patchway also part-time or cutting more staff from the customer service team. Anyone who has struggled to get through to the council on the phone recently will be concerned about the last option.

You can find out more and have your say here.

Area Forums abolished - last chance to have your say this week

This week could be your last chance ever to have your say at an Area Forum, after the ruling Conservatives scrapped them.

Not that anyone reading the council press release would have any idea they are being abolished. They talk about everything the public can do there and all the reasons to come along but don't let on what's planned. There is one innocuous looking line: "There will be an update on the future of the Area Forums." That future is gone, because the Tories and Labour recently voted to get rid of them.

Why not come along and make your views known, not only on local highway schemes and community grants, but also on the decision to scrap the forums themselves? You will also be able to hear from Sirona Care and Health about community health care services. The Frome Vale Area Forum will have an update from Network Rail on their forthcoming work on the Dodington Road railway bridge and the Severn Vale Forum will have a bus service update after concerns were raised at previous meetings.

In future, instead of decisions about things like highway safety schemes and community grants being made by the councillors who live in and know the area, they will be made by council committees that have themselves been merged. One committee will now cover everything from waste to strategic planning, libraries to traffic schemes - and make decisions on community grants. The Conservatives have suggested that some of the community grant money could be given to individual councillors but couldn't explain how this would be administered efficiently and transparently.

Frome Vale Area Forum (which includes Frampton Cotterell, Ladden Brook and Westerleigh wards) meets at 7pm on Thursday 3rd March in Chipping Sodbury Baptist Church. Severn Vale Area Forum (which includes Charfield ward) meets at 7pm on Wednesday 2nd March in Turnberries Community Centre, Thornbury.

Help Brimsham Park get a big Tesco grant!

The Friends of Brimsham Park are applying to Tesco for a grant towards a big project:

• To re-establish  a Wildlife Pool in the park, provide a pool liner, pollard the trees and clear the scrub to let in the light.
• Re-introduce frogs, toads, newts and small fish such as minnows and stickleback. 
• Provide a Dipping Platform for small children and put the pool at the disposal of local infant schools. 
• Plant the area with wildflowers to attract pollen gathering insects like bees and butterflies, along with waterborne insects that the pool will attract this should increase the wild bird population visiting the Park.

Yate Tesco customers will decide which of three local community projects in our area will receive the lion's share of the money donated through the Government's 5p plastic bag charge. 

Customers will receive a token at the till to vote for the local project they think most deserves the bumper £12,000 grant, and have until 6th March to make their vote count. You don't seem to get a token from the self-service tills - maybe you have to ask for it.

A total of £11.5 million raised from the sale of Tesco bags in the UK since October 2015 will be donated through the Bags of Help scheme.

Have your say on extending Badminton Road South Glos Council offices

Cllrs Claire Young and Ruth Davis at Badminton Road.
The site reserved for the Park and Ride is on the left.

South Gloucestershire Council is looking to make more savings on office space. The Conservative administration's preferred option is to extend the offices (and parking) at Badminton Road, Nibley and move staff there, so they can close Kingswood Civic Centre.

Councillor Claire Young has raised concerns about the impact extending the offices could have on traffic and parking in the local area. She also sought, and was given, reassurance that any plans would not affect the ability to deliver the Nibley Park and Ride in the future. Last year we made sure plans for the solar farm would not restrict a future Park and Ride, we need to make sure the same is true of any office extension. We were told they were also looking at whether solar panels could be put over any new parking area.

Now it's your chance to have your say on the proposals. At this stage, it is still on the principles of the different options, not on any detailed plans for an extension. You can find out more and have your say here until 13th May.

If you're including the protected Park and Ride site in your comments, please mention that it needs to be big enough for the expanded town - not just the original area. We suspect that South Glos might think they can use the extra area for staff parking.

Libraries at risk?

South Glos Council is consulting about the future of our public libraries. Last week the council launched a consultation on cuts to libraries of £650,000.

The ruling Conservatives' preferred option would involve closing the Mobile Library that serves our rural communities along with Chipping Sodbury Library and cutting smaller libraries like Winterbourne to two days a week opening funded by South Glos. Main libraries like Yate and Thornbury would have their hours cut by 8 hours per week on average. They would then look to local communities and volunteers make up some of the lost hours.

They're not giving people in Chipping Sodbury a lot of choice - all the options presented involve closing Chipping Sodbury Library, or possibly making it volunteer-staffed. Likewise all the options would scrap the ageing Mobile Library and replace it by a volunteer service to pick up books for individuals.

There are some flaws in the evidence they produce. Although the cost of running Chipping Sodbury Library is less than the South Glos average (in fact it's the cheapest library of all per opening hour), they say that the vast majority of users also use another library. After all, Yate Library is only a mile down the road. But perhaps people are using Yate as well because it caters more for their needs, or relatives or friends are picking books up for them? It's not clear - they haven't analysed why people use several libraries - in fact almost half of library users in South Glos use more than one library.

The other potential flaw is the equalities assessment - the number of older users at Chipping Sodbury is much higher than average, and the proportion of disabled users is the highest of any South Glos branch library. Another point is that they make almost no use of volunteers to support the service provided there.

The libraries might also be impacted by a review of council buildings.

So what can YOU do?

• You can find out more, including information packs for each individual library, and make your comments here until 13th May. Individual comments are VERY important - tell South Glos how these changes would impact you.
• Your Focus Team thinks that protecting services like youth provision and libraries is more important than cutting 50p per month off the green bin charge. If you agree, please sign our petition as well as responding to the council. 
• If you are particularly concerned about Chipping Sodbury Library, please sign the 38 Degrees petition against the closure. 
• Share the campaigns on social media - Twitter, Facebook etc.

Waste and recycling consultation - have your say

South Glos Council is currently consulting about their draft waste management strategy. The key points about this for most householders would be:

• Replacing the 240 litre black bins with smaller 140 litre bins, still only collected every two weeks - the theory is that if people have smaller bins they will recycle more and send less to landfill
• Having fewer different kinds of recycling containers, and using boxes rather than bags, but with recycling collections every week
• Stopping collecting engine oil, car batteries and household batteries

There are no proposals to bring back free green waste collections - the Tories can't afford what they promised at the election.

And they haven't done the business case yet to work out how much all this will cost or save. Why are they consulting without working out the costs? It doesn't make sense.

You can have your say on the draft waste management strategy here - the consultation is open until 15 February.

Fly tipper prosecuted

A man has been ordered to pay £1,240 in fines and costs after admitting fly tipping waste in Besom Lane, Westerleigh.

The man from Staple Hill  appeared before North Avon Magistrates’ Court and was fined £400 with costs of £800 and a £40 victim surcharge.

The court heard that a Yate resident had been in contact with Burnell who agreed to remove some cardboard and packaging waste for the resident for £40. The waste was subsequently found dumped in a lay-by on Besom Lane. Burnell had claimed that he was driving along Besom Lane a few days after collecting the waste, when he saw some litter, including a mattress, dumped in a lay-by on the side of the road. He admitted dumping the Yate residents’ waste there as well.

If you have unwanted goods and household or garden waste, you are advised either to dispose of it at no cost via the council's Sort It centres or to give it to an Environment Agency registered waste carrier. Otherwise you could be held liable if waste is subsequently fly tipped. There are some simple steps you can take:

• Ask for a copy of the company’s waste carrier registration certificate and ask where the waste is being taken. Legitimate firms will be happy to provide this information.
• Please do not be tempted to use people offering cheap waste clearance on sites such as Facebook and Gumtree unless you have confirmed that they are registered with the Environment Agency. You can check by calling the Environment Agency on 08708 506506 or by checking the public register of waste carriers. 
• Ask for a registered trading address and contact telephone number for the trader and get a receipt.

If you see illegal fly tipping, please report it using this online form or by contacting the Street Care helpdesk on 01454 868000 or streetcare@southglos.gov.uk