Kingsway Villagers

Kingsway Primary School students Sophie and her younger brother Morgan achieved brilliant results at the regional Karate tournament held in Reading on Saturday 7th March 2009 to bring home 5 medals between them, 3 Golds and 2 Silver.

10 year old Sophie, took Gold in her individual Kata event followed by Silver for her Kumite (sparring) and in the Afternoon went on to assist the team in bringing home a Silver medal for their synchronised team Kata. 7 year old Morgan took Gold for both his individual events.
 

Both Sophie and Morgan have been competing at Championships all over the UK for the past 2/3 years and in 2007 Sophie represented the UK and proudly came home with the title World Karate Champion for her style of Kata, followed three months later with UK Karate Champion. In 2008 both Sophie and Morgan took Gold, Silver and Bronze places respectively at the regional tournaments and went on to finish the year as UK Bronze Finalists.

Sophie is hoping that Saturday’s victorious win will help her and Morgan get the funding that they need to allow them to go to Melbourne, Australia in August and for her the chance to defend her World Champion title and for Morgan to participate in his first international tournament.
 
 
Mum Gill also said: “The children have been asked to do a demonstration by their head teacher (Mrs Paula Needham) to which they have agreed and are busy organising this right now. Some of the staff also mentioned that they might like to participate! Their instructor is hoping to come along to assist and to explain how some of these moves can be used as self-defence as well as a way of getting active. Hopefully I will have confirmation of a date for the school demo, later today or tomorrow so I will let you know.”

As always – Click on the Pic(’s) to see the larger version(s).

Hi Folks,

At the start of last week I had a problem with my Sky internet connection.
Sky said my router firmware needed upgrading and took several days to deliver a new disk. When it arrived I rang them for installation instructions and was informed that the disk was the wrong one so they sent me a new router, which arrived today (yippee)!

I’ve been using Sky Broadband since moving here (2.3 years ago) and have had an excellent service; in fact I can only remember 2 problems. One was on a Sunday night / Monday morning when the network was “down for maintenance” from 2am to 6am (or something like that) which probably didn’t affect many other people (as I recall I was busy that weekend – lol)!
The other problem was apparently a BT problem, which lasted for a few hours.

Sky use a BT exchange for the Hardwicke area (which is why their “unlimited access” broadband service isn’t available in this area). When I first learned of this (back in 2006), I was worried that an access limit might affect me. Sky did say that they would be installing their own exchange within 12 months, after which the unlimited access service would be available, but – from what they recently told me – I gather they still use BT.
With all that said I’ve been very impressed by their broadband facility thus far and have had no problems whatsoever with the access limit!

As an ex Blueyonder customer, I was mortified to hear that they had no intention of servicing Kingsway (“now or in the future” according to Blueyonder customer services); now I’m no longer bothered.

From my web stat’s I can see that there are several other broadband sevices used locally…
How do they compare with Sky?
Also other Sky users, how have you found the service?

Folks

Andy Hunter (QUVL) has been pushing the Royal Mail to get us a Post Box.

It seems they have now done a site visit and the process of getting installed has begun. The process involves applying for maps from the various utility companies and once all received we will forward to the contractors for supply and installation of a pillar box.

They estimate it taking 3-4 months, but it will be installed in Valley Gardens, where the road and the paths meet. IE before the school road bollards if you were walking up from the little park end.

I believe normally that this would not happen until all reoads have been adopted, but pressure has been put on by Jackie Hall (Cllr) and Parmjit Dhanda MP, so it seems to have helped.

Cheers
Barry

Hi,

Just thought I’d post this here, a neighbour of mine had their van broken into on Halton Way in the early hours of Wednesday morning, they said they had nothing on display but an item was stolen from within the vehicle.

Probably a good ideas not to leave valuables on display!

It looks like the developers want to build the next phase of Kingsway at greater housing density than before… The time to influence this decision is now!

The Planning Application will go through unless more residents complain about it to the City Council. Any complaint must be in writing to count.

It looks like they have increased the number of dwellings without increasing the public open space or parking. But it is really hard to tell, as all the plans can only be seen on a computer; like trying to see the stars through a letter box.

I thought they had said they were not going to build yet more shared parking courts because of the trouble that happens in them. Most of the parking is in parking courts and there are not enough spaces.

They have also included more housing as Social Housing for rent. The original outline design of the urban village was for 30% of the houses to be social housing (both rented and shared ownership), in small blocks of up to 10 units distributed through the estates. When house prices crashed, the builders sold on a couple of cul de sacs “lock stock and barrel” to various Housing Associations. So now instead of just Gloucestershire Housing Association we also have Bromford and Oxstalls – with the Guinness Trust in there somewhere (I understand, but am not sure of the details). So instead of 30% Social Housing, we currently have about 50%. That includes housing for rent and housing for shared purchase. Most tenants are good people, but – like Private Housing – some are not; however, with more than 30% Social Housing the “character” of the development will change away from a “private residential area”.
They should not plan for more “Affordable Housing” until the imbalance is corrected.

The plans were submitted to the Parish Council Planning Committee for comment on Wednesday 11 March. It looks like a decision is to be made by Gloucester City Council on 7 April 2009. If you are concerned you need to get your objections in to the City Council now, after the cut off date it will be too late.

The best way to influence the decision will be to see the plans, write to the Council, and the local Councillors and Councillors on the Planning Committee, and go and see them. And turn up at the City Council Planning meeting and speak against the proposals.

There is also an application in for the commercial centre, which shows a very poor quality arrangement of shops around small car parks for small shops, of very low quality design – not what they promised at outline design at all – a high quality space with a decent square or central area, and a decent sized shop. They have conveniently forgotten about the Community Centre and Health Centre and Religious Worship Building to be in the central area.

And there is an application for the surface water balancing pond, which has sides that are too steep to be safe for children to escape from, and probably does not store enough water to prevent flooding. It has to be planned as though kids will get in there, just fencing it off will not do.

My eldest son Michael Barton is destined to play rugby at Twickenham on April 1st, in the final round of the Daily Mail RBS U18 Vase – Under 18 Cup final – St Peter’s, Gloucester v Truro College

Michael (17) is currently attending St. Peters 6th form college studying Sports. He’s a tremendously keen and successful sportsman, having played inline (street) hockey at a very high level since age 7, he’s also had great success with football, having played for Quedgeley, Harwicke, Elmscroft/Longlevens and Gloucester City and District, and is – of course – a very keen rugby player having also played for Lydney – under 19’s and Widden under 17’s.

He’s also been taller than me since he was 13 when he passed the 6 foot mark…

St Peter’s Sixth Form College have played an influential role in helping nurture the talents of Gloucester and England stars Adam Eustace, Ryan Lamb, Marcel Garvey, Brad Davies and Jack Adams.

Read more here.

So I’ll be off to Twickenham to watch the match on April 1st…

Good Luck St. Peters