Kingsway Villagers

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to make people aware that there are some people who are so low and downright cheap that they’ve taken to stealing ornamental rocks from people’s front gardens.

I returned home from a business trip to find my front garden devoid of all bar one of the rocks that had previously adorned it.
Now these thankfully weren’t expensive but what annoys me is the principle of it.

After speaking to neighbours I’m not the only one who has been affected.
I initially thought it may have been kids, but then these rocks were rather heavy and having walked around the area to see if they’ve been dumped somewhere, I’m inclined to believe it is the work of unsavoury sorts who can’t be bothered to go to somewhere like Blooms and buy their own.

The properties affected are the ones that face the main road of Thatcham avenue towards the lower end. If you’re one of these residents just keep an eye out.

Tony

Currently, Kingsway has little representation within the local government and therefore we are largely dependent on City and County Councillors who, while having the best of intentions, cannot fully appreciate what it is like living in Kingsway, both how good a place it is, as well as a realisation just how far it has got to go and just how much we need to have input and influence into the future development.

Historically, Fieldcourt ward is half of Quedgeley. But now with the building of our village, the Ward is geographically dominated by Kingsway and when at capacity, Kingsway will be the dominant population.

I have been given the opportunity to be the Gloucester Labour Party candidate for the Fieldcourt ward on the Gloucester City Council.  I feel this is a fantastic opportunity for Kingsway Village to have a greater influence in its development and therefore I have accepted the offer and am really quite excited about the potential this could have for the village, should I be elected.

I feel we need representatives who can and will talk to people and who people can trust and relate to, and more importantly have confidence in.  I can honestly say that in my time of being Chair of the Residents Association, I have had no help from the Current Fieldcourt City Councillors, who are Conservatives. I’m not even sure if they know we exist!

So, I hope you feel like I do, that Kingsway needs better representation within the Gloucester City Council. I believe I can provide that representation as well as ensure that we are part of the exciting regeneration that Gloucester is going through. So come election day, I would like to think that a vote for Barry Kirby is a vote for Kingsway and our future.

Yesterday I had a meeting with QUVL to have a discussion over communications and progress.

QUVL has a new Project Manager, Andy Smith, who is actually a local and lives in Quedgeley. We spent a fair bit of time discussing the most beneficial way of working and have come to an agreement about how we will communicate.

We also covered some specific issues which I believe are of interest to everyone as follows:

• Lighting: Andy hopes to have all the lampposts working and "lit" by the End of March (this year).
• The lighting under the bridge was also discussed and Andy will have that fixed by the end of March as well.
• The pavements on Thatcham Avenue should get topped off in the near future, QUVL are just risk-assessing the chances of having to dig them up again but currently believe it is very low.
• They are hoping to progress with adoption of Phase One (Woodvale and around).  They are waiting for the City Council to adopt the Balancing pond in Valley Gardens, in order that the rest of the process can be put in place. So I will be chasing up with the City Council as to what the hold up is.
• Once the pond is adopted, the drainage can be adopted by Severn Trent Water, and then The Council can adopt the roads… Which makes sense!
• Another interesting bit of information was that QUVL has been asked by the Highways Agency for their contribution to the J12 renovation as they are going to begin that in the Summer. It seems that I was misled in my other meeting and it’s not dependant on Hunts Grove. Funding has come from a number of sources, including the Quays.
• Andy is investigating to see if he can get me the official hurdles of how many houses need to be built before the public amenities have to be done.
• It seems that Robert Hitchins is keen to get started on the local shops and work should begin in April. Also the Pub should not be too far behind.

We will be having much more regular contact now and Andy also hopes to attend a Public Meeting in the summer.

Finally, if anyone sees any issues to do with Health and Safety, (slip/trip hazards etc), please let me know and I will pass it on to be actioned.

Barry

This week has seen at least 3 shopping trolleys abandoned in the road in Valley Gardens – either by kids or socially irresponsible adults (does nobody care enough these days to challenge people taking trolleys away from stores)?

I’ve seen 2 from Matalan and one from Tesco.

Why Tesco and Matalan haven’t adopted Aldi’s policy of using coin-deposit locks on their trolleys remains a mystery. Shopping trolleys aren’t cheap by all accounts, and it obviously costs the stores money to retrieve them if they’re stolen and taken away from the store – yes, the theft of a shopping trolley from a store is a crime.
These recovery / replacement costs are reflected in the prices we all pay in the stores – so it’s in everyone’s interest either to stop trolleys from being stolen or to let the stores know if their trolleys have been left abandoned.

Community Support Officers used to be a common sight in Kingsway a couple of years ago and presumably acted as a deterrent to people stealing trolleys.

Nowadays they’ve become much rarer, so I guess it’s up to all of us to do our bit to keep Kingsway clean and safe.

For information, the numbers you can call to report abandoned trolleys are:

Tesco: 0845 677 9567
Matalan: 0845 330 3330

…and the stores will send someone to collect them.

If enough of us ask the stores to do something about it and install coin deposit locks on their trolleys, we may see an end to abandoned trolleys littering the roads and pavements in Kingsway.

Remember – it could be your car that bumps into one unexpectedly left in the road one dark morning…

This is a summary of my notes taken from a meeting on the 4th Feb which people may find interesting. I will be able to answer any questions arising from this at the next residents meeting on the last Friday of this month.

Background

Fred Wood and Richard Graham proposed a meeting with me as Chair of Kingsway Residents Association. Both are Conservative candidates. Fred Wood is standing for City Councillor in replacement of one of one the current Councillors in Fieldcourt Ward. Richard Graham is the candidate for MP for Gloucester.

They had spent the two previous days in the Fieldcourt and Severnvale wards, having met with a number of relevant parties including the Parish Council.

As an agenda, I raised a summary of the issues of Kingsway to address.

The comments back from RG are in green beneath the individual items. These are notes only and not quotes, but aim to be factual. Where nothing is noted it was either glossed over or nothing of substance said!

Kingsway Issues

• Parking issues (Planning Problems) – Inadequate for commuter village
• Access – One way in, one way out
• State of the roads and pavements throughout Kingsway, even on phases which have long since finished being built on.
• Blocking of access road from Naas lane to Woodvale due to Robert Hitchins Ltd. putting rubble there to prevent said access.
  • RG said he knew senior people within the Robert Hitchins organisation and will take it on to see if he can get a resolution.

• A lack of communication between developers and the residents about their future plans for Kingsway.
• No telephone box
• The promised shops/facilities/amenities have not been built.
• Community Centre/Pub/Allotments etc

• Health Care Facility
• RG said this has always been waiting for 4000 people to be living on Kingsway before the PCT would consider anything.
  • I noted that this is not what he had been told by other stakeholders
• Kingsway Surgery will be in the Conservative literature.

• J12 Expansion – Needed
  • This was part of the Hunts Grove development. However RG has been in touch with Highways to attempt to push it on, but they won’t due to funding (being tied in to Hunts Grove).

Local

• Waste Disposal – Javelin Park – Incinerator
  • RG said that it was likely that Javelin Park will be the site of the final option as it ticks all the boxes and always has done. The timing is approx 2011 due to the current facility having to be closed or all council tax payers will have to foot a heftier bill for landfill tax.
  • The Council will produce a research paper by end of 2010, maybe earlier.
  • At least 3 of the final options are incinerator options (waste to energy).
  • The facility will not be a "10-story monster", more like a 3-story.
  • RG suggested getting someone from The Council to present the science of the incinerators at a Kingsway RA meeting.

AOB

RG was at pains to point out that the way he works is by getting involved and not highlighting everything in the paper. I did comment that in the research I had done, I could not find his stance on local issues.

RG asked what I thought of the City Councillors. I pointed out that none had bothered with us so far! All of my contact was at County Council with Jackie Hall as that has some effect, the City – for Quedgeley, does not. RG did say that the City Councillors were very keen to be involved.

Fred Wood said he was very pleased to finally meet me and hopes that they can keep in touch and work together in the future.

Summary

I think it was an interesting meeting and I hope some good will come of it at providing better relations between ourselves and City Council.

On December 18th (in this post), I mentioned that my "Article Submission" facility was playing up… again!

After wasting lots of time trying various solutions and workarounds suggested by the software creator, I finally got fed up and made one of my own The new method may seem more complicated at first but is – in reality – a far better solution.

Amongst other things, improvements include a "Top (20) Contributors" list (right-hand menu column) with links to Author Archives, allowing you to list all posts by any specific author.

What’s more, I’ve worked my way through every post to date and made sure that each post/article is attributed to the correct author (even those that I posted on behalf of other users when the facility was down in the past).

I’ve also added a function to (automatically) include the author’s name below all post titles, so you can easily see who made each post.

The old "Article Submissions" form page (now entitled "Submit A Post"), now includes comprehensive instructions, general rules and a guide to using the Author Archives etc, so please feel free to give it a try and let me know (here) if you see any problems or have any further suggestions on the subject.

Regards,
Clive