Kingsway Villagers

I’m not sure if anyone has noticed, but the speed limit on Thatcham Avenue has now been changed to 20 MPH.

This is great news as Thatcham Avenue is ever more increasingly becoming a dangerous road to have to travel or live along.

Hopefully the road will be completed soon, as Taylor Wimpey have now completed their Bryant Homes development, (other than finishing the path off).

I am also hoping something will soon be done about the ridiculous parking situation.

Richard Graham, in his pre-election walk around Kingsway has noted the issue of Dog Poo around the Village. Subsequently, he has made a big deal about it in all of his literature and some articles (the latest in the Quedgeley News, which also reports on our last Residents meeting). He would like to see a big campaign about it to force action out the Parish Council. However I think a more suitable approach is to evaluate the issue and in the first instance, talk to the people who are responsible for the bin provision.

I have done a number of walks around the areas where people walk dogs and to determine just how many dog bins we have and the scale of the problem.

There are a number of dog bins round the Village, placed at reasonably strategic points. Mainly around the Big Park and the walks around there, and 2 at the little park. These are the nearest ones to the school which was the highlighted issue area.

I have also been talking to QUVL about their current maintenance regime.  They place the contracts with the company that is responsible for emptying the bins which is done fortnightly. As far as I can see, we have enough bins currently for people to be able to dispose as necessary. However there are two more placements that may be possible to make life even easier. These being at the end of the path at Valley Gardens (opposite the post box) and another on the path between Valley Gardens and Thatcham Avenue.

However, I did come across a number of Dog Poo’s that were easily within sight of dog bins, and I would ask for those dog owners to please be more vigilant in picking up and binning as necessary.

Something else I would like to get is some decent signage to go along that strip of path and maybe some others to raise awareness.

I would like to thank Richard and Fred for highlighting an issue that we were not already doing something about, they had to get one eventually.

Barry

Chair – Kingsway Residents Association

Hi All

At the last residents meeting, I mentioned that the Committee is going to put on a number of events, including an Easter egg hunt.

The Social team put in a lot of effort organising the event and had a lot of it ready to go, and that we had some sponsors for it etc.  However the Issue of Public Liability Insurance reared its head.  Some research was done into our type of event to see if we needed it, the costs and if we could get away with some form of disclaimer to remove the liability from the RA members.

Even as a voluntary organisation, we are liable for public accidents at our events.  As it turnes out, a disclaimer doesn’t really hold much water should a serious accident occur. The quotes we recieved were in the region of £250 for a 12 month period, to cover all events.

Given the current financial status of the RA (ie £0.00 in the bank) and not being able to get sponsorship to cover the Liability Insurance in such a short period, I have taken the decision to cancel our Easter Event and to take all the ideas and merge them into the Big Lunch Event which will be happening soon.

By this time, we hope to have secured some grant funding in order to pay for the insurance and we will be covered. 

We could have progressed without it, but given the bulding site nature of the village, I would hate for anyone to have injured themselves in our event, and then for the committee members to be liable just for trying to do a good thing. It would have been irresponsible for us to continue. It is a valuable lesson for us and thankfully, a painless one.

To this end, if anyone has any good ideas for future funding, then we are all ears. We have a number of projects we would like to get off the ground in the coming financial year and all sources of funding would be welcome.

So my apologies for not being able to put on this event, however I hope you will understand our reasons. My Thanks to Mark, Tracey, Emma and Sarah for putting in the hard work and organisation and I hope we can "make good" at The Big Lunch.

Barry

Chairman – Kingsway Residents Association

Hello,

I have been having a look around your site, it is great I am so glad I found it, everyone seems so friendly.

I move to the area in 2 weeks and have been living out in Europe for the last 3 years so I know absolutely nothing about any of the surrounding area or schools etc, and have been unable to find the street we will be living in on any maps online (I’m assuming its because its a new build)! The street name is Goose Bay Drive.

Can anyone tell me how far Beaufort School is from here?
Is there access through the wooded area, as I dont drive?

Also has anyone else has any problems getting their children into Kingsway School? I love the sound of the school but as of yet have been refused a place on the grounds its full to its limit …but have been told to appeal.

I noticed a while back that the builders (especially Taylor Wimpey) appear to ignore the rules on working hours, and wrote to the council about it. The council confirmed they are not allowed to work before 8 and on Sundays.

As a result of my (and others complaints) they have been monitoring the builders and have now issued Taylor Wimpey with a formal notice requiring them to obey the rules (it seems bizarre they need to raise a notice to make them follow the rules)!
The council have caught Taylor Wimpey breaching the rules on number of occasions. They haven’t caught any of the other builders breaking the rules.

Hopefully this will stop Taylor Wimpey starting early and working on Sundays – but if you do see them doing it you can report them to the council by emailing Andy Birchley or use the Web Form on their site.

The latest Police SCT meeting took place on February 22nd.
On the same day, PC1706 Sam Jones started work as the new Local Beat Manager for Kingsway Village.

During the course of the meeting, we were informed of a recent public consultation undertaken by the Police; the results of the survey were as follows:

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48 indicated no problem (that they couldn’t think of an issue for the police to tackle).

21 responses related to cars. However analysing these responses further, there was no pattern of location, or type of offence.

16 responses related to kids: Hanging around, large groups gathering, nothing for them to do, etc.

15 responses related to Anti-social behaviour (ASB). Again there was no specific location, or type of behaviour. Interestingly it didn’t all happen on Friday and Saturday nights!

6 responses were issues only one person raised. Where appropriate, these repondee’s were recontacted, or their concern passed to the relevant authority.

In conclusion, nearly half of people questioned couldn’t think of something for The Police to look at.

The questionaires were carried out at over 15 locations across the local Police beat area, chosen randomly, and took approximately 5 minutes each.

Locations included several in the Kingsway, and outside Tesco’s on a Saturday afternoon.

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So, policing priorities remain the same:

1. To tackle Anti-Social Behaviour in Quedgeley, Hardwicke and Kingsway.
2. To tackle speeding motorists on Bristol Road, Green Lane and Pound Lane (all in Hardwicke).

In addition, Fraser Mackie has asked the traffic unit to increase the frequency of their patrols in Quedgeley’s area, and reported that they are planning a joint operation in the near future.

Fraser also reported that the Youth Pod will be arriving in Kingsway during the Easter School Holidays (April 12th) and (although not yet confirmed) the local youth service expect to have funding to open the pod for 3 nights per week.

For more information about the pod, contact Equals Youth Centre.