Kingsway Villagers

Friday, another refuse collection day. Green bin and recycling bin duly left out on the pavement for The Council to collect.

I got home at lunchtime to find that some inconsiderate (expletive deleted) had decided to dump 4 carrier bags of rubbish – not all recyclable by the looks of it – in the emptied green box. (This was obviously after it had been emptied as the dustbin men leave the lid under the box once they’ve taken away the contents).

I’ve had similar things happen in the past and on the first occasion just decided to add the waste to my own collection, but enough is enough; this time I phoned The Council.

They’re not only sending someone to collect the rubbish but, as this is considered fly-tipping, they’ll go through it to see whether they can track down the perpetrator – it must be someone local.

Let’s hope the selfish person who decided to leave their problem rubbish for someone else to deal with has left a receipt or envelope inside the carrier bags, so that The Council can track them down and prosecute them.

Obviously it’s impossible to watch over your rubbish until it’s collected, especially when most of us have to go to work, but this really is anti-social behaviour of the “I’m alright, Jack” variety. (Good job I’m a firm believer of “what goes around, comes around”).

Postscript (Saturday): The Council failed to act yesterday, which meant that overnight someone – probably kids – threw one of the bags of rubbish against the front door!

I’ve reported the incident to The Police, who will now be alert to people walking round Kingsway with bags of rubbish on collection days, and will get back to The Council with a further complaint.

For any football fans in Kingsway, Quedgeley, Tuffley or Hardwicke – Gloucester City FC of The Blue Square Conference North run supporters coaches to all Saturday league games. The club currently do not have a home after the flooding in 2007 which effectively ended Meadow Park being used as a football stadium.

After playing at Forest Green Rovers and Cirencester Town the club now groundshare at Cheltenham Town’s Whaddon Road.

There is a coach running to Saturday’s home game Vs Blyth Spartans. Amongst the pick up spots are 1pm outside Quedgeley Village Hall. Cost is £5 return, and matchday entry is £12. http://cof.tigerroar.co.uk/showthread.php?2310-Coach-to-City-vs.-Blyth-(22-10-11)

City are also in the FA Cup 4th round, 90 minutes away from the 1st round proper and the chance of playing the likes of Sheffield Wednesday/United, Charlton Athletic, Bristol Rovers etc. They are at Chelmsford City on Saturday 29th October. Coaches are running to this fixture.

Up Coming home Fixtures:

22nd Oct – Blyth Spartans 3pm KO
5th Nov – FC Halifax Town 3pm KO
12th Nov – Harrogate Town 3pm KO (Or FA Cup 1st round)

Remember how nice the roundabout used to be at the A38 entrance to Kingsway?
(Editors Note: See website header picture)
Then one day, for reasons that have already been explained here, the trees and stones were taken away!

With the prospect of the road being opened (effectively an extension of Woodvale) in the near future (fingers crossed – didn’t I read it should be open “soon”?), wouldn’t it be nice to have the roundabout put back to its former glory as a sign that people were entering the Kingsway Development?

Of course things like that cost money, but as I drive round Gloucester, I see roundabouts “sponsored” by various companies. Now that we’ve got a new Tesco’s store on Kingsway, might they be able to sponsor the re-design or reinstatement of the roundabout? Or perhaps Marston’s, who are soon to open the new Barn Owl pub, might like to sponsor it? Or perhaps it could be sponsored by the new SevernFM Radio Station (with a sign there giving details of how to listen to the new station)?

The possibilities seem to be quite a few.

We could always have a whip-round amongst the residents – but then there’s the matter of maintaining the roundabout, which is why I think a local company might like to sponsor it. I can’t imagine it would cost that much to send someone round to mow the grass on a small roundabout once in a while, or even clip the trees now and again.

Dare I even suggest Asda as sponsor? I just think it would be nice to have something more pleasant to the eye than the bare space we’ve got now.

Re: Broken Double glazed window frame (which did have a 10 year guarantee).

Due to the (very heavy) lorries still using Thatcham Avenue, one of our windows has developed a crack in the frame!

I have contacted Taylor Wimpey who said you need to contact "Windows Build". I telephoned and e/mailed pictures as requested, but their reply was "Sorry we cannot help as your windows were fitted by N.B.W. Windows who have stopped trading"!

They thenn told us to try N.H.B.S. I ‘phoned them with all the details, plot number, policy number etc, only to be told "it’s not covered you will have to fix them yourself"!

Can you tell me who to contact at QUVL? (I understand they have insurance to cover for things like this).

We now have more heavy lorries than ever using Thatcham Avenue and last week I ‘phoned Smiths Transport when a low-loader (so large it had to mount the islands in the middle of the road to get by), spoke to a gentleman called Ben from Smith’s Transport, who said they had been instructed to carry on using Thatcham as there was a bung in the road!

We have had to replace our front window sill – which developed a large crack in it – at our own expense.

Every time a large lorry comes down here the whole house shakes…
Please – please QUVL: You have it in your power to stop them and make them use the Naas Lane road.

Tog
(One very frustrated and fed up house owner here in Kingsway).

Have you seen this Man?

A mother and her daughter suffered a nasty ordeal in between Marham Drive and Bodiam Avenue in Kingsway yesterday.

Information from Gloucester Neighbourhood watch is as follows:

On Tuesday 4th October 2011 at approximately 14:45 hours a female was walking with her two year old child on a public footpath leading across open ground, between Bodium Avenue and Marham Drive, Kingsway Gloucester. At this time she was subjected to a robbery where a purse containing £400 was stolen and a black Sony Ericsson mobile phone.

Please pay particular to the following and see if it rings any bells

The offender is described as:

• IC3 male, dark complexion
• Early 20′s
• 5’2″–5’4″
• Short black hair with a single line cut horizontally along the left hand side of his head just above the ear
• Wearing a large diamante ear stud in the left ear
• Slim Build
• Wearing a black hooded top, black jeans with a silver logo on the back pocket

Police are appealing for witnesses and asking anyone with any information to contact them on the non-emergency 101 but if you see the possible offender, do not approach as he may be violent, ring on 999 and quote incident number 266 of 4th October.

If you do see him, please pick up the phone and call the Police!

On Sunday 14th August as we were walking down by the Charles Church homes in the vicinity of Fylingdale Gardens we could hear children making quite a noise. On investigating we found – to our horror – four children, the eldest would be about six and the youngest about three or four, floating about in the middle of the balancing ponds!

The eldest boy and girl were sat astride a large white sack (these are what contractors use in case someone falls off a building), the other two were floating about on a wooden pallet, but what alarmed me was that these children were totally unsupervised!

Where are the parents to these children don’t they realise building sites are potential death traps to young children?

We did speak to the children and told them about the danger they were in, to which the replied "it’s OK, we can swim", and just carried on!
We went into the Sales Office opposite and showed the Sales Lady the pictures (taken on mobile phone), to which she replied she was appalled and she would get onto the security man and speak to The Foreman on the site today.

There are several questions that need to be answered here:
1. Why are the balancing ponds by the underpass and the one on the unopened road to Naas Lane surrounded by metal railings and all the other ponds left open? Surely this is a MASSIVE HEALTH AND SAFETY PROBLEM or does the cost come into it?
2. Why didn’t the building contractors clear there things from the ponds and lock them in there compounds away from the children?
3. Who is to blame? Probably Severn Trent will blame the contractors or maybe Gloucester council or the QUVL, (if we wait for them to investigate anything it could be to late… My advice to them is get out of your office and come and speak to the people on this Estate).

One more thing: Someone has broken 2 of those beautiful young trees planted on the green area just below the turn for Marham; they would have matured into beautiful trees. Why do we have to have so much mindless vandalism? Just look at all those reflectors on the posts (to stop people on bikes from going onto the road), all scratched and broken… Their motto must be "it’s there to be destroyed at all costs".

Tog