Kingsway Villagers

I first heard tales of a "Youth Pod" in May this year during the meeting detailed here, where I described it as

"a 60 foot container created as a leisure/recreational facility for young people, currently residing in the community centre car park awaiting placement in Kingsway."

The real story is that this 60 foot "shipping container" was converted to a leisure/recreational "Youth Pod" by a local company (Lydney if my memory serves, and sadly no longer in operation)!
It comprises several rooms (office, washroom/WC and a main room) and requires only siting and connecting to mains services.

The Pod was designated for use as a temporary Youth Club for Kingsway Village, pending creation of something more permanent.

Initially, the QUVL quoted a price of £3,000 for siting and installing the pod and later revised that quote to £30,000!
Don’t laugh… Bearing in mind that free transportation had been arranged from a generous local contractor, this fee was for allocating a space, awaiting delivery and connecting up the relevant mains services… it’s really not funny!

Needless to say, the Gloucestershire County Council were unable to find sufficient funding to cover that price and consequently the Pod has been sat in the car park at Equals Youth Centre for more than a year now!

Since I first heard about the situation I have spoken about it to countless people and attended many meetings with concerned individuals trying to get something done about it.

At last - Great News! The Pod will be installed (right next to the School) "very soon" (expected to be by April 2009).

Once in place it should be available for use as a Youth Centre every Monday and Wednesday evening (this is obviously restricted by staff availability and funding) and will also be used for other activities and organisations such as Gloucester Works (I’ll be posting more about this fabulous organisation shortly), Gloucester Housing Association Surgery and a Police Info’ Point.

As with the temporary Kingsway Community Centre, the Youth Pod is expected to be in use at Kingsway until a permanent facility can be provided (estimated 3-5 years); unlike the Community Centre (which will be demolished), the Youth Pod will be moved to another area (last I heard, Longlevens were after it)!

There were - as stated - many individuals and organisations involved in this achievement, including:
Gloucester Police - Mark Peer.
Equals Youth Centre - Sheila Golder - (who is sick of looking at it and will soon only be looking after it ).
Gloucester SHAPE Team - Emma Cleveland
Gloucester Housing Association (Who will provide the funding for the first 12 months of staffing costs).
Oxbode Housing Association - Ismail Ali - (Who have agreed to fund other resources / trips etc).
Kingsway Primary School - Paula Needham - (for agreeing to the placement and offering to " oversee the facility").
QUVL - Andrew Hunter - Who may fund the inurance costs (not certain at time of posting).
Quedgeley Parish Council - Anna Mozol.
Glos County Council - Jackie Hall.
Kingsway Village Residents Association - Clive Barton.
(Apologies to anybody I’ve missed… Let me know and I’ll add you to the list)

Pending the planned building of a permanent building, the QUVL have kindly donated a building for our use as a temporary Kingsway Community Centre.

It will be in one of the buildings on the future business park (in the vicinity of the room used for our first 2 Residents Association meetings - see map in this post).

Keys will be available - and bookings controlled by - the Quedgeley Parish Council offices (because they have permanent staff available during normal business hours) - Tel: 01452 721552

Last night I attended another Police SCT meeting and thought some of it would be of interest to Kingsway Village Residents.

After some 6 weeks of enacting plans from the previous meeting (and other local initiatives):

Dogs:
1 incident of a local dog biting a pedestrian in Kingsway (2 in Dimore II - Quedgeley) have led to one owner being prosecuted.
I mentioned the repeated/continuing incidents of dogsh*t (pardon me - "dog litter") in the vicinity of the School / top of the park… (Apart from being unsightly, I’m sick of seeing all of the children having to negotiate their way through a minefield of poo twice daily)!
The SCT / Police will be watching for people not cleaning up after their dogs and are also investigating the possibility of organising a dog-litter bin at that spot.
(Note: Bags are available from the Quedgeley Parish Council office).

ASB:
Incidents of (reported) ASB in Kingsway have increased by 30% in recent weeks!
Most of these involve youths and most of these youths are not from Kingsway!
It seems we are being "invaded" by young people from Quedgeley, Tuffley, Podsmead, White City, Abbeymead and even Barnwood!
Many of the incidents involve underage drinking and vandalism… It seems there have been a spate of problems with youths breaking TV Aerial connections - particularly on Woodvale. (A symptom of having houses directly adjoining footpaths rather than having fenced areas around the houses)!

Speeding:
Following several recent initiatives, many drivers have been caught and fined for speeding (and minor motoring offences). However, overall stat’s gained from these operations showed that speeding is not a major local issue! (Which does not mean that further initiatives aren’t planned).

Misc:
We also discussed other matters of local interest, like the Kingsway Community Centre, the "Youth Pod" and Social Housing… Look out for more posts about these shortly.

Police Reports
Every Community Police Report filed through here has been followed up - or will be in the near future (for recent ones).

My thanks to all who have made the effort to participate and…

A Plea for YOUR Help:

The current "state" of the Village - coupled with the housing market problems - means that there are some "pockets of population" which are somewhat hidden away and very difficult to find… so communication (via leaflets etc) is quite difficult; (I’ve done this twice and Clare Bruton-Young very kindly did one for me - thanks again Clare), and I’ve also delivered leaflets for the Residents Association 2 or 3 times… and every time I do it, I find more houses I didn’t know existed)!

I don’t have the money to spare for a posted leaflet distribution service (through the Post Office for example).

I can’t get help or permission to put up local signs advertising this website.

BUT - I am the local representative on the Gloucester South Police SCT, SO… if Kingsway Village residents want to report (non-emergency) incidents in order to influence the focus of future Policing in the Village (and surrounding area), I have the means to do it… (Not only influence the Policing itself, but also the use of funds for local amenities and services)!

So please speak to your neighbours about this website… and - if you have neigbours who do not have internet access - please let them know that they can contact me directly for a "paper form", which will have the same effect as my online version.

My telephone number and address are listed here.

Of course I could stand to gain financially from the increased publicity and I DO appreciate (and need) it but I am willing to give something back…
If you check my advertising information page you’ll see that I have promised to return 25% of all revenue from the site to the Kingsway community… Note: IF / when revenue exceeds my site overheads and - modest - expectations that percentage will be increased).

Please be assured that this plea is not to improve my finances (or "huge debts" as my Bank Manager calls them ) I simply want to try to make sure that as many people as possible know that they CAN make a difference… and how to go about it.

I have met Molly Macleod, the local member (responsible for Gloucester and the Forest of Dean) of the Youth Crime Prevention Team, on many occasions.

Molly is dedicated, helpful and very professional and we have spoken at some length about the work of the YCPT and associated bodies.

So I thought it might be useful to explain the work that they do (and to add a facility to users to download referral forms etc).

The information and forms are available here.

The pavement has been done last week on Marham Drive and let me say it looks ridiculous!

There’s a road, then tiles, then road, then tiles again…

Were they trying to save money?

I saw the other road almost opposite Marham and it looks fantastic.

Why did they do that?

Is it what they planned?

If so I really don’t think it was a good idea!

I am really disappointed and almost regret I bought my house on that road.

This post was submitted by Claudia.

It is with regret that I have to inform you that we have cancelled the Kingsway Christmas Event.

It is unfortunate, as there has been a lot of good work done so far to organise this, however given issues that have arisen (and detailed elsewhere) there was little that could be done to recify matters and still put on a good quality event.

My thanks to everyone who volunteered to help, your willingness to assist is greatfully recieved and I will be contacting you with a view to what we can do next year.

Barry

This post was submitted by Baz_k.

Folks

Firstly, my apologies for a seeming lack of contact on my behalf. We have been progressing all the issues that have been raised with us and these have taken more time than anticipated.

It is my unfortunate task to report that QUVL has broken their relationship with ourselves and essentially the Kingsway Community. They are removing the ability to report issues through their website and will not be entertaining issues raised by residents. This is a reaction to the downturn of the economic market and is their answer to saving money. I am working with the communcations manager to see if we can salvage some form of relationship with the builders who are still building directly.

This has a direct impact on the work of the Association as they had promised things like actioning issues that we brought forward (a large number of which we have achieved) and also to print a newsletter and contribute to events. To this end we now have no current real route to affecting change, and also no funding for events. Whilst it is not the end, it does pose a large barrier to our immediate plans.

I believe that this will change in the future when the market turns again, and I am hopeful for a relationship with the more productive companies. However, for the moment, we need to be realistic about what to expect in the short term future.

Im sorry for not having more upbeat news, but I wanted to ensure I passed on this news to ensure everyone was kept in the picture

Barry

This post was submitted by Baz_k.

Do anyone know when Thatcham Ave and beyond is going to get a bus service?

In this very wet weather it is no wonder people are bringing Tesco trolleys on to the site!
With no shops here and not having a car, weekly shopping for a family is very heavy. I feel very sorry when I see mums with small children in the pouring rain; surely they could run a bus down Thatcham and round past the School, back out through Valley Gardens to the traffic lights!

I know the roads has not been finished but does that really matter? Surely we will not have to wait 1-2-3 years until the recession recovery?

And - as for finishing roads - they can find funds to do side roads ie Marham Drive!

Teddybear

This post was submitted by teddybear..