First's first offer on 6&7 Bus routes.

Local Councillors David Dixon, Bryan Chalker and Cabinet Member in Charge of Transport Cllr Charles Gerrish met with Local Campaigners, First and Passenger Focus to discuss the cut to the 6&7 Bus Services.

Simon Cursio, Commercial Director at First has offered to reinstate the Circular Service, however only with the same number of buses that this service was cut back to, this offers a 40 minute service in each direction. There would also be a wait for this to happen - not until September.

Clearly the offer to reinstate the circular route is great, but there is still lots more to do.

It is quite clear that the 40 minute service is still a greatly reduced service from the 20 minutes previously, plus we do not accept that we should wait until September.

Cllr David Dixon said, "The offer from First is broadly what I expected and I will treat this as an opening offer for our negotiations. The service has still been dramatically cut. First and the Council have gone away to look at improving this offer and are due to report back to us next week.

As it stands we are still a little way from where we need to be, and First do need to ensure that they deliver a service which the community will continue to value. The locally run campaign has been well run and I congratulate all local residents that have been involved, it has certainly convinced First to do a U-Turn on the routes, we just need to speed up the implementation and improve the frequency, I am confident that First will better their offer."

Kensington Meadows - Play Area Open!

Officially opened this afternoon, the play equipment at Kensington Meadow has already been a big hit with all ages! See Susan Traill from the Friends of Kensington Meadows getting to grips with the climbing equipment here!

A huge well done has to go to the Friends of Kensington Meadows and the PlayPathfinder team at the Council, and to all the people who were involved in this scheme.

Cllr David Dixon said, "I am so pleased that after 18 months of planning and discussions, this scheme is finally open. Today has shown what a big hit it is with well over 50 people attending during the afternoon."

More pics of the event are avaible on Cllr David Dixon's Facebook Page which can be accessed here!

New Cycle Lane

Following requests from local residents, a Council officer will be looking at opening up the lane between Powlett Road and Bathwick Street to cyclist.

Initial findings are that the lane is wide enough and that it would create a good link through. Since The Council never made any dedicated cycle route around Sydney Gardens when complete farce of a traffic system went in (funny that was also unpopular and funded through a government grant - nothing changes eh?).

All funds and projects for this financial year are agreed, however I do hope that we can open it up next year. Unfortunately there is a cost which has not previously been budgetted as a legal order and markings have to go in to reverse the cycling ban.

Thanks to the residents who raised this with me (you know who you are), I do hope that next year we might get this sorted.

Declare my interests....

A few people have commented on how I have put links to various Councillor's Declarations of Interests in order to help you find out just a little bit more. Some are long and intereting and others, such as my own is much shorter, but do feel free to have a read... here.