Brr.. it's cold.

PUBLIC SERVICES UPDATE: 7.1.10, 6.15pm

In response to the atrocious weather conditions, Bath & North East Somerset Council has issued extensive updates about the local weather, road conditions, and services information. This evening’s full update can be accessed on the Council homepage – www.bathnes.gov.uk . See below for a services summary and the main sections that have changed since our morning Big Freeze update.

Schools Update

It is anticipated that most schools will be open or partly open on Friday 8th January. Individual decisions will be taken by Head Teachers in consultation with Governing Bodies based upon the circumstances for each school. Information from individual schools will be published on www.bathnes.gov.uk/schoolclosures

There will be updates to this information starting from 6.45am on Friday 8th January. Parents/ guardians should also listen to local radio stations.

Community Meals

The Council intends to offer a full hot meals service on Friday. We will also deliver a frozen meal for Friday and Monday for those customers who are able to heat it, and frozen meals for the weekend for those customers who have these every week. Although we are delivering frozen meals as a contingency we will still attempt to deliver hot meals on weekdays.

The Council is encouraging carers or neighbours to those people who receive a community meal to see whether that person needs a meal, and to help them if possible.

Waste and Recycling

All services were cancelled Thursday. They are also cancelled Friday. This is because of the conditions under foot and on side roads where heavy waste collection vehicles may slide on ice and could seriously damage cars and/ or seriously injure pedestrians. Waste should not be put out for collection on this day.

Households that didn’t have their waste collected on Wednesday or Thursday should not leave their waste out for collection. The Council is not in a position to collect waste until a household’s next scheduled collection day if conditions allow. All three Recycling Centres are closed tomorrow because of hazardous icy conditions on and near the site.

Weather Forecast

The Met Office predicts that temperatures will remain below freezing overnight and that there will be no further snow. As a result, road and pavement conditions will remain extremely hazardous on untreated surfaces.

The long-term weather forecast indicates the extremely cold weather is likely to continue for some considerable time and this will continue to adversely impact on Council services. The Bath & North East Somerset Council gritting fleet will be gritting Friday evening on major transport routes and outside key facilities. All major routes remain open. An emergency gritting vehicle will be available around the clock to tackle any specific problems on the main network.

Brr it is cold!

Weather Forecast

Snow was continuous throughout the day today causing treacherous conditions.

The Met Office predicts that early this evening, temperatures will plummet with clearing skys with road surface temperatures falling to -9c. This is likely to lead to the most hazardous driving conditions experienced this winter. Road and pavement conditions will be even more hazardous.

Residents are urged not to travel unless absolutely necessary. If residents have to, the Council advises anybody to plan carefully for any journeys and keep a close eye on the weather forecast. The Council is liaising with partners such as police, fire and the PCT to coordinate efforts.

Highways update

There are nationwide problems with the supply chain of salt which does not appear to be improving and there will be a need to conserve and ration salt stocks. Although the Council has a reasonable stock at the present time, the appalling weather conditions are making the situation difficult.

The Bath & North East Somerset Council gritting fleet will be going out this evening to do another full salting run on prioritised routes. Gritting vehicles will be available around the clock to tackle any specific problems on the main network.

Key transport routes and roads to key facilities like hospitals and care homes have been gritted and are passable with care. Steep hills not on the main network are impassable. Because the Council must focus its resources on these priority routes, side roads will not be gritted. There will be very limited salting of pavements and car parks because of the nationwide problem with the salt supply chain.

The Council will continue to monitor road conditions and will provide additional salting and gritting on priority routes when required.

Snow and ice can seriously damage the highways surface increasing the number of potholes because of the action of frost on the highway. Highways Inspectors will inspect the condition of the roads during the adverse weather conditions and the Council will resolve these problems as soon as it can.

Public spaces and Car Parks

Council staff will be redeployed onto snow clearing to keep shopping areas and car parks clear once priority routes have been attended to. However, there will be very limited salting in these areas because of the nationwide problem with the salt supply chain.

Public Transport

The Council will issue a service update as early as possible tomorrow morning. For more information on the wider public transport network, bus passengers can call Traveline on 0871 200 2233.

Waste and Recycling

All services were cancelled today.

Thursday waste collections in Bath & North East Somerset Council are cancelled. Please don't put your waste out for collection.

Residents will be notified when the Council intends to collect waste from cancelled collections.

All three Recycling Centres closed on Thursday.

Schools Update

All schools in the district will be closed tomorrow. Full details are on www.bathnes.gov.uk/schoolclosures

All nurseries and Children’s Centres will be closed.

Other Services

Adult Services

If you have a vulnerable neighbour, please try and check their well-being during the cold weather.

Plans are in place to ensure that services to vulnerable people continue. People who use day centres are advised to call their centre to check if it is open.

There will be a very limited community meals service tomorrow. The Council will prioritise any deliveries to those customers who can't cook for themselves. We have phoned all others to tell them that we may not be able to deliver hot meals tomorrow.

The Council is encouraging carers or neighbours to those people who receive a community meal to see whether that person needs a meal, and to help them if possible.

Agencies commissioned by the Council to provide Home Care services have contingency plans in place. Clients or relatives should call the relevant agency for more information. These telephone numbers can be found on www.bathnes.gov.uk/homecareproviders

Useful vulnerable adult telephone numbers: Community and Health Access Team at Lewis House, Bath: 01225 396000. Emergency Duty Team

01454 615165.

Leisure Services

Chew Valley Sports Centre will be closed on Thursday 7 January 2010

Aquaterra Leisure - the Council’s leisure centre contractor - are planning to open sites as usual, however some classes and courses may be cancelled and suggest people contact their local leisure centre before setting out on their journey.

Bath Sports and Leisure Centre - 01225 486905

Keynsham Leisure Centre - 01225 395164

South Wansdyke Sports Centre - 01761 415522

Culverhay Sports Centre - 01225 480882

Council Golf Courses will be closed until further notice

For more information

1. The Council’s website will be updated regularly to keep residents up to date about general information: www.bathnes.gov.uk

2. All other enquiries should be made to Council Connect on 01225 394041 between 8am – 6pm weekdays (Wednesday 9.30am – 6pm);

3. Outside of these times the Council’s Out of Office Emergency number is 01225 477 477;

4. People can email on council_connect@bathnes.gov.uk or SMS text on 07797806545. These can be contacted 24 hours a day and a response will be sent next working day. These methods should not be used for emergency communication.

Resident's Parking News

The Council has now published the Traffic Regulation Orders to implement a Controlled Parking Zone which will affect the following roads in Walcot:

Margaret's Hill
Pera Road
Pera Place
Thomas Street
Clarence Street
Seymour Road
Belgrave Cresecent
Camdem Road (from Lansdown Road to Claremont Shops)

In short the plan is to introduce a controlled parking zone which will operate from 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday.

A map of the proposals can be found here.

This map is quite large. Once it opens up you can change the zoom level 100% and then scroll around the map looking at the detail.

Any responses must be with the council by 17th December 2009 so please write or e-mail all your responses BANES before then, whether for or against. As Dorothy Miley, the council officer responsible for the scheme, said you can object to parts of the scheme while approving others. The council is legally obliged to consider your comment and officers are normally very reluctant to proceed unless there is a clear majority.

Write to at the address below quoting the reference of the traffic order you are responding to (the references are given in the list of traffic orders below.

You can include more than one reference in the same letter. For all four quote PEV5942/DM, PEV/5943/DM, PEV5944/DM
& PEV5945/DM.

Traffic and Safety Team
Parking Services,
Riverside,
Temple Street,
Keynsham,
Bristol
BS31 1LA

or
e-mail council on residents parking

The traffic orders can be found as follows:

• CPZ 15 (Camden and nearby roads) is here, Ref. PEV5942/DM
• The equivalent note for the Alpine Gardens zone, CPZ 16, is here. Ref. PEV5944/DM
• Changes to parking on Upper Hedgemead Road are here Ref. PEV5945/DM
• The traffic order with the details of the proposed one way system around
  Gays Hill is here. Ref. PEV/5943/DM

Further information on how the council operate residents' parking can be found on the BANES website here.

A special thanks goes to The Camdem Resident's Association for hosting maps and documents on their website ,which has saved me hours of time publishing this story. - DAVE

Is Every Service at Council to be Privatised?

The Liberal Democrats and Trade Union has expressed concern over draft proposals to outsource many services provided by Conservative run Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Althgough the plans are yat to be finalised, the concept is to reduce the Council down to a Core of just 700, with many direct facing services, such as home care and street cleansing to be privatised or delivered in partnership with other orgainsations.

The draft policy document, The Future Council, says: "The future council should be strategic rather than operational - focused on convening and working with its partners to prioritise and commission public services rather than delivering services itself."

Other councils that have gone down this route, services that had been privatised included home care, sheltered housing and social services.

The Conservatives have said the authority needs to make 5% efficiency gains in the coming year. By Privatisation of services savings might indeed be made, but at what cost to delivering services to our residents?

Even between services the holistic approach of being one council does not exist, you only have to look at the fiasco with waste collections and cleansing. If the waste collection team arrives to collect your waste and your bag has been split they leave it to the street cleansing team, but do they think to actually let them know that a mess exists for them to tidy up?

Don't let the Tories Airbrush History

The Conservatives' new video claims history shows that they're a progressive force. If anything, it shows the opposite.

Let's just look at the history of Conservatives in power...

Conservatives Turn Backs on Charities

Senior Conservative Councillor Barry Macrae has recommended that empty shops in Bath should not be used for Charity organisations to use.

In a council watchdog committee looking at how the Council uses it large property portfolio to benefit local communities and charitable organisations, Cllr Macrae stated that he did not want to see empty Council properties use for charity shops.

Cllr David Dixon hit back at this saying, “During these difficult times there is a risk that the number of empty Council owned properties will increase and we should be looking at innovative ways to use these. If we can encourage charities to take up some of these locations then that would only be a good thing. A charity shop is better than an empty shop and I am surprised by the line that the Conservatives are taking on this.”

Cleveland Pools - request for help!

The Cleveland Pools Alliance was formed last year after several meetings between Prince's Regeneration Trust, Trevor Osborne Property Group and the Trustees of the Cleveland Pools Trust.

Everyone played their part in working on a new bid to the council but The Princes Trust's 'writing' of the final bid was instrumental in the CPT becoming the preferred bidder.

Heads of Terms have been signed and the lawyers are debating the final details of the 150 year lease. So major progress since the members who now make up the Cleveland Pools Trust started the campaign over five years ago and we have to be grateful to the Prince's Regeneration Trust for moving things on!

In addition the Cleveland Pools Alliance have been offered a substantial grant from English Heritage to prepare the next stage of the Feasibility Study and Business Plan. There is a just small downside to this generous offer that the Cleveland Pools Alliance have to come up with 20% of matchfunding ie £14,500!

Fundraisers among you please put your thinking caps on and come up with some innovative ideas.

Since early 2009, the Cleveland Pools Trust have been registered to be part of this years National Heritage Open Days, previously organised by the Civic Trust but now by English Heritage and we understand that the Cleveland Baths are included in this years B&NES promotional flyer. You can imagine the dismay when they were told a few days ago, in response to a request for access to do a risk assessment, that all access was denied!

Fortunately one local councillor persuaded 'the powers that be' to allow them on site for the few days before and the actual HODs.

So this is the preamble to the request for help. Those who have volunteered before will know the sun nearly always shines and it is not hard work really, more keeping an eye on people and making sure they are sensible. As before, have maps, photos and possible plans to inform people of the history and the plans will be available. Not being allowed on site until after 8th September makes it extremely difficult to predict how much weeding, moss clearance and grass cutting will be needed and therefore how many workparties might be required.

At a minimum Thursday afternoon and evening seem possible occasions.

The days which the Pools are advertised to be open are the afternoons of Friday 11th, Saturday 12th, and Sunday 13th between 2pm and 5pm.

There is a limit to the numbers of people allowed on site (about 80) and several stewards needed to keep the public safe. It would be great to have a life saver present and some firstaiders too, of course. If we could try and get the swimmers among you to come at the same sort of time, say on the Saturday or Sunday afternoon, it could be really useful to have a chat about your hopes and dreams. Any offers of help would be wonderful and as before you can choose your day and time slot of as little as an hour or a whole session if you would like. Please just let us know and we'll put you in touch!

Failed Labour Ministers £1.4m Pay Out!

Labour ministers who have been fired or left their jobs have enjoyed £1.4m in severance pay, figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

When MPs are appointed as ministers they get an extra salary and pension in addition to that earned as an MP. When they are fired in reshuffle, forced to leave under a cloud or resign, ministers get a severance payment equivalent to one quarter of their final salary, provided they do not take another ministerial appointment within three months.

Nearly 100 ex-ministers have benefited from the handouts. High profile beneficiaries include Peter Mandelson (twice), Charles Clarke, Alan Milburn, David Blunkett, Peter Hain, Margaret Beckett, Estelle Morris (twice), Lord Sainsbury, and the recently resigned James Purnell, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Steve Webb said:
“People will be shocked to learn that former ministers get these pay-offs even when they have been sacked or left of their own free will.

“Ministers should not be rewarded for failure.

“While thousands are losing their jobs, failed ministers get a huge payout on top of their salary as MPs. This can’t go on.”

Cardboard Collections Missed

Well we though that we might see an improvement in cardboard and green waste collection in Walcot with new routes and collection day. Apparently not!

The Conservative run Council have once again punished Walcot residents for putting out too much cardboard and green waste and have failed to supply enough vehicles to collect waste and many roads in Walcot have been missed today:

Seymour Road, Belgrave Crescent, Perfect View, Frankley Buildings, Chilton Road, Brunswick Street, Hanover Place, Kensington Place, Beaufort Terrace, Eastville Terrace and Upper East Hayes.

The line is that this will be collected tomorrow (Friday) however is has rained and I am sure that it will end up being brought back in or mashed into the ground.

Please call Cllr David Dixon on 07900 974975 if your waste has not been collected on Friday!

Tories Plan to Cut Mobile Library Services

The mobile library service for Walcot will be cut if new proposals from the Conservative administration are approved.

A Consultation period is now about to start on the proposals.

We would ask that anybody who has an opinion on the mobile library service responds whether you are a current user or not.

The mobile library currently visits:
Morrisons (Weekly on a Tuesday one week and Thursday the next)
Grosvenor Bridge Road (Fortnightly)

Let us know your views by emailing david_dixon@bathnes.gov.uk and we will make sure that they are shared. You can read the decision paper at http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/committee_papers/Executive/WL/2009/090717/02E2015MobileLibrariesRoutesReview.htm if you want to see the report in full.

To help keep residents up to date with local issues, your local ward Councillors have monthly e-newsletters, with information about some of the hot topics throughout the Walcot Ward.

If you are interested in receiving this please email Cllr Dixon on ddixon.bathnes@blueyonder.co.uk and ask to sign up.

All emails will be treated confidentially and you are able to unsubscribe at any time.

Beetroot Bread

Cllr David Dixon writes,

Thank you to The Thoughtful Bread Co for the idea of beetroot bread, we were wondering what to do with all the beetroot we have had growing in the garden so this was the perfect recipe.

Delicious.

Problems turning right?

Local residents have told us how difficult it can be to turn right out of Forester Road.

We have visited with a highways engineer who will look at how this might be made easier. The most likely solution is to extend the yellow hatched box across both lanes of the carriageway.

We are still not 100% happy with the whole layout of the traffic system that was put in by the Conservatives, but will continue to work to tweak things to make life easier for those who live locally.

We have also spoken to highways officers to support them in the work that they are doing to improve routes to Bathwick St Mary and King Edward’s School, so that walking to school is a safer option.

Cllr Dixon Responds to Labour's Defence of £1m Bus Lane

Cllr David Dixon writes,

"Always interesting to note which parties are in bed together. The other week Labour Councillor John Bull jumped to the defence of teh Conservative's bus lane in Odd Down, I could resist but to respond.

The 700-yard bus lane on the A367 into Odd Down only serves to allow cars coming to Bath to overtake slower moving buses which does nothing to improve journey times for buses.

He also seems to think that because the £1,300 a yard bus lane is not being paid for by council tax payers in Bath and north east Somerset that it OK to spend so much on it.

Where is the value for money? The bus lane may have been funded by Government but maybe the Labour and Tory parties on the council forget the Government's money is also the money of the taxpayer.

It seems to me that the contractor for the scheme saw the Conservative leader of council, Cllr Francine Haeberling (Con, Saltford) coming, knew how much was available to spend on it and thought, "We'll have it all, thank you".

Are the Labour and Conservative groups on Bath and North East Somerset Council going to continue with this blatant misuse of taxpayers' money?

With their only line of defence being that it's not council tax money being spent, moving on to the controversial BRT Middle Bristol Road and the expansion of the park and rides, if these schemes are going to go ahead, we want to see value for money, not squandering of it.

Considering the rest of the Bath Package, such as a rapid transit link along the London Road, a new park and ride site at Mill Lane in Batheaston we should all watch out for the way our money is spent."

Longacre Tavern for Sale

An offer has been accepted for The Longacre Tavern on London Road after its owner, the Wadworths brewery, decided the pub no longer fitted with its portfolio of properties.

It had been run by landlord Mervyn Thomas for more than 30 years until his recent retirement.
Wadworths conducted a review of the premises and decided a sale was the best commercial option.

Pub, hotel and restaurant specialist Fleurets is marketing the pub and a spokesman for the agent confirmed the buyer was a small business but had not yet stated if the intention was to keep the premises as a pub.

The property was on the market for around a month and attracted strong interest before the deal was struck in the last week.

Alex Schlesinger, chairman of the London Road and Snow Hill Partnership, said the pub had become a focal point for the community for many years.

He said: "I have got no objection to it being a pub. I certainly object to what has become attached to it in recent years. A lot of the community have been unhappy with the ambience of it and we look forward to some change. You can't blame the pub or the licensee, it is the people who are using or abusing it that are the problem."

Local councillor David Dixon (Lib Dem, Walcot) said he hoped the building would remain as a pub.

He said: "I know the area has had its issues in the past but I would not like to see it turn into anything but a pub. A strong community is one that keeps talking to each other. The Snow Hill area has had its issues but this is a community that knows each other."