Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, the leader of the Lib-Dems on Broxtowe Borough Council. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. We have had a large number of new subscribers over the past few weeks and we are now only three people below our record for the most subscribers we have ever had.

1. Christmas Lights Switch On
Many thanks to everyone who attended the various Christmas lights switch on’s which have taken place this week. My children were thoroughly impressed with the event in Beeston. For those of you on Twitter there is an excellent photograph doing the rounds of the Mayor of Broxtowe, Stan Heptinstall, together with Olaf (the snowman from Frozen) that was taken by Christopher Frost, a Beeston based photographer. His twitter handle is @Gailsman.

2. Bramcote Hills Golf Course
Thank you to the 150 or so Bramcote residents who attended a public meeting last Wednesday to discuss the planning application that has been submitted to build a retirement village on the site, and especially to Mike Johnston and colleagues for organising the meeting. A show of hands was taken at the end and no-one was supportive of the development there. About a dozen people were neutral and the rest were opposed. The view was expressed repeatedly that people were keen on a retirement village somewhere but not on the golf course. We have launched a petition to oppose the development on our website today. You can sign this at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk

3. Chilwell Road, Beeston
I am delighted to report that Chilwell Road is now open for through traffic. The NET work has taken far too long but this is a big step forward. There are new car parks on either side of the road which are currently free of charge, although they will be brought into the charging scheme when the tram works have finally finished. As regular readers will know I have been calling for compensation for residents who have been affected by the tram works and NET have taken the first step towards that this week. Unfortunately it wasn’t a very good step as they have offered people who live along the route three months free travel on the tram. I think that this is likely to cause more anger than anything else. We’ll be continuing the fight. Elsewhere unfortunately November has now come to an end and work at Bardills Island is not yet complete, despite NET promising only last month that this would be the case. Better news is that the track from the city centre to Chilwell is now all laid, although there is still much work to be done.

4. New Nature Reserve
At the cabinet meeting this week a new nature reserve was declared at Hall Park in Eastwood. This is the 14th local nature reserve in Broxtowe and means that we now have over 115 hectares of nature reserve in the borough.

5. Installation of Defibrillator in Kimberley
There is an old fashioned red telephone box close to the corner of Cliff Boulevard with Norman Street.BT will now be removing the telephone from there but the box will be the new home of a defibrillator. This is being installed by the Community Heartbeat Trust who have a record of using red telephone boxes as a home for health equipment.

6. Development on Newmanleys Road, Eastwood.
A couple of weeks ago the council’s Development Control Committee gave planning permission for development either side of Newmanley’s Road in Eastwood. The cabinet has now agreed a financial package with the developers to ensure that this development will go ahead. The deal involves the developers passing a quantity of land next to the proposed site to the council so that we can then use it in the future. In return the council will waive various contributions which are usually expected of developers. The reason for this is that the council’s own consultants had said that the scheme would not be financially viable if we required the usual payments. Surprisingly the Conservative members of the cabinet failed to support the proposal. They tell us regularly that they want to protect the green belt but this is the second time in quick succession that they have failed to support large scale brownfield development.

7. Chinese Lantern Ban
Notts County Council has decided to ban the launching of Chinese lanterns from their land. The decision has been taken on safety grounds after a number of incidents with lanterns in the past. I was surprised to learn that, despite the fact that the lanterns have been used as far back as the second century AD they were in fact banned in China in 2009 on safety grounds.

8. Gritters at the Ready
Notts County Council have announced that they are ready for winter (if it ever turns up). They have 20,000 tonnes of grit available to go down on the county’s roads and a team of 23 gritters ready to distribute it. This is the largest supply of grit that has ever been stock piled so hopefully we will get through the winter without any major traffic disruption.

9. Remembrance Tree
On Wednesday of this week Broxtowe mayor Stan Heptinstall will plant a tree at Bramcote Park to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rawanda. This will take place at 11am and everyone is welcome to attend.

10. Free Car Parking
From now until Christmas car parks in Broxtowe will be free on Saturday’s. We want to encourage as many people as possible to shop locally and providing free car parking in the run up until Christmas is a step in doing this.

11. Stapleford Rerfurbishment
The Nottingham Building Society has announced that they will temporarily close their premises in Stapleford next week to allow for a complete refurbishment of the premises. I’m delighted by this news as their premises occupy a very prominent site at the heart of the town (next to The Roach) and having buildings of quality there will help to attract other businesses into the town.

12. Eastwood Cemetery Chapel
The first phase of rebuilding the Cemetery Chapel in Eastwood, which was destroyed by fire earlier this year, is now complete. The site will in due course be refurbished to use as a community building.

13. Kimberley Karate Club
The Shotokan Karate Club in Kimberley has been given a grant of £100 to buy new equipment by David Wilson Homes. The club will be using this money to buy strike pads for its students.

As ever thank you for your support for this newsletter. Any feedback is gratefully received.

Best wishes

David
www.davidwatts.org.uk
www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk
Follow me on Twitter @davidwatts12.

   Leave a comment