Welcome to Broxtowe Enews, brought to you by the Liberal Democrats and edited by David Watts, on behalf of the Lib-Dems in Broxtowe. May I give a special welcome to the new readers that we have this week. Many apologies that there wasn’t an edition last week but I was tied up on other things.

1. HS2
Toton has now been confirmed as the station site for HS2 in the East Midlands. I have always believed that this was the correct location and indeed all three parties on the council have supported it. Now that the uncertainty is over all three parties need to work together to ensure that the design of the station, the road layout and the development around it all work for the benefit of local people. The councils Toton advisory committee last week spent a long time discussing whether to introduce a residents parking permit for roads close to the station. The Conservative administration appeared to be split on this with a Toton borough councillor arguing against it but the Toton County Councillor arguing for it. We will need to see how this issue develops over the next few years. Linked to the news about HS2 Peverill Homes have announced that they will submit a fresh planning application to build 500 homes in Toton over the next few weeks.

2. Twenty’s Plenty Around Parks
At the County Council meeting last week a motion put forward by the Liberal Democrats to reduce speed limits to 20mph around public parks was passed. It was however modified so that each park has to be assessed first and so the process is not going to be as quick as it would otherwise have been.

3. Midland Mainline Electrification
The County Council also unanimously backed another Lib Dem motion calling for the electrification of the East Coast mainline to be reinstated. Similar calls are being made by councils up and down the length of the line and the petitions that we have produced on this have attracted thousands of signatures. If you haven’t already done so you can sign the petition at www.broxtoweliberaldemocrats.org.uk.

4. Satisfied Train Passengers
Staying with trains for the moment a survey published this week says that passengers on East Midlands Trains are amongst the most satisfied on the rail network. 89% of customers said that they were happy with the service, 9% above the national average. Well done to everyone who has been involved in achieving this.

5. Flood Wardens
Trowell Parish Council is looking for residents to become flood wardens. Wardens help raise awareness of flood risks in their area and pass along warnings when there is a danger of flooding. Further details can be obtained from the parish clerk, Alison Mitchell, on 0115 998 9774.

6. Sainsbury’s
Customers of Sainsbury’s in Beeston have chosen the Nottingham Breast Institute as the stores charity for the year. The Nottingham Breast Institute offers out-patient facilities for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and topped the poll voted for by the customers.

7. New Exhibition
A new exhibition called “Destinations” has opened in the Rainbow Gallery at Durban House in Eastwood. This features the work of six contemporary textile artists. It opened on Friday and will run through until August 23rd.

8. Beeston Film festival
The organisers of this years Beeston Film Festival have announced that, following the success of his years event, it will return next year. Details of the festival will be available on its website at www.beestonfilmfestival.com

9. Beeston Shops
I’m delighted to see the latest figures for shop occupancy in Beeston show that just 6% of units are unoccupied, continuing the downward trend of the last few years and a massive 11% below the national average. Much of this is due to the work of the Beeston Business Improvement District and the Town Centre managers from the council. (I’ll allow myself a moment of personal satisfaction as it was my decision to reintroduce town centre managers in Broxtowe when I held the portfolio for economic regeneration on the council.)

10. Boundary Changes
The County Council has decided to support proposed boundary changes to County Council divisions in Broxtowe. This means that the number of County Councillors to represent the borough will fall from 10 to 9 and there will be a significant rearrangement of which communities will be in which division. The move was opposed by the Liberal Democrats as we do not believe that the proposed new areas properly represent communities. It was particularly disappointing to hear that one of the Conservative Councillors for Bramcote voted in favour of the proposal to split Bramcote into two. The Tories certainly never mentioned that they would support that in their election literature!

11. Bramcote Sunken Church
Congratulations to the Friends of Bramcote Old Church Tower who have secured Lottery Heritage funding of over £50,800 to develop their project to restore and enhance the sunken church. A further £355,700 has been earmarked by the fund to finance the work if it goes ahead.

12. Authors Visit
Crime author Neal James will visit Beeston Library on Foster Avenue on Friday 25th July, starting at 2pm, to give a talk about his writing. Refreshments will be provided and books will be available to purchase.

13. Care Home Told To Improve
Alexander House Care Home in Eastwood has been told that it needs to improve after an inspection earlier this year. A number of issues were identified in the report and the home says that they are working hard to address them.

14. Children’s Playdays
Schools break up this week and the borough council will be providing a series of children’s playdays over the summer holidays. These will take place at Cheshunt Drive in Nuthall on 5th August, Ilkeston Road recreation Ground in Stapleford on 13th August and Inham Nook Recreation Ground in Chilwell on 18th August. I can say that previous events have been given the Watts Children seal of approval. Full details of the events are available by emailing arts@broxtowe.gov.uk.

15. Saint Raymond
It was great to see Nottingham recording artist Saint Raymond (real name Callum Burrows) hit the top ten in the album charts this week with his debut album “Young Blood.” I’ve known Callum since he was a schoolboy and so I’m delighted with his success. He is only the second solo recording artst from Nottingham to have had a top ten hit.

16. Mini Beast Hunt
Notts Wildlife Trust will be guiding a minibeast hunt at the DH Lawrence Centre in Eastwood during August. Full details are available by ringing 01773 717353. The cost is £3.50 per child.

17. Pc Pete Farrell
One of the boroughs longest serving police officers has retired. Pc Pete Farrell has served in Stapleford for 21 of his 30 years as a police officer. We wish him well in his retirement.

18. CAB Chief Retires
Also bowing out of active service in Broxtowe is Sue Maslowska, who has been the Chief Executive of the local Citizens Advice Bureau for the past twelve years. During my years on the council I was frequently indebted to Se for raising issues and having the facts and figures to hand when assessing the impact of various government policies. Again I wish her well in her retirement.

19. House Prices Rise
House prices in Nottinghamshire went up by an average of 4% during the last 12 months according to Land Registry figures released this week.

20. Spy Car for School Parking
Notts County Council have agreed to spend £47,000 purchasing a specially adapted car that can photograph motorists parked illegally or badly in the area around local schools. The car will be used to visit each of the County’s 340 schools and is equipped with automatic number plate recognition technology to identify the bad drivers.

21. Peatfield Court
The first of 23 new homes built on the site of the former Peatfield Court retirement home has been handed over to tenants. This is one of the largest increases in social housing that there has ever been in Broxtowe. The development is one of three social housing projects for the Borough costing around £2 million. The council say that future developments are planned in partnership with Nottingham Community Housing Association and money from the Homes and Communities Agency which could enable the building of 68 units of accommodation on 6 key sites throughout the Borough.

22. Tim Farron
Turning to national issues this week Tim Farron has been elected as the new leader of the Liberal Democrats. I was part of Tim’s campaign team and was present in London for his first speech as party leader. I found it absolutely inspiring and you can see it at www.libdems.org.uk/rally to see why. The Lib Dem Party also issued a very tongue in cheek public apology to Labour this week. We had clearly misunderstood what they meant over the last five years when they were calling us Quislings or yellow Tories. With Harriest Harman announcing that Labour will not be opposing the cuts to benefits announced in the budget and with Chris Leslie announcing that Labour no longer wanted to see the top rate of tax increased to 50% we now realise that they were in fact criticising us for not being right wing enough!

23. Newsletter
Next week will be the final edition of this newsletter before the summer break. There will be some changes over the summer as well as the list server that I use to send this is closing down. However I will try and ensure that we keep any changes to a minimum. I’m also going to be looking for a new job this summer but I won’t be taking anything that would stop this newsletter being produced.

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.

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