FOCUS Editor: County Councillor John Cordwell No. 152: Liberal Democrats - keep in touch all year round

Street Lighting—a brighter future! A four-year programme to replace all the county’s 55,000 street lights with LEDs has now started. At present the lights are responsible for 36% of the county council’s electricity bill. LEDs will halve this and will help the council meet its carbon reduction A LED lantern target. Each of the new lights will be able to be individually controlled by the council using a central management system.

Fire & Rescue: Future County councillors are allocated £20k each year for Service Provision highway work in their area. Part of John Cordwell’s A consultation on future Fire & has been spent on resurfacing this Stinchcombe lane. Rescue provision runs until 4th January. The questionnaire can Consultation on Funded Public Transport be completed on paper and This consultation is running until 4th January. It deals not returned to a fire station or only with county council subsidised bus services but also library or online survey and community transport, concessionary bus passes and park & supporting documents at ride. Full details of the consultation and online survey can be found at: www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/fundedtransport www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/consultglosfire Buses Within our area this includes proposals for changes to: Magistrates’ Courts closure threat l the Bristol – Dursley service 88 bus; The county council agreed to write to the Lord l the Wotton—Nailsworth-Stroud service 40 which also Chancellor (who is also Secretary of State for Justice) involve the Stroud—Rodborough Hill service 36. demanding that plans to close Gloucester and Stroud l There are also plans to modify the Thornbury—Wotton- Magistrates’ courts be abandoned. The closure would Gloucester service 201 with one option being to revise the leave Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court as the only one timetable of service 87, managed by South Gloucestershire in the county. but to which Gloucestershire contributes £54k per year. However, without warning, South Gloucestershire made Local Transport Plan Review changes to the 87 timetable that meant a much reduced Consultation on this review ends on 5th February. It service between Wotton-under-Edge and Cribbs Causeway consists of 13 documents: an overarching strategy, via Thornbury with no link to the Vale hospital and Dursley. six transport model policy documents, including rail So, at short notice the County Council procured a replacement six month contract from Stagecoach giving a (and Charfield station), and six area delivery similar level of service for the Dursley – Wotton-under-Edge strategies (one is for our “Stroud” area). These can be - Thornbury corridor, now numbered service 60. found under Item 6 at: http://glostext.gloucestershire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=117&MId=7897&Ver=4 WOTTON-UNDER-EDGE l NORTH NIBLEY lALKINGTON lKINGSWOOD l STINCHCOMBE HAM & STONE l HILLESLEY & TRESHAM lALDERLEY If you tell us your e-mail address, we can contact you very occasionally on urgent matters for which there is no time to produce a Focus, such as major road closures. We can also e-mail you Focus in colour with hyperlinks that work. It will save postage, fuel costs, considerable time, help protect the environment, and give you a better service. Printed by Ensign Print, 1 Leaman Close, Chipping Sodbury, BS37 6HA; Published by John Cordwell, 13 Haw Street, Wotton-under-Edge, GL12 7AG Children’s Activity Fund and Active Together Sport & Physical Activity Grant Fund For the last two years each county councillor has been allocated £5k to be used to support bids made within their communities for children’s activities. There was also a one-off Active Together fund of £40k per councillor that could be applied more widely to the local population for sport and physical activity. These have enabled John Cordwell to fund completion of the skate park at New Road near Wotton and support: - a children’s and toddlers’ play area for Hamfields Leisure Charitable Trust; - play improvement at the British School, Blue Coat School and Kingswood School; - play equipment for Hillesley playing field; th - sports activities and an outside activity event for Elections: 5 May 2016 Wotton Youth Centre; For most people there will be three elections on this - sports coaching at KLB; date: - teenage play equipment for Ham & Stone parish lPolice and Crime Commissioner: one person to council; be elected for the whole of Gloucestershire. - facilities improvement at Conygres, Old London Road, lStroud District Council: all seats on the district near Wotton. council are being contested this year with changes to the district wards: So to date John has been able to allocate a total of Kingswood. One councillor. The ward is mostly £50k locally. unchanged but includes a small part of Wotton parish It will not be clear until next February’s County (Wotton South) Council budget meeting whether the children’s activity Wotton-under-Edge. Three councillors. The ward fund will run again next year. will consist of Stinchcombe parish in addition to North Nibley and all of Wotton parish except the bit voting in Kingswood ward. Berkeley Vale. A new three-councillor ward which includes the parishes of Alkington and Ham & Stone (along with Berkeley, Hinton, Hamfallow and Slimbridge). Parish Council Elections: There will also be all-out elections for councillors wherever there is a town or parish council.

Postal Votes: Anyone can have a postal vote. If you may not be able to get to the polling station apply now to Stroud D.C: http://www.stroud.gov.uk/docs/democ/elections.asp The forms are also available from us. ACTION SHEET - Tell us what needs doing! Local problem needing attention? Good idea to share? Any questions on Liberal what you have read here? Get in touch with us. Democrats Name...... …….………………….... Address...... ……………….. County Councillor John Cordwell Tel 842439 Phone...... ……….… [email protected] www.cordwell.clara.net e-mail……………………………... District Councillors, Wotton Ward Your issues/suggestions: Ken Tucker Tel 843735 [email protected]

June Cordwell Tel 842439 CAN YOU HELP US? [email protected]

District Councillor, Kingswood Ward helping deliver Focus q Paul Hemming Tel 842734 (just a few really helps!) [email protected]

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