Scout Christmas Post 2012

Scouts across Swindon will once again this year be taking part in the annual Scout Christmas Post.

Since 1981, Scouts across the UK have been licensed to deliver Christmas cards as part of a Scout Post. In Swindon this helps to raise funds for Groups and raises the profile of Scouting within the local community.

The 7^th Swindon (Abbey Meads) Scout Group, which covers North Swindon, will be selling stamps at Asda Walmart on the Orbital Retail Park.

Stamps cost 25p each and will be on sale (Royal Mail 1st class 60p, 2nd class 50p)

The delivery area includes:

More Information about School Places

Information supplied by interested third parties in South Swindon

Swindon Borough Council’s Lead Member for schools, and a North Swindon Councillor to boot, is oft in the Press and on the radio chuntering on about the need for schools places. The residents of North Swindon would echo his sentiments but are at a loss to understand the process which he has applied to date in the hope of addressing this.

So let’s paint a picture of 2 existing developments in Swindon...

Primary School Places in North Swindon - ORA Committee Decision taken on 7th November 2012

Oakhurst Residents’ Association recently requested the following information from Swindon Borough Council (SBC) under a Freedom of Information request: 

“Copies of correspondence received by Swindon Borough Councillors or Officers in support of/or requesting either, additional primary places, or a new primary school in North Swindon for September 2011, 2012 or beyond. Please also provide the year groups to which these letters or emails refer.” The Council responded: “None”.

ORA are surprised to hear that SBC are not offering any new reception places but are still only able to cater for our children already in the system.  Our children would have been on the radar of SBC for many years through the PCT numbers.  Any new reception places will not be provided for under this consultation. 

First the FOI and now for some facts

Oakhurst residents tell ORA that they want a school within Oakhurst not a school at the end of a convoluted trek over mixed terrain.  Adver columnist Rod Bluh, who coincidently is the leader of the Council and his cabinet, has been a long way from the front line of the North Swindon school places issue probably because he has been organising a much needed North Swindon school at Croft first. 

Well we know that local councillors have not lobbied for an additional school where it's needed in the North.  They have been too busy shunting North Swindon s.106 monies to build sports pitches at Croft.  What is this fascination that the North councillors have with Old Town?

Let us look at some of the facts that the local councillors are not rushing to tell the residents of Oakhurst:

School Places in North Swindon - FOI Result

It is with some perplexity that ORA read that local councillors are finally waking up to the need for school places in Oakhurst.  Residents have been aware of this serious problem for years.

That is why Paul Exell submitted a Freedom of Information request to Swindon Borough Council in the summer.  The results were astonishing.

Please can you send us: "copies of correspondence received by Swindon Borough councillors or officers in support of/or requesting either additional primary places, or a new primary school in North Swindon for September 2011, 2012 or beyond.  Please also provide the year groups to which these letters of emails refer."

The answer came back "NONE"

North Swindon Councillors Did Not Lobby For Primary School Places In The North

There is, as our residents are constantly telling us, a severe shortage of primary school places in North Swindon which has resulted in :-

• Families in Oakhurst having to send their children to Rodbourne Cheney as it is their nearest available primary school place
• Families living two minutes away from their local primary school being told that families half that distance away from the school could not get in this year
• Families being told that if they live more than a couple of hundred metres away from their local school they are too far away to be guaranteed a place

In light of this a Freedom of Information request was recently made to Swindon Borough Council for :

 

"Copies of correspondence received by Swindon Borough Councillors or Officers in support of or requesting either, additional primary places, or a new primary school in North Swindon for September 2011, 2012 or beyond . Please also provide the year groups to which these letters or emails refer."

The total input from our local councillors trying to obtain more primary school places for North Swindon was, according to SBC's own answer to the FOI -

 

"None."

 

 

When will we get the promised Northern Relief Road?

Northern Relief Road

                                                                                         

The Purton/Iffley Link Road is the long proposed northern relief road that was first considered back in the nineties and still hasn’t been built despite the construction of over 10,000 homes in the Northern Development Area.  

Where will it go?  When Priory Vale was first considered the original proposal was to join the Purton Road (at the base of Thamesdown Drive) to the Iffley Road (close to the Bruce Street Bridges) by a dual carriageway.  There has since been another route considered which connects Thamesdown Drive to Barnfield near to B&Q instead.  Both of these routes would serve to ease the weight of traffic congestion in both north and west Swindon. 

How much will it cost?  There has been talk of the cost being £100 million and therefore too expensive to be built.  The honest answer is that nobody has ever properly costed the route.  To put the figures in context, the 9 miles of the Newbury bypass cost just over £100 million; the current project in Norwich for a dual carriageway of 8.7 miles is estimated at just over £90 million and the current estimate for the bypass at Bedale is £42 million (of which the local authority is paying just £6 million). 

The northern relief road has an estimated length of just 1.3 miles and no junctions.  However, getting under the Gloucester rail line will not be cheap.  Nobody will know for sure until the surveys are done but it is very likely that the stated cost of £100 million is an overestimate. 

It has never been the intention of Swindon Borough Council, or even the developers, to pay for this road.  It is a matter for central government funding and if Swindon Borough Council is going to green light all the additional houses that are continually being put forward then central government has to fund the infrastructure. 

Is it agreed?  Yes, it is agreed, all bar the paying for it.  At a recent Full Council meeting Swindon councillors made a decision to that effect.  

When will it happen?  That is a whole different question.  Everyone needs to ensure that enough pressure is applied to get the latest route of Thamesdown Drive to Great Western Way (at Barnfield) to be considered as Swindon’s number one priority for infrastructure investment.

 

(Presentation given by Cllr Des Moffatt at Haydon Wick Parish Council - September 2012)