Police urge residents to secure their properties

Following a rise in rural burglaries in the Badminton and Chipping Sodbury area, the police have urged residents to leave valuables out of sight and make sure doors and windows are locked when they are not in the room. Read more in the Gazette.

Don't forget - another chance to have your say on health

Tomorrow (Tuesday 26 May) there will be a chance to share your views on local health and social care needs as part of an event in Yate Shopping Centre to celebrate Family Week. For more information, take a look at the consultation website.

Joint Parishes Garden Competition 2009

The 2009 Garden Competition is a joint competition between Yate, Sodbury, Dodington and Westerleigh and is open to all residents and schools within the Parishes. The closing date for schools has gone by, but you can enter your own garden up until 15 June.Application forms for the 2009 Joint Parishes Garden Competition are now available to download from this page on the Yate Town Council website.

Joint Waste Core Strategy Preferred Options Consultation

Earlier this year, the West of England partnership carried out the Joint Waste Core Strategy Preferred Options Consultation (we blogged about it here). This was of particular interest to people living near the trading estates on the western edge of Yate as some of the options included a waste treatment plant there.

The partnership are currently considering all the responses and from 5th June you will be able to view a summary of responses and other information on their website www.westofengland.org/waste There will then be a further chance to have your say until 17th July.

Don't forget - have your say on health tomorrow

Tomorrow (Saturday 16 May) there will be a chance to share your views on local health and social care needs at a Meet and Greet event in Yate Shopping Centre. For more information, take a look at the consultation website.

Tormarton composting facility - Environment Agency withdraw their objection

The Environment Agency have written to South Gloucestershire Council to say that they are now prepared to conditionally withdraw their objection to the planning application for a composting facility near Tormarton. This follows the submission of further technical information by the applicants to the Environment Agency regarding odour management as part of the Environmental Permitting process.

However, there is still the holding objection to the application by the Highways Agency which needs to be resolved before the application could be reported to Committee. There is no indication at this stage of the timescale for the Highways Agency to lift their holding objection.

You can read the letter on the South Glos website.

Apply now for capital grants

Voluntary and community groups in our area have five weeks from today to apply for grants for capital projects. More information on the Community Grants page of the South Glos website.

New bus timetable details

The new timetables are available from the South Glos Council website's Bus Timetables page.

Look down the page, and you will see that each bus that has changed has two timetables - look for the ones labelled "10 May 2009 - until further notice"

Quick links for our most popular local buses:

327 & 329 Yate - Winterbourne - Bristol

342 Chipping Sodbury – Yate - Bristol

482 & 483 Chipping Sodbury - Cribbs Causeway

581 Hanham - Chipping Sodbury via Bristol Parkway

N50 Bristol City Centre – Chipping Sodbury night bus

X27 Yate - North Yate - Winterbourne - Bristol

X42 Chipping Sodbury – Yate - Bristol

IF you're interested in reading more about Steve Webb's debate in parliament earlier in the week, you can read Steve Webb's speech and the minister's reply in the Hansard report here. Be warned, it's word-for-word so there are a few pages of it. Watch out for the mention of our sister blog, "Focus on Sodbury, Yate and Dodington".

Where to find information on swine flu

This useful swine flu web page from NHS Choices gives lots of useful information about swine flu, plus a symptoms checker and links to other information sources.

MP leads debate on public transport

Today Northavon MP Steve Webb used a debate in Parliament to challenge the Government over what he called the 'shambles' of public transport in Bristol and South Gloucestershire. The MP led a 30 minute debate on the 'regulation of local bus services'. The Lib Dem MP called for the debate in the light of the recent cuts by First Bus, including the withdrawal of the X27 service, with no consultation and a minimum of notice. Speaking ahead of the debate, Steve Webb said:

"The way public transport is run in our area is a disgrace. We have one dominant company that provides an expensive service and cherry picks the best routes. They are happy to work with councils on the high-profile 'showcase' routes, but pick and choose the rest. Public transport used to be about public service but these days it is purely about private profit. The Government could have got tough with the bus companies through its recent Local Transport Act but instead just tweaked the rules. The new Act did nothing to stop First scrapping the X27 with little notice, and now local taxpayers are having to pay to keep the service running".

The debate raised some interesting points.

First Bus says they're not allowed to subsidise less economic routes from their profitable ones - but the Government doesn't agree. Transport Minister Paul Clark said he didn't know any legal reason why this should be so.

The Minister also said that Councils should get powers to force companies to run routes and to cap fares by the end of the year - if of course South Glos are willing to take up the challenge.

More detail on Steve Webb's blog.

Steve Webb will be talking about this on Radio Bristol at 7.30 am tomorrow morning (Wednesday 6 May)

The BIG picture - have your say on health

Until 31st July, South Gloucestershire Council and NHS South Gloucestershire are carrying out a consultation on local health and social care needs. They are very keen to get the views of those who can get a "raw deal" from these services and will be holding meet-and-greet events to get the views of everyone involved, including children and young people, older people and people with disabilities.

There will be two events in Yate Shopping Centre where you can have your say:

• Meet and Greet - 10am-2pm on Saturday 16 May - a chance to meet the people involved in this consultation and share your views on 'The Big Picture' For Health and Wellbeing in South Gloucestershire
  


• Family Week Event 10am-4pm on Tuesday 26 May - another chance to share your views as part of an event to celebrate Family Week
  

For more information, including events being held elsewhere, see the consultation website.

Confirmed swine flu case at Downend School

You may have heard on the news that there is a confirmed swine flu case at Downend School. South Glos Council have issued this press release. For more information on swine flu see the Council's regularly updated information page.