Protecting access to Sort It centres

At Wednesday night's Communities committee, anyone who uses a works van as their only vehicle was nearly banned from using South Gloucestershire’s Sort It centres for their personal waste. Fortunately we were able to change the Conservative's proposal.

It originally said that vehicles will need to be registered to use the Sort It centres and “any vehicle registered to a business will be declined”. If this had passed, anyone who owns or works for a small business who has their work van as their only vehicle would have been stopped from using the Sort It centres. They would have had no way to dispose of their personal household waste.

Claire Young successfully proposed an amendment asking officers to come up with a scheme to enable those people to continue to use Sort It centres. They will only be allowed to transport household waste, not business waste, but it's right that they should be able to access these services like other residents. Your Focus Team thinks it's important to stand up for the people who run and work for our local small businesses.

Broadband help for businesses

If you own a small to medium size business (SME) locally that is struggling with slow broadband, you may be entitled to take advantage of the Government’s Broadband Connection Voucher scheme.

The scheme has been extended to include eligible SMEs within South Gloucestershire - but you only have until the end of March this year to apply. You can make an application from Thursday 12 February onwards and the benefits include a connection voucher worth up to £3,000 towards faster, better broadband.

To check eligibility and for more information visit https://www.connectionvouchers.co.uk/city/bristol/

Shop locally this Saturday

This Saturday (6th December) is Small Business Saturday UK. In South Gloucestershire, participating traders and independent shops will be getting involved, including in Yate, and you can win £100 to spend at one of the businesses.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply tweet the South Gloucestershire Council Twitter account @sgloscouncil on Saturday 6 December and tell the council why you like to shop locally and/or suggest your favourite independent shop in South Gloucestershire. All tweets must include the hashtag #southglos and the best tweet will win the voucher.

For more info about Small Business Saturday events and offers in South Gloucestershire visit www.southglos.gov.uk/smallbusinesssaturday

Health and safety advice for small businesses

South Glos Council and its partners are inviting small businesses on three Yate trading estates to sign up for free health and safety training and advice as part of a national scheme to reduce workplace accidents.

The Estates Excellence scheme brings together local businesses and other organisations including councils to offer free health and safety assessments and training to eligible firms. Unlike other initiatives it is entirely voluntary, with a strong emphasis on helping small businesses to help themselves.

The Yate scheme takes place during February and March with participants offered free ‘bite-size’ training sessions on a range of health and safety topics, a free occupational health assessment and a month’s free access to the Praxis 42 health and safety e-learning facility.

The scheme is being delivered by partners including the Health & Safety Executive, South Gloucestershire Council, Indesit, Sodbury Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Business, Avon Fire & Rescue and others.

South Gloucestershire Council vice-chairman Cllr Howard Gawler said: “Small businesses are the backbone of our local economy in South Gloucestershire and provide jobs for many local people.

“However due to their size they can find it difficult to recover from the effects of a workplace accident.

“Productivity can drop and in some cases they may close but never re-open, with a loss of jobs for local people and knock-on effects for the whole community.

“So for small businesses in particular, good health and safety makes good business sense. This scheme will give them a helping hand towards the training and information they may need and I hope lots of our local firms will get involved.”