The South Glos Post

Police are appealing for information after thieves broke into a storage unit at an infants’ school in Yate, stole a scooter and scrawled offensive graffiti on a play house.

It happened at Broadway County Infants School over the weekend of September 19-20 2009.

The burglary caused about £150 of damage to the storage unit to steal the red push-along scooter and four safety helmets. Fortunately the graffiti was only written in chalk.

Neighbourhood Sergeant Adrian Fallows said: “This sort of behaviour is simply not acceptable. We are investigating and appealing for anyone with information about those responsible to contact us.

“We would also like to hear from anyone who knows where the stolen items are or who has been offered them for sale. Call Chipping Sodbury Police Station on 0845 456 7000, or alternatively call the charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or via www.crimestoppers-uk.org. We never ask for your name or trace your call.”

PS Fallows added that the neighbourhood team would be stepping up patrols in the area in response to the incident.

Source: Avon and Somerset Police

An exciting new project is being launched this weekend which will provide opportunities for local people to get out and about in their local natural environment.

Co-ordinated by South Gloucestershire Council, Wildways is a three year project funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces Programme which is managed by Natural England under the Access to Nature Scheme.

The project gets under way on Saturday 26 September with a Family Fun Day launch event in Page Park Staple Hill from 1pm – 4pm. Free activities include den building and nature games, owl encounters, family tree trail, the chance to press your own apple juice, as well as leaflets, maps and information about the wildlife and wild places on your doorstep. This launch event is being organised in partnership with Active South Gloucestershire who will be organising a fun run, Frisbee contest, Black Belt Academy taster sessions and providing information about the new Active card scheme.

Councillor Brian Allinson, South Gloucestershire Council’s executive member for planning, transportation and strategic environment said: “South Gloucestershire Council is delighted to be working with Natural England and the Big Lottery to deliver this exciting project which will provide fantastic opportunities for local people to get involved in the wild places on our doorstep. Local green spaces provide an important resource for health, well being and education as well as vital habitats for wildlife. Wildways will be working to connect people, communities and nature through an innovative programme of projects over the next three years throughout the Staple Hill, Kingswood and Cadbury Heath areas of South Gloucestershire.”

Wildways will be working with a range of partners including South Gloucestershire ‘Breakthrough’, Walk to Health Initiative, Avon Wildlife Trust, South Gloucestershire Disability Action Group and Children’s Play Link. Other plans for the project include the development of ecoteering trails, a youth bat mobile project, an extensive programme of guided walks and wildlife encounters, conservation programmes, bush craft and Forest School projects for children and young people, Community Woodland Festivals and the establishment of new community orchards and an orchard heritage research project.

Adrienne Greenway, Natural England’s Grants Adviser for Access to Nature in the South West said: “Many of us take for granted the benefits we enjoy from our natural environment, but not everyone has the same opportunities. The Access to Nature programme gives a greater number of people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to experience nature at first hand. Wildways will help to encourage new people out onto local natural green spaces to experience and learn about their local natural environment by engaging in a wide variety of activities. This is a fantastic project and Natural England is delighted to support it.”

Source: South Gloucestershire Council

The Chipping Sodbury Neighbourhood Team is saying ‘on your bike’ to car thieves.

Neigbourhood PCs and Police Community Support Officers will be patrolling Chipping Sodbury, Yate and villages in the surrounding area on bicycles for two weeks.

Neighbourhood Sergeant Adrian Fallows said: “The team will be out on high-visibility cycle patrols as part of our campaign to prevent a seasonal increase in car crime.

“The officers will be including areas previously targeted by thieves in their pedal patrols. Being out on bikes gives us a number of advantages: we’re a high profile presence to deter thieves and we’re more accessible to local people, but also we’re still covering most of the area.”

PS Fallows said the neighbourhood team members’ normal cycle patrols had already proved popular with local people.

Officers are also delivering car security information to homes around Chipping Sodbury and Yate in the operation.

To keep your car safe:

• Always lock up and set the alarm or immobiliser if you have one
• Park in a garage if you can, and if not find a well-lit, busy area
• Clear out your car – if you leave anything on view a thief could break in to see what else is there
• Mark your audio equipment with your post code and keep a record of the serial number – it deters thieves because it helps police identify property as stolen
• Remember your keys are worth as much as your car. Put them safely out of sight
• Register your valuables on www.immobilise.com – it’s free, secure and regularly checked by police across the country.

Visit the police website, www.avonandsomerset.police.uk for more security tips.

Source: Avon and Somerset Police

Filton’s Conservative councillors have welcomed a decision by South Gloucestershire Council’s property chief to put on hold the planned sale of Conygre House in Filton.

Following a series of meetings with Filton’s Conservative councillors and the Save Conygre House campaign group, South Gloucestershire Council’s property chief, Cllr Allan Higgs, has agreed to put on hold plans agreed in 2005 by the Filton Labour Party to sell the building to allow time for more detailed proposals to be worked up by the community.

The temporary reprieve for Conygre House comes after the building was included on a council property disposal list that was agreed in February 2005 in order to fund the council’s ‘Accommodation Strategy’ – a reorganisation of the council’s property portfolio.

The minutes of 14th February 2005 Cabinet meeting, which decided the plans, show that a Filton Labour councillor voted in favour of selling Conygre House – a move that raised no public objections from Filton’s other two then Labour councillors.

Conservative councillors for Filton, Brian Freeguard and David Bell, who were only elected in May 2007, have criticised their Labour predecessors for supporting the sale of Conygre House.

Cllr Allan Higgs, Executive Member for Corporate Resources, has praised the lobbying efforts of Cllrs Bell and Freeguard, as well as the Save Conygre House campaign group. He said:

“Cllrs David Bell, Brian Freeguard and the Save Conygre House campaign group have all put forward a strong case for why the council needs to put on hold plans agreed by the previous administration in 2005 to sell Conygre House and instead work with the local community to see if we can come up with something which satisfies everyone.”

In a joint statement, David Bell and Brian Freeguard added:

“It was only after we were elected in 2007 that we discovered that our Labour predecessors had agreed to sell Conygre House.

We are angry about this because Conygre House is a historic local building and should be used to benefit the local community – the Filton Labour Party should never have voted for it to be included it on the council’s property disposal list.

We recognise the difficulty in unpicking a strategy that was agreed back in 2005 by the Filton Labour Party and so we are grateful to Cllr Higgs for listening to our strong case and agreeing to work with us and the Save Conygre House campaign group to see if we can find a way forward that hopefully satisfies both the local community and the council.”

Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council