The South Glos Post

Merlin Housing Society is extending its housing office opening hours after listening to residents’ views.

From the week beginning Monday 2nd May, Merlin’s three housing offices will be open for residents to pop in from 8:30am – 5pm, Monday – Friday. And on Mondays residents will be able to phone their housing office until 6:30pm.

The six month pilot of the new opening hours follows a month-long consultation with residents in January. More than 90% of residents who took part said they were happy with Merlin’s existing opening hours but would like some small changes.

Karin Ellis, Customer Services Manager, said: “We’ve listened to what our residents have told us and introduced these new opening hours for a six month trial. They said that they’d like to be able to contact us for longer on a Wednesday and for there to be one evening a week when they could speak to their housing office.

“At the end of the six months, we will review how well used these additional contact hours have been and decide whether to make them permanent.”

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Source: Merlin Housing Society

The first residents have started moving into Cambrian Green Court in Yate – South Gloucestershire Council’s first multi-million pound extra care housing development.

Councillor Matthew Riddle and staff from Cambrian Green Court met some of the new residents on Friday 28th January, including Eric Ball, who has moved there from Frome House, a care home in Yate. Cllr Riddle took the opportunity to show Mr Ball around the excellent facilities on offer in his new home.

Mr Ball has lived in the South Gloucestershire area from many years and worked as a foreman in a spray and body shop. When the closure of Frome House was announced, Mr Ball expressed an interest in the proposed extra care development at Cambrian Green Court and then visited the site regularly to watch the scheme progress. He was there when the foundations were laid and even got to know the contractors well.

Mr Ball was very impressed when he first looked around the facilities at Cambrian Green Court, commenting: “This place is marvelous and I am delighted to be able to have my own front door. I feel very safe and secure here and the staff have really helped me settle in – I know many of them from my time at Frome House, so I know that I can rely on them to provide the same marvelous level of care and support.”

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Source: South Gloucestershire Council

Conservative councillors and campaigners have welcomed the approval of South Gloucestershire Council’s planning blueprint.

Approved at a Full Council meeting in mid-December, the authority’s Core Strategy has set out plans for 21,500 more homes up to 2026, whilst protecting the countryside surrounding Chipping Sodbury, as well as the Shortwood Green Belt and Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

These areas had been under threat by the previous Labour government’s Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) and its target for an unsustainable 32,800 more homes.

Expressions of support for the Core Strategy were presented at the Full Council meeting by Conservative councillors and local campaigners.

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Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council

Conservative councillors’ view of a recent decision by South Gloucestershire Council

A call by ‘out of touch’ Labour and LibDem councillors on South Gloucestershire Council to think again on plans to provide hundreds more home care hours has been dismissed by the authority’s Conservative care chief.

Following a special ‘call-in’ meeting of its Community Care & Housing Select Committee back in October, Labour and LibDem councillors called for the Conservative-run authority to re-consult on working with an external partner – either in the community, voluntary or commercial sector – to build and run two new ‘next generation’ residential care homes in Yate and Kingswood.

The Lab-LibDem request was branded ‘bizarre’ after it was shown that 90 per cent of the record number of people who took part in last year’s extensive council consultation preferred the option that identified the possibility of working with a partner if it was found to be advantageous.

It has now been calculated that the equivalent of around 500 extra home care hours a week will be generated when the council extends the partnership approach it is already taking with its first three extra care developments to the planned two new residential care homes too – rather than building and running them itself.

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Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Councill