National Highways has announced that the A432 Badminton Road bridge over the M4 motorway will need to remain closed for a further two years to allow the structure to be demolished and replaced. Demolition is planned for summer/autumn 2024 following work to divert utilities and it’s hoped that construction of the new bridge will be completed in 2025.
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Children are having to wear coats during lessons because schools in South Gloucestershire are so cash-strapped they cannot afford to turn the heating up. Headteachers say the financial situation has hit crisis point because the district is the worst-funded of all 151 education authorities in the country. Both council-maintained and academy schools are affected.
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A 15-year blueprint for more than 20,000 new homes, 25,000 extra jobs and infrastructure across South Gloucestershire has been published. The draft Local Plan includes a huge expansion of Bristol’s ‘urban edge’ onto swathes of countryside to the east of the city, including green belt land.
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South Glos Council’s joint Lib Dem & Labour Cabinet will meet next week to consider proposals for next year’s budget that include details of “incredibly difficult” decisions to reduce spending and increase charges. The new draft budget does not propose to make new savings, but does provide details of cost-cutting that was approved in the Conservatives’ last budget agreed in February.
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A new free shuttle bus is being laid on to try to ease traffic chaos and delays from the long-term closure of a bridge over the M4 in South Gloucestershire. The half-hourly service will start on Thursday 14th September, to take passengers from Yate Park & Ride via Coalpit Heath to the Cuckoo Lane junction on the A432 Badminton Road, from where it is a short walk to…
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Healthwatch South Gloucestershire is running a patient survey to gauge levels of satisfaction with GP services in the district. The survey, run in conjunction with the corresponding Healthwatch organisations in Bristol and North Somerset, has been launched after trends in patient feedback “indicated a number of concerning themes”. The survey has 19 questions and will take about 10 minutes to complete.
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A long-running strike by waste and recycling operatives across South Gloucestershire is officially over after union members voted to accept a new, improved 10 percent pay increase. Kerbside collections had been disrupted since Monday 12th June as around 150 employees of SUEZ, the council’s waste contractor, took industrial action in support of a 15 percent pay claim.
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Residents in the West of England can now apply for free bus travel throughout the whole month of their birthday under a new scheme designed to radically grow passenger numbers. All the main bus companies, including First and Stagecoach, have signed up to the first-of-its-kind initiative, and the region’s WESTlink bookable minibuses will also offer free travel.
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Kerbside waste and recycling collections in South Glos are set to resume in full from Monday (31st July) after strike action was suspended. The Little Stoke Sort It recycling centre, which has been closed due to a lack of staff during the strike, will reopen from the same date. Unite the Union says it is suspending industrial action for three days while it ballots its members on an improved pay offer.
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Traffic problems caused by the closure of a bridge over the M4 look set to last until at least the end of the year. National Highways closed the A432 Badminton Road overbridge on the main road between Bristol and Yate earlier this month after finding “accelerated deterioration and cracking” to the south-east underside of the structure, which was built in 1966.
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