Cllrs Ben Stokes and Steve Reade at HMYOI Ashfield in Pucklechurch.

Ashfield prison to lose nearly 200 staff

Plans to halve staff numbers at the Ashfield prison facility in Pucklechurch will come as a ‘hammer blow’ to the local community, according to the village’s campaigning councillors. Serco Group plc – the contractors who manage and operate the facility – have announced 194 job losses as part of wider plans spearheaded by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), part

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Patchway Youth Centre, Coniston Road, Patchway, Bristol.

Council agrees to continue funding youth centres in Priority Neighbourhoods

A Special Meeting of South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) last night confirmed a decision made by its Children and Young People Committee on 25th July that will see centre-based youth provision safeguarded in the authority’s six Priority Neighbourhoods (Cadbury Heath, Filton, Kingswood, Patchway, Staple Hill and Yate/Dodington). The committee had also agreed that a pot of £227,000 be made available to

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The Conservatives.

Crunch vote on youth centre closures

Community leaders across South Gloucestershire are to make a last-ditch attempt to save their local youth centres at a special council meeting on Monday 10th September. The special meeting of all seventy councillors is being held after Conservative councillors challenged a controversial decision taken by seven Labour and LibDem councillors on the authority’s Children and Young People Committee on 25th

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The Conservatives.

New motorway junction campaign boost

The campaign for a new M49 junction in South Gloucestershire has received a major boost. It comes after a high-level ‘City Deal’ was agreed ‘in principle’ between the government and the four West of England local authorities, which includes South Gloucestershire Council. The deal would see the West of England authorities allowed to retain 100 per cent of the growth

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The Conservatives.

“Lifeline” hospital bus service saved

A previously-threatened “lifeline” bus service linking parts of South Gloucestershire with Frenchay and Southmead hospitals has been saved, delighting campaigners. First Bus had informed South Gloucestershire Council back in June that they were intending to withdraw the Service 18 with effect from 2nd September, which runs from Emersons Green to Southmead Hospital via Downend, Frenchay Hospital, UWE’s Frenchay campus, Parkway

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