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The Pucklechurch community website |
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If you have signed up for emails and are not getting them please check the following: |
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September 2005 |
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Dear Editor, The village hall management committee, after much discussion within meetings, would like to respond to the letter from '50-plus resident' in the June issue. The youths referred to in the letter are a small minority of individuals who loiter around the village. Keeping in mind the current population of the village, note that the village hall is managed by a handful of volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure the hall's continuing existence. As for the facilities on offer to our local youngsters, please note the following. The football club boasts some 80 under 16s and 75 players over 16, and in summer the cricket club currently has six teams playing. In addition, Minors & Mums, Pucklechurch Playgroup, Star Jumpers, badminton, drama, and hockey also encourage youth as well as adult participation. These are just a few of the activities that currently exist within the hall. Youth also have access to Scouts and Guides, as well as the church, which have all suffered over the years due to lack of parental support, volunteers, and interest. We note your concern about the village hall continuing as a resource and should point out that we have been striving to maintain this. The hall is well used for, as you pointed out, short mat bowls, badminton, the keep fit group, Happy Circle, folk dancing, Revel, Twinning, and the social club, as well as being available for private hire. The car park is also a resource for the hall and the village as a whole and not a playground for children. The play area and pitches are located on the recreation ground at the rear of the building. Youths have caused problems around the hall for many years. Partly due to intimidation, numbers within our user groups have dwindled, and fewer private parties are booked due to fear of trouble. This issue has been addressed through the introduction of a door-entry system, a last resort after many other options failed (police, security guards, cameras, etc.). This has helped encourage use and reduce vandalism. Remember that without the support from users, the self-funding charity known as the village hall will close. The hall and user groups are all run by volunteers, who receive no remuneration for their efforts in maintaining and developing this resource. The hall is not here just for the pleasure of the village youth, but for all age groups who live, work, and visit our village. We acknowledge your comments and request that you and any others join us in our fight to maintain this valuable resource. Please attend our next committee meeting, which will be held on September 13th at 8.00pm in the village hall meeting room. (Entrance can be gained by ringing the bell at the social club entrance.) We look forward to meeting you in the near future. Mr L Bence, Hon Chairman & Mrs T Symons, Hon Treasurer Dear Editor I read with interest the ideas for youth activities in the previous P. News and can see that the writer put a great deal of thought into them. All the suggestions are valid, but the one thing not mentioned is WHO is going to organise and supervise these activities. This is the real problem: adult leaders. The Youth Service is not so well funded by the government as it used to be, and services have been cut. We need either qualified, paid youth leaders to run these activities or local volunteers to take on the suggestions made. Is our writer ready to volunteer? Or how about you? It would be absolutely wonderful if some of you reading this came forward to support these positive ideas. There are already a large number of youth activities in existence, all run by dedicated, unpaid volunteers. I refer to the junior cricket and football teams and the Scouting and Guiding units, all with various levels for the different age groups. If we can expand these activities, then that would be great. I know some youngsters are just not interested in joining a group and don’t want to participate in anything that is suggested, but they still need somewhere to meet. With a rota of volunteers, it might be possible to establish a ‘coffee shop’ in a room/small hall, providing somewhere warm and dry to meet and chat. I agree with the writer that these youngsters need our support and encouragement to become responsible, caring members of our village community. Let’s take up the challenge. Ros Abbott, Guider Dear Editor, I write in response to views of a local resident published in the last issue who is obviously concerned about the security measures recently introduced at the community centre. I would like to point out that this action was taken only after much debate and consultation and as a last resort in order to stop increasingly violent acts of intimidation against local people, which would have inevitably led to closure of the community centre altogether. Staff and members suffered verbal and physical abuse and ultimately were attacked with fireworks. A bin was pushed into the building and set on fire soon after an incident at the Twinning Association's event last year. It is my belief that we need to ensure access to community resources for the young people within our village but not at the expense of everyone else. The community centre social club does support the involvement of young people in sport or other leisure activities and welcomes those whose parents are members free of charge. Social Club Committee Dear Editor, As a local resident for most of the past twenty years, I must comment on a few things in the last issue of the excellent new Pucklechurch News. Let me first comment on the letter by '50-plus resident': What a perceptive person! Thank goodness for people like him/her! This person has hit the nail on the head. Why not give the youth of the village a chance to share the village hall? It is absolutely right to say that the kids are effectively 'banished' outside whilst a privileged minority can enjoy their bowls or badminton inside. OK, there will always be a few who will cause trouble and THEY aren't always locals, but if you give as many as possible the chance to share and use the facilities, they will discourage the others from damaging what would now be THEIRS. We all live here; we all deserve to share the facilities. Give something and you'll get something back. On the subject of us all living here, this might be an ideal opportunity to remind some that the village does not just comprise the streets to the west of the recreation ground. Whilst I applaud those councillors who mucked in on the litter day, it was noticeable that beyond Castle Road, to the north of the village, nobody picked up anything. In fact, nobody ever does, except the residents. This section of the village is within a Conservation Area, but for all the notice taken by the council, one would not think so. The parish does not end until the sign proclaiming 'Pucklechurch' is passed, just beyond St Aldam's Nursery. However, the person employed to pick up litter stops at Castle Road! To the west of the Rec, verges are mown by the council and all is shipshape and Pucklechurch fashion. To the north of Castle Road, well, the residents have to mow the verges themselves. Around the village and notably the approach from Shortwood so eloquently praised by a letter in the last issue, there are spring bulbs planted by the Council to brighten up the village. On the approaches from Westerleigh... well, as before, we plant them ourselves! The roads on the western approach are well-maintained; the roads coming in from Westerleigh are a disgrace. As with the village hall, we ALL live here and we ALL deserve shares of the biscuit. No one would castigate the Parish Council for what they do, by and large, but, when they are travelling in from Westerleigh (they MUST use this road sometimes!), please, Mr Beg and others, just after you've crossed the M4, look out for that sign; it says PUCKLECHURCH. That's where the Parish responsibility begins and ends on this side of the village. We all live here; we all pay our taxes; let's ALL share it! A Westerleigh Road Resident
Parish Council Response Highways and street care issues are primarily the responsibility of South Gloucestershire Council. If anyone has any concerns, they should ring the Street Care Help Desk on 01454 868000. SGC are responsible for street cleaning, and they collect litter and empty the litter bins around the centre of the village on a weekly basis. In addition, the Parish Council employs someone to collect litter from the play areas and village hall area. The annual spring clean by Parish Councillors concentrates on littered areas not covered by the above. If the Westerleigh Road resident and others would like to join us, they are very welcome and we could then cover a bigger area. It would help even more if people did not drop the litter in the first place! SGC regularly cuts the grass verges within the village, but roads on the approaches to the village are treated as rural roads and the verges are cut twice a year. If the letter writer has any suggestions for improvements he should let the Parish Council know and we will, of course, be pleased to consider them. The Parish boundary is Batchfield Lane, which just past the woodland, skate park and allotments.
Dear Editor, I wish all the people in the village with hedges, shrubs and trees hanging over the pavements would cut them back. They are a nuisance at the best of best times and particularly more so when it's wet and you have to cope with an umbrella as well. Mary Whittock Dear Editor, On behalf of the residents at the top of Birch Drive, we would like to thank David and Eileen Plummer for their tireless energy and hard work in transforming a dull corner adjacent to the footpath. At their own expense, they have brightened up the area with a wide variety of plants and shrubs. Andy & Lesley Champion Dear Editor, On behalf of the Parish Council, I would like to respond to Jackie Sexton’s letter in the June issue of P'News regarding the provision of play facilities for young children in the Parish. The Parish Council spends a great deal of time and a large share of their budget on play equipment, as we have responsibility for four play areas within the Parish at Shortwood, Parkfield, the Recreation Field, and Eagle Crescent, which is more than most other parishes of a comparable size. The play areas are professionally checked each year by ROSPA, and the Parish Council always carries out any repairs identified to the play equipment or the safety surfacing promptly. Just keeping pace with repairs and replacing one or two items each year is expensive. For example, we have just purchased a new slide for the Shortwood play area at a cost of £2,755 and new toddler swings costing £925, plus £1100 for safety matting under them. The Parish Council’s annual budget is in the region of £20,000 and from that we have to provide bus shelters, grass cutting (we are fortunate to have a lot of grassed areas), new burial ground, printing of Pucklechurch News, etc. A new roundabout costs in the region of £6,000, so it is easy to see why we are not able to provide more varied equipment. Wherever possible we apply for grants and we were successful in obtaining funding that enabled us to provide the skate park (£15,000), the teen shelter (£5,075) and the equipment at Eagle Crescent (£15,000). Unlike larger, more urban areas, we operate on a very small budget. We work hard to keep the village well maintained and ensure that parishioners get good value for money. Please don’t compare our facilities with those in Yate or Staple Hill, as we just don’t have the same sort of money. Emersons Green has just received a new play area with play equipment costing £150,000 from developers’ contributions. Lucky them, but I would still rather live in Pucklechurch. Having said all that, please let us know what you feel the village needs and we will always do our very best to provide it within the resources available. Councillor Marilyn Palmer Dear Editor Most householders in this village seem proud of their property and keep it well maintained. However, as I have discovered as a deliverer of Pucklechurch News, there are a few who never, ever seem to open their front doors or look out their front windows. I have struggled time and again down front paths overgrown with bushes and brambles towards a rubbish strewn area in front of their doors to reach their letterboxes -- particularly unpleasant when it’s wet! Some of this rubbish has lain there for two years or more. Please, if this is you, spare a thought for the postman and others using your front path, and for your neighbours and the rest of us who have to gaze upon these eyesores. Open that door and spend a little time having a clear up and trimming those bushes and trees. A member of the Pucklechurch News delivery team
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