Questions over radio date
I was interested in the article (Museum Page, Kingswood Voice February edition) regarding the edition of BBC Any Questions in 1988.
I can find no record of Any Questions coming to Kingswood in 1988, but I do know the panel of Douglas Hurd, Brenda Dean, Tony Benn and Paddy Ashdown did an edition of the programme broadcast from the Octagon Theatre of Kingsfield School on April 7th 1989. I was Chair of Governors at the time, and therefore wasn’t completely surprised when I was chosen to pose the first question.
After the recording, I remember serving canapes to the panel. It seems very unlikely that the BBC would have come to Kingswood twice in 12 months with the same panel.
I was even more surprised more recently while driving through Oldland. I turned the radio on and the first voice I heard was me asking Tony Benn a question. I think it was an archive programme that the BBC were doing to mark 75 years of Any Questions.
Kim Scudamore, Oldland
• Kingswood Heritage Museum has admitted this was an honest mistake. The team would love to hear from anyone else who has similar “I was there” memories to share.
Thanks for helping us help hospital
COSSHAM Hospital League of Friends’ Christmas table sale made £2,165 for this hospital.
We would like to a huge thank-you to all the people who have supported us, not only at Christmas but throughout the year, which has enabled us to buy the following equipment:
Three easy chairs for a new psychology clinic; full-body phototherapy canopies, a super polarised dermatoscope and daylight photodynamic therapy light for treating skin conditions in the dermatology department; two wheelchairs for the renal unit.
Without the patients’ and public’s support none of these purchases would have been possible.
Margaret Nolder, Chairperson
Please support parent carers
SOUTH Glos Parent Carers are celebrating our 15th year of supporting parent carers of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
From our humble beginnings in 2009, when our parent carer forum was set up by me and two other mums, we’ve grown into a robust team of 22, supporting a vibrant parent carer community of more than 3,400 members.
The last 15 years have seen a lot of changes in our organisation but its heart and purpose have remained the same: to grow a well-informed, empowered, supportive community of SEND families, and to represent the collective voice of our community, working with service providers to achieve positive change.
We recently set ourselves an ambitious fundraising target of raising £15,000 to help us achieve our dream of reaching all families across South Glos who have a child or young person with an additional need or disability.
Anything you give will help us greatly – every penny helps us to run our support groups, workshops and open our Community Base.
If you are interested in getting involved, you can email SGPC15@sglospc.org.uk, donate at tinyurl.com/y39prkpk or find out more at www.sgpc.org.uk
Rachel Trueman, Chief executive SGPC
Flooding risk of building on fields
ONE of the many areas earmarked for proposed additional house building in South Gloucestershire Council’s draft Local Plan is Oldand Common, particularly fields adjacent to Barry Road. I write as someone with experience of this area.
It is understand builders and developers prefer to ignore “brownfield” sites because of the additional costs with initial preparatory work, compared to green-field sites.
I would like to suggest that the fields adjacent to Barry Road would also face similar “upfront” additional costs and therefore prohibit it as a viable money making location. for the following reasons.
Many areas in the proposed house building sites, including Barry Road, suffer severe flooding. This has resulted in property owners using sand bags, or more extremely, raising pavements at their property frontages.
Others include installing drainage along their property frontages, draining into a soak-a-way, on their own properties. Whilst digging down to install the soak-a-ways, sub strata rock was found to be located only one metre below the surface.
If this is replicated in the fields opposite, concreting over them will even more exacerbate the already poor drainage from the green fields.
I am not a civil engineer, but it is obvious that the rain water volume overwhelms the current drainage systems design limits.
During the council meeting on February 3, one serious issue mentioned was the deaths of children whilst in temporary accommodation. These tragic deaths were said to have been caused by damp conditions and mould. In no way would I wish to politicise these tragedies, but flooding of properties, if not abated, could be the pre-cursor of such tragedies again.
South Gloucestershire`s Planning Department appear very naive, when they believe developers’ promises of greener, more sustainable housing schemes, linked by green corridors to make these vast building projects viable. Coupled with the necessary infrastructure needed? The council say they are proud of all these new housing proposals. What if the 40% affordable housing doesn`t in fact materialise?
Can anybody with legal powers ensure final build is actually totally, final build. Failing to complete “final plans” of course increases profits. Who wouldn`t do it if they can get away with it?
Roger Tilley, Oldland Common