Merlin Housing Society has completed a £7.6m deal to buy 121 properties from Home Group. It’s the second multi-million pound acquisition in just over two months for Merlin following the purchase of 33 properties from Magna Housing Association at the end of May. As well as adding to the 8,000 properties the association owns in South Gloucestershire, these acquisitions see
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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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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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Labour councillors in South Gloucestershire have slammed the Conservatives for refusing to accept a decision that would have safeguarded core youth centre provision in large parts of urban South Gloucestershire. At a meeting of the council’s Children & Young People Committee yesterday afternoon (25th July) the Conservatives pressed ahead with their plans to transfer all of the district’s youth centres
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The procurement drive for urgently-needed broadband upgrades in the region has begun after two telecoms companies were given the green light to compete for the project. The Department for Culture Media and Sport has selected BT and Fujitsu for its ‘national framework for superfast broadband’, making them the two firms authorised to bid for government and local authority funded broadband
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Conservative councillors have pledged to fight to retain free car parking as council policy across South Gloucestershire. They have tabled a motion to this month’s Full Council meeting calling on the council to retain free car parking as council policy now that all three political parties have recently started to run the council through a series of old style committees.
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Local engineering companies are getting involved in shaping the curriculum of Bristol and South Gloucestershire’s new University Technical College (UTC), planned to open on a site in Stoke Gifford in September 2013. UTCs are a new concept in education, offering 14-19 year-olds a course of full time study that is very technically orientated. Employers are key to the success of
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Business leaders are celebrating further investment to improve the local transport system, which is a key element in boosting the economy of the West of England. Speaking on behalf of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, the group that provides a platform for business and local councils to work together, Robert Sinclair, the Chief Executive of Bristol Airport, said
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The West of England councils have been awarded £24 million by the Department for Transport to work with employers, schools, colleges and universities to encourage people to try a different way of getting about. Around £9 million of the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) will be spent directly in South Gloucestershire. South Gloucestershire Council will use the money to work
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South Gloucestershire’s Core Strategy – the district’s vital local planning blueprint for the next 14 years – takes a step closer to implementation this week with the beginning of its ‘Examination in Public’ by an independent, Government-appointed Inspector. Over 11 individual days (between Tuesday 19th June and Friday 13th July), the Inspector will consider the strategy in detail and hear
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