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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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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Conservative councillors have welcomed the formal designation of three flagship ‘Enterprise Areas’ at Filton, Emersons Green and Severnside in South Gloucestershire. At the first meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee earlier this week, councillors voted to create Enterprise Areas to drive sustainable economic growth locally in line with the council’s future development vision set out in its ‘Core Strategy’.
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First Bus has given notice of its intention to cut the only bus service linking parts of South Gloucestershire with Frenchay and Southmead hospitals, despite passenger numbers almost doubling in the short time the service has been running. The bus company currently has a contract with South Gloucestershire Council for the 18 service which runs from Emersons Green to Southmead
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South Gloucestershire Council “lived within its means” during the last year of the authority’s Conservative Cabinet, it was announced this week. At the first meeting of the council’s Policy and Resources Committee, the authority’s budget ‘Outturn Report’ for 2011-12 was reported as showing an under-spend of £239K, which represents 0.1 per cent of the council’s £180m approved budget. This is
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Chief Superintendent Sarah Crew has been confirmed as the South Gloucestershire Police District Commander. C/Supt Crew has been in the role since November 2011, when C/Supt Andy Francis left the post after seven years to run Avon and Somerset Police’s communications centre. Born and bred in South Gloucestershire, C/Supt Crew has 17 years’ experience in both uniformed policing and CID.
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South Gloucestershire councillors have adopted a new council constitution introducing a committee system of governance and replacing the previous leader and cabinet arrangements. With effect from Thursday 24th May, the majority of council decisions will be taken by ten committees, made up of elected members drawn from the council’s political parties. Committee members will be allocated according to the political
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