Lovell’s Proposed site plan for Limmen Gardens

Astra Housing Group have planning permission to build 15 new homes in Limmen Gardens, St Ann’s, which is Phase 4 of the Stonebridge Park Regeneration Scheme. Construction work by Lovell Partnerships Ltd will begin soon. This is the proposed site plan as set out by Lovell’s which was received this afternoon by Friends of Stonebridge Park.

The Time the Place | Stonebridge Park

© Richard Pearson

In this week’s program we take a look at the history of the Stonebridge Park Estate in St Ann’s including old photographs of some of the streets, and buildings. Also the Defend Council Tax group held a successful meeting at the neighbourhood centre on the Robin Hood Chase this week

Please share this video among your friends, on face book & Twitter. You are also welcome to imbed it into your own website or blog. Visit our Our TV Video channel We are also on Daily Motion

If you like this week’s program you may also like The Time the place | St Ann’s Well.

If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk

If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk Also Email your comments to us at this address.

Until next week, Have a nice holiday, Good bye for now

Richard Pearson

The Time the Place | Walter Halls Music Night

The Time the Place | Walter Halls Music Night by The-Time-the-Place

In this week’s program we show-case Walter Halls School Music Night. We also have news from the Defend Council Tax Benefits Group; Mapperley Councillor Emma Dewinton successfully defends one of her constituents from the threat of eviction due to the bedroom Tax, and highlights of the June Night Sky.

Please share this video among your friends, on face book & Twitter. You are also welcome to imbed it into your own website or blog. Visit our Our TV Video channel We are also on Daily Motion

If you like this week’s program you may also like The Time the place | St Ann’s Well.

If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk

If you like this week’s program you may also like The Time the place | St Ann’s Well. And The Time the Place | 20th may

If you have any ideas for news features or community group highlights then please Email us at stannsnews@yahoo.co.uk Also Email your comments to us at this address.

Until next week, Have a nice holiday, Good bye for now

Richard Pearson

Antisocial behaviour to go unpunished?

Criminals who commit minor offences could escape prosecution if their court cases are deemed to cost too much or are too complex, under new guidance

Suspects arrested for offences such as minor assaults & antisocial behaviour could avoid prosecution as the authorities weigh up whether it would be worth bringing charges in the biggest shake-up of the rules for 20 years.

Prosecutors will now consider whether the cost of charging someone is excessive given their alleged role in the crime and any likely sentence.

Bit-part players in cases involving multiple suspects could also avoid court as prosecutors focus on “the main participants in order to avoid excessively long and complex proceedings”.

The changes to guidance for prosecutors were  unveiled by Keir Starmer QC on Monday, the director of public prosecutions.

John Fassenfelt, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said he was concerned the use of a “proportionality test” would lead to “more and more cases being dealt with by a caution or not being taken through the criminal justice system at all”.

The new code comes after Ministry of Justice figures showed one in four violent criminals were avoiding court as thousands were let off with a caution each year.

Traffic calming measures – just cosmetic fun

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The triangular brick traffic calming measures along the new sections of Dennett Close Road & Blake Close where originally set in place nicely and their levels were adequate to prevent cars travelling at speed along these new roads. However, once the tarmac surfaces were put in place, these calming features became ill-effective because their levels became the same as the surrounding road surface. Therefore they are just cosmetic and provide no useful purpose.

I brought this important point to the attention of Andrew Gregory, Head of Development Management and Regeneration at Nottingham City Council.

In response Mr Gregory said: “Your letter outlines concerns you have about the safety of the road proposed as part of Asra’s development [in Limmen Gardens]. These stem from concerns you have regarding the new roads that has been constructed on Blake Close/Dennett Close. I have spoken to our Highways team and have been informed that the road has been constructed in accordance with the approved design and has been through a full technical approval process, including 2 Road Safety Audits to date, the findings from which helped inform the final approved design. The height and format of the features is for a visual and textural contrast, but due to the number and spacing of driveways these had to be kept low to not prohibit access or manoeuvres into/out of drives.

“The proposed access road to be constructed on in Limmen Gardens will be of a similar design to previous phases, but of course takes the form of a cull de sac arrangement, and therefore the amount of traffic using it will be limited. This new road will have a raised build out at its entrance to reduce its width, however as with previous phases any further feature within the road layout will need to be kept low to allow residents to enter and exit their drives.”

In my opinion these so called traffic calming measures provide no useful purpose whatsoever and will remain ill-effective. It is a shame because the Stonebridge Park scheme has proved very popular with all the new residents who have moved onto the Stonebridge Park Estate in recent months, and their children are at risk of injury from fast moving vehicles.

By Richard Pearson

The Keepmoat Master plan December 2012

Middle right & bottom right: Jersey Gardens. Bottom middle: Top of Wray Close. Middle left: the site of the former Fairholm Court elderly person’s complex in Flewitt Gardens. Rocket Park is clearly shown middle left, and Limmen & Melville Gardens are shown on the top left of this Master plan. The red & orange lines represent the pipework of the EnviroEnergy District Heating Scheme.

Keepmoat Homes - consultation event

Stonebridge house building plans are approved

Conditional planning permission was granted to ASRA this afternoon to allow them to build 15 new houses in Limmen Gardens. The planning officer for Nottingham City Council is Joe Briggs. None of the imposed conditions gives any reference to the likelihood of increased antisocial behaviour which will occur as a result of this development, and this is despite objections being submitted from locals who expressed concerns to planners.

Construction firm Lovell Partnerships Ltd will begin work in Limmen Gardens in March, and the completion date is expected in January 2014.

Stonebridge apartments named after beloved colleague

ASRA Housing Group has named a block of Nottingham apartments in remembrance of a beloved colleague shown here.

The Group held a dedication ceremony at Stonebridge Park in memory of Elliot Goodwin who worked as an admin support before he passed away aged 26.

The block of apartments on Magson Close has now been renamed 'Elliot Goodwin House' to highlight the apprentice's work.

Anita McDermott, Sales and Marketing Officer of ASRA Housing Group, said: "He has been missed so much since his passing in January 2012.

"I worked day-to-day alongside Elliot, his future held a lot of promise and it's very sad that he wasn't able to fulfil his potential."

Elliot worked with the Sales, Marketing and Development teams, after his position was provided by an apprenticeship fund from the Stonebridge Park regeneration project.

Elliot's work involved supporting the teams as they worked on the regeneration programme.

Matt Cooney, Chief Executive of ASRA Housing Group, said: "Here at ASRA Housing Group, we look after and value our employees. Elliot was an important part of the regeneration team, helping to build an integral part of Stonebridge Park.

"His contribution to the association will be recognised thanks to naming the building, and his name certainly won't be forgotten."

Turkish Baths in Sneinton to be demolished

 Update This news item is to feature in the Evening Post on Friday

Plans by Nottingham Developer Blueprint to regenerate the Bath Street Area of the city took a step closer this month after Nottingham City Council applied for planning permission on 7^th January to demolish the old Turkish Baths building at the side of the Victoria leisure centre shown above. 

The planning application Ref is 13/00021/LNCAC

Once demolition has taken place in the spring, the proposal is for 17 units, including 13 houses and 4 flats to be built on the land, all of which will be for sale. These houses are built around a courtyard and include houses facing onto Bath Street, and a new link route to be built between Bath Street and Brook Street. This artist impression shows the same view of the Turkish baths site as seen in the above photographs.

In November 2007 Nottingham Regeneration Limited, in partnership with Nottingham City Council and Developer Blueprint, commissioned a team lead by Gehl Architects to produce a Neighbourhood Development Plan centred on Sneinton Market and a wider area identified as the Eastside 'Gateway' in to the City Centre.

The project Board drew up imaginative plans that aim to regenerate the Bath Street area of the city, and the former Nottingham City Transport bus depot site near the Ice Arena.

Nottingham Regeneration Limited (NRL) was responsible for delivering the new £9m Victoria Leisure Centre, and Sneinton Square Scheme, which opened in March 2012.

New local Dental Practise to open soon

St Ann’s will have a new Dental Practise after the City Council agreed on January 8th to grant conditional planning permission to Dr Mustafa Najat of West Bridgford to turn existing shop units at 185-191 Huntingdon Street into a new surgery.

In his supporting letter to planners Dr Najat said “I think the location of the site for our future plans has been well chosen. The area is in a very busy part of the city and has always been used for commercial purposes.

“The ground floor suitability for a dental surgery comes from the fact that as a big open space, two dental surgeries can be created as well as a reception and waiting room in one area of the ground floor and the property is easily accessible from town and the surrounding area.”

St Ann’s has been without a Dentist for the last decade after a dental practise in Westgate Street closed and transferred to Sneinton Dale.

In November 2009 St Ann’s campaigner Gissela Sabarasua shown here with Richard Pearson & Peter Forry, organised a petition and gathered more than 450 signatures in less than two weeks.

Gisella said today “I am very pleased that at long last St Ann’s will again have a Dentist to treat local people, this is excellent news.

"I was knocking on doors and stopping everybody and there's not one person who has said I don't agree with the petition.”

"Speaking to the people who have signed it, I would say 90% have said if we get a dentist here I'm coming back to St Ann's [for treatment].

"I was born in the old St Ann's and they are doing what they did when they destroyed the old St Ann's. They are doing what they want and they are trying to give us the impression they are consulting us."

Local residents were hopeful that a dentist would be included in the new St Ann’s Valley Centre which opened in May last year, but it was not to be.

A spokesperson for NHS Nottingham City said it was looking at other ways to provide dental services in St Ann's, including a mobile unit.

He said: "While we recognise the importance of dental services in healthcare provision, St Ann's does not have a large enough population to support a dental practice within the new centre. There are a number of dental practices close to St Ann's.”

WATES Paid over £124,600 for Stonebridge Park work

The Executive Board of Nottingham City Council meets again on January 22^nd to discuss varies topics including a final decision on Council Tax arrangements from April 2013.

The Board will also hear about various items of expenditure, including money paid to WATES Living space, who have been carrying out external cladding work in St Ann’s including the Stonebridge Park Estate. In addition they have also been carrying out work installing perimeter iron railings, off road parking area, and new fences to 61 properties on Stonebridge since the summer; a total contract valued at over £124,600.

There have been three payments made to WATES by the City Council in 2012/2013:

12/11/2012 ST ANNS CESP - EXT ENVELOPING Contract Payments £145,679.63
23/11/2012 Stonebridge Park CESP - EXT ENVELOPING Contract Payments £94,204.36
30/11/2012 STONEBRIDGE PARK Contract Payments £30,475.37

Stonebridge Park – ‘Snow scenes’

As snow began to fall over Nottingham on Sunday evening lights flickered at 6:40pm leading to a major power cut in the Mapperley area of the city lasting three hours. The snow continued to fall into Monday afternoon when I ventured onto the Stonebridge Estate to take a number of photographs to record the occasion.

When I returned home I was contacted by Charlotte Wood of Keepmoat Homes Ltd who advised me that the company is planning ‘Consultation Event’ for local people to attend to see the significant plans to build 110 new houses on our estate in the near future. Further information will be made available shortly.

By Richard Pearson

David Cameron ‘in the dark’ on government decisions!

David Cameron often only learns about government decisions when they are reported by the media, his former policy guru has revealed.

YouGov/Sunday Times voting intentions CON 31%, LAB 44%, LDEM 11%, UKIP 8%.

Painting a shambolic picture of the Downing Street operation, Steve Hilton (Left)  said the inability of No 10 to control government decisions was ‘pretty horrific’.

‘Very often you’ll wake up in the morning and hear on the radio or the news or see something in the newspapers about something the Government is doing,’ he said.

David Cameron's former strategy guru Steve Hilton has revealed that the Prime Minister often finds out about his own government's policies through the radio and in newspapers

‘And you think, well, hang on a second – it’s not just that we didn’t know it was happening, but we don’t even agree with it! The Government can be doing things... and we don’t agree with it? How can that be?’

Mr Hilton revealed that ministers spend only 30 per cent of their time dealing with the Government’s priorities, with 40 per cent spent handling diktats from the European Union and the rest on ‘random things... which were not anything to do with the coalition agreement’.

Read more: The Daily Mail

By Jason Groves, Political Correspondent

Video update: January 2013

Three of the new tenants just moved into homes in Dennett Close informed me this week that cracks had opened up in some of the walls, and in the woodwork. Another tenant living in house 1b Dennett Close at the front of the estate pointed out that their drainpipe is disconnected from the top gutter; Its been like this ever since the tenant moved in.

Another problem is that former Nottingham City Homes tenants, and home owners, living in Dennet Close, Lytton Close & Flewitt Gardens etc. are having new front perimeter iron railings and gates fitted free. Nottingham City Homes tenants just moved into their new properties are being charged £300 by ASRA if they want new gates fitted to prevent their young children going onto the nearby road – A stealth TAX on child safety!

The triangular & oblong shaped traffic calming measures installed on the newly built Blake Close & Dennett Close roads are completely level with the newly tarmacked road surfaces, and are therefore of no use in slowing traffic down.

Already a number of cars are travelling at speed along the new Dennett Road & using it as a short cut; and a week ago the Police chased a speeding car along this road late at night while the police helicopter hovered overhead.

Government welfare reforms will hit working poor

The Government's welfare reforms could push struggling working families into hardship and reduce the amount being spent in the local economy.

That's the message Nottingham City Council's Deputy Leader Councillor Graham Chapman took to a Government Select Committee on Welfare Reform on Monday January 7th.

Councillor Chapman was one of a number of council representatives invited to give views to the Select Committee on the implementation and potential effects of the welfare reforms.

He said: "These welfare reforms are the wrong thing to do at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. The people most likely to be affected are working families who rely on benefits to supplement their low income - the strivers rather than the so-called skivers the Government purportedly intends to capture with these changes.

"The other effect these changes will have is, by putting more people into hardship, there will be less money for the local population to spend in Nottingham. This is the last thing we need at a time of recession, especially in deprived areas that once again are hit hardest by this Government's policies."

Key points Councillor Chapman made at the Select Committee include:

• Cities with disadvantaged communities are disproportionately affected by the welfare changes alongside the Government's cuts to council budgets
• Questioning why Council Tax support could not have been integrated with Universal Credit rather than reducing the budget - by over £6m for Nottingham this year - and handing responsibility to councils at short notice
• Raising concerns that the way the changes are being introduced could leave citizens confused
• There is potential for further confusion with the introduction of Universal Credit, with a need for any Government contingency plans for IT failure to be shared with councils
• The so-called Bedroom tax could affect up to 7,000 people in Nottingham, creating financial problems for them and putting extra pressure on councils to collect extra rent
• Significant reductions in benefit awards including through benefit caps could result in more households falling into rent arrears and increased financial hardship
• The impact of the recession, Government cuts and welfare changes is driving up demand for advisory services on money, debt, welfare rights, housing and homelessness.

Update: New St Ann’s ASDA store

Developer Blueprint who are behind the new St Ann’s ASDA store to be built on the site of the former Wright & Dobson factory, are set to submit their planning application to Nottingham City Council.

Spokesperson  Alice Rossi said today “I’ve had a chat with Peter Conboy who is the development director for Blueprint on this project, and he said that the contracts for the Co-Op land were signed before Christmas. This now triggers the requirement for Asda to apply for planning. Although I don’t have an exact date on this, I am advised that it will be happening quickly now.”

The Developer will also build a number of social houses on the site of the former Co-op store in Carlton Road in cooperation with ASRA – formerly Leicester Housing Association.

Assuming the planning application is successful, construction work is expected to begin in the autumn and the new ASDA store will be open for business in early 2015.

ASRA apply £300 stealth tax on ‘child safety’

The first phase of the Stonebridge Park Regeneration Scheme is close to completion, and Nottingham City Homes (NCH) have done a fine job letting the new rental properties to new tenants.  These homes are being managed on behalf of Landlord ASRA.

Following a reorganisation the developer Leicester Housing Association became ASRA in 2012.

None of the newly built houses on Stonebridge Park have front gates fitted, while most the properties are now occupied by families with young children.

Some of these families have now requested front gates be fitted to their properties to provide a safe space for their young children, only for landlord ASRA to refuse! They have all been told that they will have to pay for the gates themselves at a cost of £300 per property – a Stealth TAX on ‘child safety’!

ASRA say that it does not matter if their home is home-owner occupied, or rented from Nottingham City Homes; everyone is being asked to pay.

Naturally young families who have just moved onto the Stonebridge Park Estate, feel that this is a serious safety issue, because they don’t want their young children to stray onto the main Road.

WATES Living Space are presently finishing external works on 61 properties adjacent some of the newly built houses, all of which are getting front gates fitted FREE of charge as standard. These Include properties occupied by tenants of Nottingham City Homes.

It seems strange that NCH tenants who have just moved into their newly built houses on Stonebridge Park are being billed £300 for new front gates to be fitted, while NCH tenants living in the original houses opposite are getting their front gates FREE of charge!

As a result, young families who have just moved on to the Stonebridge Park Estate, feel they are not being treated fairly by Nottingham City Homes .

Clearly we need to attract new young families to live here on the Stonebridge Park Estate in the future, and obviously the safety of their children needs to be catered for & be made a priority. It therefore seems improper that ASRA are now applying a £300 stealth Tax on ‘child safety,’ when every newly built home should have been fitted with front gates as standard practise.

Housewives of St Ann's would be television hit

Evening Post Letter

MUCH has been made recently of the valiant efforts people are putting in to keeping the historical St Ann's community going.

Having watched several of the "Housewives of..." series, why doesn't some enterprising TV producer make a "Housewives of St Ann's" programme along similar lines?

These women won't have the riches, diamonds, trout-pouts, false boobs, wigs or eyelashes or anywhere near the money that those US pampered females have, but I would take a bet they have just as many interesting stories – and would generate as much if not more entertainment value bringing in much-needed cash.

I can see such a series making riveting viewing and would go a long way towards the regeneration of this once prospering community.

They would certainly be more realistic and, since I have such a deep abiding love for the place, you can count me in!

JOY JAMES
Colwick Park Close
Colwick Village

Keepmoat Homes puts in it’s planning application

In St Ann’s Developer Keepmoat Homes Ltd, based in Coleshill, is to build 110 new affordable homes on the Stonebridge Park Estate, as part of the Regeneration Scheme, at a cost of £11m.

Mr Ian Sutcliffe shown here on the left, Chief Executive of Keepmoat Homes informed me “It is widely recognised that Stonebridge is a priority for the area and one where we can not let the good work which has been done to date be undermined, the project will be delivered by our Midlands region. ”

There are to be 29 two bed & 81 three bedroom homes constructed on land in Jersey Gardens, and on the site of the Fairholm Court elderly person complex in Flewitt Gardens, which was demolished in 2009; all of the houses will be for sale.

There will also be two new traffic routs leading into the estate from St Matthias Road. One of the roads will run from the side of the former Lord Alcester pub, along the existing footpath, where it will link up with Flewitt Gardens. The second will be along the existing Jersey Gardens Road with a modified route.

In March Keepmoat Homes Ltd made an application for kick start funding under the Get Britain Building Programme run by the government Homes & Communities Agency and the Developer was short listed. There bid was successful, and in August they were given the funding to go ahead to build all the new houses in phases 3 -6 of the City council run Stonebridge Park Regeneration Scheme.

Housing Development Manager Mr Mark Lowe, of the City Council, informed the recent meeting of Stonebridge Park Tenants & Residents Association “We have been working with Keepmoat Homes since the summer of 2012, and it has been hard work getting everything in place, but we are all very pleased with the outcome.”

The planning application 12/03501/PFUL3 was registered with Nottingham City Council on December 24th, and subject to approval work is expected to begin on site in the summer of 2013.

By Richard Pearson