Savernake Hall changes meeting

Back Garden are arranging a meeting to discuss the Counil’s plans for Savernake Street Hall.

The Council are intending to transfer management of the hall to the Swindon Tamil Association from 1 April 2012. If you have any questions or objections you should contact Mark Feeny, Swindon Borough Council, 01793 466503 mbfeeny@swindon.gov.uk.

The President of the Tamil Association, Ram Thiagarajah, can be reached by email at ramthiagarajah@hotmail.com.

There’s more information about the Hall on the Council web site.

Meet the Council – parking changes

Councillors and Council Officials will be at Savernake Street Community Hall from 10:00-13:00 on Saturday 18 February. This is a chance to ask for any further changes or to ask for parts of the scheme to revert to the old one.

Residents’ parking changes not done

Back Garden is pressing the Council to finish the work on Cross Street, Edmund Street, Prospect Hill, Swindon Road and Rolleston Street before holding a meeting with residents to discuss how the changes have gone.

Latest news from Back Garden

We hope that everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. Things have been hectic in the Back Garden. We had a successful Christmas Party at the Castle (thank you Tina) and the Games Evening will now be led by experienced gamer Tony Simons and feature new games most Wednesdays at the Beehive. Outdoors, we will have a litter pick in late January and we will soon announce the date for the planting of what we hope will be the first of several replacement trees in the area (thanks Mo Shafie and Martin Hambidge, Swindon Council).

Note of the Environment Meeting

A note of last week’s meeting has been added to the About Back Garden section of this blog. The meeting identified five key areas to be developed in the plan:

• Tree planting and other social gardening
• Recycling
• Energy etc saving
• Support for King William Street School
• Environmental skills and experience in Back Garden

Parking – Council help for residents

Back Garden has been told by a parking warden that the Council is turning a blind eye to cars left on car parks in Eastcott whilst the resurfacing is going on, but you should leave a note explaining that is why you’ve left your car with a Zone D or E pass on a car park over the next few days.

Barrie Hudson from the Adver was on the spot at the same time and more details will no doubt appear in the paper. This is a very helpful piece of support for residents from the Council and Back Garden’s only complaint is that it should have been made more widely known.

In the meantime – “Well done Council.”

 

 

 

Road resurfacing work

The Council will be resurfacing many of the Streets in Zone E from Monday 28 November. Letters to all houses have out from Richard Hedges, Head of Highways, Swindon Council.

The schedule, which may have to be changed at short notice depending on conditions is:

Monday 28 – 29 November
Swindon Road north to Warwick Road
Cross Street

Wednesday 30 November – 1 December
Swindon Road from Warwick Road
Rolleston Street south end to Prospect Place

Friday 2 December
Rest of Rolleston Street
Western Street from Swindon Road to number 56

Monday 5-6 December
Edmund Street

Residents’ Parking changes – review meeting

The Borough Council will hold a meeting to review the temporary changes in mid-February. The venue and date are to be confirmed, but are likely to be Savernake Street Community Centre and be from mid-morning to early afternoon on a Saturday. Back Garden will circulate the details as soon as we have them.

Feedback so far suggested that Zone E has freed up a useful number of spaces for residents. There is more work to be done on narrow street signs in the Zone, but first understandable the Council wants to resurface several streets that are in a very poor state of repair (see the separate post on the streets affected and dates for the work).

Zone D is  different, with many residents being surprised by the work. Of  particular concern are the changes to Eastcott Hill. Since the changes are covered by regulations that make them temporary, changes can be made. If you want to raise them with the Council before February Back Garden suggests that you write or email the Traffic Management Department of the Council or talk to one of the Eastcott Councillors – Dave Wood, Nicky Sewell or Stan Pajak. Their contact details are on the Council web site here.

Back Garden steps up a gear

Following the advice of Swindon Borough Council, Back Garden has reconstituted itself as a more formal entity. The objective is to be eligible for small grants from the Council and others to support our work on behalf of residents on the north side of Old Town hill.

The Constitution and the note of our first Interim Committee meeting is under the ‘About’ section here.

Early notice – Environmental planning meeting Wednesday 7 December

At the Beehive Pub, Prospect Hill from 7pm.

The object of the meeting is to start to create an environmental plan so that the efforts of individual residents can be maximised and that this part of Swindon continues to be a great place in which to live and work in the future.

Back Garden believes that there is potential for

• improving the street landscape with new planting
• community involvement in the maintenance of green spaces
• promoting energy efficiency
• renewable energy sources
• transport changes
• extra recycling schemes for example for composting and better use of food wastes
• improving the area’s potential for wildlife
• educational activity around green issues

Back Garden has invited environmental organisations and Swindon Borough Council to attend and help plan for a Green future.