A plan to build a further 25 houses on the housing site at Cappards Farm, Bishop Sutton has been approved by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
This will bring the total number of houses on the site to 53 - 14 more than originally approved in February 2001 for the 1.9 hectare site of the former Cappards Farm abattoir. Stowey Sutton Parish Council had given its view that the increase, which will double the density of housing on the area to be developed, will represent overdevelopment of the site.
However, B&NES councillors, at the December 10 meeting of the Development Control sub-committee, followed a plannning officer's recommendation to approve the plan. In their view the plan, and the density of 42 dwellings per hectare on site of the new development, fell within policy guidelines for acceptance.
The revised plans had only been received by B&NES on November 17, just over three weeks before the approval given by B&NES, an unusually fast decision. About two thirds of the site area (1.3 hectares) has been developed, but permission has now been given to Cabot Homes for a revised scheme, in respect of the remainder of the site, about 0.6 hectares.
The original scheme proposed a development of 11 detached houses (10 x four-bedrooms and 1 x five-bedrooms) on this part of the site. It is now proposed to build 25 houses with a size mix of 5 x two-bedroom, 11 x three-bedrooms and 9 x four-bedrooms.
A Section 106 Agreement will also be required in respect of meeting the councilıs affordable housing policy (see below), with the applicant contributing to upgrading off-site play facilities, and to traffic management on the A368 next to the site.
Three pairs of semi-detached houses are proposed on the south side of Cappards Road, the main estate road; the remainder of the scheme comprises mostly terraced houses with open car parking areas arranged in courtyard form. A pedestrian link is proposed through to Stitchings Shoard Lane to the north of the site.
The proposed materials (render and concrete tiles) would match those of the existing development. A number of issues relating to highways and car parking were answered by B&NES Highway Developement officer in his report to the committee: "Whilst I am happy with the general principle of the layout, I feel it necessary to look at the relevant allocation of parking to each property which creates situations where residents would need to walk excessive distances (40 metres plus) to their car. This could lead to injudicious parking.
"No visitor parking is provided on site and no spaces are large enough to provide disabled parking both of which could lead to indiscriminate parking. Parking is provided at 200 per cent, which is considered appropriate for the dwellings given the location of the site."
The Highways officer also suggested that the areas of parking shown on the agreed plans should be kept clear of obstruction and shall not be used other than for the parking of vehicles in connection with the development. Parking should only take place only in the bays, spaces or garages allocated.
B&NES Housing Development Officer recommended that within the 25 houses being applied for 30 per cent should be affordable. The officer also suggested that affordable housing should remain available 'in perpetuity for local people with local connections'. This would presumably rule out some options of shared ownership leading to right-to-buy.
Runway extension and new terminal at Bristol International
The Government has given Bristol International Airport the all clear to extend its runway and make further inroads into Felton Common.
The airport also gets the go-ahead for a new terminal, in a bid to push passenger numbers up to 12 million a year, from the present 4 million. Local reaction was chiefly concern for the inadequacy of local roads to cope with the huge increase in traffic implied by the plans, and further loss of tranquillity for thousands of people in the areas around the airport.
In 1996 Bristol Airport assured everyone that the bypass it was seeking for the A38 would mean 'no runway extension, now or in future', and 'no impact on Felton Common land'.
BIA has expressed its delight with the Government's cooperative attitude to the interests of the aviation industry and the alleged benefits to the wider local economy, as expressed in the White Paper on aviation published on December 16.
However, the reaction of both the Conservative opposition and environmentalists locally and nationally has been predictably outraged and contemptuous. The Government's claim that roads in the area are 'not heavily congested' has caused particular outrage.
"This will be the end of the Chew Valley", said Marion Mainwaring, secretary of the Parish Councils Airport Association: "The environmental lobby has been completely ignored by the Government."
The shadow transport secretary, Theresa May, denounced the White Paper as "a fudge from an incompetent government" which will deliver blight to millions of people living around Britain's airports.
The Green party attacked the plans, pointing out that aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions: "we need to be cutting the amount of air traffic, not increasing it. Building more runways is totally irresponsible and is in direct contradiction to the government's stated policy of cutting greenhouse gases."
Tony Juniper, the director of Friends of the Earth, was equally scathing: "The government has sacrificed its environmental responsibilities to satisfy the demands of the aviation industry."
Links:
www.dft.gov.uk/aviation
www.bristolairport.co.uk
Christmas street party in Chew Magna
The Christmas spirit descended on Chew Magna in full force on December 18 when over a thousand people came along for the first 'Christmas on the Village Parade'.
Hot mince pies, roast chestnuts and mulled wine helped to ward off the cold while people from all around the Chew Valley enjoyed the various attractions, including the live music and the candlelit walk to visit the Nativity in St Andrew's Church.
The original idea and the subsequent organisation for the party came from Bea of Willow Interiors and Bill of Baraka. Both were ably helped by Kirstie, Bill's assistant at Baraka.
Bill said: "We would like to extend a very warm thank you to everyone who came along to the event and made it such a great success - the number of visitors far exceeded our expectations. We would also like to thank Setter and Lee, the main sponsors of the event, and all the other local businesses who so willingly gave us their support: Roger Dando, David and Charlie Stockford, Lynne and Rob Pearce-Williams, The Pelican, The Bear and Swan, W J Pearce, Chappell and Matthews, Richard Flowers, Jim King, Chew Magna Fire Brigade, Chew Valley Travel, Winford Garage, The Co-op, Moondance and Mrs Dalrymple."
The evening raised a total of £1,323, which, apart from a donation to Chew Magna Primary School, will all be going to the Children's Hospice Southwest.
Tony Staveacre's Denny Island Discs
The This month's castaway on Denny Island (in Chew Valley Lake) is Blagdon resident Tony Staveacre (pictured).
Tony is a writer/producer, working in radio, tv and theatre. He is the author of three books on popular culture: 'The Songwriters', 'Al Bowley' and 'Slapstick!' He also plays the saxophone in local bands: Sax-Pack, The Blagdon Wind Band and The New Parkway Show Band.
Music touches our lives in so many different ways, doesn't it? Songs and melodies get stored away in the subconscious, surfacing from there unbidden, to conjure up vivid memories of places and people, stirring the emotions, quickening the blood, setting the toes a-tapping. It's an impossible task to try to reduce a 61-year accumulation of music to just eight choices, but here goes:- I was trying to evoke my earliest musical memory, and it came through the mists, a driving rhumba - FRENESI - played by Edmundo Ros and his Orchestra on a scratchy 78 r.p.m. shellac disc that got plenty of plays on my mother's teak radiogram at our home in Buxton. A first taste of the music of Latin America, syncopation, exotic percussion, music that sets up an irresistible dance rhythm. Alberto Dominguez was the composer: 'Twas fiesta time in Mexico, And so I stopped a while to see the show....'
I was a child of the 50s but I'm afraid rock 'n roll passed me by, because I discovered the saxophone at school, and became hooked on the swing music of the big bands, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton and Artie Shaw: The Billy Cotton Band Show on the radio - 'Wakey, Wakey!', and Ted Heath in concert at the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton. I joined the Buxton Rhythm Group at age fourteen, and played for local dances at the Palace Hotel. The saxophone has always been my favourite instrument because it's so expressive. In different mouths it produces very different voices: sentimental, seductive, fierce, humorous. One of the first 10-inch LPs I bought featured the American sax-man Earl Bostic. He developed an unmistakably harsh and strident tone, and in the 50s every juke-box had an Earl Bostic record on it. His honking version of FLAMINGO evokes for me the coffee bars of my teenage years, early fumbles fuelled by cappuccino.
At school (Downside up on the Mendips) we had an old-fashioned 12-piece dance band, which flourished until 1959, untroubled by the Beat Generation. We played for dances at the local girls' schools, where the most requested numbers were always The Veleta and The Dashing White Sergeant. Elvis Presley never got a look in.
The singers that I idolized then were the Four Freshmen, an American group that were an early influence on the Beach Boys. I love their version of George Gershwin's LIZA, on an LP called 'The Four Freshmen with Five Saxes'. Four voices in close harmony works on the same principle as the saxophone section in a dance band, and to me it's irresistible.
When I started working for BBC-tv in the 60s, all the great American musicians came into the studios, and to Ronnie Scott's jazz club in Soho: Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Erroll Garner, Stan Getz. I sat in the front row for a Jazz 625 concert by the Duke Ellington Band, and heard my idol, the alto saxophonist Johnnie Hodges sliding and slurring his way through I LET A SONG GO OUT OF MY HEART. It was about this time that I (temporarily) gave up the saxophone.
I felt I couldn't compete with these virtuosi! So, my wife bought an ancient vibraphone from a BBC session musician, and for a time, Gary Burton became my hero. His four-hammer version of WALTZING IN CENTRAL PARK gets onto my short list of favourites. He actually found a way to bend the metal notes of a vibraphone, which had never been done before. When we moved to the West country 25 years ago,
I had the opportunity to bring some great composers and musicians into the studios in Whiteladies Road, to record programmes for BBC-2. Those studios have now been converted into a news room, but the ghosts of past musical sessions still haunt the space. Simon Jeffes invented a new genre of music for the ensemble that he called The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It's simple melodic stuff, with a hint of jazzy syncopation: listen to his AIR A DANSER and you can't resist joining in.
I love the songs of Kurt Weill, and the best living interpreter of those German classics is Ute Lemper. We recorded a concert that she gave at the Theatre Royal, Bath, where she held the stage alone for two hours, and gave a version of MACK THE KNIFE that sent shivers down the spine. Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong, eat your hearts out.
In 1989, the tango composer Astor Piazzolla came to Bristol to record a programme for BBC-2, and open a new door into music for myself, and indeed all who heard him then. Piazzolla reinvented the traditional dance music of Argentina, giving it a jazzy, percussive twist, and his New Tango is today more popular than it ever was during his lifetime. His music inspired my wife and I to visit Buenos Aires in 1997, to sample the tango on its home ground. Piazzolla's ADIOS NONINO has now been recorded by musicians the world over: Daniel Barenboim, Yo Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer. But his own version is the one to hear.
My last choice is a lovely, although rather melancholy song, written by Dillie Keane, and performed by her vocal trio, known as Fascinating Aida. It's a fast waltz, with piano accompaniment like a ticking clock, and it's playing on my head-phones as I type these words: 'Time goes so fast when you're old: You live in the past... You can turn back the clock, But time still rushes on: Time goes on, Time goes on, Time goes on....'
Keynsham Talking Newspaper is 21
The year of 2004 will be a very special one for Keynsham and District Talking Newspaper (KTN) as in September it will celebrate its twenty-first birthday.
The original idea to provide a talking newspaper for the blind and partially sighted people in the Wansdyke area came from Mary Burnard who was at that time Chairwoman of the Council of Churches for Keynsham and Saltford, now churches together.
The idea originally was to use young people through the support of the Government Manpower Services commission. However this did not prove possible and eventually interested parties from local churches were invited to an exploratory meeting when it was agree to produce six weekly tapes as an experiment.
The service proved a success and the tape service was introduced in September 1983 with a circulation of 18 tapes. Over the years this has steadily increased and today there are over 260 people registered with KTN and tapes are sent as far afield as Belfast, Cumbria, Cornwall and Wokingham. Initially recording was carried out in people's homes but then through the generosity of many local organisations including churches, womenıs institutes, Round Table and local businesses, sufficient funds were raised to buy the necessary recording equipment. Premises in which to record were kindly provided by the Wansdyke Council until, through the generosity of the Temple House Doctors' practice, the newspaper found a permanent base at their surgery from which to operate.
The C60 tape is issued weekly and contains 30 minutes of local news and 30 minutes of magazine material, thereby allowing listeners to keep up-to-date with local events without having to be continually reliant on relatives and friends taking time to read the information to them. The news originally came from the Keynsham Chronicle but since that paper ceased production, it has been drawn from the Bristol Evening Post, Bath Chronicle, Somerset Guardian and, of course, the Chew Valley Gazette. KTN is grateful to the editors of these publications for allowing them to use their material.
The magazine side provides local information, statutory information, interviews, shopping news, recipes and a wealth of interesting information. The master tape is recorded on a Thursday and by 8.30pm that evening volunteers are ready to print the 260 tapes needed for the listeners. These are then collected from the studio on a Friday morning by the post team who go to the Post Office in Keynsham where the tapes are changed over and then dispatched in special yellow wallets for the blind.
The service provided is free and the group canvasses doctors' surgeries, opticians and nursing homes for potential customers who might be interested in the service. There are some 500 Talking newspapers in the country and in 1991 the KTN won the National Competition for the best Talking Newspaper in the UK. The service currently has over 70 volunteers, five of whom were among the original 12 who helped to set up the scheme in 1983.
One of these is Bob Porton who replaced Mary Burnard as Chairman of the newspaper and has now been in the role for 17 years. Bob said: "We now have many willing volunteers to help with this service which is so appreciated by our listeners. As one lady said, 'It's like having you all in my home - it's wonderful company' and that is all the thanks we need."
To mark its twenty-first birthday, KTN will be presenting more than 70 commercial audio tapes, mainly fiction, to Keynsham Library over the Christmas period, a donation which will bring even more pleasure to many people in the area. Anyone wishing to know more about the service can contact Bob on 0117 9862527.
Anne Collier
Folk stars lined up for new club
A new club featuring acoustic music at the Old Down Inn, Emborough, will be joined by some star visitors in the new year.
The club has been set up and run to date by local sculptor Cathy Judge, but in the New Year she will be joined by well-known Bristol musician and MC Jim Tigwell. Jim has been running an Acoustic Club at the Albert in Bedminster, which regularly hosts some of the biggest names in folk and acoustic music. The Albert is to be demolished shortly, and Jim has settled on the Old Down as a new venue.
The acoustic music club will run every Wednesday evening as at present, and Jim's club will join them once a month with a top name performer or band. Cathy is excited at the prospect of having Jim on board and says "I love running the club but it is hard to relax when every ten minutes you have to jump up and think of a new introduction to welcome the next artist. With Jim's support and help I will be able to relax and have a really good time.
"The Albert's closure means there will be a shortage of acoustic clubs in our area so hopefully Jim will bring a large posse with him. We are also excited to be introducing national bands at weekends on a monthly basis."
An interesting club, in Cathy's opinion, should have a good mix and it is her aim to introduce as much variety as possible. Cathy says, "At the moment we have plenty of folk and blues but I would love to have more variety. We have a wealth of ballads, which I play and indeed love, but in order to have a good balance I would like to see more up beat material being played on a regular basis. We also have comedians who always go down a storm. The Acoustic Club is an exciting place to be in that you never know who is going to walk in through that door. Both women and men, arrive independently and don't feel threatened at the prospect of sitting on their own as they understand they will soon get to know people. It is these friendships that make up a successful club and create the atmosphere."
Cathy's vision for the future is to have a club that feels a bit like your living room at home but with the excitement and anticipation of listening to good music and making new friends. They meet every Wednesday at 8pm - 11pm and entrance is only £1. For more information ring Cathy on 01761 241235.