Author: Hilary Goodreid

Solihull Council has confirmed arrangements for waste and recycling collections during the Christmas and New Year period.

The waste collection schedule will be as follows:

Monday 22 December – Normal collection
Tuesday 23 December – Normal collection
Wednesday 24 December – Normal collection
Thursday 25 December – No collection (Waste will be collected on Saturday 27 December)
Friday 26 December – No collection (Extra waste will be collected on Friday 2 January 2015)
Monday 29 December – Normal collection
Tuesday 30 December – Normal collection
Wednesday 31 December – Normal collection
Thursday 1 January 2015 – No collection (Extra waste will be collected on Thursday 8 January 2015)
Friday 2 January 2015 – Normal collection

For more details and information on recycling collections please visit the Council website at www.solihull.gov.uk/xmascollections.

Residents are reminded to make the most of their recycling service during the festive period. The Council will take additional recycling that is placed at the side of their other recycling – the old recycling boxes and jute bags are ideal for this. Extra recycling that is placed in plastic bags or carrier bags will not be collected as these cannot be recycled.

If after recycling residents have additional rubbish over the Christmas holidays, the Council will collect additional bagged rubbish between Monday 29 December 2014 and Friday 9 January 2015. Residents should place any extra rubbish in bin bags and leave them tied and next to their black wheelie bin or purple sacks.

Normal collections will resume from Monday 12 January 2015 and any extra rubbish will not be collected after this date.

The Council is also reminding residents that they can recycle corrugated cardboard as part of their normal collections. This simply needs to be broken or folded down to fit in the brown wheelie bin and any polystyrene and/or plastic wrapping should be removed. Christmas cards can also be recycled.

The Council will also collect real Christmas trees with household rubbish until Friday 16 January 2015. All decorations and pots should be removed and any large trees (6ft or more) should be broken in half. Alternatively, residents can recycle their trees at Bickenhill Household Waste and Recycling Centre (HWRC).

Opening hours for the HWRC during the festive period have also been confirmed. The affected days are as follows:

Wednesday 24 December 2014 – early closing at 2.30pm
Thursday 25 December 2014 – site closed
Friday 26 December 2014 – site closed
Wednesday 31 December 2014 – early closing at 2.30pm
Thursday 1 January 2015 – site closed

Councillor Robert Hulland, Cabinet Member for Environment and Housing, said: “I want to wish all Solihull residents a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We introduced the new recycling service to the borough in 2014 and residents have done us proud in adapting to the changes. I encourage all residents to make a resolution for 2015 and continue the excellent recycling so that we can increase our recycling rate even more.”

For the latest updates on Council services throughout winter, follow Solihull Council on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SolihullCouncil or like the official Council Facebook page at www.facebook.com/solihullcouncil.

There has been confusion recently over the use of the Hockley Heath Dirt Track at the recreation ground.  The Parish Council would like to make it clear that the dirt track is there for informal recreational play.  The site has never been, nor will it ever be a BMX track for extreme cycling.  This would not be an appropriate use given the physical restrictions on the site.

If you have any questions concerning the site, please contact the parish clerk.

Hockley Heath has moved a step closer to getting superfast broadband as the area has now turned pink on the CSW Broadband rollout map, meaning that cabinets Lapworth 1, 2 and 9 are now scheduled for upgrade at some point in the next six months. Information about the cabinets can be found at http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/where-when/rolling-12-month-plan and the updated map showing the coverage is at http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/the-project/latest-maps/nga-network-coverage-map
Of course, all of the usual caveats apply with regard to the fact that nothing is certain until the service actually goes live, and that there are a number of factors that can affect the speeds that will be achieved, such as the distance of individual properties from the cabinet.
Engineers will soon be working to carry out a number of tasks, such as installing the new cabinet, running the fibre connection back to the exchange, connecting the new cabinet to the old one so that the final connection to properties can be made through the existing copper network and, of course, providing power to make everything work.
There may be some disruption to traffic whilst the work is being carried out, and in some cases rolling traffic management will be required which will necessitate the use of traffic lights or other measures to ensure the safety of the engineers. However, this temporary disruption is all in a good cause.
Once the cabinet has gone live the area will turn green on our map and on the 12-month plan. At that point you can order the service from a number of different Internet Service Providers. It is best to check carefully as there are a wide range of packages available, with some including telephone calls and even TV options. For impartial advice and to see which might be best for you visit http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband

Preparations are underway for a dredging project on the North Stratford Canal between Rotherham Oaks and Stratford Road Bridge. The work will include some bank protection, including to the rear of gardens off Spring lane. The relevant residents will be contacted direct in due course, but this is to let you know the general details:

The length of canal affected is 1.9km.

We anticipate removing about 1,200m3 of silt.

We will install approximate 900m of bank protection where the off-side bank is eroded and use the silt to backfill the bank protection.

The project is still subject to approval, but all being well, I anticipate starting either in Dec or early January.

I will update you on plans once they are confirmed.

If you have any specific queries regarding this project, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Paul Fox

Project Manager

O7711 650418

01908 681281

DD 3881

The Stop House, Braunston, Northants, NN11 3AD

The Parish Council have received the following from the co-ordinators of Superfast Broadband in the local area:

Hello Champions

Rollout Update

The rollout has been progressing well with 79 Cabinets that have already gone live and ready to accept orders for fibre broadband services! Cabinets continue to go live regularly so please do keep checking back on the rolling 12-month plan on our website for the most up-to-date information.

http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/where-when/rolling-12-month-plan/

Please note that the map is updated on a monthly basis so it may be that some areas that are now live are not yet shown as such on the map. Therefore it is important to encourage residents to check the 12 month plan should they have a query about their current broadband upgrade status.

Procurement Update

As you are no doubt aware we continue to run through the procurement process for our additional block of money and we hope to have the areas defined for upgrade by Spring 2015. When we get to that stage these additional areas will be rolled into our NGA deployment map providing a complete picture of where the upgrades will go.

Getting the Word Out

Now that superfast broadband is available in some of your areas, it’s important to make sure that all residents can take advantage of its benefits and we need your help to do this.

There are a number of things you can do to help us make your local community aware of the superfast broadband that is now available and the many benefits it provides:

Distribute flyers to the properties that are most likely to benefit from the upgrade. We would provide you with flyers and a relevant address list. This is an important point, as some premises may be too far from the exchange to benefit from the upgrade at this stage, and we don’t want to build an unreasonable expectation.

Provide us with the details of your parish or village website and/or newsletter. By providing us with this information, we can contact the relevant people to ensure that even more people are informed of the new superfast broadband services available. Alternatively, the following link provides copy that can be used for parish and village websites, newsletters or flyers if you would like to provide them with this yourself:http://www.cswbroadband.org.uk/downloads-resources/copy-to-use-on-your-own-website-newsletters-or-flyers

If you are able to collect flyers from your local council offices and/or have parish/village website or newsletter contact details, we would greatly appreciate you getting in touch.

We will also be getting in touch with each you individually where your local cabinet is ‘live’ over the coming days so do look out for the emails from us.

Other News

And finally after nearly 2 years based at Wedgnock House the project office has moved to a new building closer to Warwick town centre. We are now settled into our new home here at Saltisford Office Park but will continue to be contactable on the same email addresses and telephone numbers.

Thank you all again for all your support and please do get in touch should you have any queries.

Kind regards,

Gurprit Basran

CSW Broadband
Warwickshire County Council
Tel: 01926738320
Email: broadband@cswbroadband.org.uk
CSW Broadband project – bringing faster broadband to your area

Home

 

 

[wpdm_file id=86]

 

Solihull Council are holding an Active Ageing Games day on Wednesday 10th September at North Solihull Sports Centre.  The day is free of charge and lets you try out a range of activitties including badminton, aqua workouts etc.  Please read the attached flyer for more details.

[wpdm_file id=82]

 

SMBC are offering a range of courses for those connected with sports in the community.  For more infromation please contact Sadie Walker, Sports Development and Facilities Officer,  Tel: (0121) 704 8079, Mob: 07717 320583.

Courses available include; How to deliver enaging session for young people (16th Sept 6.30pm – 9.30pm at Solihull Arts Complex – course is FREE!); Safeguarding and Protecting Children (24th Sept 6.30pm – 9.30pm at West Warwickshire Sports Club, Olton and costs £25); Sports First Aid (1st and 8th Dec, 6.30pm – 9.30pm at North Solihull Sports Centre – course is FREE!); Inclusive Coaching: Disability (13th Nov 6.30pm – 9.30pm at The Studio, Solihull Arts Complex and costs £25).

 

The Parish Council have received a letter from SMBC to say that the planning inspector has concerns with the plan and so SMBC have published a schedule of Main Modifications. There is now a 6 week public consultation which ends 5pm on Wednesday 27th August 2014. These modifications are available to view at Solihull library or on line: http://www.solihull.gov.uk/ldf/gypsyandtraveller.

If you have any further questions concerning this, please contact policy and Spatial Planning on Tel: 0121 704 6394 or email: psp@solihull.gov.uk