"IN VIEW"

The Free Magazine for
the Villages of:-
Easter Compton, Pilning
& Severn Beach

ED’s Comments

Home Page

May

Flood Plains – Having lived here from 1967 we were told we lived in a ‘Flood Plain’. Indeed, I remember an elderly neighbour, Bert Small, telling me the history of the name ‘Over’ which was where centuries ago the sea flowed over the sea wall. I don’t know the accuracy of this statement but note the flat land from the bottom of Black Horse hill to the river could have been salt marshes.

Last month during a very rainy spell, I noticed all the regular places of flooding still exist. Over Lane nearing the Easter Compton triangle, the flooding in Main Road Easter Compton, the canal from Easter Compton via Compton Greenfield and then on to Hallen, not to mention Swanmoor Gout on Station Road side where the rheen and the foul water sewage pipe cannot take the required volume and overflows. Then on to Severn Beach with the flooded fields and some lawns both sides of the road.

We have had marginal house building for some years but is it time to radically rethink our land drainage as I feel at we are putting too much straw on the camel’s back. I can still recall 1968 when all our houses were flooded to 18” which took two weeks to subside and months to dry out with an awesome smell. Apart from new solid floors, plaster and our ground floor electric sockets now mounted at a metre high.

Diamond Cards – I have been told the new bus passes are now being issued. They give free off peak travel on buses any where in the UK and half price tickets on all trains. The new photographic passes are capable of being automatically read on all buses and trains. Unfortunately no one told the bus and train operators of this capacity and it will not be available for some time. This is a very serious problem in our capital as travel there is ticketless

Sex Offenders register – Shortly all convicted people on the sex offenders register will have to submit their email addresses to the police and those addresses will be inhibited from using children’s’ chat rooms and face book etc.

Smoking Ban – The success of the Smoking Ban since 1^st July in confined spaces is remarkable. The only downside is the pile of dog ends on the pavement outside establishments which don’t cater for smoking outside their premises. If you don’t have an ashtray, please could you fit one or sweep up the dog ends regularly.

Samurai swords – As of the 6^th April the selling, importing of making Samurai swords now carries a prison sentence and a £5,000 fine.

June

Young Drivers – Trials are being carried out in Sunderland with ‘Black Boxes’ fitted to the cars of young drivers under the age of 25. These drivers are involved in 40% of road accidents and yet only account for 10% of the driving population. Their Parents will be able to monitor their driving skills/mis-judgements via the internet.

Mobile Drivers – The number of drivers caught using Mobile Phones while driving increased by 33% last year to 164,000 all of whom had fixed penalties.

Smoking Litter – Is causing an increase in pavement rubbish. A cigarette butt takes 12 years to erode away. Statistics say 21,000 items of smoking litter is dropped on our streets every day. All of these items are subject to a hefty fine if caught.
Dog Litter – A former resident of Severn Beach was fined £800 by Thornbury Magistrates for not clearing up his dog litter. Well done, Dog Wardens.

Naples Litter – This picturesque city now has 1000 tons of rotting rubbish on its streets. The ECC considers the authorities are not addressing the problem adequately and are in the process of summoning them. Not the place to go if you have a good sense of smell.

ASDA – Our local store now charges 5p per plastic bag. Let’s hope customers take their own bags.

Radio Thornbury –If you listen to Radio Thornbury when it’s broadcasting, please let me know. Last month we printed their schedule in the centre pages. This was in request from David Primrose who is aware not many of our residents listen to their programmes via the Portishead transmitter.

If this continues, they can switch this transmitter off to save money.

Stagecoach – Have purchased 220 new green technology buses to improve the environment. The exhaust from these vehicles will have reduced nitrous oxides.

July

Drink Driving - The summer campaign by Avon and Somerset Police force is underway. 70 arrests have so far been made 30% under 21 years old.

Over 60s Free Swimming - Gordon Brown has announced sometime in the future, free swimming pool access will firstly for the over 60s followed by the under 16s.

Plastic Recycling Containers – I’ve been asked why people from Pilning use the Severn Beach container. It’s the only one for the three villages although it’s burnt. These containers cost the County Council £7000 each to buy plus an emptying charge of several hundreds per year. South Glos. bought another seven this year and have budgeted to do the same next year.

Pilning Surgery Dispensing – A present a Pharmacist is off on long term sickness. Please could you allow an extra day for your prescriptions and order all monthly items on the same form to easy the situation.

St. Peter’s Church Lane – The Kissing Gate at the Bank road end is being removed by the County Council as it contravenes the Disabilities Access act. In addition to wheelchairs etc., this will allow mothers to push their prams to St. Peter’s School while taking their other children to school on foot.

Fuel Price increase/shortage – This has already had a knock on affect to the public. Mercedes have had to increase the production of the SMART car to match rising sales. The gas guzzlers price has dropped substantially in the second hand market and the new unsold 4 x 4 cars are being re-exported. In some cities, bus and bicycle traffic has increased so the media tell us. Locally walking to school, if possible would have an advantage. The 2007 Oil production was only 95% is what the world is now consuming. That’s the reason for the shortage; the percentage of VAT etc. on top of the buying price exacerbates the forecourt price.

Annual Report 2007.

Format of the Publication: The same format with very little change. Generally oversubscribed in articles and always the maximum forty A5 pages printed or 20 A4. We have input from many sources which helps to make our magazine very varied. The local diary is accepted as a very useful event planning reference point but we may only have space to print the current month. The Groups & Associations better reflects the many activities in our villages. We try to print this three monthly together with the Normal and Advice telephone numbers due to lack of space. Very few if any articles are not WORD documents attached to emails and because of the great number involved no article is acknowledged. Fewer anonymous letters have been received. We also have a great surplus of articles from outside our area particularly Thornbury and Solicitors’ advice which cannot be printed and are noted in the diary. We are still missing childrens’ articles from school etc. N.B. Advertisements and Accounts are dealt with by Debra Biggs, Roy Edwardes looks after the Church notices and I deal with all articles and charity adverts (none commercial)..

Hopefully this is well explained inside the front cover. You will note some colour adverts etc. have appeared in our magazine, this is to see what colour looks like and to gain extra revenue.

Deadline: The deadline is now permanently set at the 1^st of the month before the publication month. On some months this may be allowed to slip to the 5^th and this will be notified in our diary. We now get very few local late entries.

Income & Expenditure: We are independently financially sound and have a reserve account for future equipment replacement. Extra magazines for outside the area can be posted if the magazine and postage are paid for in advance. We are very pleased people buy our magazine at £10 p.a. plus postage. All our staff are volunteers; please remember that, if you complain.

Staffing: Debbie Biggs has financial charge and is responsible for our Accounts and Commercial Advertising. The Graphic Design and Typesetting is very ably done by Tony Croft. His artistic flair has pushed ‘InView’ to be a well respected Community Magazine within South Gloucestershire. Jack Hodges and Roy Edwardes in the Printing section perform stirling work each month. The team from Severn Beach United Church of Pete, Janice Thomas and Jack Hodges still provide an excellent collating & stapling service.

John Hackett for Pilning, Barbara Adams for Easter Compton and Pete Thomas for Severn Beach perform a valuable function in delivering the magazine to the distributors in their areas. Each of these many distributors performs the last and important link in the door to door delivery. These colleagues have chased up problems when readers complain of the lack of a magazine. We have all lists of street distributors for information and are displayed in the Print Room. The volunteer team is confident and continues providing a free quality magazine to our communities before 1^st of the month.

Website: Our own website is being upgraded. You can visit it on: - : www.inview.bravehost.com. At present we have no adverts but permanent items like telephone numbers, Groups & Associations and Church Services are always available. On the 14^th of each month (the target) the next month’s magazine goes live together with the current month. As we have no space limit imposed, all acceptable articles and letters whether printed or not, are available. We thank Ian Humphries for the wonderful work he has carried out in designing, maintaining and improving our web site. Due to local lack of control of our website, we may have our own website funded by a Business directory in the future.

Groups &
Associations