Headlines: 'Bristol sporting quarter plans' and 'car boot row'
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Work will start soon on a new 5,000 capacity arena and conference centre at Ashton Gate, as part of plans to transform the area into a new "sporting quarter". An application has gone in to Bristol City Council planners, asking them to sign off on their 'phasing and delivery strategy' for the plans, according to Bristol Live.A former Gloucester car boot organiser has protested being "labelled a thug" amid a dispute over the recent award of a leasehold for a car boot site at Hempsted Meadows, Gloucester, reports Gloucestershire Live.And plans have been approved for the Cathedral Hotel in Salisbury as a five star establishment with a rooftop bar, says the Salisbury Journal.Finally, a 24-hour prescription machine has opened in Burnham-on-Sea medical centre.
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Gloucester Cathedral has announced its tower has been reopened, with a new roof deck which will allow for tours offering good views of the city.Meanwhile, students at Cirencester College have skipped a night of sleep in the name of science. The college said on Facebook that 50 students would be taking part in a variety of experiments, all fuelled by pizza of course. And the Salisbury Cathedral peregrine falcons fledglings have finally flown the nest, with cameras capturing them stretching their wings.
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BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
A38 Filton: 'Gridlock' problems being 'urgently' looked at
Options to alleviate congestion are being looked at "urgently" after commuters said several sets of roadworks were leading to short journeys taking several hours on "gridlocked" roads.A major bus route has had to be diverted and there have been reports of residents missing hospital and court appointments after the flyover on the A38 in Filton, north of Bristol, was closed on Monday. The traffic problems have been compounded by other work on nearby Bradley Stoke Way, emergency work on Orpheus Avenue and several other bridges being Gloucestershire Council said the work had been planned for the summer holidays "when traffic volumes are normally lower". The council added that a right-turn from Gipsy Patch Lane towards Hayes Way was "closed in error" on Monday creating traffic issues "felt for large parts of the day", with the problems made worse by vehicles diverted into the area following a crash on the flyover is due to remain closed until 31 August, with the nearly 50-year-old structure requiring extensive maintenance work, but residents say the traffic issues are being exacerbated by a number of other roadworks in the area. 'This is hopeless' Christine Butler, 60, spent three hours on her commute from Patchway to Filton on Monday - a journey that usually takes 20 minutes. In all her 40 years of living in the area she said she had "never" seen traffic like it, describing the roads as "gridlocked". "I didn't realise it was going to be this bad," she said, describing how she had heard of people missing hospital and court appointments as a result of the traffic issues. "A lot of people were pulling over and just getting out their cars, just parking up thinking 'this is hopeless, I'm going to turn around' - it would have been quicker for me to walk really." The work is not just affecting cars and vans - bus services in the area have also been unable to run normally. First Bus confirmed on Tuesday that the 75 service, the major route serving the area, was suffering "major disruption" and would be diverted until further Y6 would also be temporarily rerouted, the transport provider said. Shanice Brake, 33, from Winterbourne, also got caught up in the traffic chaos with her commute to Cribbs Causeway taking two hours - more than six times the length it would normally be. Working in healthcare, she said she had seen patients having to be turned away because they were so late for their appointments, with some even calling to say they were "stuck" on their way in. Both she and Ms Butler expressed their "frustration" at how little work they could see being done along the closures, as well as their concerns that they had seen people carrying out illegal manoeuvres on the A-road. "All I saw was a lot of colleagues on their phones or just sorting signs out, and you're thinking 'if this is going to take four weeks please let them be working 24/7 to fix this'." A spokesperson for South Gloucestershire Council said the authority was "urgently looking into options for changing traffic light sequencing" and would "monitor traffic flows to see where we can make changes""We appreciate drivers' frustration and apologise for unnecessary delays, however bridge maintenance and improvements do need to happen for the long term benefit of those drivers and other road users for the long term," they added.
BBC News
15 hours ago
- BBC News
Third generation balloonist to fly at Bristol Balloon Fiesta
A third generation hot air balloonist who has flown all over the world has said the Bristol Balloon Fiesta is a huge part of his Hall, 32, from Taunton, runs Flyaway Ballooning, and grew up around the activity. His grandmother, Gwen Bellew, was one of the British female pilots in 1968 and his mother, father, sister and uncle all had licenses."My dad used to fly from Bath and I spent my childhood sitting on the tank, watching him fly, sometimes before school. We'd land in a field and I'd get a bit of champagne afterwards," Mr Hall Hall is among many pilots who will fly at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta which is being held between 8-10 August. Mr Hall said there had been lots of balloons in the house during his childhood."I'd invite friends around and we were jumping around baskets, being a nuisance, swinging around the office chair pretending to run the business at the age of seven."He took charge of his first flight aged 14 in France."My dad jumped out of the basket, and said 'just fly over the forest, we'll find you on the other side'." Mr Hall now flies hot air balloons in India, and has travelled all over the world."It's not so commercialised in India as it is in the rest of the world. I think there's only four Indian pilots in total," he said."When you come to land, there will be hundreds, potentially thousands of people that just surround the basket, and they want selfies and to shake your hand, which is really nice."Though ballooning is more familiar to people here, it still draws huge crowds. That interest carries the world over," Mr Hall added. What started out as a hobby has now become a full-time job for Mr Hall."Sometimes when that happens you can lose interest, but it hasn't happened for me yet," he said."Everybody loves a balloon flight, and it's pretty rewarding when you're giving someone a once in a lifetime experience, and it's one of those things that is accessible to nearly everyone, yet still quite an adventure."I enjoy the chaos of not knowing whether you're coming or going, and it's all very weather dependent, but that's how we work," Mr Hall added.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
I was slapped an £18 Clean Air Zone fine then wasted FIVE months and £100s fighting the tickets... council is to blame
On the face of it, an innocuous work trip to Bristol offers the chance to get out of the office and take in a new part of the country with a few colleagues. But, for Colin Griffiths, what promised to be an enticing two-day visit to the West Country turned into a five-month ordeal as a battle over a pair of Clean Air Zone fines prompted sleepless nights, a ruined holiday and a spiralling bill on the company card. The 56-year-old, from Bedford, was initially handed a reduced penalty of £18 but, despite paying it immediately, saw it increase more than 10-fold to £267 after the council claimed he had not coughed up the cash. In reality, it was the local authority that had been kicking its heels, taking weeks at a time to respond to Mr Griffiths's appeals and hiking the fines with no apparent rhyme or reason. The beleaguered employee eventually paid the heavily inflated amount just to put the nightmare behind him, but it left a distinctly sour taste in his mouth. He told the Daily Mail that he should not even have been fined in the first place. 'I didn't see any any notices whatsoever,' he said. 'Absolutely none. 'My friend, subsequently, said, "yeah, they're an absolute nightmare, their signs are not obvious at all."' A month after his two-night stay in the city in early October 2024, Mr Griffiths was told by the company's accountant that he had received two fines for breaching a Clean Air Zone in the Green Party-run city. The policy was introduced in November 2022 and applies to all vehicles except a limited number of petrol-powered vehicles released since 2006; one type of diesel vehicles released since the end of 2015; fully electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; Energy Saving Trust's Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation Scheme vehicles; and motorbikes. It is one of seven such zones in England, with London boasting a similar but separate Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez). But Mr Griffiths was none the wiser about the scheme, which meant his car had been slapped with a £9 daily charge, boosted to £69 each thanks to a supposed delay in paying despite the council not contacting him for four weeks. He appealed both of them - a decision that would prompt months of misery and a penalty which would soon spiral out of control. It took the council a further four weeks to respond to his correspondence, at which point it said he could be let off with a £9 fine for the Sunday offence, with seemingly no news regarding the Saturday one. Mr Griffiths claims he paid this straight away, through the link and code provided, and the money left his account, heralding what he thought was the end of an already frustrating ordeal. He should be so lucky. In January, Bristol City Council revisited the saga and told him he had not paid the fine after all and that he had supposedly ignored letters of reminder over the festive period. An investigation later found that he had paid the sum to Bath Council instead, although Mr Griffiths is insistent he used the link and reference code provided by Bristol. The local authority also finally got back to Mr Griffiths about the Saturday penalty and said that this was also late, meaning he owed £129 for this one alone. All this, despite it being the first correspondence he had had regarding the Saturday fine since he appealed it back in November. 'They just kept putting on more and more fines and fees,' he said. Nonetheless, he dug into his pockets to pay the penalty and end the saga once and for all. But it was still far from over. In February, Bristol revisited the Sunday penalty, claiming he had not paid it in December when he said he had. It turned out the fine somehow went to Bath Council despite Mr Griffiths using the link and code provided by Bristol in their email. The upshot was a rehiking of the already hiked penalty, the £120 added onto the original £9 would be shooting up to £180, creating a mega Clean Air fine of £189. Bristol also threatened the increasingly stressed Mr Griffiths with a court appearance. 'I'd been on holiday, and I was getting really stressed about this because their senior manager just wasn't interested in communicating with me anymore,' he said. 'So on that basis, [they said] "tough, it's going to go to a debt recovery agency, so we'll see you in court." 'I actually can't be dealing with this - it's a lot of money, but I don't need the aggravation. It's ruining my holiday. I'm having sleepless nights.' He gave in - and paid the eye-watering £189 figure Bristol had concocted, meaning he had now spent £267 on the two fines, including the £9 December payment and the £69 January transfer. This was painful for Mr Griffiths, who insists he did everything right and any delays were caused by the council's own tardiness. 'I did everything that they asked,' he said. 'I dealt with everything in a timely fashion as soon as I received it and paid them straight away, and even chased them. 'It's upsetting, and I like to do the right thing by people. And I was on holiday and getting these emails, I'm like, "I don't need this aggravation and worrying about it", especially as it's a company car, not mine, and I'm worried. 'My boss knows I wouldn't have abused his hospitality, but it was very stressful, it really was. 'Absolutely [the fact it was company car made it more stressful]. I just felt totally pressured into paying it. 'I paid it and I had to bite the bullet and walk away. I cannot emphasise the stress it put me under.' Will it make him think twice about visiting the Green-run city again? 'Definitely. My friend's wife said you can't obviously see the signs for the Ulez - they don't make it obvious at all,' he said. 'It's a money-making scheme.' For Mr Griffiths, the time for apologies is over and only a refund could make him feel better about his Clean Air Zone nightmare. He added: 'I would love my money back. Not expecting a penny out of them though. It was outrageous. 'I want my money back. Not an apology. 'I can't see compensation happening, but 100 per cent (think I'm entitled to it). They're keyboard warriors - or bullies rather.'
