The council is carrying out the final phase of consultation on a bus lane up Dryburn Road to the Sniperley Roundabout. It will be displaying notices shortly. Whilst there have been some objections to the proposals because of the loss of the parking area in front of Dryburn Hill, the Council believes that this proposal has more benefits than negatives. The money for the scheme is part of the T15 program paid for by the government to improve bus routes.

When the initial proposal was put forward I was adamant that the pavement along this side of the road between both roundabouts was rebuilt as part of the scheme if it went ahead and this has been confirmed.

I am continuing to push for the replacement of the pavement in front of Dryburn Road houses which is not in a good state of repair at all, though so far have not been successful in securing funding.

if anyone does have objections to the proposal please let me know.

The County Council is currently consulting on Community Buildings. The report they put through cabinet a few weeks ago included details of plans to close dozens of community centres where the local community was unwilling or unable to take them over permanently. The Council has included Framwellgate Moor Community Centre in this group. As part of a proactive attempt to make sure that Framwellgate Moor Community Centre is not shut down by the Labour-run Council, I have been pushing for more involvement from the Council in helping it to save money. The Labour run Council has refused me permission to invest to improve the centre using local budgets until the consultation has concluded. This means that the Community Centre has to spend more money – for example on heating bills, which could have been cut by investment in the Centre.

My persistence has paid off in the sense that the Council is carrying out a full energy survey of the building for free, using Fram as a testbed for the other buildings. This will hopefully help to reduce bills. It is also clear to me from the sterling work of the Chair and committee at the Centre, that it goes from strength to strength and is being used more than for many years.

There are still some days when rooms are available, just call in to the Centre if you are interested in hiring a room or attending an existing class. Most importantly at the moment, if you have a few hours of free time, please consider joining the Committee to help with the future of the Centre, you can contribute as much or a little time as you like helping with a whole raft of things, or just attending the monthly meetings to have your say on how the Centre is run.

Contact me if you are interested.

This link will take you to the full report being provided at the councils public events relating to the County Durham Plan. it includes a number of extra pages over and above those I have already provided on the County Plan Page, including details of the Councils reasoning for the various parts of the land and some extra information on the contraints of particular site developments:

http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/CountyDurhamPlanUpdateForDurhamCityResidentsOctober2011.pdf

This is about 9mb in size if you would like a paper copy please  get in touch. I will be asking the Council to provide a full display of the maps in the Abbey Leisure Centre entrance hall and other locations, and will update on here when this has been done.

The County Durham Plan consultation / viewing event this evening was attended by over 140 people, a decent turn out but not enough, and substantially less that last time.  I am increasing ly concerned about the level of the proposed development on greenbelt, and an apparent lack of consideration of brownfield and infill sites. It is as if the council wants to build on the greenbelt and on every bit of infill as well. I am continuing to urge the council to give much more consideration to where housing can be built on non-greenbelt land.

I am also trying to get more clarification on the process of how residents will be able to put forward views as to what they want to see in their area as part of the whole County Durham Plan proposals as there hasn’t been any consideration of this to date.

If you didn’t make the event tonight or can’t make one of the others in the next few days in the Town hall, St Johns Church or Belmont, click on the COUNTY PLAN link on the left of this page and you can see the same plans the council had on display as links.

Spoke with local streetsene team yesterday about seriously overgrown weeds, leaves litter etc on FrontSt. Pity Me. Today, whole stretch has had weeds leaves and litter removed. Looks great. Very quick turnaround. Well done Streetscene team.

If there is an area which looks a mess let me know and I will do my best to get it cleaned up. Also asked for Potterhouse Lane to be cleared of litter yesterday following the grass cutting which always shows up litter.

Based on requests last year for grit bins and road clearance I have put in a number of requests for bins. Also pushed for changes to the way in which bin allocation is scored, which appears to have been successful. Hopefully more areas will get grit bins this year. Let me know if there is a specific area where you had big problems last year, but also normally have problems as the Council still has limited resources on this. I am working with Framwellgate Moor parish council who are looking at assisting with some work this coming winter.

As part of our drive to improve youth provision at Abbey, some positions have been advertised for youth workers. This is part of a wider recruitment across Durham City and Chester-le-Street.  Newton Hall councillors along with myself are working with youth and leisure services to bring better provision to the Leisure Centre and hope to be able to announce improvements in the coming months following consultation with young people. This is something we have been pushing for for over 2 years and it is good the Council is finally putting into action our recommendations and working with us. TheRe are other jobs also available on the Council website.

www.durham.gov.uk/jobs

The recent changes to bus services affecting Brasside, appear in part to be down to blockages elsewhere in Durham – in particular Gilesgate Bank. The Council is consulting on an extended bus lane along that road, but the problem is the roundabout in the City. I am now in discussions with Gilegate Councillors, Bus Co’s and Officers to see if a solution can be found which will then allow improvements to bus services not only in Brasside but throughout the area.

The new parking scheme on Framwellgate Moor Front St has been a roaring success. I am very happy that I was able to get this implemented. Having spoken to residents and shopkeepers, all (so far) are agreed that there is less parking on pavements (so less risk to pedestrians), and the parking bays are no longer full of all day parkers helping local businesses and shoppers and passing trade.

If you do need to park all day there is plenty of space in the car park at the rear of the Community Centre which I arranged to be resurfaced last year.

If anyone does have any parking issues from this, please let me know.