An exhibition of the work undertaken by the ‘Overlooking the Wye’ partnership in the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is to be held at the Heritage Centre, Ross on Wye, 6th – 21st March, 10.30 am -4.00pm (closed 1.00pm – 1.30pm). on Sunday 14th March, representatives of the Scheme will be available to discuss their work.

The opening hours are changing at the County Council’s Household Recycling Centres.

From Sunday March 28^th 2010, the new hours will be Monday to Sunday, 9.00 am to 6.15 pm every day (except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day).  These hours will be fixed all year round.

Currently opening hours alter twice a year at the start and end of British Summer Time.  The hours are:-

Summer time (BST) 8:00am – 7:45pm

Winter time (GMT) 8:00am – 4:45pm

These hours have a number of disadvantages:-

• There are some periods of lone working for the staff at the sites, resulting in reduced staff availability to assist customers.
• There can be fly tipping outside the gates in the autumn when the opening hours have reduced.
• They cause confusion because they vary, resulting in wasted trips by the public.

Changing the opening hours allows residents maximum access to the sites during daylight hours whilst providing the best staffing levels to ensure a quality service. It will also reduce fly tipping and bring GCC’s opening hours more in line with other neighbouring counties.

The Forest of Dean Recycling Centre is at the following location:

Oak Quarry- 1 mile north east of Coleford on the Speech House road

For information on the County Council’s Adverse Weather Plan, please use the following link: www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/winter

Pothole Repairs: Three Steps to Road Rescue

We are all aware of the unprecedented damage the severe winter weather has had on roads across the UK.

Repairing roads is a top priority for Gloucestershire County Council, which is why we have launched a campaign called ‘Operation Road Rescue’. I am writing to you directly to share more detail about our three pronged attack on road repairs:

1. 1.     Worst First

We are fixing the worst potholes with highest risk to safety first, followed by lower risk potholes. This might mean we only fill the worst potholes on a road now, leaving others for later. Please be patient as we go about our job of fixing the worst first. Teams are working around the clock as weather and conditions allow.

1. 2.     Patch

Where roads have larger areas of damage we will send in bigger teams with more machinery and material to carry out ‘patching’. £1.2 million of patching work is already in progress and extra patching gangs have been sent to our three highway areas.

1. 3.     Resurface

Where stretches of road are more seriously damaged we will look to resurface them. We are reviewing our resurfacing programme to ensure the highest damaged roads are resurfaced as a priority.

An emergency assessment of roads underpins our three stage road rescue programme. This inspection is focused on main roads and busy town centre walkways first then rural and residential roads. We are delivering the programme on the ground by temporarily moving staff to pothole repair and suspending minor works to concentrate on fixing roads.

Please be reassured that our highway teams are working as quickly and efficiently as possible, fixing potholes on a worst first basis. We share people’s frustrations, but repairing this amount of damage will take time to complete so please be patient and drive with care and caution.

For more information on our road rescue programme please visit www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/roadrescue

Finally, we will shortly be sending out copies of ‘Road Rescue Operation’ posters to all town and parish councils.

At its meeting on 1st February, the Parish Council Planning Committee, considered, among other items, an application from Clearwell/Stow Quarries to constuct a road from the quarries which will emerge on the B4228 at the Bearse. This will generate heavy traffic which will beed to negotiate the very sharp junction at Trow Green to take the lorry route to Bream. The Comittee believes that this will create road management and road safety issues at the junction (B4228 and B4231), and have made representations to the Forest of Dean Planning Committee and the Gloucestershire County Council Highways Department.