Residents' Update:
Sunday 20th November 2016

Dear All,

This week’s update includes:- Remembrance Services; Revisions to Residents' Parking Policy; New Tiverton School Update; Revocation of Left Turn at Whitley Bridge; Drinking of Alcohol at Quinton Pools; Tree Clearance at Southport Close; JLR Planning Application Submitted; Misuse of Residents’ Parking Permits; Cheylesmore Library Volunteers; Changing Registration Number on Virtual Permit; Upcoming Works in our Area; Tollbar Improvement Scheme; Have your Say on London Road Cemetery; Important Finham Library Meeting; Radford Road Fire Station; Alcohol Awareness Week; Former Co-op site; Capability Brown Tree Planting Ceremony; Taxi Users Survey; Grants & Funding Opportunities; Robots & Prince's trust; Age UK Walks; Shape Your Local NHS Services; Scams & Recalls; Diary; Useful Links. And Finally ..

Remembrance Services
Last Sunday, Roger and Pauline attended the Remembrance Service in the War Memorial Park. It was one of the largest gatherings they had ever seen, possibly partly due to the good weather. This event never fails to move people.

Afterwards they visited the memorial which is close to the Ibis Hotel, Abbey Road, to the bomb disposal squad who were blown up defusing a bomb. This memorial exists thanks to local residents like recently departed Reg Kimber.

They later visited the graves of the bomb disposal squad as part of the low key service at the London Road Cemetery for the civilians who lost their lives during World War II. Again this was one of the best turnouts for many years and it was lovely that visitors from two of our twin cities also attended.

Revisions to Residents' Parking Policy
Last week Roger attended the scrutiny meeting which included a discussion on future residents parking schemes.

He raised several points in regards to the existing Cheylesmore East/ West Scheme and specifically those concerning the five outstanding petitions from 2015. These include Lichfield Road, Glover Street, Benedictine Road which are asking to be added to the existing scheme, plus a request for a change to how it works in The Hiron. Officers and the cabinet member listened and answered all questions asked.

It is now hoped that when the full report, which includes a review of Cheylesmore East/West, goes to cabinet on the 16th January, it will be looked upon favourably. Note change of date to that previously advertised.

Roger has since met a good number of residents who live in Lichfield Road, to explain how such a scheme works and to bring them up-to-date on the current situation.

Roger is willing to meet any group affected by the residents' parking scheme.

New Tiverton School Update
From the "New Tiverton Delivery Team" for Coventry City Council which consists of Council Officers, the designers and also the builders

Weekly update: Friday 18th November 2016
The discharging of the ecological planning conditions are imminent.

Construction traffic signage will be installed next week on local roads.

Also next week, a leaflet from Farrans Construction will be delivered to local residents. This will provide information about the site set up, demolition and safety arrangements for this next phase of the development. It will also contain contact details.
Farrans will mobilise on the 28th November.

Works to the former caretaker’s property (at the top of the drive) will take place, to enable it to be used as the construction site office. The site’s construction hoardings will also be erected. This will involve a digger on site, clearing works around the house, and the delivery of hoardings.

All of the operations will be carried out in consultation with Whitley Abbey Primary School, to ensure the health and safety of the pupils, staff and visitors to the school.
Works will also be carefully observed and monitored by the City Council’s Tree Preservation Officer.

Revocation of Left Turn at Whitley Bridge

Last Monday, Roger attended the Cabinet meeting for City Services, where the Whitley Bridge junction was discussed, specifically in regards to revoking the restriction on a left turn at the top of the slip road leading to the JLR site.

A resident and a representative of Jaguar Land Rover tabled objections to the proposal, as did several other residents in writing, with two in support. Due to the case presented, the chair suggested the decision be deferred until a meeting can be arranged between all interested parties, so further discussions can take place and to have a better understanding of the situation.

Anti Social Behaviour - Drinking of Alcohol at Quinton Pools
Residents continue to inform us of the drinkers at Quinton Pools and the frustration they experience when they can’t get through to the Police 101 number to report the incidents as instructed.

Here’s the response from Sergeant Stuart Randall, Cheylesmore and Earlsdon NPT:
Thank you for the emails about the continued problems in Quinton Park. I have spoken to my PCSOs about the incident where it is thought that the people drinking were allowed to carry on having been spoken to by the PCSOs. At times appearances can be deceptive, and I can assure you that my team are not turning a blind eye to this problem, or simply letting people carry on drinking. However, it is possible that as soon as the PCSOs walk off, the drinkers return, or go to buy more alcohol. In order to deal with this problem, we have to catch them in the act, and this is not always easy to do.

I can assure you that we are doing what we can and patrol the area as regularly as possible. I am sorry that you have been unable to contact us on the 101 number. The Cheylesmore Police Team have a mobile phone which we answer when we are on duty, and if people witness this drinking or other problem there and then, I would encourage them to call us – the number is 07722 820617. If we are off duty, people can leave a message and we will get back to the caller as soon as we can.

A reminder of the shift pattern of the local Neighbourhood Police Teams (NPT): 3 days of earlies, 3 days of lates & 3 days off. NPT from another area will cover during the 3 off days of the local NPT.

Tree Clearance at Southport Close
Taken from Streetlife:
Help needed at 10 am Wednesday November 23rd to cut down overgrown trees (no power tools being used, just secateurs, all tools will be provided).
Please contact Judy on 0787 145 2872 for more information.

Southport Close, Stone House Estate, CV3 4DU

JLR Planning Application Submitted
Jaguar Land Rover has submitted a planning application to create a new development facility in Whitley.
The new 325,000 sq ft development, part of which would be sited on land to the south of the Whitley site, would serve as a state-of-the-art facility to design and engineer the means of powering the Jaguar Land Rover vehicles of the future.
Read Coventry Telegraph Article

Planning Application can be viewed here

Misuse of Residents’ Parking Permits
With Roger’s support a resident has been in correspondence with the Parking Team to ask why a vehicle has been allowed to park in their road since the scheme was introduced without being challenged.

This is a recent response from Adrian Williams, Service Supervisor, Parking Services Team:
The misuse issue with permits is quite widespread and we have been collating enough information where we are now in a position where we will be taking action. The issues we have had, have been quite widespread within Cheylesmore and Earlsdon. We have also introduced new schemes in Walsgrave & Norton Hill Drive which we are receiving numerous complaints on a daily basis of permit misuse/ hospital staff parking.

Due to the fact that it is Christmas in the next few weeks and lots of residents will be having family and friends staying over the festive period, it is my intention to start issuing live penalty charge notices in the 1st week of January. I know this appears to be a long winded process, but it has to be thorough as it is not just commuters parking up to go to the station. It is also serving police officers who are abusing the scheme.

The permit scheme was bought in to allow residents to be able to park their vehicles where they live and to discourage commuter parking, and in the majority of the areas this has worked .We are aware that residents are annoyed when they see vehicles parked on a regular basis, but we will take the appropriate action when we have overwhelming evidence that a vehicle is clearly not a visitor or a resident. So much so I am on an adhoc late shift this evening and I will be visiting the Walsgrave area to issue penalty charge notices /collate evidence to hospital workers who park in the residential areas who work late/ night shifts.

Cheylesmore Library Volunteers
We continue to make progress with our venture to keep Cheylesmore Library open.
We’ve now had 22 people express an interest in volunteering at the library. Permission has also been given for us to put up posters in the library asking for volunteers.

If you are interested in volunteering to help run the library then please email cheylesmore.ward@gmail.com

Changing Registration Number on Virtual Permit
A resident contacted Roger to say that he’d had problems getting his registration number changed on his virtual residents’ parking permit.

Response from parking services:
This can be done in the same way that the resident initially registered for their permit:

Online - login to the Mi-permit portal and select the manage permits option. Follow the on screen prompts to enter the new vehicle registration and select the duration to allocate to the permit.
By Telephone - Call 0345 520 7007 (Monday to Friday 8am – 8pm, Saturday 8am – 4pm) and the operator will set up the permit for you.

Upcoming Works or Road Closures in our Area
London Road (jct of Deasy Road) – 20th November - Road Closure/Diversion. Reason Excavate on existing inoperable sluice valve by Laing O'Rourke, for Severn Trent Water

Daventry Road (jct Quinton Road) – until 28th November - 5-way lights. Reason large diameter gas main works by Balfour Beatty. Manual control of signals and marshals on site 7am to 7pm.

Porlock Close – 22nd November for 2 weeks. Footway works by Coventry City Council

Tonbridge Road (o/s 128) 5th December to 13th January - 3 way lights. Reason replacement of gas mains by Balfour Beatty.

A45/A46 Tollbar Improvement Scheme Road Closures
From Alan Jones, Galliford Try on 17th November:
Underpass Opening
Work on constructing a new underpass under the A45/A46 Tollbar roundabout has been on-going for approximately 3 years. The work has now reached the stage where traffic will be able to use the new section of road which joins the A45 Stonebridge Highway to the A46 Coventry Eastern Bypass, bypassing Tollbar roundabout. Initially, only 1 lane will be open to traffic in each direction while work to complete the bridges continues:

• By 6am Friday 18 November, 1 lane of the eastbound carriageway of the new underpass at Tollbar roundabout will be opened to traffic.

• By 6am Sunday 20 November, 1 lane of the westbound carriageway of the new underpass at Tollbar roundabout will be opened to traffic

Here is the Coventry Telegraph Article on the road works

For this week’s Tollbar road & lane closures click here

Please complete the survey at the end of the page

Important Finham Library Meeting Regarding its Future.
Taken from Streetlife:
On Tuesday 22nd November 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm there is a meeting at Finham Library to bring key stakeholders together to look at the future of the library, Wainbody Ward Councillors, Finham Primary School and Finham Park school, and Finham Parish Councillors are invited. All are very welcome at this important meeting as Finham is likely to lose its library unless it can go into another building or have volunteers run it. So please, please attend.

Radford Road Fire Station
Report from Operations Commander, West Midlands Fire Service:
Radford Road Fire Station has been vacated in order for contractors to move in next week to commence its demolition and rebuild.

Our crews are now working from the former Ambulance Station in Foleshill Road, very close to the Radford Road site. This means that there will be virtually no impact on the service we provide to the people in the area and we have exactly the same resources available from the temporary site as we did at Radford Road.

The new Fire Station is still on course to open in the spring of 2018 and residents can be assured that we’re still here in Coventry, providing a great service to our people.

Read more

Taxi Users Survey
Part of developing a future ultra-low emission taxi scheme
Please take a short amount of time to complete this very short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TaxiSurveyUsers
We are collecting information to support our bid for government funding of an ultra-low emission taxi scheme so we are surveying Coventry residents to understand use of taxis and opinions on ultra-low emission taxis.
The purpose of this bid is to increase the uptake of ultra-low emission ‘Hackney carriages’ and improve air quality in urban areas. Taxis are a significant contributor to the UK’s air quality problems due to the amount of time spent driving with and without passengers.
This survey closes on Friday 2 December 2016.

Grants & Funding Opportunities
Here is a list of available grants & funding opportunities

Robots & Prince's trust

Residents' Update: Sunday 20th November 2016

Residents' Update:
Sunday 20th November 2016