Outcome of Briefing Meetings

Two Briefing Meetings were held in Turnberries at the end of February

Around 50 people attended and we believe most people felt the events were well worth holding. There were briefings from 6 members of the committee on the following subjects:

Introduction,   Buses,   Businesses in the High Street,   Lack of Community Consultation,   Road Closure & Pedestrianisation,   West of England Combined Authority,   What happens next?,   Questions and points from the floor

The main subject was the letter sent to the Chief Executive of WECA pointing out what the Residents Association believed to be serious and significant errors, miscalculations and misrepresentations of facts and data within the Outline Business Case.

These can be summarised under the following main issues: –

1. Lack of any detailed objective or quantitative consideration of other Options for the High Street development.
2. The totally inappropriate and inconsistent selection of Base Case reference data used for Impact Assessments within the OBC.
3. The lack of engagement with High Street traders and businesses to collect and assess their economic position and needs – pre-closure, during closure or how economic impact might be assessed if the OBC measures were implemented.
4. The severe ‘creative accountancy’ undertaken when quantifying the Benefit Value stated in the Economic Appraisal and the resultant Value for Money Statement.
5. Health, Environmental and Safety Considerations.
6. Consideration of Full or Partial, Temporary or Permanent change to the existing interim arrangement.

There is a wealth of detail within our letter within each of these 6 issues.

We understand South Gloucestershire Council will submit a Full Business Case in March

We do anticipate much change from the Outline Business Case. We understand there will be at least a two week period for comment. The Full Business Case will be published on WECA website and we will copy it here in our News Section once it is released

If you have not already seen them you may be interested to see a shortened version of the meeting on 28th January along with the Public Statements an Questions (Response is still awaited from South Gloucestershire Council)

Fliers

We are distributing fliers around Thornbury and some of the neighbouring villages for the Public Meeting on Wednesday 16th March in the Conference Hall at the Leisure Centre. The meeting statrts at 7.30pm and doors open at 7.00pm