Bracknell Regeneration Partnership website

It's nice to see the Bracknell Regeneration Partnership has been busy in one area. Their website for example http://www.bracknell.com has been up and running for a few months now. There is plenty of news and event details on the site etc but if you click on regeneration all you will see a short statement, but no actual news on the regeneration. Remember this is the Bracknell Regeneration Partnership website.

 

So in other words, so far they have nothing more to add. No news is bad news in this case.

Bracknell Town centre is dull‏

I agree with the readers of Get Bracknell in Little hope for town centre revamp.This comes after news that the Bracknell Healthspace will not be build in Market Street and instead will be build on the Skimped Hill Health Centre site.

I can remember when I was at college looking at the plans for a new town centre and a few years ago looking again at an exhibition in town of new town centre plans (see here). I can remember surveys accross town with signs explaining that this is for the new town centre regeneration. I can remember promise after promise on when Bracknell work will begin on a new town centre.

Yes a few things have happened. The train station has been improved, there are some new units with a Costa in one. We have a lovely new College but I remain so disappointed about the town centre itself.

How much longer do we have to wait and will it ever happen. take a look at the town at the moment and try to tell me that it doesn't look old and tired and dull.

There is one part of town however that looks more tired than the rest, Take a look,

The there is the top of Bracknell Harrods as its known. Remember when this was a department store.

Market Street,

And of course the 3M building

I love this town I just wish the regeneration happened because its a turn off. I like the rest of Bracknell are fed up of waiting so long for this to happen.

Local blog: One part of Bracknell's town centre regenerates itself

While some parts of Bracknell have an increasing amount of charity shops and adverts for council services (see Local Blog: High Level of Bracknells Empty Shops?)mainly from the band stand down to where Woolworths used to be)). One part of Bracknell is making a revival by the derelict 3M building. SeeFix the Eyesore in the Middle of Bracknell Town

I think its great that while we wait still for the development of the town one corner has had an injection of life into it thanks to Bracknell small ethnic community and in particular its Ghanaian community.

Response to Bracknell Town Walkabout

I always enjoy talking to people in town about politics and Bracknell in general. As always there were a lot of national debates as well as local debates with many questions raised to Ray Earwicker Lib Dem PPC. I was also ask a number of questions...


For some reason I always bump into the same conservative activist who always has a lot of questions for us on the EU. It will be interesting to see what the Tories do in relation to the EU when (as I’m sure they will) win the next election. Will they have a referendum on the EU and if so how far will they go? The same guy conceded that he thinks there are too many councillors from the same party in power in Bracknell and he believed this can’t be good for democracy. Although during the 2007 council elections he was extremely happy at the time he declared.

I was asked about a tea room for the elderly. I do remember that there used to be one which closed down some time ago. I could really see that being a good idea. At the moment there is a lot of choice if you are after expensive coffee but this does exclude the elderly who loved to meet at the tea room. It would be nice to have a community tea room.

One chap who was in the army for many years believed that after he was ill he was paid less than someone he met at hospital who was foreign. I don't know the full facts but I was told that he wrote to Andrew Mackay MP about this and that Andrew wrote back stating that he could not help. I imagine it would be hard to investigate and find out the true facts. Payments may be assessed on a lot of factors which may or may not turn out to be fair depending on personal view points (Do you assess current finances or past record of service to the country?).

I also had an interesting conversion about caring for people with alzheimer's. I will blog on this subject at some point. But needless to say I think this is a very terrible and ignored disease.

There were many complaints about the lack of a full regeneration for Bracknell Town Centre. There were also many comments on the 3m building in town.

The public of Bracknell are willing to engage with politicians despite the recent expenses scandals. There were very few completes about MP's expenses, immigration or rubbish bins which are often subjects raised on the door step.

LIB DEM 'MEET THE VOTERS' Bracknell Town Centre

As reported on Bracknell Lib Dems web site Ray Earwicker, Lib Dem PPC goes on a walkabout at 11am in the Bracknell town centre this Saturday(22nd August). I indent to be there myself and I will report back on the comments from the voters we meet in town. Feel free to come along and ask any questions.

http://www.bracknelllibdems.org.uk/news/000087/lib_dem_meet_the_voters.html

Public excluded from the Bracknell Town Centre Regeneration Committee

I was going to attend the Bracknell Town Centre Regeneration Committee meeting held on Monday 13th July 09 as I am very interested in the progress of Regeneration in Bracknell.

But after looking on the council meetings web site I realised that the main part of business for this meeting was excluded (item 6) under Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. I know that when commercial contracts are involved certain parties or contractual obligations have to be confidential but does all the important business need to be confidential.

I examined other meetings that evoked the Local Government Act 1972. for confidential matters. the public were only exculded for only for part of the these meetings as the meetings was split into a number of agenda items. I would imagine (I don't know as its confidential) that some of the agenda items could of been split out to allow some information disclose on the progress of the regeneration plans.

I also understand that council meetings are not well attended for the most part by the public but some disclosure or splitting of agenda items would be accessible on the Bracknell council website and would help to show how open the Bracknell Forest Council are.

I will of course write to the council asking if any of these confidential agenda items could have some form of disclosure.

If you are interested in examining any council meet details they can be found at

http://democratic.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/ieDocHome.aspx?bcr=1&Categories=-468

with a calendar of meetings at

http://democratic.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/mgCalendarMonthView.aspx?GL=1&bcr=1