Residents Association Report No. 86
Dear Friends and Neighbours,
Happy New Year to you all, we hope that everyone had an enjoyable Christmas with their families and friends.
2022 will see FRA continue to tirelessly push and campaign for many things in Frenchay that have been promised or that are needed as essential parts of our Infrastructure to support a population that will have doubled over the last three years;
Removal and replacements of the Frenchay Common ‘build outs’, Nursery School provision for the new school, healthcare facilities, shop and café, our Museum expansion and restoring the Hambrook Junction to its previous function are among the many matters top of our list.
The list is probably endless, but the lack of resources and impact upon SGC resources due to Covid, make it even more difficult to bring these tasks to a satisfactory conclusion.
However we all pay our Council Tax for a reason, so we should see some of our expectations delivered. Any private business has to provide good value, the same applies to South Glos Council.
Festive Windows
Thank you in particular to Rebecca Lemin on the FRA committee who conceived, and implemented, the festive window trail. This being the first attempt, we hope that this event will become a permanent festive fixture to inspire many others to be creative and bring joy to our village.
In addition to the very enjoyable Festive Windows, there seemed to be a much earlier display of Christmas lights, and decorations, on many more homes than usual. A very good way of cheering everyone up in the lead up to Christmas. Thank you to everyone for some wonderful displays and the joy that it has provided.
New Primary School Site Visit
Thank you to Jason and his construction team for providing the very informative guided tours around the new school on 16th December as the new structure starts to take shape. The speed at which this project is coming together is testament to BAM and their professionalism, we don’t think that any other contractor could have done the job in time, very impressive indeed. In addition to working flat out to get the new school ready for September, Jason and his team have still found time to engage the community and work with FRA on many joint ventures.
It’s an absolute pleasure to have BAM being so supportive to our community.
Biodiversity projects
So to continue the plaudits for BAM, we are well underway in restoring the nature reserve pond with their resources and financial support helping us enormously. Thus, one very wet and muddy Sunday morning in December saw the removal of the pond plants to a watertight storage area to make the pond ready to be dug out again and ‘puddle clay’ lined.
We had a fantastic team of volunteers, including children and DofE students and, just like before with the Becks Pool scheme, we all had great fun getting wet and muddy together.
In addition to the FRA woodland camping stove team providing hot drinks, volunteers came armed with homemade cake and other sugar laden treats, to keep our energy levels high. Thank you also to NBHT and SGC for helping us with permissions to start work during the cold and dormant season, next spring we can now unveil a spectacular new pond.
As reported before, we have now planted over 5,000 crocus and woodland bulbs, with many families spending an enjoyable hour or two planting them and learning why we are doing this.
It’s great to have everyone working together on these projects in Frenchay’s best interests and we will provide much more in 2022 to keep everyone entertained.
FRA is also working very closely with the Preservation Society in the preparatory work of setting up a ‘Friends Group’ to support the long-term management of “Frenchay Parklands”. This was explained in detail by Hugh Whatley in last month’s Community News and a number of volunteers have expressed an interest as a result of getting involved with our Sunday morning planting & nature pond work, which is a great start. More details to follow next month, as we prepare for a public meeting in the spring and demonstrate ‘ownership’ of those 20+ acres!
Please come to us with any ideas or skills you have to offer, FRA can hopefully make it happen as we will not let up in our determination to enhance our wonderful environment and maintain our great community spirit.
FRA look forward to the New Year working with and supporting the Village in any way that we can, plus hopefully some of our traditional summer events can return and get Frenchay buzzing again.
Adrian Collins
Chair, FRA