South Glos Council Report
Frenchay Church of England School Update
As staff and students were looking forward to the summer holidays, I joined a group of students and teachers from Frenchay Church of England Primary School to visit the new school site. We were given a tour of the brand new facilities, enabling us to take a last peek before building work is completed over the summer break. The school will officially move in during September.
As many residents will know, the school is a new build on part of the site of the former Frenchay Hospital. It will have state of the art facilities and, as temperature records have tumbled recently, we were able to see and learn about the environmental performance of the new building, which has been designed to Passivhaus standards of environmental performance. Frenchay will be the home of the first the Passivhaus school in South Gloucestershire and the school will have a low carbon impact on the environment. Key features of the design include high levels of insulation, triple glazing, low energy LED lighting, heating provided by air-source heat pumps and recycling of heat through a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR) system, which also ensures good air quality throughout the school. When complete the school will use electricity only, require no fossil fuel consumption on site and generate its own zero carbon energy through Photovoltaic solar panels on the roof, with any surplus energy feeding into the national grid.
This brand new facility, will provide accommodation for a larger number of pupils than the current school with capacity for 420 pupils to respond to increased demand in the area. The staff and students have been part of the decision making in relation to the new school so hopefully this will help to smooth the transition and ensures it meets their needs from day 1. For me personally, as local Councillor for Frenchay and Downend alongside Cllr Liz Brennan and Cllr James Griffiths, it was exciting to see the benefits of our decision making, to provide the best possible start in life for children in South Gloucestershire, as well as to make a real difference on response to the Climate Emergency, are coming together. We hope that during our next visit to school there will be a hive of activity.
Library Cards
All pupils in Reception and Year 1 at South Gloucestershire primary schools have been given their own library card before the start of the school holidays. This was as part of a drive to encourage youngsters across the district to read more for pleasure, as well as accessing wider library facilities and leisure centres. The aim of the programme, agreed as part of this year’s council budget at a cost of £40,000 per year, is to help support the council priority of giving every child the best start in life. The library cards will be rolled out over the next four years, with all pupils in Year 6 receiving their own cards in the autumn term to help ensure that momentum and interest in reading is carried into the secondary phase.
Over the next four years every child at primary school will have received a card, unlocking a host of learning and leisure opportunities with 7,000 children receiving cards each year. This year, pupils in Reception and Years 1 and 6, around 10,000 children, will receive their cards. In each of the next three years they will be provided to all pupils in Reception and Year 6 classes. Library access will give children instant opportunities to borrow books free of charge. In addition, children’s library cards can also be used at any of the South Gloucestershire Active Lifestyle Centres as well, which will help support their wider physical and mental health and wellbeing.For more information about this scheme please see www.southglos.gov.uk/mylibrarycard
M32—Junction Lining
We also wanted to inform residents that the need for relining of the roundabout at the M32 junction has been reported to the Council. This work has been programmed and should be completed imminently. The slight delay in starting the works is due to the roundabout forming part of the national highways network so consent and coordination is needed with Highways England. We hope that once the work is complete it will help the flow of traffic and be more clear for drivers.
Cllr Ben Burton