NAILSEA
PEOPLE
Our town is a very nice town
THE online community newspaper for Nailsea people, their family and their friends
March 2023
Property Peeps
On this page you will find a recent tour of our construction sites. We also have lots of pending planning applications and others in the pipeline for thousands of new houses. Read more on our Property Peeps page sponsored by HENSONS estate agents HERE
What's On 2023
The page for street markets, fairs, fetes and fests, all the fun things but sadly no eat:Nailsea for 2023. Dance, theatre and concerts and pub quizzes and live band gigs also feature. Read all about it HERE
Gallery 2023
We have hundreds of images in our galleries (under dropdown menu top). For 2022 it goes from the wassail to wildlife, jubilee to carnival, skatefest to beerfest and more. The latest slideshows fot 2023 feature Backwell Lake and Winter Walks. The planets in line image is by Phil Williams. Email pics to nailseapeople@gmail.com
www.thetekhut.uk
computer techies for the online community
The TEK Hut was started by Ben Parker in the summer of 2018.
For 12 years Ben had been one of the team at The ICT Workshop which provided a wide variety of computer services to Nailsea, Clevedon, Yatton, Backwell and even Weston-Super-Mare.
Ben felt it right to continue the same great service customers had previously experienced but under new branding for a new business and The Tek Hut was born.
Trading at the familiar location in Nailsea, The Tek Hut will continue to offer the same cost effective, new laptops and PCs, upgrades, onsite support for homes and businesses through to a wide range of workshop services and accessories.
FIVE STAR
Window Cleaning
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Get spruced up for 2021 with this Nailsea-based company boasting best prices
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Quotes for fascia, gutters and drainpipe cleaning no obligation
Call 0759 532 3274
Togs
School
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Starting School: Everything you need for that first special day
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Schoolwear: Uniforms, Accessories, Name Tapes, Waterproof Jackets and Trousers
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Sportswear: PE Kits, Gumshields, Shin Pads
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Dancewear: RAD Approved for Ballet, Tap, Modern and Jazz
School Togs
Clevedon Walk, Nailsea, BS48 1RS
01275 857491
Nailsea bed and breakfast
A home from home at Highdale the family-owned bed and breakfast at Nailsea. The B&B at 82 Silver Street is run by Tony and Tina Davey. Call 01275 858004, email mail@highdalebb.co.uk, or go online by clicking HERE for more details
POLICE APPEAL FOR WITNESSES
Police are appealing for witnesses after a two-vehicle collision in North Somerset at the weekend.
Officers were called at around 2.15pm on Sunday, February 26, following the incident on the A370 Weston Road, at Congresbury, which involved two cars, one of which left the road.
Five people were taken to hospital.
Officers are keen to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time of the incident and may have seen the collision or have dashcam footage.
They are especially keen to speak to the driver of a vehicle travelling towards Puxton who was seen at the area at the time of the collision.
The A370 remained closed between M5 Junction 21 and Congresbury and was reopened at around 1.45am on Monday, February 27.
Anyone with any information and has yet to speak to the police, please call 101 and quote reference 5223046769.
NEW BUS TIMETABLES
Links to the new X8 and X9 Bristol to Nailsea routes are on our Nailsea On The Road page HERE
For Nailsea passengers the biggest change is the X7 to Clevedon will no longer run through Backwell.
First West of England announces timetable changes from Sunday, April 2, with more frequent buses on many routes and widespread use of new software to improve punctuality.
The new timetables are available now.
SCHOOL PLACES
Nearly all young people in North Somerset learned on Wednesday, March 1, they had been offered a place to attend one of their top three preferred secondary schools from September.
Out of the 2,528 secondary school applications received by North Somerset Council, figures released show 99.01 per cent were offered one of their top three choices, with more than 95 per cent of applicants allocated a place at their first preference.
From applications received for the 2023-24 academic year by the national closing date in October 2022, the council will make offers to all who applied.
Figures show:
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First preference met – 95.45 per cent (2,413 applications)
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Second preference – 3.09 per cent (78 applications)
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Third preference – 0.47 per cent (12 applications)
Only 25 students out of 2,528 have not been offered any of their preferences. However, all those who applied for their local school were offered a place.
NEW AIRPORT SERVICE
Bristol Airport announced in time for St Patrick's Day a new service to Cork will be up and running this summer.
Emerald Airlines, exclusive operator of Aer Lingus Regional services announces a new six times weekly Bristol-Cork service.
Commencing on Friday, April 28, the Bristol-Cork service will operate six times per week, daily except Saturday.
The airline is already operating flights between Bristol-Dublin, seven days a week.
Tickets are on sale now at www.aerlingus.com.
CORONATION OF KING CHARLES
Nailsea Town Council has a working party looking at ideas - see the What's On page HERE for an update. Talking about a community fair with a large screen in Somerset Square so people can shop and watch!
GARDEN OF REST
Planning permission has been granted to extend the garden of rest at Stockway North. Nailsea Town Council clerk Jo Duffy is chasing North Somerset Council for a progress report of when work will start.
TELEPHONE BOX
Finally the long running saga of restoring the red telephone box in Nailsea High Street is about to end with the installation of old glasswork photographs
TOWN GREENS
Legal advice is sought for The Perrings open space to get the protection of Town Green status after builders Persimmon objected. More than 150 Trendlewood residents submitted forms to save part of its park by becoming another Town Green.
CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
Nailsea Town Council is to spend £30,000 to improve the town’s festive lighting. It has settled on giant illuminated baubles and LED illuminated Christmas trees. New poles will be erected along the High Street to take strings of new lights which will stretch from Iceland up to Tesco. There are also plans for a projector in the town centre to allow images of snowflakes and stars to cover the area outside Waitrose.
Where have all the trees gone
Nailsea trees are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The re-wilding at Nailsea Park failed, the bungalow on the corner of Lodge Lane due for demolition has become an area of deforestation and diseased ash trees on the sheltered housing complex Bucklands Place have been cut down.
Resident Roger Smallshaw, of Redwood Close, said: “I'm afraid as far as Nailsea is concerned the rewilding is a fiasco as well as a total disaster.
“The disastrous failure rate of the ‘twiglets’ was because they were re-planted too young and small to expect survival without regular maintenance, attention and nurture, none of which happened.”
There are no saplings left on the open area - see photos.
Bucklands House manager Anne Scovell Hewetson said: “Following a tree survey, most of our ash trees will have to come down unfortunately due to ash dieback – a fungus called hymenoscyphus fraxineus.
“Some had to come down as a matter of urgency due to the proximity to footpaths and road crossing with regards to health and safety to the public.
“My homeowners have been quite upset at the removal of said trees and if anything, I am sure they would rather look out at trees rather than a road or roundabout.”
The property at the junction of Trendlewood Way and Lodge Lane is due to be replaced with two new detached homes.
Previously because of the foliage - see Google map image above - the bungalow wasn't visible from the road.
And after 100 years the mighty oak had to be cut on the village green and turned into a street art wildlife sculpture due to rot.
Unfortunately decaying wood and damp conditions has caused a black fungus to grow around the base of the sculpture on Nailsea village green.
Nailsea Town Council biannual tree survey is due to take place this month to look at the health of all trees growing on council land and advise on any remedial work needed.
Supermarket plans row
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
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AFTER
AFTER
Exciting plans to bring Aldi to Nailsea have been scuppered by a car park row.
Wraxall businessman Paul O’Brien who already had planning permission for 40 apartments on the site hoped to enhance the town centre with new plans to include a ground floor budget supermarket, first floor community hub and the 40 apartments above.
This was all to be built on the derelict former Weston College/health centre site which has stood empty for eight years.
The scheme would include moving the library to the old HSBC retail unit in Colliers Walk this summer - which is going ahead whatever is changed - and relocating the separate toilet block facing the car park to inside the new food store.
But Mr O’Brien claims just before he was poised to submit a detailed planning application to North Somerset Council the owners of Crown Glass Shopping Centre asked for hundreds of thousands of pounds upfront in a one-off payment to share the car park.
The car parking is crucial to get planning permission for the retail/housing project.
Mr O’Brien, whose company is called Development Bristol, said: “We were looking at a large 19,000sq ft food store on site with 40 flats above it – I came to an agreement with landlords Praxis to pay a very substantial sum to use its car park but they wanted the money upfront.
“I am reluctant to do this without first obtaining planning permission which if it isn’t granted then, obviously, I don’t need the car park.
“I was told they had to have the payment beforehand which I think is ridiculous.”
Mr O’Brien said he had no other choice but to go back to his original set of drawings submitted last year to build just the multi-storey apartment block and hopes this project will get underway within the next few weeks.
Mr O’Brien said: “It has been two years since we bought the site and I really don’t want to wait much longer.
“Nailsea Town Council were in favour of the store scheme and having a 2,000sq ft hub for community use on the first floor.”
Mr O’Brien said his Aldi scheme is close to collapse because of the car park stalemate with Praxis.
He added: “It’s a shame, I told Praxis I was happy to pay subject to planning permission otherwise it is pointless.
“No one is going to pay for the car park use without planning permission for the bigger scheme.”
He said he had intended to also purchase the old petrol station to include a road by Domino Pizzas for delivery lorries, and to increase footfall throughout the shopping centre it was agreed to make the main access to the Aldi store from Somerset Square.
Property management company Praxis would have saved maintenance costs on the car park and the toilets which had been repeatedly vandalised, he said.
A partnership has already been agreed with Bromford Housing Association who are committed to ‘provide affordable homes for people who can’t access market housing’.
This will go ahead as will the purchase of the library site, he added.
Council planners had wanted the original planning application cancelled and all hopes were put on this new scheme with Aldi.
Mr O’Brien said: “Luckily I refused and permission for this was granted otherwise the town would have had nothing apart from the derelict building for a few more years.”
Praxis previously objected to a planning application which included retail use on the neighbouring site.
Its online blurb for Nailsea town centre boasts:
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Affluent commuter town anchored by a 40,000sq ft Waitrose food store
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11,300 chimney pots within three miles of the scheme to be supplemented by a further 1,110 homes by 2026
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The towns dominant retail offering with no out-of-town retail park serving the catchment
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Footfall drivers include 394 free car parking spaces, library, post office & medical centre together with 20,000sq ft of office accommodation directly above the centre.
And adds its major retailers are:
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Waitrose
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Boots
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WH Smith
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Superdrug
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Iceland
Despite numerous attempts to contact Praxis and its property manager James Hewitt to ask about the situation Nailsea People have been unsuccessful.
Budget supermarket Lidl has been trying since 2014 to have a store in Nailsea even offering a substantial reward to anyone who could locate a site within our town but sadly none proved suitable.
