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Wotton Chamber of Trade to set up discussion group over town parking plan

July 15th 2010

The Chamber of Trade in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire has invited the town’s traders to join a discussion group to explore the feasibility of the Town Council purchasing a piece of land adjacent to its centre and creating a new car park. This follows the Council’s decision to put its Working Party on hold for three months.

Earlier this year the Town Council decided to set up a Working Party to consider the feasibility of purchasing a piece of land from local engineering company Renishaw in order to create extra parking for the town. However, following an instruction from the Government to put a freeze on the town’s precept for the next 12 months the Working Party has been put on hold.  

The Chamber’s President, Alex Wilkinson, said: “Our members have been getting increasingly frustrated over the lack of parking in the town for many years and we had hoped that the formation of a Working Party was a light at the end of the tunnel. We are concerned that Government policy has forced a delay so we are trying to preserve what momentum there is by forming our own discussion group and feeding our ideas through as, when and if the Working Group gets going.”

He continued: “The aim of the discussion group would be to consider how such a project could be financed, taking into account the current fiscal situation. It would look at all of the issues and either come up with suitable proposals or determine that the project is unlikely to succeed on financial grounds.   We accept that even if funds can be raised there will be other issues such as planning consent to be considered but without funding there will be no point in addressing these wider issues.”

Traders wishing to join the Discussion Group can contact Alex Wilkinson by email through the Chamber’s web site at www.wotton.biz.

First baskets hung in Wotton

June 11th 2010

Click on the PDF below to see how the Gazette reported the hanging of the first basket

More Information : Click to view PDF

Chamber members give to an Excellent Development

June 2nd 2010

The Chamber’s special guest speaker at its May Supper Meeting was Simon Maddrell, Director of the award-winning charity Excellent Development. At the meeting he described how his organisation is helping thousands of people in arid African communities to transform their environment sustainably and improve water supplies, food production, health and incomes.

Since the charity's foundation in 2002 Excellent has enabled over 200,000 people to gain access to clean water. Community groups supported by Excellent have built over 250 sand dams, planted over 700,000 trees and dug over 1,100km of terracing on their farms and in the valleys around the dams.

One such person who has received help is Watson Kivungi Kasyumi, a farmer in the Matiku Tia Ngui Musyi region of Kenya. He said: "Through the hard work of the group we have water from the sand dams and pipeline. I no longer wake up early to go fetch water as I used to. The water has enabled me to plant trees - medicinal trees and fruit trees. When the fruits are ripe I can sell a ripe piece for ten Kenyan Shillings."

After the talk a collection was held which raised just over £165 towards Excellent Development's work in Africa.

Local businesses working in partnership.