The RPS International Photography Exhibition 162, featuring work from 43 international photographers, has toured the UK and launched at Gloucester Museum on January 27.

Visitors will be able to view the work of award winners Cody Cobb and Chirag Jindal, and explore themes such as identity, spirituality, landscape, and the environment.

More information is available here.

We met with Adam Coleman, Chief Executive of Gloucester Culture Trust, in the JOLT workspace in King’s Square.

GCT are driving cultural activity in the city, in partnership with the city council. We explained a little about what we do via Creative Field and our musical activities.

For a long time, there has been a sense that Gloucester is the poor relation in the county, for cultural events. That is slowly changing as more and more events happen in our city.

As we slowly recover from Covid and start to rebuild our programme of events, it will be vital that we keep being imaginative and innovation.

Some cities have had their cultural offer given an injection of funding and attention by securing City of Culture status. The Conservative administration at Gloucester City have considered bidding for this before, and this time around even got as far as the expression of interest stage before realising that it is too large a task at present.

Bidding for, achieving and then delivering City of Culture is an all-encompassing project and opposition councillors are concerned at the lack of capacity at an already stretched council. But if it could be shown that a bid could be successful and the year properly funded, then it would be a boon for our city.

In the meantime the city must play to its strengths in terms of art and culture. Visual arts, music, performance – all are strong and being supported by the GCT, the council and local partners. We have a great sense of community spirit, and people who want to make things work.

Above all we have a rich and fascinating history which lends itself very well to artworks which draw on it, and tell stories based on it. Community spirit and a unique history must be our chief selling points as we seek to put Gloucester on the cultural map.

Read Easy is a literacy charity helping adults to learn to read. They offer free 1-to-1 coaching. You can find out more about them on their Facebook page.

Fly-tipping blights communities and cost councils valuable resources to deal with.

There are a number of ways you can recycle or dispose of your waste.

Firstly, ordinary household waste. In Gloucester, you can recycle a range of items on the doorstep, including cardboard in the blue bag, and plastic, glass, foil, and cans/tins in the green box. Food waste can go in the brown bin and the council will collect small broken electrical items such as kettles and toasters. Simply leave them (one item per collection) on top of your green boxes.

Recycling is collected weekly in Gloucester. You can also sign up for the garden waste scheme if you produce a lot of clippings etc from your garden.

There is a page on the council website with lots of information about the various services available. https://www.gloucester.gov.uk/environment-waste-recycling/waste-recycling-and-street-cleaning/bins-and-recycling/

For everything that can’t be recycled it’s the black residual waste bin which is collected fortnightly in Gloucester.

Other items that can be recycled but not on the doorstep can be taken eg to the the supermarket (for batteries and carrier bags, for example) or to the Household Recycling Centre at Hempsted (used lightbulbs and a whole host of larger items).

For large household items (bulky waste) there is a collection service offered by the city council. It costs £24 for up to three items, with each extra item up to six items in total, costing £8. If you are in receipt of housing or council tax benefit the fee is £12 up to 3 items and each additional item is £4. Full details are on the council website here.

For goods that could be sold on for charity, you could take books, clothes, records and bric a brac to charity shops. Be aware that many are currently swamped with items so do check first to see what rules they have about donations. If you have items of value such as rare books, CDs, records or DVDs, you can look them up via a smartphone barcode scanner and sell them via eBay, musicMagpie or Ziffit.

The Furniture Recycling Project in Gloucester is also a great way to donate furniture. There are lots of great sites such as Freecycle and newcomer Olio which encourage free swapping and in Olio’s case allocate spare food and household goods to others.

There is almost always a way to dispose of things safely or to get them recycled so that others can enjoy them. Fly-tipping should never be the answer!

Recently there have been a few shed breaks / attempted shed breaks in the area. There have been no attempts to gain access to houses, just sheds. The offender/s are opportunists and gaining access to unlocked sheds via insecure side gates or using a wheelie bin to climb over a side gate.

Below are a few tips to improve the security around your shed:

• Shut and lock any gates into a back garden.
• Secure sheds with grilles over windows, strong hinges and a good lock.
• Security lights can have a positive effect, so think about installing one.
• Display a sign warning thieves that all valuables have been removed.
• Fit a shed alarm to the inside of your shed, and put a sign up saying the shed has an alarm.
• Photograph valuables and record serial numbers.
• Record serial numbered items on ‘www.immobilse.com’.
• Forensically mark valuable items with a UV pen or Smart Water.
• Lock valuables, even when inside the shed.
• Do not leave wheelie bin/s near the side gate, as offender/s can use this to gain access.

Message Sent By
Mike Edwards (Police, PCSO, Gloucester)

Walking football returns to Podsmead from Thursday 3rd February.

It will be held in the Crypt School sports hall from 6pm-7pm and costs £2 a session.

Walking football is – as it sounds – football where no running is allowed. It is designed to help people from all ‘walks’ of life keep fit – older people, people with mobility issues or recovering from injury/operation – anyone. It is a fun way to spend an hour and certainly gets the blood flowing!

Well done to Les Jevins and Podsmead Big Local for getting this going again, and thanks to Crypt for allowing us to use the facility.

Fly-tipping is a problem in our communities. Councils devote a significant amount of resources to picking it up and disposing of it.

It has increased during and after lockdown as people had sort-outs of their lofts and garages. People are recycling more material via the doorstep collections, and you will notice that the charity shops are often refusing donations after a certain time of day, as they are full.

Old furniture can be recycled or donated, but to dispose of it will involve booking a bulky waste collection from the council or a charity collection. Unfortunately, sometimes people can’t or won’t pay for collection or arrange for a free collection, and rather than recycle or donate to charity, the stuff gets dumped.

It is very hard to prevent fly-tipping. It is illegal, and the police and council enforcement agencies will seek to fine or prosecute offenders. But it still occurs because it is hard to police everywhere, as councils and police have scarce resources.

What are the solutions? Education about the problems caused for all by fly-tipping, promotion of the free and low-cost services that are available, well-lit and overlooked donation points in convenient locations – all these can help. CCTV is often called for – but again there is much demand for this and not enough units to cover everywhere people would like.

And often if you enhance an area as a community, there is then the desire to keep it tidy. That’s why in Podsmead we are looking at all the areas where fly-tipping occurs, and working on practical solutions to it.

I regularly report fly-tipping that I spot or that residents let me know about. I have also asked a question of the leader of the council on this topic. Your ideas are welcome on how we can do more.

PCSO Suzanne Sexton and I had a successful ward walkabout in Podsmead this week.

We looked at a range of issues and intend to carry on with the walkabouts this year as we have done in previous years.

Please let me know if there are any issues or areas you would like us to cover in a future walkabout.

Do you have any IT equipment stuffed away in a cupboard or up in the loft?

Perhaps you want to keep it for ’emergencies’ or you really don’t want to do the online selling thing. Well, have you thought about donating it and giving it a new lease of life?

IT Schools Africa need IT equipment just like that and this Saturday you can drop it off at various Tesco stores across Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Click HERE to see the stores and times when you can donate your old equipment.

With the increase in the number of cycles purchased over lock down and over the Christmas period we are offering a FREE bike marking event.

On Saturday 22nd January 2022 between 11am and 3pm local PCSOs Christine White and Mike Edwards will be carrying out a FREE cycle security marking session at The Club, Tuffley Avenue, Gloucester GL1 5NS

Cycles will also be registered on the National Cycle Data Base again FREE of charge.
This is a proven crime prevention method, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Please pass this message onto all your friends and neighbours, as everyone is welcome.

Message Sent By
Mike Edwards (Police, PCSO, Gloucester)