Santa visited Podsmead on Friday 11th December, going along the streets and delighting residents.

My thanks to all involved, and hopefully this can return next year to bring Christmas cheer to young and old.

Tonight (Saturday 12th December) there will be a visit from the Travelling Light exhibition run by Squid Soup. You can read more about this interesting light installation here.

Gloucester City Council in partnership with Gloucester Culture Trust and GL4 are pleased to announce a brand new community art project for Gloucester taking place this December.

Funded by the Arts Council England, Window Wanderland Gloucester is part of Bright Nights a new programme of light installations for all the family to bring colour, light and joy to the city as the nights get longer over winter.

Members of the public are invited to enjoy the socially distanced, evening trail to see their neighbourhood in a whole new light. This is a fun community event that everyone can join in with. A map of all windows taking part can be found at: www.windowwanderland.com/event/gloucester-2020/

Window art can be seen in Matson, White City, Robinswood and Podsmead and will be illuminated every day between 5.30pm and 8.30pm before ending on Christmas Eve. The project was unveiled on Tuesday 1 December at Matson Gateway Hub, by the Mayor of Gloucester, Councillor Kate Haigh.

A number of local artists have created feature windows which include:

• ‘The Robin’s Wood’ by Harriet West – Matson Gateway Hub, Matson & Robinswood
• ‘Winter Wanderland’ by Anita Andrews, Podsmead Big Local, Podsmead
• ‘Christmas Baubles’ by Susie Walker, Manuel’s Fish & Chips, White City

Local residents can also create their own displays and take part in the trail by becoming Windowmakers. Taking part is FREE and everyone is welcome. Displays should be family friendly, be simple or spectacular and take the form of lights in the window or cut-out silhouettes.

I was in touch with the council recently after some branches had been left on Scott Avenue after the summer storms.

Unfortunately they hadn’t been collected yet but after re-reporting this, they were removed early on Friday.

There has also been some damage caused to the grass on Scott Avenue, which I have raised with the city parks department. I’ve said in my note that we perhaps need to revisit the idea of bollards along the grass, which I suggested earlier in the year.

I’ve also reported the damaged street sign on the corner of Scott and Shakespeare Avenue to the council for repair or replacement.

I continue to press for a full resurface of Scott Avenue – see my recent question to the Cabinet Member for Highways at Shire Hall, above.

There will be some changes to the collection days for some Gloucester residents over the Christmas period. In some cases, collections will be a day earlier or a day later. Some collection days will stay the same.

All the information is available on the city council website here.

I will be sharing further updates as I have them.

I have been informed by residents that there has been an incident of fly tipping on the path behind Duke of Beaufort Court, leading up to Sycamore Close.

There are approx. 15 black bags of rubbish dumped by the path.

I have informed the council and hopefully we can get it removed. Fly tipping is unacceptable and costs councils money that they can ill-afford especially at the moment.

If you have any information as to the culprits please contact me.

Each year city councillors are asked to allocate a fund for projects and causes in their wards.

I still have some left of mine, and have got until March 2021 to allocate it.

It is not a vast sum of money, so smaller amounts will help to spread the funding further and support the maximum number of projects or events.

In recent weeks I have been happy to support the Halloween fun day at the Podsmead Hub, Poets Pantry and the Santa’s Grotto.

If you have a project or idea that you think I could support, please let me know.

After I called for action, the council have cleaned the open space sign on Scott Avenue.

As you can see from the photo below, it was quite mucky before!

I have written to the team to thank them for their work. If you know of a sign that needs attention, or any other issue in Podsmead, please let me know.

I was delighted to see street signs installed at Earls Park. I have been campaigning for these for a long time.

Over on my Facebook page I have provided a fuller update of news from the area. Follow me there to see more local news every week.