Breaking news

Despite a campaign to change their minds, Hachette announced on 28 October that their Chambers office in Broughton will close on 31 December. But that may not be the end of the story.

CEC's Housing and Built Environment Action Group approved funding for temporary road safety improvements to McDonald Rd (close to Broughton Primary School) in late October. The Roads Department has been instructed to implement the changes pronto.

On 28 October 2009,  European Commission regulators approved the Government's emergency bail-out of Northern Rock, and gave the go-ahead for dividing it in two. A viable and potentially profitable entity will be sold off to the private sector. A 'toxic' and bad debt-ridden entity will, for now, be retained in public hands.

A Mr Peter Sharma seeks planning permission to ingeniously link buildings in Broughton (Ref. 09/02572/FUL).

He wants to convert the office at 11–13 York Lane to form an ancillary function room for the boutique, 22-room Ballantrae Hotel at parallel 39–47 Albany Street. The proposal entails a glazed link between the properties, and a glazed rooflight to the new function room area.

Young locals– under the expert guidance of graffiti artist 'Elph' – are transforming the dreary entrance to Scotland Street Tunnel.

The colourful temporary revamp, which began during the October half-term break,  was a way of having creative fun and publicising the new youth shelter inside the tunnel, work on which will begin within weeks.

(For background see Issues 161, 173–4.) For further news on Broughton activities for young people, see Issue 176 (out on 1 November).

Draft proposals for how trams may operate in Broughton's streetscape from 2012 onwards have just appeared online.

For now, only Statutory Consultees (emergency services, bus and haulage organisations) are being asked to comment on the Draft Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) drawings.

Spurtle is distributed free and covers its costs through advertising. However, friends of the paper choose to support it by taking out an annual subscription (£12, Oct 2009–Oct 2010), for which a paper or email copy is delivered to their address.

Subscriptions smooth over any temporary shortfalls in our advertising revenue, and give financial stability to this not-for-profit organisation. We really do appreciate them.

A mixed-use development comprising a 207-bed hotel and 2 ground-floor retail and café/restaurant units (Class 1 or 3) is proposed for the site of 34b Haddington Place (Ref. 09/02342/FUL)

The developer – LWE (Scotland) LLP – is believed to be closely connected to, or the same as, the Belfast-based Drumkeen, which proved so helpful in enabling the dismantlement of Botanic Cottage (see Extras).

With 14 applications for 16 available membership spaces, there was no statutory requirement for an election to form the new New Town/Broughton Community Council.

Members for the next 3 years will be: Gordon Burrows, Judy Conn, Audrey Cavaye, Bill Dunlop, Jonathan Finn, Gaby Holden, Patrick Hutton, John Knight, Robert Langneau, Ian McGill, Ian Mowat, Duncan Thorp, Alan Welsh, and Diane Willis.