Ewenny Roundabout Home Page

26 September 2004	It has been over two years since we first started campaigning to get something done over the magic roundabout. We soon realised that there was little we could do as it seemed the administration of the time would not engage with us in solving what was clearly a big problem. Island Farm and Ewenny Roundabout featured heavily in the June election campaign, new councillors were elected and the new council was formed. So, we can now look forward to discussing the problems with a far more receptive council. These facts have prompted a new public meeting, funnily enough two years after the first, see below for details. Our local councillors Bob Burns and Eileen McIlveen and Head of Transportation for BCBC, John Duddridge will in attendance. The web site has been stagnant with nothing to report but we intend to update you with relevant information shortly. Remember the web site is here : http://www.bridge.org.uk/ewenny2002 and the forum is here http://www.bridge.org.uk/forum. The meeting will be held at the same venue at 7:30 on Tuesday 28^th September 2004. Bridgend Athletic Club Ewenny Road
2nd December	The Borough’s Environmental and Planning Overview and Scrutiny Committee (open to the public) and Chaired by Councillor Kevin Burnell has broken the mould of secrecy and is examining the Audit Committee’s report into the overspend on Ewenny Roundabout and is cross examining senior officers as to how the current design was arrived at and paid for. The Committee has agreed to receive presentations from the public, various organisation – Police, Fire Service and RAGE pointing out the RAGE representative will be open to question from the Committee. RAGE would like to receive your comments and experiences visitors to the Roundabout and this site to incorporate into its presentation. THIS IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO LODGE YOUR VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES. RAGE has always made representations about the design and has been suspicious of the statistics used to justify spending over £360,000 on a design that disturbs road users and seems to have the effect of making otherwise safe drivers feel unsafe. There is evidence that the Roundabout has pushed road users into using side road not designed for through route traffic are which are increasingly be used as parking lots for town. These side road are generally less safe now than before. Lets us have your views and experiences – DO IT NOW – RAGE must prepare for the next meeting which may be held this month. Your personal details will not be given unless you specifically approve. If you know of anyone that has had a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ road traffic experience at Ewenny Roundabout please tell them to contact RAGE Email to: RDLBURNS@fsbdial.co.uk Write to: Bob Burns 3 Heol gam Bridgend CF31 3EU
29th November	The scrutiny committee has been and gone, to see what the Glamorgan Gazette published click here.
15th November	Currently BCBC are making changes on the roundabout. If I was cynical I would say it was because the scrutiny committee is taking an interest, who knows they may even remove it!
5th October	There is a scrutiny meeting at BCBC which may look at the roundabout issue. There are three related docs, click here, here and here.
29th August	We had a little celebration/commiseration on the roundabout (with cake) to mark the anniversary. After several safety reports ,numerous letters, lots of meetings we have had one year of inaction. We have had one person ask what out objectives are, please note the "Our Mission" link on the left hand navigation bar.
15th August	As much as I try to keep this upbeat it is difficult, we have continuing promises for action but it seems nothing ever changes, BCBC do not inform us even when they make changes. However I have received a letter from Kevin Burnell, I quote " Dear Mr Jones, May I first apologies for the delay in my reply. I can now confirm to you that the matter of the Ewenny Roundabout is to be put before the next Environment and Planning Overview and Scrutiny Committee. I must remind you at this point that there will probably be little detailed discussion at that meeting, the debate will probably concentrate on the procedure as reports will now have to be compiled. If the committee agree to an investigation then the matter will come before the committee latter in the year. I know this might sound frustrating to people who have concerns on the matter, but you must appreciate that there are procedures I have to follow. I can assure you that when the matter comes before the committee, you or the Ewenny roundabout action committee will be contacted. Kind regards Councillor Kevin Burnell Chair – Overview and Scrutiny Committee – Environment & Planning – BCBC." I hope Kevin can help, if BCBC act now it means a year, is this good enough, I think not. Have a look at the forum on the roundabout by clicking here.
13-July-2003	I had a conversation with a friend recently and he asked what is the news on the Ewenny Roundabout, I had to admit there is no news. After nearly one year there have been almost no improvements!. We have have had more promises but the fundamental issues have not been dealt with to our satisfaction. So where next, well I personally see the only course is next May, the elections. Simon Foster and Peter Foley are proposing a new democratic way of running our council. We wish them all the best in this venture and of course any support we can provide. More details are available on http://www.bridge.org.uk/.
15-June-2003	Breaking news! After many months of dedicated research we have discovered where BCBC highways get their ideas from. Click here for a comment from the said "ideas" people. There are many other ideas from this camp click here for more and we might get advanced warning of the next one.
2-June-2003	We have been informed the The Report of the UDP Inquiry Inspector is available on line @ http://www.bridgend.gov.uk/english/udp/UDPInspectorsreport.htm. Have a read and join in the discussion on the forum.
28-May-2003	As suggested by the webmaster of http//www.thatman.co.uk (A XHTML 1.0 compliant site) we are dating all the additions, so here is the first dated addition.

It seems this is a week of very strange news, the UDP Inspector's Report either supports the council or does not depending on who you believe, unfortunately to read it you have to go to the council offices, I for one have not been able to view due to something called work. I can hear all you "wired" people shouting why cannot we see it online, well an email from BCBC explains. I quote,

"The Council has not yet published the Report on its web site due to technical difficulties with the electronic version provided to us by the Planning Inspectorate. These are still being investigated and I cannot speculate when they are likely to be resolved. As soon as they are, measures will be put in place to make an electronic version available, either on the web or by cd rom or both."

This seems a little odd, perhaps the inspector wrote the electronic version of the report in another language. If the council need assistance in producing the web version we would be delighted to help.

Breaking news today (22/5/2003), it appears the assembly will not be calling in the Island Farm proposals. To the local residents this is devastating news. Everyone assumed the assembly would at least call the decision in for further scrutiny. Our little roundabout problem is about to get a lot worse. Of course Jeff Jones has stated that the issue is now dead, perhaps he saw the roundabout when the lights were switched off to replace the traffic light demolished by an inconsiderate motorist, local residents report it was running like clockwork without the lights.

There are plans to meet with the council again, more about that soon.

The last couple of weeks has seen the council re-elect the leader (Jeff Jones), we have re-elected our assembly members but yet again the roundabout is still the same mess. Except we have had one traffic light removed, however this was at the hand of an unfortunate road user who knows how dangerous this roundabout can be. We have a forum on line, gaining in popularity as more people login, click on forum on the navigation bar or click here.

Did you see see the council comment in the Gazette, apparently the council say less people are complaining about the roundabout. They seem to think this is because people are getting used to the roundabout, we think people are fed of trying to get our council to listen, so keep you complaints up.

Island Farm has been approved, take a look at the action group site here.

Fancy a light hearted look at our problem, click here.

Feb 6th, another meeting with BCBC at the council offices.
This result of this meeting is basically no change, we now feel the only recourse is to seek help from anyone but BCBC.

We were given the safety audit, click here to view. Read it for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

We have sent a further letter to BCBC, to view click here.

Yet again no response as yet, but not unusual!

Another groundbreaking event, we now have a live web cam, click here to view. We intend to use this to measure the number of accidents that are really happening on our doorstep. It needs a little more work to get the ideal view of the roundabout but with a good wind this will be resolved next week.

If you haven't heard the Island Farm development has been refused planning permission from BCBC development control committee, does this mean the council are starting to listen to the public?. Well done to all the councillors who listened to the community. Hopefully this will mean our little roundabout problem will be given more attention.

First off for a little roundabout frivolity, click here.

Hope you all read the page 2 article in the Gazette, for a look at the problem please go to the issues page or click here.

We have decided to offer a prize, BCBC stated that tactile indicator fault on the roundabout was due to an "electronic computerised compatibility issue", as quoted in this week's "Glamorgan Gazette". We are offering a valuable prize for the most original explanation of this excuse, email webmaster@bridge.org.uk with your answers. The prize is the Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf book, "The official politically correct dictionary and hand book", useful for moving in circles that talk a lot and do nothing.

There is now a mission statement, click here to take a look.

We have renamed our little group as R.A.G.E. (Roundabout action group of Ewenny), you got to have a catchy name!

To catch up on the history and current news please go to the news page.

Please view our latest requests to the council as discussed in the last public meeting, click here for the web page view and here for the PDF view.
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