⏩ The Gloucester Start: Thursday December 12th
More public art | New train timetable | Missing teen
Good morning and welcome to edition number 14 of the Gloucester Start. Thank you as ever for reading, and if you can spare a few seconds to spread the word with a quick share, it will really help.
🎨 More public art should be coming to Gloucester after the city council committed itself to commissioning new works. Next June, a temporary Moomin-inspired piece produced by Gloucester Guildhall will go on display in the Docks, and beyond that the council will ask housing developers to fund new pieces across the city. - Gloucester City Council
🚆 New routes and more carriages are being added to some Great Western Railway services affecting Gloucester. Some Sunday services between Cheltenham and London Paddington will go from five carriages to nine or ten and a new direct route to Bristol from Cheltenham is being added on Saturdays, among others. The new timetable starts on Sunday. - BBC Gloucestershire
👮 Police are searching for a missing 16-year-old boy last seen in Tuffley. Blaize hasn’t been spotted since November 30th and may have travelled to Bristol or Weston-Super-Mare. - Gloucestershire Live
🌫️ Today’s weather: Grey (again), misty and dry. Temperatures hitting 8C through the day.
💔 An outpouring of sorrow and sadness has come from the rugby community as the search for missing ex-Gloucester player Tom Voyce goes on. The 43-year-old is feared dead after his car was recovered from a river near his home in Northumberland. Former players including Lawrence Dallaglio and Matt Dawson have shared their shock. - BBC
👩🏫 Gloucester MP Alex McIntyre has stepped into the row over the planned Moat Primary School closure. He’s written to the Matson school’s bosses at the Greenshaw Learning Trust to seek answers to key questions parents feel aren’t being covered in the consultation to merge it with nearby Robinswood Primary Academy. - Alex McIntyre on Facebook
💚 City council leader Jeremy Hilton (Lib Dem) wants to ‘put the heart back into Gloucester’ after laying out the authority’s new corporate plan. He’s called it ‘more ambitious’ than the previous Conservative-led one. - Gloucester News Centre, via the Local Democracy Reporting Service
👩⚕️ A challenging winter lies ahead for Gloucester’s health services, who have laid out their plan to manage the colder months. Its focus is on keeping people safe and well at home, ensuring access to the right care and supporting people to leave hospital and return home appropriately. - NHS Gloucestershire
🎅 The annual Santa Fun Run sets off from King’s Square on Saturday at 10.30am. More than 500 people have signed up to run or walk 5km through the city raising money for charitable causes. There’s still time to sign up and get involved. - Gloucester Rotary Club
📱 More fines were issued to drivers caught using their phones at the wheel across Gloucestershire last year. Figures show Gloucestershire Constabulary handed out 340 notices for the offence in 2023, up from 293 the year before. They were among a total of 43,200 driving-related fixed penalty notices last year, which included 41,248 offences for speeding and 253 for not wearing a seatbelt. - The Forester
🚨 A Mercedes car was broken into in Vestry Gardens, Coney Hill. Separately a BMW was entered in Henry Road, Kingsholm, and a laptop, cash and wallet stolen. - Your Community Alerts