⏩ The Gloucester Start: Wednesday March 5th
Taxi driver's sentence extended | £14m transport funding | Community Noticeboard
Good morning, welcome to Wednesday’s Start. This is a shorter bulletin than usual after a quiet 24 hours of local news. Here’s all I could find for today. Missed something? Let me know by using the submission form, linked to in the Community Noticeboard section below.
🧑⚖️ A taxi driver who sexually assaulted a woman he was supposed to be driving home must now serve four years in prison after his original sentence was found to be unduly lenient. But Taranjit Singh is believed to have fled the country after initially being given a suspended jail term and must now be found and brought back to the UK to serve it. - Gloucestershire Live
☀️ Today’s weather: Temperatures climbing into the mid-teens and sunny throughout.
🗑️ A £25 charge for replacing damaged wheelie bins is being dropped by the city council. It was debated last week and voted through, but is expected to cost about £20,000 a year in shortfall. - Gloucestershire Live, via the Local Democracy Reporting Service
🛬 The sale of Gloucestershire Airport, on the market for £25million, will see proceeds used first to pay off any outstanding debts. It’s jointly owned currently by Gloucester City and Cheltenham Borough councils, who covered up to £15million worth of upgrades by borrowing money in 2020. The remaining profits would be shared between the authorities. - Hello Rayo, via LDRS
🚴♀️ Major transport infrastructure projects across the county have been given a funding boost of almost £14million. Council leaders from Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury have agreed to allocate the money to six schemes including the cycle spine and M5 junction improvements. - Gloucestershire Live, via LDRS
🚛 A series of large and abnormal loads will be escorted along roads around the edges of Gloucester over the coming days and weeks, including bridge beams today and Monday for the A417 Missing Link project. - Gloucestershire Live
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📌 UpFront Survivors Pop-Up Cultural Space, March 11th-16th, at the old Chambers building in King’s Square. A free programme for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, friends & allies, featuring an exhibition and survivor-led creative workshops including flag making, voice work, creative writing and puppetry. The evening programme will be featuring award-winning headline acts, including Sean Lock Comedy Award winner 2024 Harriet Dyer and T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize winner 2021 Joelle Taylor. Details and full programme here.
📌 Every donation to Gloucester’s GAS Projects will be doubled for a week later this month. The organisation brings socially-engaged arts projects to the city and has joined forces with Big Give, the UK’s leading match-funding charity, from March 18th-25th. Find out more here.
📌 Gloucester Rugby is proud to announce the inaugural Festival of Rugby at Kingsholm Stadium, a three-day celebration of community rugby taking place on May 23rd, 24th, and 25th. The event will showcase the very best of grassroots rugby, with a variety of competitions and festivals designed to engage players of all abilities and backgrounds. More here.
📌 K&B Treasures, a new business buying and selling new and used goods, opens a new shop in Kingsholm Road this Friday. More here.
The top posts from Tuesday’s Start:
🫶 YMCA shop facing closure as building owner sells up
🪪 Kenyan man blocked from bringing wife to Gloucester
⚖️ Two men jailed for supplying sawn-off shotgun