A three star Council gets 4 stars from me (Bracknell Forest Borough Council)

Member Name: ladybracknell

Product:	Bracknell Forest Borough Council
Date:	21/03/09 (110 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good performing Council

Disadvantages: Developers are trying to take the Forest away!

As it is almost eight years since the last review and, as my DooYoo name implies, I'm a resident of Bracknell Forest, I thought it time to upgrade the review on Bracknell Forest Borough Council, hopefully without going over too much old ground covered by the previous reviewer.

The first thing to note is that, except for legal use, Bracknell Forest Borough Council has now become just Bracknell Forest Council having dropped the Borough bit from their title. Also their somewhat maligned website has received an update and no longer carries the vile yellow and green colourways but each page is now headed in tasteful muted pastels. Sadly, most of the downloads are still in pdf format and these seem very slow to open. The logo also has been revamped, no doubt costing thousands of pounds of Council Tax payers' hard earned money. We still have the deer (affectionately known as Bambi) on the logo but it is now a head and shoulders shot rather than the previous creature standing majestically by a tree, which one assumes represented the Forest.

It's really quite apt that Bracknell Forest Council has dropped the tree from their logo as there are at least two huge building developments currently underway in the area, both of which have resulted in many beautiful trees and hedges being destroyed by the developers, making Bracknell somewhat less of a forest than it was before!

In fairness to the Council, these developments have been undertaken as part of the Government's insistence on East Berkshire building a certain number of additional houses and the Council is trying hard to keep the developers under control and on target. One particular development at the former RAF Staff College is proving particularly problematical as the developers have upped their original plan to build 700+ houses and now have applied to build a further 500 houses. I understand that following the Council's refusal to allow this building work to go ahead, the matter has been taken to appeal. Fingers crossed that the developers don't win, as so far they have managed to destroy a large area of very attractive wooded parkland filled with wildlife and replace it with some very unattractive housing!

The Bracknell Forest website revamp has made the site much easier to navigate than previously, with everything clearly signposted. It can also be read in eight other languages: Polish, Portuguese, Bengali, Chinese, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and Nepali, thus catering for the increasingly mixed population of the area. The Council also has a presence on Twitter, You Tube and Facebook, so they are certainly attempting to make themselves as accessible as possible to the entire population of the area.

Very topically, on the homepage of the website is a link to a page dealing with the Credit Crunch which gives a short statement on the Council's stance and links to other various useful websites. Being in the more prosperous south and in an area with little manufacturing, the Credit Crunch is perhaps not impacting quite as much here as elsewhere at the moment, but it is good to know that the Council have introduced an additional objective to minimise the effects of the recession wherever they can. Because of the recession, the much vaunted Town Centre Regeneration has unfortunately been put on hold. This means that some parts of the town centre are beginning to look a little like downtown Beirut, especially in the Market/3M Building area. This isn't helped by several shops closing down or by the very tired looking 1960s architecture.

Environmentally, this Council has for many years taken a strong lead and the Executive Member, Paul Bettison, is often featured on TV, both nationally and regionally, discussing matters environmental. The Borough introduced fortnightly rubbish collections some time ago and, despite initial grumblings from some residents, this seems to have proved fairly successful. The town dump is currently undergoing a major makeover and is due to fully reopen in June this year. Currently, residents have only restricted access which has resulted in a few queues at busy times but overall the Council has succeeded in making the changes with very little disruption to services.

Sadly, Bracken and Bramble, the two shire horses used to haul water to refresh the many hanging baskets and floral displays as well as attend local fetes, were retired this year and are now living out their days in a horsey retirement home in Norfolk. The Council currently has no plans to replace them, given that it's expected that for several years to come, once the regeneration programme actually gets underway, Bracknell Town Centre will be one big building site.

The town is blessed with several excellent Council run leisure facilities including a sports centre with swimming pools, all weather running track and football pitch; the Look Out Discover Centre on the outskirts of town which also has a mountain bike track; and the Coral Reef Leisure Pool. These are supplemented by non-Bracknell Forest run venues such as the Ice Rink and Ski Slope at Amen Corner and South Hill Park Arts Centre.

Bracknell also has first rate library service with the central library based in the town centre and eight branch libraries dotted around the Borough. The library catalogue is online and members can browse the entire catalogue as well as log in using their e-Card to reserve books free of charge. The e-Card issued by the Council can be used as a library card, free bus pass for over 60s, or as a discount card for various shops in the Borough.

The education offered in the area is from cradle to grave. The schools are pretty good in the main with several primary and secondary schools having received outstanding status following Ofsted inspections. Although a couple of the secondary schools have less than perfect reputations, all the Bracknell secondary schools had good GCSE/A Level results last year. I would add here that both my children attended one of the less reputable secondary schools in the Borough and both ended up with very good GCSE/A Level results. In fact, my son then went on to one of the top redbrick universities, so the standard of education in the Borough can't be that bad! There are also two Open Learning Centres for Adult and Community Learning, which offer very low cost taster sessions in various subjects such as IT skills, arts and crafts, personal development and languages, as well as a Learning Bus which travels round the Borough to encourage people to back into learning, with the aim of improving literacy and numeracy in particular.

To sum up, Bracknell Forest Council performs well. This is backed up by the last inspection (CPA), carried out in February 2008, which awarded the Council 3 stars out of a possible 4. I'd say that's about right. The Council is good but by no means perfect. Although Bracknell may not be the most beautiful town in Britain, the Council do try to ensure that the needs of the people of Bracknell Forest are well catered for and that the Borough is a good place to live and work.

Summary: The council do their best to make Bracknell Forest a good place to live and work