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They deserve a medal! Nominate your hero for the Cheltenham Medal of Honour Nominations are now open for the 2011 Cheltenham Medal of Honour. The medal recognises the worthwhile voluntary contribution that some of the borough’s local residents have made to their communities. The nominations are considered by an independent panel and all information is treated on a confidential basis. The award is presented during the Inauguration of the Mayor ceremony in May. Last year, Geoffrey Ratcliffe from Leckhampton, who is in his sixties, won the medal for services to the community. Cllr Anne Regan, mayor, says: “Nominating your local hero for this medal is a great way to say thank you publicly for the hard and valuable work they have done. I’d like to urge our residents to think about people they know that deserve this award, and send in their nominations right away.” For more information on the scheme and a nomination form, contact Jennie Ingram, Cheltenham Medal of Honour Committee, Municipal Offices, Promenade, Cheltenham GL50 9SA, or call 01242 264108. The closing date for nominations is Friday 11 March 2011.
Making the right choice for Cheltenham C
abinet members last night adopted criteria for scoring and evaluating development bids for a major town centre regeneration project. The selection criteria will make sure that developer bids for the regeneration of North Place and Portland Street are considered openly and fairly. It will also help to ensure that the development meets the council’s aspirations for this key town centre location.
The sites went out to market through the leading property consultancy GVA last month. Developers have been invited to submit their proposals to regenerate the sites against a brief informed by the Cheltenham Development Taskforce and supported by full council following public consultation. A shortlist of no more than five developers will be chosen by evaluating a number of factors including: the organisation or consortium’s finances; similar project experience; design quality; sustainability approach; health and safety considerations; previous contract performance; and finance raising ability and experience. The shortlisted bidders will be invited to submit outline proposals for the site and the two bidders offering the best submissions will be asked to put forward detailed proposals. They will be assessed according to a scoring system that gives broadly equal weight to financial considerations and planning and environmental issues. The process for identifying a preferred bidder is controlled by procurement rules prescribed by the European Union. The project timescale anticipates that the final two short listed bidders will be announced this autumn, when members of the public will be invited to look at the plans and have their say. It is hoped that the preferred bidder will be chosen by the end of this year, with Cheltenham Borough Council making the final decision. Councillor John Rawson, cabinet member for built environment said: ‘’We are determined to choose a development scheme which not only delivers a very high quality of design but also releases capital which can be used to improve other parts of the town centre. The scoring system we have adopted will allow us to do this in an open and transparent way. This is probably the most important development opportunity there has been in the town for 30 years, offering tremendous scope for developers, and I am looking forward to seeing their proposals.’’
Scoring system agreed for North Place and Portland Street proposals
University fees still causing controversy By Madeline Osborne he rise in University fees has caused a lot of controversy over the last few months with students outraged at the rise in University fees. Apparently the rise is fair as graduates will be earning more at the end of their degree than non-graduates. Subjects such as accountancy, business, law and maths may produce higher earners; however what has been overlooked is the students who want to study subjects that may not yield higher income earnings and who want to study the subject well for the love of it! The rise in University fees is going to make a lot of eighteen year olds rethink to whether they want to go to University with a lot feeling as though it is easier to go out and earn money. This could be tragic for Britain as some Universities may find it hard to recruit new students and with more eighteen year olds going into work could make unemployment even worse. It does not seem fair that not only are the fees rising but they are nearly tripling in how much it costs to undertake a degree. Potential students who are going to find the rise most devastating is the people who fall into the middle class category as they will have no help with the fees from the government as the lower class people would and obviously most higher class people are going to be in the financial situation to afford to go to University. Some Universities are talking about charging different
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amounts for different courses but what this will result is some courses being seen as not prestigious as others and may be seen as a lower-class degree which completely demeans the education system which should be market-based. To be honest, if Universities are going to be charging up to £9000 a year for fees then students should be offered more for their money. Especially for Universities such as the University of York who will now probably have more money than they did before as they did not rely so much on grants from the government as other Universities. There should be some incentive for this rise, what extra are students going to get for the extra £6000 they would be paying? Universities such as that should offer students something better than what was originally being offered else students are paying more for a service which is basically the same and which the University is accumulating more money for it. The implications for this rise in University fees for students is numerous, but in my opinion what is going to happen is that the only students who will want to attend university are going to be the ones that will yield high income earnings and there will be less passionate students who simply want to learn the subject they love and are not bothered about the income they will receive at the end of it. In ten years will Britain just be filled with graduates who are just accountants and lawyers ... let’s hope not!
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