LOOKING back on some of the stories the Gazette has reported through the years...

December 1966

A ‘THREE-POINT prescription’ regarding future hospital facilities in the Chipping Sodbury and Yate area formed the basis of talks between Sodbury Rural District Council and the South Western Regional Hospital Board.

The council’s case was based on the future of the Chipping Sodbury War Memorial Maternity Hospital, the possibility of a first aid station in the area and the possibility of a district hospital being provided when the population had risen to around 70,000 people.

Since the meeting, the board had firmly stated that there were no plans to build a district hospital to serve the area, but that the existing Sodbury Maternity Hospital would be retained for at least another 10 years.

December 1976

MEDICAL chiefs announced they would be appealing against a decision by the Department of Health and Social Security not to allow private dental treatment at Berkeley Health Centre.

The Gloucestershire Area Health Authority administrator Mr A. A. H. Sparrow told a meeting of the Family Practitioner Committee in Cheltenham that because of the department’s ban on three local dentists – Messrs Birkett, Carlyle, and Cole-Morgan – there were three half days and three full days when dental treatment was not available in the health centre for the benefit of patients in Berkeley.

Mr Sparrow said: “The dentists have requested to do a certain small amount of private treatment at the centre and have appealed against the department’s decision.

“We shall be writing to the Secretary of State over this decision not to allow them to do a very small amount of private practice.”

“The dentists’ decision means that they will not use the Health Centre, and there will therefore be three half days and three full days when the dental facilities will not be available there for the benefit of patients.”

December 1986

MORE than £3,500 had been raised in 11 months after the official inauguration of the Severnside Support Group of St Peter’s Hospice.

The group, which covered the Severnside area from Thornbury to Easter Compton, appealed to people in the area to add to their number in order to extend its efforts for the following year.

For its next fundraiser the group announced it would be collecting second hand books for a bookstall at St Peter’s Bazaar in the Victoria Rooms in Clifton.

They also announced that a concert with internationally-acclaimed classical guitarist Dionysios Dervis would be taking place in St Mary’s Church, Olveston.