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

August 1977

A COMMUNITY group’s “Do-it-yourself” development began to take shape in the part of south Yate it served.

Members of the Phase V Community Association were busy preparing a building for use as a pre-school playgroup centre.

Provision of playgroup facilities for one of the residential areas between Rodford Way and Shire Way had been one of the main objectives of the association since it was formed four years prior.

But there had been no site and no suitable building immediately available in the area, so the association opened negotiations with Avon County Council who agreed to lease them a plot of land on the Abbotswood School playing field at a nominal annual rent of £5 for five years.

They then bought a surplus terrapin classroom at the St Johns School site in Chipping Sodbury, which was stripped and transported to Yate by volunteers where it was re-erected.

August 1987

IMPORTS of “Lignite” fuel were stopped by a Sharpness firm after four fires caused by stacks overheating.

Two fire crews were called out to Westlands Coal premises following a similar call the week before, when it took more than an hour to bring the blaze under control.

The latest incident was the fourth emergency call from the firm within a fortnight, leaving over 1,000 tons of the fuel destroyed.

Spontaneous combustion was blamed for the outbreaks by a spokesman from the fire brigade.

“Oxygen in the atmosphere combines with the product in a process of self-heating,” he said.

A Westlands spokesman said existing stocks would be removed and more fuel would not be ordered.