Stroud campaigners had treble joy in noughties
STROUD’S reputation as a campaigning town gathered ground in the decade known as the noughties.
The district council gave permission for the Victorian landmark Hill Paul building, a former clothing factory, to be pulled down, but locals had a different idea.
A campaign was launched to sell enough £500 shares to take an option on the building.
This was achieved, the property saved and subsequently converted into apartments.
Locals went into action again to thwart mooted plans to close Stroud maternity hospital, then in 2008 a spirited campaign by local people saved Uplands Post Office.
Stroud became a Fairtrade town and in 2009 launched the Stroud pound.
The formation of the Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration Company in 2004 heralded the rebirth of the city as
a vibrant place to live, work and visit.
Part of this vision was realised when the ambitious Gloucester Quays designer outlet centre opened in May 2009.
Three Harry Potter films made in the decade depicted the cathedral cloisters as Hogwarts School and Dr Who (David Tennant) landed his Tardis in the city to film a Christmas special.
In July 2007 Gloucestershire experienced the worst floods on record.
Much of the county was without running water for almost three weeks after the Mythe water treatment plant at Tewkesbury was inundated.
Gloucestershire University, founded at the start of the decade, was in severe financial difficulties by the end of it.
After 68 years of service RAF Innsworth, which was visited by Queen Elizabeth (the present Queen’s mother) closed, but found a new purpose as HQ for NATO’S Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
The blow of Rank Xerox closing in Mitcheldean was softened when the 67 acre site became Vantage Point Business Village generating new employment opportunities.
Dean Heritage Museum received a half million pound grant from the National Lottery and Brierley born Winifred Foley, author of A Child In The Forest, died in 2009 aged 94.
A BBC TV adaptation of Winifred Foley’s book was screened as Abide With Me and achieved great popularity.
It was based on the writer’s early years in service in Brimscombe, Stroud and starred a local schoolgirl from Dursley named Ann Francis as Winfred Foley.
The part of her employer was played by actress Cathleen Nesbit.
Cheltenham was home to the biggest building site in Europe at the start of the decade when construction of the GCHQ Doughnut got underway.
Work also started on the £19.5million campus for Gloucestershire College at Hester’s Way.
Prestbury Park gained a Centaur, while the St Marks estate was declared a conservation area.
Holst’s statue was unveiled in Imperial Gardens in 2008, the same year that five members of the notorious Johnson gang were jailed for up to 11 years after burglaries that netted them a hoard of art works and antiques.
Regeneration for the St Paul’s area of Cheltenham was announced and artist-entrepreneur Damian Hirst bought Toddington Manor, while Smiths Aerospace, present in Bishops Cleeve since the 1930s, was taken over by American owned GE Aviation.
In June 2009 amid the turmoil of the international banking crisis, Lloyds Banking Group, owner of Cheltenham and Gloucester, announced its intention to close all 164 C&G branches by the end of the year.