west Swindon'5
Mcigcizine
hweWU!nftiPe
OFFICE FURNITURE WE SELLBUY - HIRE LEASE WITH A SAME DAY DELIVERY 17/20 HIGH STREET WOOTTON BASSETT TEL: SWINDON 853887
Circulation 10,000
No. 73 April 1988
GERRI SLIMS DOWN TO GIVE KERRIE A LIFT UP
Staff at a local company are backing a disabled child in her bid to go to secondary school with her friends. Whilst she has been sucesslul in gaining a place at the school of her choice, she will be faced with the problem of getting up to the first floor with only her school mates to support her. Her parents and friends are determined to make sure a lift can be provided so that she and other children with disablities can be helped. Westlea School pupil Kerrie Jack suffers from a rare nervous disease which makes going up and down stairs very difficult. She is keen to go to Greendown Community School in West Swindon where many of her friends will be going in September, but unfortunately, the first phase of Greendown was built without a lift. Kerrie's parents with help from Neil Griffiths, Head of Westlea School, are setting up a trust fund to raise money to help youngsters with disabilities. And the big fund raising effort is under way over at Windmill Hill based company PHH Europe where section mmanager Gerri Keefe has set herself the target of losing over two stone and raising ÂŁ500.00 in the process. Commonweal School in Old Town was extensively adapted by Wiltshire County Council some years ago to provide the necessary facilities for children with a wide range of disabilities. However, West Swindon's former County Councillor the late Len Hobbs criticised the Council for not porviding a lift when the plans were laid before the Education Committee in 1982, because it would limit the access of children with disabilities. Phase II at Greendown opening in 1989 will have a lift.
Working for children with disabilities - left to right: Liz Johnson from PHH, David Jack, Gerri Keefe from PHH with Kerrie Jack, Karen Jack and Westlea head Neil Griffiths. Kerrie's parents are happy that Gerri decided that she was going she will be going to Greendown. to get into the dresses she had "We were very pleased when we grown out of. "I was just getting recieved a letter saying she could bigger and bigger and my wardgo," said Mrs. Karen Jack. "All robe was dissapearing. It was her friends are so good to Kerrie difficult at first but every day at Westlea; she would lose their more PHH staff are sponsoring support if she had to go else- me. where." "People in the company I don't "We always thought there was know have been asking me how a lift at Greendown," Said things are going. There is such a Kerrie's father David Jack. "As team spirit building up in our there isn't, we're going to have to new centre that I can't let down get one for Kerrie and the other all the people who are backing children who will follow her. It's me." going to cost about ÂŁ12,000; it Communications executive Liz will be quite an effort to raise the Johnson is keeping Gerri on money required." target. "Every Monday we hold Commenting on the fund raising a ritual weigh-in and Gerri's project, Westlea Head Neil Grif- progress is plotted on a chart on fiths said, "After 8 years in the the staff notice board. This obcompany of her peers it's import- viously creates interest amongst ant that Kerrie continues her the staff and spurs Gem on. education with them. We have to We're going to hold a 'Guess recognise the cash difficulties of Gerri's Final Weight' competithe Local Education Authority tion at her final weigh in. has and they have made provi"I hope her initiative will ension for handicapped children in courage other people, in PHH Swindon. The trust fund we're and in the West Swindon com- setting up will help children with munity, to come up with their disabilities in West Swindon." own fund raising projects during Over at PHH Gem Keefe has the year. Wouldn't it be great if been slimming for a couple of we could get this lift in for next months. At well over 12 stone, Christmas?"
An extraordinary plan to build the world's first underground airport near Swindon has resurfaced again after being buried two years ago. The project, first reported by the Swindon Evening Advertiser on 1st April 1986 and by The Link, involves the building of a two mile runway under fields alongside the M4 just to the south of West Swindon. Aircraft will land by entering a huge funnel shaped tunnel at one end and the whole airport complex will be completely enclosed by a greenfield-covered canopy. Finance for the multi-million pound project two years ago was to be provided by a SaudiArabian oil-tycoon. However the fall in oil prices and instability in the oil dependant Saudi economy since then makes their involvement unlikely. it is now believed that the consortium of airlines involved with the Galileo project at Windmill Hill Business Park near Freshbrook are backing the revived underground project. With their world-wide computerised booking system in West Swindon, it seems that the airlines may be looking down the motorway to base their flying operations, away from the busy skies around Heathrow. A spokesperson for Thamesdown Council's Industrial Development Unit was enthusiastic about the airport project: "It's imaginative, highly practical, extremely exciting and will bring thousands of jobs into the area. (continued on page 3)