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Five Peterborough stories you might have missed

Joanna Taylor
BBC News, Peterborough
HAYLEY JANCESKI A woman wearing glasses, a navy floral dress and a blue cardigan, a man wearing a grey Newcastle United sweatshirt, and a woman wearing a blue jacket. They have their arms around each other's shoulders and are all smiling at the camera.HAYLEY JANCESKI
Campaigners were planning a protest next week to raise awareness about plans to close a community hub

Plans to close a hub for vulnerable adults and a community gym have raised concern amongst people living in Peterborough, while a new building has won an award for its impact on the city.

Here are five stories from Peterborough you might have missed this week.

Closing hub 'will destroy' members

HAYLEY JANCESKI People holding a white banner with the words. Save our hub, supporting people with a learning disability. HAYLEY JANCESKI
Campaigners were planning a protest next week to raise awareness

More than 700 people have signed a petition calling for a hub that coaches people with learning disabilities to be saved from closure.

The Industrial Hub in Peterborough, which is part of City College's Day Opportunities programme, offers work experience and training.

Families fear the service will shut down in June.

Peterborough City Council said those affected "will be supported to source alternative opportunities should they need to".

Football table and 'wine bush' found

PETERBOROUGH LITTER WOMBLES A table-football table in some shrubbery. The handles are rusted but the blue and red players, facing in opposite directions, remain intact. The base of the table is dark and faded from water damage and mould.PETERBOROUGH LITTER WOMBLES
A football table was among the things found by Peterborough Litter Wombles

Bushes full of wine bottles, a table-football game and a burned-out motor scooter were among the items discovered by litter-pickers during the Great British Spring Clean.

More than 300 volunteers collected 600 bags of litter during the cleaning spree in Peterborough.

Community gym users 'gutted' by closure

JOHN DEVINE/BBC Sean Allen smiling at the camera, outside the Bretton Centre. He has a ring in his nose and in his bottom lip. He has short dark hair and has a rucksack over his shoulders, which are bare.JOHN DEVINE/BBC
Sean Allen, 52, said many people with disabilities used the gym and would not be able to access facilities elsewhere

Customers at a Peterborough gym said they were still coming to terms with the announcement that it would close in a few weeks' time.

The YMCA gym in Bretton will shut on 4 May after the owners said "rising operational costs and increased competition" had made it unviable.

The charity's gym in Cambridge will also close on the same day.

University's £32m building wins urban design award

THE PINEAPPLES Two men and three women stand on a stage in front of a mainly black screen with a slide that says: The Pineapples: Building Winner. The Lab ARU Peterborough. A man, dressed in a suit and casual shirt, in the middle of the group, holds the Pineapple award.THE PINEAPPLES
Cambridge-based MCW Architects, which designed the building, and ARU Peterborough staff received the award

A new £32m university building has beaten competition from five other developments to win a national award for its impact on the city.

The Lab, which is part of Anglia Ruskin University's site, was named as the best building in the urban life-focused Pineapples awards.

Patient hospital transfers 'improved by new tech'

PA Media A side view of a neon yellow and green ambulance with East of England Ambulance Service written across it PA Media
Hospitals installed boxes that allowed crews to re-connect to Wi-Fi automatically

A trial of new technology aimed at speeding up the transfer of patients to hospital helped improve care and enabled crews to return to service quickly, an ambulance service trust said.

Mobile signals and Wi-Fi connections can be unreliable when crews need to access patient data, according to the East of England Ambulance Service Trust.

Peterborough City Hospital is among those that installed boxes to allow emergency crews to reconnect automatically.

The week in politics

Residents face another five months of disruption after Cambridgeshire County Council said work to repair a cracked bridge would continue.

The £32m King's Dyke bridge, which connects Peterborough and Whittlesey over the Peterborough-Ely railway line, was opened in 2022 to ease traffic caused by a level crossing.

However it was partially closed last June, two years after it opened, after cracks were spotted in the westbound carriageway.

The council said the lane closure would remain in place and it planned to start remedial work on the site in May, which should be completed in September.

Meanwhile, the industry minister said plans to build state-of-the art gas equipment in Peterborough would create hundreds of jobs for local people.

On a visit to the city, Sarah Jones said Peterborough would be "at the heart" of multimillion-pound plans to build new gas turbine compressor sets, which provide gas to power stations and businesses.

National Gas plans to install new equipment at its facility north-west of Peterborough by 2030.

The week in sports

Peterborough United head to Wembley this weekend having suffered back-to-back defeats in League One.

Posh lost the Nene Derby against Northampton Town on Saturday and were then beaten by Birmingham City on Tuesday.

Darren Ferguson's side face Birmingham again on Sunday in the final of the EFL Trophy.

Peterborough Sports got back to winning ways with a 2-0 victory over Leamington in the National League North.

Michael Gyasi and Max Booth got the goals for the Turbines.

Peterborough Phantoms collected two wins from two in their double header against Telford Tigers.

They are now level on wins with Leeds and Hull with the final play-off group games taking place this weekend.

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