Another empire in the making. Not so long ago the great and the good decided quite rightly that the walk in Asda Surgery was a huge drain upon the resources of the City GP Practices. Every single time a patient walks inside the Asda surgery the Practice that the patient is registered with gets the bill. It's hugely costly, its a huge drain upon the NHS resources and as far as Im concerned getting rid of Asda would make financial sense.

But what do they do to rid themselves of this problem? They create Taurus. They grab a hold of Berrows House, get a pile of funding from all the Doctors Surgeries and its decided that their brief will be to take on the responsibility of examining patients who might have an orthopaedic injury. The idea I guess is to get the patient referred from their local doctor, decide whether or not there is a need for a referral to a Consultant and away we go saving us all millions.

Trouble is, they quickly decided that it wasn't working, it was a money loss making machine and so they changed the rules and began carrying out general work dressing it up as taking away the strain and still saving us millions.

Course, to make it all function, you need an empire and that is now whats been done. They've decided that the Asda walk in centre ain't never going to go anytime soon so they've conveniently forgot the original grand and noble cause and simply begun to build their empire by paying the best to get the best. Every day and night of the week the place is staffed by a Doctor who's on two hundred quid an hour, two nurses on eighteen quid an hour, Health Care workers who are on a lump of money and nobody knows where they are. That's right! Nobody knows where the premises are.They are actually to be found in Wargrave House and the staff who are there sit there bored for hours on end because very few patients ever come through the doors. They ain't doing anything. There's little or nothing to do because few people know where they are and the local GP Surgeries can't be bothered to send their patients there because they'd pretty much decided its a huge waste of time and a waste of money.

But that's only the start of it. They are building big. They are recruiting staff at a fast rate of speed and albeit the contracts are for only nine months, they are paying way over the going rate and telling the staff that this little gravey train ain't for stopping and the employment will go on beyond the end of the nine months.

Staff who are working within local Surgeries have signed up on the Taurus recruitment data base so that they can get some evening work doing nothing and getting paid a great deal more than they get normally get paid. The fact that few people ever get through the door to see them is something that seems to be of little concern. They've got their grand titles, their huge hourly rate and pretty soon now, they'll be able to produce you and I a graph that'll show how they are saving us all millions and how they've taken the strain away from all the overwhelmed surgeries who can't cope because there are far to many people registered for care.

It's madness! If you ask any public servant or health care professional how to go about building an empire they'll say build, build quick, pay the best, create pointless tiers of bureaucracy and do it so quickly that it'll be near on impossible to dismantle the madness.

This is the way it is. This is the way of things. You can take some really good and capable Doctors and other Health Care professionals, seduce them with the idea of power and increased wealth and before you know it you've created another slice of pointless rubbish that'll eventually end up filed under, 'Another Expensive Bad Idea' that didnt save us money, didnt reduce the strain on GP Surgeries but made a lot of people a great deal of money doing next to buggar all.

http://bullsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/city-link-road-event-at-starlight-rooms.html  A drop in event on the plans for the new link road is being held at the Starlight rooms at 12 noon tuesday June 14th

I cannot believe will over 4 months to go until Christmas they have got Xmas cards, gifts and wrapping paper out on sale in Debenhams already! The kids are still on their school summer holidays!

Unreal...

Last weeks HT leader column was a scathing attack against the ongoing cult of secrecy that still operates within the Council and specifically why no one is allowed to know what's happening about Peter Robinson - is he in or out? Still no one knows or is telling. On balance it looks like he's gone.

I notice that The Barrels Pub have had a fantastic Beer Festival again this year and have donated money to various local charities! Well done to all involved.

Hi

The EDGAR street grid are planning to remove over 55% of or off street paking when the EDGAR street grid takes place.

During the day we have 10 parking places but from 6pm-9am we have a further 11-12 places. Ideal for the workers coming home.

They want to make Prior street be two way for bikes and we loose 11 spaces.

Where are are the residents going to park when Edgar street park closes where are those people park the cars??! Anywhere there isn't a double yellow line.

Tony

Am I missing something here? Why is Hereford2020 so special? Is it the year "our Colin" gets freedom of the city or flogged to death!! ;p Will the never ending traffic congestion end? Will "those traffic lights" finally be switched off? Will a second river crossing be in place? Or will it be in "The Times" top ten places to live?

Let's face it, it take the council months to get a small patch of grass cut; what do they expect to achieve in 1220 days?

Someone please enlighten me.

Griffiths of Abergavenny is announced as the contractor for the City Link Road.

The regeneration of Hereford City takes another step forward with the appointment of Alun Griffiths (Construction) for the construction of the City Link Road (CLR).

Well, after several conversations with Cllr Tracey Bowes and in turn conversation that she has had with other people finally, the overgrown grass in the field in Sydwall Road was cut today! BB had to use a brush cutter initially to lower the height of the grass as it was way to high for their mower to tackle. 

It was lovely to see some kids playing football again on here this afternoon.

Here are a few photographs that I managed to take while grass was being cut.

We do however have large bails of what looks like straw now scattered around the field but hey this is still  excellent news.

Thank you Cllr Bowes for all your help in getting this grass cut. 

Last night we had a very brief reprieve from the weeks of road works and traffic queues on the Belmont Road in Hereford. The traffic lights were removed! Today I drove into the city with no traffic whatsoever, traffic lights and roadworks were completely gone however, on my return late this afternoon, I was surprised to be sat in traffic again.

Can someone please explain to me why oh why we have traffic lights for a few traffic cones that surround fresh air? If more roadworks are going to be started this week, why could they not just set up the lights and cones at the same time? Do we really need traffic lights on a Sunday? This also came as a surprise because there has been no work carried out on a Sunday since these roadworks began, yet some clown was working today in order to cause this chaos, this is totally unnecessary.

On another note, I see that the cyclist thinks that the traffic lights do not apply to him...

Just to be clear, these traffic lights are currently facing the Oval shops, there is a zoomed out photo below

After visiting Swansea/Mumbles over the weekend, I realised what an under used area the Meadows is. Why does it not get utilised more, especially during the summer months? Singleton Park has a boating lake, mini fun rides and bouncy castle for U12s, play park with NO LITTER and no damage, various groups of different ages doing different activities, and food & bar caravans. Not one copper or litter picker in sight! Oh and I didn't even have to pay for parking all day...

What have we got........

Scorched grass where childhood memories lie and extortionate parking charges.

Yes I had to explain why the pool disappeared.

Yes she would like it back! So would I!

The only respite we seem to enjoy other than when the traffic lights break down and fail on the Belmont Road in Hereford (A465) is when the kids are on holiday from school. Now we do not have just 2-3 weeks of road works we have the WHOLE 6 weeks that the kids are off replaced with an even bigger nightmare for drivers!  They did exactly the same in the same location last year.

I do not know if this is just me? Every time I have driven and sat in the endless slow queue of traffic on the Belmont Road, I get to the traffic lights expecting to see lots of busy workman trying to complete this work and to be honest, all we see is the exact opposite! The first time we noticed a guy on the digger asleep, yes asleep (maybe he was on his break) and there were 3 other guys chatting. Later the same evening we I returned to Hereford, there was 1 bloke sat with some earphones listening to something connect near the traffic lights but the other men were not to be seen. Yesterday we drove past and saw only 2 guys both were just leaning on a post and chatting, the same again last night. 

We did not see any work being done over the weekend.

Here are just a few random photographs I took this week but I will try and get a few more.

I appreciate that this is essential work but surely, they could reduce this work to a couple of weeks if they had a few more men and reducing the length of time required and in turn opening this busy road again.

Anyone else noticed this?

Christian Bagley was killed on Father's Day in Hereford six months ago today. West Mercia Police have today released two images of people they would like to speak to. Do you recognise yourself in these images? If so, you could hold vital information which could help the police find who killed Christian.

Today I saw JK in Radford Gardens park, at first I thought he was lost! then I realised he was with a few new recruits litter picking.

The constant litter on this new park is from the same culprits day in day out. Having witnessed and challenged them myself I feel it's time to get the local Bobby round too and make them clear it up. Every little helps; maybe!

The group in question are aged between 13-17 both boys and girls around 8-10 of them. They usually arrive after Tea and vacate around ten, ten thirty pm daily unless it's raining! The mess they leave is disgusting, bottles chip wrappers, sweets etc. I believe them to be localish but not in the direct vacinity of the park. The same group are also responsible for the mindless vandalism around the building site - just for kicks!

So thanks to Jim & co for clearing this mess today it's not even on his patch. Top bloke. Don't forget to drop them sticks off to me Jim. Cheers.

Since when have Keepmoat been in a position to dictate who can park on the public highway? 

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to let you all know about events which we have planned during the next few months at Belmont Community Centre.  If you are interested in attending any of the events please give the Centre a call on 01432 263415. 

There is a small charge for the events and more details can be found on the attached posters. 

It would be fantastic to see the local community supporting these events and we are always looking for more volunteers.

Weekly Craft Group

Saturday 20th August 2016

Children's Olympic Party 10 am to 12.30 pm

Children's Olympics v1.docx

Olympic Buffet and Quiz 3 pm to 6 pm

Olympic Buffet and Quiz V1.docx

Saturday 17th September 2016

Harvest Festival 2 pm to 4 pm

Harvest Festival V1.docx

Saturday 1 October 2016

MacMillan Coffee Morning

Macmillan Coffee Morning October 2016.docx

Saturday 29 October 2016

Children's Halloween Party 2 pm to 4 pm

Children's Halloween Party V1.docx

Adults Halloween Party 6 pm

Adults Halloween Party V1.docx

Saturday 10 December 2016

Santa's Grotto

Sunday 18th December 2016

Christmas Carol Concert

An application has been submitted to turn the former records office in Bath St into a boarding house for the Cathedral School.

Demolish existing building and construct a new boarding house to accommodate 49 pupils, nurse bedroom, houseparent accommodation, housetutors flat and overnight staff room.

Details about the planning can be found here