I have been reading all about the up and coming Oval regeneration starting in the next few months. Is it me or did they recently put all new windows and generally upgrade/revamp all the the flats? If this is the case why did they spend all this money if they are all being knocked down shortly?

Check out the minutes in the following report.

A bridge is for cars to drive over

Rocket science is landing men on the moon

And if you're logging onto a computer in the House of Commons, prepare to wait 7 minutes! 

No wonder the UK economy is in a mess

http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/137/137.pdf&sa=U&ei=2hS_Uo25O6PY7Abn5oGAAw&ved=0CC4QFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEw7L8LBBjAVjgjMcgOLoBIyupHzA

I'll fire off a few emails.

 

Indeed, most of the entrances are ridiculously small, I clip my wheel on the edge every time because the turning room is so small. The car park itself is far too cramp as well, but I think the biggest issue is the entrance/exit. Sacrifice 2 spaces, move a foot of hedge, I'd do it myself! It's not like they need those 2 spaces, A: They are rarely used because they are the last spaces in the entire carpark, B: If you get in, you need to do a 180 turn within the total width of 2 cars to get out (as it's right next to the exit) and C: Half the people park on Perserance Road....

 

 

.... which leads me on to, how do we go about getting double yellows on the junction ends of Perseverance Road? Again I was nearly hit by an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road yesterday... Glenda?

Any luck with your emails? Did you get any response? What about CVP any luck with B&M?

Some good news for once...

Council CCTV successfully bids for funding

 

 

20 December 2013

Herefordshire Council is delighted to have been successful in bidding for funding to continue its CCTV service across the county.

The funding has been awarded by the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner Bill Longmore, after the council submitted an application in October.  The council will receive £84,000 in each of the next three financial years.

Additional funding of £20,000 has also been secured for the current financial year.

Shane Hancock, Herefordshire Council’s service manager parking and CCTV, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded such a substantial amount of funding from the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner.  This will allow the council to not only secure a new three year monitoring contract, but also to continue real time proactive monitoring of our 40 cameras across the county.

“It is a clear indication that the commissioner values the CCTV service provided for residents and partner organisations, such as West Mercia Police.”

 

Yes, I could have. I could have been extremely famous but instead I chose obscurity rather than have my body mutilated by an overly ambitious theatrical agent.

Many will know that I am extremely strong and even fewer will be aware that I used to have a strong arm act. In my day people used to travel from miles around to watch my incredibly entertaining display of strength and the unique relationship I had formed with two common buzzards.

I used to stand in Capuchin Lane naked holding an iron bar that had two aggressive, mating and territorial buzzards affixed and tethered upon each end of the mighty iron bar. Many of you might say, 'goodness, what an unusual thing to do', and you'd be right. It was a highly unusual thing to do on a packed Saturday afternoon but, it was this openly lewed display of theatrical strength that nearly made me famous.

One particularly day, whilst stood in Capuchin Lane, adjacent to Hilda, the bearded lady who'd decided to have a shave, I began bending the iron bar upon my erect penis. People would shout, 'good grief ain't those raptors tame'. And they were tame. They'd spent years being tethered to the bar and instinct told them when they were going to go from a horizontal position and downward toward the ground as I began the bending process.

Anyway, after completing the bending, this theatrical agent stepped forward, introduced himself and said, 'Today I've witnessed the future of entertainment. Im going to sign you up and together, you, me and those two birds are going to make your act famous. Mind you', he said, 'we are going to change your acts name. 'Bobby, the man who bends an iron bar across his erect penis whilst two Buzzards are tethered to the bar', is far to long. I propose we shorten it to 'Bobby the bender'. Keen to go along with this invitation to grasp superstardom I quickly agreed and so began the beginning of him disclosing his action plan to take me from Capuchin Lane onto the boards of the Courtyard Theatre.

Keen to learn how determined and single minded I was to reach the top of the ladder of this somewhat narrow field of variety entertainment, he said, 'tell me, if an act emerged. We'll call him the Competitor and he had a similar act to yours but he had a clubbed foot, what would your reaction be?'

I said, 'you mean his act was identical to mine in every single way but because of his clubbed foot, his act would be more interesting than mine?'. 'Exactly', he replied, 'you'd have to react to this competitor to make your act more interesting than his. You'd have to lose a foot'.

'Yes, I can see exactly where you are coming from', I replied, 'this competitor could become an obstacle to our future success. Yes, I'd be more than happy to lose a foot. Lets do it'. 'Excellent', he replied, 'you are a determined artiste and I can see from the look in your eyes you are determined to reach the top of your chosen field of entertainment. Mind', he said, 'say this competitor, the one we both fear will emerge to challenge you in your pursuit of greatness, say he comes back at you and he gets his leg amputated. Suddenly, his act is now more interesting than yours. What then?'

'Good grief', I replied, 'this competitor is relentless'. ' isn't he', replied the agent. 'Get into a war with this competitor and visually speaking, you could look very different to how you appear now. Are you prepared to lose both your legs in pursuit of fame and wealth and if necessary have other parts of your body surgically removed to stay ahead of this competitor who clearly is an extremely determined artiste'.

In the end, I chose to hang onto what I was born with. I chose obscurity rather than fame and wealth.

I saw the front page of the HT today - lol, where is all of that extra space coming from? In the picture you have, effectively, 6 lanes worth of width.
Now, add to that the schematics and it actually appears that they will be removing the centre bollard, removing the grass verge AND removing the slip road for more space.
 
Which leads me on to my second questions, looking a this picture, where you can CLEARLY see that the grass verge AND the slip road (Wall Street) missing ;
 
A: So the slip road is going then? What about access to all of the disabled homes along it?
B: Looking at the lack of said road, how are cars going to come out of Tesco car park? Surely not directly onto the mouth of the roundabout? Queue more traffic lights!!
 
Not picking, serious questions.
 

I have only just noticed that if you scroll to the very bottom of a topic it shows you which members have visited and read it, I like that. Sorry for the small, possibly somewhat pointless posting but I wanted to share what I learned tonight.       

The Council of Boston, Lincolnshire have recently applied to Central Government for funding to enable them to cope with their 'hidden' population. This Council have calculated that they have seven thousand resident migrants from the European Union and a further ten thousand that are not registered on the electoral roll. They call this ten thousand, their 'hidden population.
They've arrived at this figure of ten thousand because of registrations at public service bodies and obvious places such as GP Surgeries.
The Central Government have told Boston Council to prove that the hidden population is resident in Boston and they'll be given funding. Boston Council, like Hereford Council have recently carried out a 'who's living in your house' census and not surprisingly this hidden population has not been discovered, which means Boston must continue providing public services without any additional funding.
The hidden population is explained by Boston Council as homes that are occupied by ten or twelve who live cheaply, share the rent and costs which enable them to keep more of their money.
Good economics you'd think! And they are good economics if you are the taker rather than the giver. If you are the giver as Boston Council are, then its not good economics at all. It's very bad economics.
We in Hereford have exactly the same problem and it may be equally as bad. It's my understanding that our electoral roll shows the presence of around five thousand EU migrants in our County.
What do we have to do to discover our 'hidden population'? I know of lots of houses in close proximity to mine that contain huge numbers of migrants living in the one house. In close proximity to where I live social housing has been provided to Bulgarians and Romanians and these dwellings are full of people who form part of our hidden population.
The Council have recently carried out their local census by posting their letter to homes across Hereford asking, 'who lives in your house'? It's madness. Do they really think that seventeen migrants living in a three bed semi that's managed by Hereford Housing are going to respond and say exactly who is resident there. Of course they are not. Because its illegal and it shouldn't be happening. But it is happening. It's happening all over the City and it wouldn't surprise me if our 'hidden population' is as high as Boston's.
Of course, the last people to acknowledge this issue will be our overwhelmed public services who are spending tens of thousands of pounds each month providing translation services enabling our 'hidden population' to carry out their good economic policy of living cheap, living hidden and prospering. The public service bubble is still clinging onto the shiney, happy and clappy New Labour Multi Culturalism mantra that allways denies that we have a problem being able to absorb these astonishing numbers of people who form our hidden population.

This was the traffic at the A465 Tesco roundabout at 0720 this morning. Photo's 2 and 3 show an ambulance struggling to negotiate the traffic. 

Is anybody listening yet?

I was informed today that a by-election was called in the Belmont ward for the vacancy on the city council ten signatures have been handed into the town clerk which starts the process it's our county have at the moment two candidates wanting to stand so we will have a selection process the candidate selected will then be put up as our candidate my group did not call this election however we do have good people in many wards that are prepared to stand up and fight for our county.

I had a thought there are many people that blog on this site and we never meet I'm sure there will be many that like it that way but why not have a get together at my pub the victory in Hereford I am happy to provide a free curry and entertainment and maybe have a short question and answer with some local councillors it would also be an opportunity to grow the site and give Colin some recognition for the great effort he puts into it I certainly find it informative.

Victory Pub Ledbury Road Hereford - Saturday February 1st From 7pm.

I've already posted comparison between Hereford traffic and that of a horse and cart from the 1800's. Here's a bit more to cement the fact that, despite being preached to by the council that they are forward thinking, Hereford is stuck in the 1800's
 
The OLM a big new build. Now I assumed that the the slanted roofing was an architectural decision to base it on the look of the old market cattle shelters. Which makes sense.
 

 
 

 
 
The only trouble is, that this is a "design" from the 1800's.
 
 
This design is known as a "Saw Tooth Roof", attributed to architect William Fairbairn as early as 1827. It's primary concept was to allow day light into the large factories. Now I'm just guessing here, but I see no windows in the roof and imagine the interior will be floored and lit accordingly. Funnily enough, Fairbairn dubbed this the "shed principle" :P
 
One of the drawbacks of this design of roof is that "crap" and debris collect in the troughs leading to drainage issues if not cleared. I mean, I'm sure they thought of all of this, they are highly paid architects after all, not idiots, and know a great deal more about building design than I ever will. I'm just pointing out that this is another example of Hereford stuck in the 1800's.
 
And wouldn't it make SO much sense to put solar panels on these sloped roofs. 
 
Also found this;

I would, however, like to add that the construction company aren't really at fault in any of this, they've done a cracking job and make huge amounts of progress in the time that they have been working. So well done to the guys on the ground.

So there you have it, we have potholed roads from the 1600's, traffic that moves slower than a horse and cart in 1700's and buildings that look like they have been poached straight out of the 1800's.

For a long time I've been "shopping" shopping elsewhere because of the lack of choice, shops, traffic etc in Hereford.

I still bought the small things locally, stationery, stamps etc. That was until yesterday when I went shopping;

Summary:

Shopping in Hereford is utterly unpleasant. With the exception of food shopping, I am now only buying online and in places like Cardiff/Worcester/Gloucester

Traffic - Bad, slow.

Parking - Badly designed car parks

Shops - Lack of

Products - Lack of

Toilets - Lack of

Traffic:

Edgar Street South was surprisingly and pleasantly quick - on more than one occasion! (northbound was backed up to Steeles though).

However, I then proceeded to spend no less than 20 minutes trying to get up the ramp in Tescos underground car park.

I actually do my food shopping at around 2am now so I don't have to deal with the traffic and hordes of people taking up as much of the aisles as they possibly can. As we all know, traffic in Hereford is always pretty dire, I have, on several occasions, taken a packed lunch because I know I'll be sitting in queues of traffic

..Parking:

I went to Tesco underground (park upstairs/outside), B&M/Next and The Range. The Range was fine, as expected.

But the problem here lies in car park design. We know that the B&M/Next is just a joke, a 6ft wide opening that acts as the entrance AND exit for a one way system that's so tight that the second anyone wants to manoeuvre a car the whole thing jams up..

.. as does Tesco (town). A one way system where, again, if someone is waiting for a space to empty as the driver returns, the entire thing grinds to a halt. This then causes a backup throughout the undergound carpark which can spill out onto the large Tesco roundabout causing further delays. It still amazes me when people drive into the "trees" carpark there. It's a dead end and has enough space for 1 car to drive down. You have to reverse out because you can't turn and if someone has followed you in, you better prepare for a LONG stay.

Shops:

There aren't that really that many and those with a similar genre are dotted all over the place requiring multiple car trips and, potentially, multiple parking charges.

You can't "browse" the shops in Hereford for what you want, you need to know what it is that you want and where it is. If you wanted some new trousers, you might look in M&S, H&M and Next.... Next, so you have to go to the other side of town, navigate a ridiculous carpark and go inside JUST to see if they MIGHT have what you want, perhaps only to head back through traffic in to town back to M&S.

Lack of actual products:

Have you ever actually tried to buy something in Hereford when you didn't know for sure what shop had it? You literally spend hours walking around trying all of the shops that you'd expect to have it, only to find that they don't. It's almost, but not quite, as bad as wanting a rolling pin and finding that the cook shops in town don't sell them. 2 Things in particular come to mind from yesterdays jaunt.

1. Garland. I wanted some Christmas Garland, just a cheap bit. There are only 2 places in the city that sell it. The "cheap" popup Christmas shop opposite the Entertainer, where it will set you back around £35 (a standard artificial tree in there is often upward of £125!) and the indoor market fake florist stall (where they make funeral bits and flower craft) Cheaper and good service - I actually bought last years bits from there too.

2. A burger. Yesterday I hadn't had breakfast and was really hungry. I REALLY fancied a cheese burger, a proper one, you know, big, made with meat not sugar. So I headed to the Charcoal Grill who do amazing burgers - it was closed. Marmaris - closed, Flames - closed down, Munchies - Heard their food isn't great, several other "takeaway" shops down Union Street - closed or out of business. So after much walking I looked into McDonalds and the queue was to the door so that was a no go. Couldn't even get a proper burger. I ended up eating a sandwich from Tescos whilst sat in the carpark.

Toilets:

Because I had spent a lot of time walking, driving etc around town trying to find things, I needed the toilet, I was at Next at the time. The closest toilet for public use is at the Leisure Centre. It's about a third of a mile away, around a 5 minute brisk walk. Obviously I could accommodate that. But it made me think, what if I was 80? What if I was in a wheelchair or on crutches with a broken foot? That wouldn't be an easy trip.

On the whole, it was a horrible experience. Shopping at this time of year is supposed to be fun and exciting but it was very unpleasant because of the way Hereford has been managed/developed. 

The only big exception really was The Range. Ample and ACCESSIBLE parking. Good range of items, friendly and helpful staff.

I live here and find it a very unpleasant place to shop - what are visitors going to think?

And I really feel sorry for the small businesses here, because the city is doing nothing but pushing people away. (quick note on the OLM defense, there's still nothing there. Yet another supermarkey, some new resturants and the rest are shops we already have just moving in)

So I've decided I'm completely done with shopping in Hereford now. I'll continue to buy my food shopping at 2am and I'll crawl into town to make deposits at the bank. But if I want anything other than food, I'm now buying it online or somewhere like Cardiff or Worcester. As for stationery and office consumables, I've just placed a few bulk orders for Ink, Envelopes, Pens etc.

Herefordshire's Council's independent group will not be forming a coalition with the Tories in Hereford! Expect an official announcement sometime tomorrow.

Remember you heard it first on Hereford Voice!

Please select your preferred name choice from the list above for our lights out campaign group. 

This poll ends Tuesday 10th December 2013 - 2100 hours.

I've just read this article about a man who "accidentally" shot a burglar.

http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/10849978.Whitbourne_shooting_trial___Malcolm_White_says_that_he_thought_he_was__going_to_be_robbed_/?ref=var_0

I have no problem with that, the men where trying to raid his house, by all means take action.

But I am a little confused by the article. It says he's up on a charge on "unlawful wounding", but reading the article, the man in question was running a cannabis farm woth £60,000 a year...... surely he should be being convicted for supply and distribution of illegal substances?

I was going to post this yesterday but ran out of time;

Yesterday, I took a drive to B&Q and back. The Heart of Oak roundabout was gridlocked because of the traffic backed up from the top/tesco end of Edgar street.

It took 14 minutes to travel (S) on Edgar Street. - 0.4 miles that is, which, at the speed limit of 30mph, should take 48 seconds.

It then took 60 seconds to get from the Tesco roundabout to the middle of the new bridge - an equal 0.4 miles.

Now you might think 14 minutes isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. But that's 17.5x longer than it should take.

To put that into perspective, that is the same as driving to London NON STOP and it taking 2 days 2 hours and 10 minutes instead of the 2 hours 52 minutes calculated by Google

Horse drawn carriages of the 1800's travelled at an average speed of 4mph. That would put a journey in from Hereford to London at 1 day 11 hours 15 minutes.

At these various "pinch points" around Hereford, they have created traffic delays so sever that;

AT HEREFORD TRAFFIC SPEEDS AN 1847 HORSE AND CART WOULD BE 25% FASTER