Taken from HT.

A £30m redevelopment of a Hereford estate has been approved by by herefordshire Council planning committee. Councillors voted in favour of the demolition  of the Oval at Newton Farm so that 259 flats, houses and bungalows can be built in its place.

The council cabinet has backed the plan and it enjoys widespread support within the community.

Herefordshire Housinh (HHL) has had designs on the Oval  for some time which included the demolition of much of the area's existing layout. Earlier this year the council gifted part of  the land at the site of the former Vortex Youth Centre to kickstart what will be  one of the most significant residential regenerations projects ever taken in the county.

Yesterday (Wednesday) planning committee members heard  how three storey blocks on Kilvert Road, broxash Drive, Belmont Rd and Beattie Ave would go to make way for the 259 new mixed tenure homes to be built.

The plan also includes improvements to existing shops and open spaces, and a new community facility . Built over a planned six year programme, the redevelopment would be made up of one and two bedroom flats,one bedroom bungalows, and two,three and four bedroom houses.

HHL will manage half of the properties with the rest to be sold by keepmoat, HHL's development partner.

 The committee was recommended to back the development in principle, leaving the final authorisation  to officers once specified conditions are met.

 

As the ward councillor who is a member of the Oval Housing Management sub group for this development, I will be looking at the decant of tenants of the flats, and the re-housing of the tenants. some tenants have already moved from Beattie House flats, with just three remaining tenants to be moved, to enable this block of flats to be demolished. As soon as there is any further news I can tell you I will. be assured I will continue to assist tenants with their move so to make the process as less stressful as possible for them. I have fully supported  the regeneration of the Oval area from its concept, and will continue to do so to enable my residents to live in new, warm accommodation, and for the first time for many have a garden for their children to play safely in.

I wish someone would authorise somebody to turn off the traffic lights at the Asda junction!
The traffic lights are not working today and guess what...
NO LIGHTS = NO TRAFFIC! Turn them off permanently! I took these pictures at 8.40am this morning.

My hats go off to the workforce of builders on site who seem to have got so much done. It's VERY clear to see who was holding up the project for the last, however many, years.

It always baffles me how things in Hereford take so long to get done....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Tz86YBLOM

Following all the paths being renewed on the quarry and new fence's erected by central Tupsley community group,herefordshire park rangers are now taking an interest in the sssi area they did some work last autumn for the first time in many years now they are in there re-establishing the ponds by first cutting down and removing the willow trees then they will be digging them out hence the post their is a volunteer day this Sunday 15th September at 10:30 where we will be having a burn up and carrying out general husbandry duties around the quarry if anyone from Hereford Voice wishes to come along you are more than welcome.

Following a Fence being put up and a permissive path being established on bartonsham farm meadow this local group is to being formed to explore the ancient row ditch the first meeting of the group will be Wednesday 19th September at 6:30pm at the wrvs centre if anyone is interested in joining this group please do come along.

When reading through the different forums I have concluded what an intelligent group of posters we have. There are accountants, directors, strategists, consultants and auditors to name but a few reading the different forums. I'm an advocate of transparency because I believe it's one way to utilise that army of experts.

I believe the Current Council are pouring massive amounts of time energy and money into the wrong resources and projects. That's not a revelation and from what I've read many agree with me. I am not the most intelligent person on the planet, I'm apt to let my imagination, passion and morality cloud my thinking and I certainly know my limitations.

So ...... My reason for posting is to throw out a challenge to all you clever people.

Take a look at the following agenda reports pack on the following link and post your thoughts.

There are several things in the document that provoked my thought processes but sadly as I said I'm not intelligent enough to answer myself! For example:

The documents states one of the reasons this initiative is a good idea is because it will encourage more people to shop online. Won't that sabotage the ESG? It would appear the cabinet run with the cowboys and shoot with the Indians?

http://councillors.herefordshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=251&MId=4376&Ver=4

Nice to see a smart new cast iron notice board erected at The Oval, just past Subway on the way round to the fish and chip shop. Who is responsible for this board and placing notices within it? At the moment only general notices on view. What about putting the City of Hereford Parish Council minutes and agendas on display. We may then find out what issues in Newton Farm and Hunderton are being considered, before decisions are made.

Police are appealing for information about a sexual assault in Hereford as a woman was using a cash machine.

It happened outside the HSBC Bank in High Town, at about 2.35am on Saturday, 31st August.

The 21-year-old victim had withdrawn some money when she was grabbed from behind and pulled to the ground but managed to get the man off her and get to her phone to call 999 at which point the man then ran off through High Town in the direction of Commercial Street.

She described him as Asian, 5ft 6ins in height, of slim to average build and with short dark brown hair.

At 12.45am on Monday, 2nd September, police were alerted to a man seen acting suspiciously near a woman using the cash machine at the Natwest Bank in Commercial Street. A man was arrested nearby, but police are trying to trace the woman.

Detective Constable Mel Reynolds of West Mercia Police said: “We are appealing for witnesses to the first incident when the town was quite busy, despite the time of night. Pubs and clubs were closing and there were lots of taxis in the area at the time.

“We are also trying to trace the woman in the second incident as she may have information which would be of benefit to the inquiry.”

A man was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and is currently on bail pending further inquiries.

Anyone with information is asked to contact DC Reynolds at Hereford CID on the non-emergency number 101 quoting incidents 94-s-310813 or 17-s-020913 or ring the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Urban village group have had their plans for a 10 one bedroom apartments next to the Freedom Church in Coningsby Street Hereford.

Quote from HT: Gareth Scannell, Sanctuary’s development manager, said: “These will be high quality affordable homes, designed to meet the needs of those requiring supported accommodation in Hereford.”

 

I will be upgrading the whole site over the next few weeks, so if you see the odd glitch please just ignore it until I announce that the upgrading process is complete.

I will be extending the site to cover the whole of Hereford, I have been asked to do this quite a few times by some members and I think it's the only way forward, if we are to continue growing our membership.

I have registered another domain herefordvoice.co.uk - Hereford Voice will be our new name


If there is anything that you would like to see or forums that you would like added or any features you think you would like, now is the time to ask and If I can accommodate, of course, I will.

You may see the forum turned off from time to time but this is quite normal when upgrading (can't start a process if a member is in the middle of posting) but once that particular section has been completed the forum will be turned back on, so you may see new features popping up.

Finally, if you look at the forums as they normally would appear click HERE (You will see the top 6 recent posts at the top then all of the various forums listed below, on here however, I have what is called a 'Portal' installed, (Front Page) which allows articles and pictures to appear just like a newspaper, I also need to upgrade this, so again, if everything looks like it has disappeared, don't worry, it's only me messing with the Portal, just go into the forums as normal, photo's and files still appear inside individual topics.

Any questions, just ask.

New service contracts for the county commenced yesterday for those looking after the county's highways, buildings and streets.

Herefordshire council undertook major procurements earlier this year to deliver the new contracts with the local authority spending more than £20m each year on these services.

The council says that new agreements will save £2.4m as part of its overall plan to reduce budgets.

The most noticeable change change will be the roll out of the new Public Realm Services contract with Balfour beatty Living Places.

Balfour is now looking after the county's highways maintenance, street lighting, traffic signals,street cleaning,parks and public rights of way,design services and fleet maintenance.

People will begin to see the new vehicles around the county this week.

The other major contracts to be awarded are building repairs and maintenance which will be provided by Interal UK LTD. and building cleaning services, which was awarded to Initial Facilities Services.

Both these contracts will be for an initial three year term.

I thought you might all enjoy this;

Man who created own credit card sues bank for not sticking to terms

http://topinfopost.com/2013/08/12/man-who-created-own-credit-card-sues-bank-for-not-sticking-to-terms

Summary;

He renegotiated the contract on a credit card (junk mail) proposal, sent it back with his terms, they didn't check it, signed it and sent him the card 0%, unlimited. Then he fined them nearly £60,000 every time they tried to fine him for late payments etc. Went to court, the judge found in his favour. He's now looking to take them to the cleaners for breach of contract.

The banks defence... "We didn't read the small print". 

They don't like it when the shoes on the other foot do they!

I am very annoyed with Hereford council for selling off the Merton Meadow Car Park for house building and not ensuring that the one thousand or so Long stay car park is replaced. When I wrote to them they said the old market site will have 600 new spaces. What they forgot to mention was some were going to be for the new supermarket at 2 hours max and the other would be short stay Car Parking. I have family that work in town and can not afford to pay £1.20 per hour out of their minimum wage to park. One of my family works for Tesco and they can enjoy free parking. Nurses, High Street workers, office staff and college students rely on the long stay car park. This is just another tax on the high Street worker! The transport strategy is that they don’t want cars coming and staying in the middle of town, this immediately begs the question as to why they would build another supermarket there? I know owners of homes in Whittern Way already complain that some students’ park there and they can’t park outside their own homes. How will Belmont residents feel when they have the same problem?

I was very pleased to see a great article in this weeks Hereford Times. Colin James has highlighted the problems that many parents face when trying to photograph their children.

Hereford dad wants to end camera bans at school and public events
Hereford Times Article


A HEREFORD father wants to end the bureaucracy he says has left him with no memories of his children to look back on

Colin James, from Belmont, is sick of being told he cannot photograph his children at various school and public events.

Now the father-of-two, who just this month was prevented from filming his teenage daughter in a stage performance, has launched an online petition and Facebook group in protest.

People will frown at you the second you get out your video camera, they look at you like you are some sort of criminal.

Well done Colin good effort
Stand for Councilor in May, you have my vote!

I have just come back from the Information Centre to pick up a copy of the Journal, only to be shown a letter from the Journal office stating as from next week the Hereford Journal is no longer FREE, there will be a cost of 45p per copy to members of the public, this will come into effect next week. They are also looking for new outlets for the journal to be picked up from.

Taken form the HT.

Amey has been awarded a multi-million pound contract to deliver water servicesin the county for the next six years. The firm will take on responcibility for repairing and maintaining around 20,000km of clean water pipes, as well a meter installation and new connections in the area served by Welsh Water. The £108m contract will commence in October and will run for six years.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear, l do hope this is not the finished article. This is worse than before. It has now become a health hazard.

A couple of thoughts...

Firstly wasn't there talk recently about changing the bin collection to fortnightly? Well I put out my bins this week, one from a week and one from 4 days, and they were dripping with maggots. The bins are sealed, so it must have been one rogue fly as I'm very careful about that because I can't stand the smell, maggots or flies. Needless to say the smell was repulsive. And this is on weekly collections, surely it's not a good idea to change to fortnightly? We're going to end up with streets piled with rotting flesh and maggots like the Victorian times..... what is it with the city and going backwards?

The second observation was that the bins are generally collected after 10am, yet at around 9am, what sounded like, a road sweeper goes around the streets. Surely it would be better to send the sweeper around AFTER the bins have been collected as they often have burst contents or windswept rubbish that has been left behind.