jbfc

Almost certainly the Station Approach medical centre. Some hospital appointments for scans are already being directed there. So perhaps not that new....

Bramer in Penyard Ward

Worth looking at the detail, particularly on page 15 of the report in the link Martin has provided. On two counts: "The company was dormant at the time the contract was awarded in 2013". And "In January 2021 .... senior officers became aware that the council was contracting with a dormant company, BBLP. However the findings of this report were not reported to members until July 2021 and omitted to report that BBLP was a dormant company."

Who knew what, exactly?

Background seems to be http://councillors.herefordshire.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50037054 .But which community organisation?

The figures are interesting. At the Council elections in 2019, Newton Farm had by far the lowest turnout  - 18.6%. Just 554 people voted, out of nearly 3 000 on the electoral register (and 17 people had their votes ruled as spoilt). The winning candidate received votes from just under 6% of the electorate.

If the level of turnout was repeated at this by-election, the arithmetic is such that a candidate could still win even if they got no more than 100 votes - 3% of the electorate.

So make sure you vote, and encourage everyone around you to do so. 

"The bikes will enable officers to police harder to reach areas, such as town centres, alleyways and river and canal paths". Whatever happened to feet?

Housing would be good - though it might cost a lot to make the buildings suitable, For example, not much thought was given to energy efficiency in the design., If they had been proper northlight roofs - as on the original buildings - it would have been easy to fit solar panels.

Years ago, before European countries adopted common dates for putting clocks forward and back, I was in France on a relevant weekend. I heard a tv newsreader say "across Europe, people will be putting their clocks back one hour tonight. There are only two exceptions: Great Britain and Albania."

It's good that HC has people paid to watch the grass grow....

From the BBC News web site this morning:

"Public inquiry to be held into £27m link road

Nicola Goodwin

Reporter, BBC Hereford & Worcester

A public inquiry is going to be held into plans to build a £27m link road to south Hereford.

The planned Southern Link Road will join the A49 with the A465, south west of the city, through Grafton and Grafton Wood.

Herefordshire Council approved the plans in 2016.

But a number of concerns were raised about the route going through ancient woodland, the loss of valuable farmland and the impact on wildlife.

It's been revealed the Department for Transport is going to hold a seven-day inquiry into the plans in October."

.... which might put at risk the sub-post office in Putson

From: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/28/prezzo-restaurant-chain-to-close-a-third-of-its-uk-branches yesterday:

"The Italian restaurant chain Prezzo is to close a third of its 300 UK branches, putting about 1,000 jobs at risk, the latest victim of the casual dining crunch.

The chain, owned by the US private equity group TPG Capital, hopes to engineer a turnaround plan echoing steps taken by the burger chain Byron and Jamie’s Italian to keep themselves afloat.

Prezzo’s creditors will be asked to approve proposals under which its restaurants’ landlords accept rent reductions.

About 100 unprofitable outlets are likely to close altogether, including all branches of its Tex-Mex offshoot, Chimichanga, in an attempt to put the business on a sound long-term financial footing.

While landlords have yet to agree to the plan – known as a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) – it is expected to result in about 1,000 of the 4,500-strong UK workforce losing their jobs.

Sources close to the company said staff would be transferred to the surviving restaurants where possible."

The site is the other side, from HFC, of the access road from Blackfriars Street into Merton Meadow. I don't think you would get a very good view....

"However some of these rating are a year and a half old, some of these places could have deteriorated or improved since"

And in one case more than five years.... 

I understand that part of the thinking of the CCG is to expand the role of the community hospitals at Ross, Kington and Bromyard  (close to what their role used to be?). And one of the selling points for this was that the community hospitals offered free parking.

Clearly the Primary Care Trust, which, at least in principle is accountable for funding to the CCG, now sees an opportunity: http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/15361326.Parking_charges_to_be_introduced_at_hospitals/

Two thoughts:

1.   I wonder what surplus will be declared for 2016 - 2017? I seem to remember a lot of fuss about revised parking charges, and people voting with their feet/wheels.

2.   Are the councils used as comparators here the same as the ones often used for comparing Council Tax Band D against Herefordshire? 

Tried to post a link - https://www.midlandsconnect.uk/media/1082/midlands-connect-strategy-march-2017.pdf , and failed first time.....

There seems to be a lot of chatter about this: h , mentioned during the Budget, because it mentions a Hereford bypass.

The document is odd - and very repetitive. For example, the only mentions of tourism as an industry are in relation to Stoke on Trent (people visiting ceramics manufacturers) and the Lincolnshire coast. No mention of Stratford upon Avon, Warwick Castle, Alton Towers -to name just the three biggest tourist destinations outside London - let alone little Herefordshire.

It is clear, though, that the authors see the purpose of a bypass as a relief road for the M6/M5. 

Is this a case of be careful what you wish for?

"....any apparent intelligence suggesting trouble" .

Well, the Fair Play and Respect tables - see http://www.herefordfc.co.uk/fair-play-respect-tables/ suggest that Hereford and Didcot may have different perspectives on these matters. Would that have been enough intelligence? 

Ah, yes, the Holme Lacy Road "improvement". A lesson in how to irritate the greatest number.

There was a bus stop, with bus shelter, outside Tescos (the Gamecock). The bus shelter has been left where it was, and a wide pavement put in front of it, with a kerb step at the roadside for access to the bus. However:

• bus passengers have no protection from the rain as they move from shelter to bus - and, given the number of older bus users, it will take them longer (and they will get wetter);
• cyclists will have to dodge them.as they use what I presume to be the space for the cycle path;
• drivers will have to wait behind the bus,

There would clearly have been space for a bus bay, so the shelter could have been moved to the roadside, and the cycle path could have gone round the back of it. 

Would that have been too imaginative?

Plenty of opportunity to do it, especially since the Spread Eagle sits between two other empty shops. This corner is beginning to look pretty despondent.

... or it could be a trial by Tesco of rebranding. After all, they own One Stop.......

Sichuan? Have we got a cross border treaty with western China? Did you mean Schengen?

On the thread about HC farms, comment is made about the Council's selection of consultants.

Is there any significance that the consultants engaged to prepare the report on Rotherwas Rail, Parsons Brinckerhoff, are the same ones who prepared the report in favour of the so-called southern relief road?

Who chose the name "community charge"? Someone under the age of 26, perhaps? I seem to recall some riots in 1989 ......