Mick

This could be a good option, I can't see too many people complaining about the use of the top field, there is already trains going past and a tram would be super quiet being electronically powered. I see Preston are thing along the same lines - excuse the pun, see here and also here

Well there is the poo poo that Colin referred too! It will work if we all get behind it. In Germany the trams I noticed recently are sponsored by advertisers. You do not need 2 trams you could just have one tram going back and forth every 20-30 mins, which is better than the bus service we have now. The lines from one end to the other is less than 2-3 miles. Chris you mention that people from Redhill and Newton Farm could use buses, there are no buses!! What happened to the good old Hopper service? There is not even a bus from Newton Farm to Bobblestock without changing buses and bus companies. This idea is the best idea I have heard from anyone in years, it really is, so lets ALL get behind it for Christ sake.

The advert on page 20 of this weeks HT looks fabulous, and almost jumped out of the page at me. Glad you paid the extra Colin for the half page in colour, well done great effort.

A massive improvement indeed and an excellent job, at least by doing this job properly they will only need to trim these to keep them under control in the future.

I know the owner of Simply Stunning and he bought the building as an investment, he was made an offer for the premises that he could not refuse, the store in Hereford was never going to be long term, still better than an empty building.

I don't mind joining and lending a hand in this type of project but by doing just that starts an ongoing expectation.

Page 10: To be fare, I think the police are being unrealistic if they expect any club/pub to have a level of zero crime and disorder.

I totally agree greenknight, bad management over decades of corruption and people not paying taxes, now they see an option to avoid paying their creditors, guess what, yessss the Greek people have voted for the party who want to half the debt or not pay it at all, funny that.

Yes I tend to agree, a lot of this they have brought upon themselves through decades of evading taxes and corruption at all levels. When I was on holiday a few years back on Crete, I got talking to a local bar owner and he admitted that they had it so so good for so long and now they are paying the price, so even some Greek people realise how good they had it but eventually it caught up with the country and they had to be bailed out, so lets not feel too sorry for them. You run up massive debts here and you have to eventually pay it back or face the possibility of bankruptcy. I think the country needs to be careful now following this election, its okay saying goodbye to the Euro and go back to the Drachma but if they fail to meet the repayments then their economy will suffer even greater hardship because they will lose the support of the other member countries.

The world would be a boring place if we all agreed but it is good to share our views. Lets hope they spend the money wisely.

I think you are right Colin, this topic needs to be given a new title or a more descriptive one. Any good work as a result of this topic could be added by the author or a new thread started.

There is no need for you to apologise, it is a good sign that at least we are all passionate about our city. I agree that Nandos might not attract tourist but I do think that the new restaurants play a part in attracting locals and people from the surrounding towns, hamlets and villages. Housing I think she be kept out of the city centre because once you start with housing you then in turn have obstacles when venus and pubs stay open, noise etc. High Town and the OLM should of been looked upon as one and not split, I was always in favour of Colin's suggestion of a foot bridge, this would not of interfered with the flow of traffic and I am sure that something could of been done with linking such a bridge from the multi storey directly into Maylord Orchards, even better it would of had a roof and in theory people could go directly from the vehicles into shops without worrying about the weather or cold. On the subject of roof's I was disappointed that there was no roof on the shops within the square of Maylord Orchards and along Gomond St and at the back of the Butter Market when that was built and I cannot believe that no roof exists at the OLM (I am sure one could still be built if required). These are all key factors that make up a great shopping experience in my opinion. I have just returned from France and their like a lot of places, the shopping centres are combined on several floors with hotels, car parks and eateries with nightclubs on the top floors, all of these places have security and it just works. You would think that they would of learned these lessons from the failure of Maylord Orchards. Unless some serious investment is pumped into High Town to entice company's here, it will die. What company is going to move into a dilapidated old building, with damp and in need of renovation, add this to the fact that a lot are listed and you have your answer.

I was referring to Debenhams and I have a family member who works there and they have had fantastic sales figures since opening which are way beyond the targets that were set, so not sure where you have your information come from there. Then there is Swarovski, River Island, Joules, l'Occitane, Paperchase and Tiger. We can be as negative as we want but I think this new shopping centre has lifted the city and visitor numbers are up, on the flipside of this the city centre has suffered be losing the stores that left to go to the new units, maybe the Council should of tried harder to keep them stores in High Town. With regard to chain restaurants its no different to chain stores but now at least we have a little more choice which hopefully will keep attracting more and more visitors to Hereford. The Cinema was a must.

I do not completely disagree with you, however, these bigger companies who have opened in the Old Market would never of come into High Town without investment and incentives from HC. I for one love the new shopping centre but I think they could of combined the two better than it is. Colin suggested a foot bridge which looking back would of definitely been a good thing, too many people crossing over that road for my liking and a bridge would of prevented all of that. Maylord Orchards is more or less dead now but there has been no investment since the place was built! Huge rates do not help either add this will the closure of public toilets and traffic wardens who act like they are on commission and its all looking pretty bleak.

I can see the benefits of using this service if you have no change on you but being charged for the privilege is not on.

I read this article earlier which address's these idiotic theories; The horrific killing of 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo seems disturbingly straightforward. The magazine has a long history of using satire to critique radical Islam (and many other targets). They have published many cartoons depicting Mohammed, something that has provoked violence before. They had previously been firebombed, and have been the target of threats for many years. Several of those killed were named as being "wanted, dead or alive" by al Qaeda's Inspire magazine (alongside Salman Rushdie). Witnesses to the shooting say the gunmen shouted they were "avenging the honor the prophet" . And yet there is a small but vocal subset of people who consider nearly every major story in the mainstream media to be fake in some way. Every time there is an attack of some kind, a shooting, a bombing, even the events of 9/11, they claim that the story has been manipulated, or that the shootings were not done by who the media says did it, or even that the event was entirely staged, with fake blood and "crisis actors" who play out the roles of shooters and victims in carefully choreographed pretend carnage. This has already started to happened with the Charlie Hebdo shootings, and with an event of such significance and potential for incitement, it is guaranteed to continue and escalate, and become part of the canon of purported "false flag" events. David Icke was quick to chime in. Over and over the theorists will come up with claims of things they think were suspicious about these events. In the Sandy Hook school schoolings, banal things like the lack of video, or the small stature of the shooter, or the facial expressions of the parents of the victims were offered as "proof" that the shootings never happened. After the Boston Marathon bombings armchair experts opined that there was too much blood, or not enough blood, or the blood was too red, or that people reacted in unexpected ways to having their legs blown off, thus proving that the events were just a charade. These claims, of course, are specious. Just shoehorned cherry-picked confirmation bias by people who have already decided that everything is fake, and so everything they see is evidence of that fakery. Many of their claims have been examined at length, here and on many other sites, and have been shown to be either straightforward bunk (errors and lies), or meaningless subjective speculation and interpretations. They hide under the excuse of "I'm just asking questions", and claim they are performing a legitimate role of fact-checking the mainstream media - something, they say, which you could not possibly object to. This excuse has the ring of truth about it, as fact-checking is indeed an honorable pursuit and errors in the media should be exposed and corrected. But that's not what they are doing. They are finding ordinary and expected inconsistencies in the reporting of chaotic events. They are offering their own subjective interpretations of events as alternative evidence. They latch on to the most trivial of coincidences (with their mantra of "there are no coincidences") as evidence of a conspiracy. Two women with the same haircut is evidence that they are the same woman, and hence an actor, and hence everything is fake. It's self-reinforcing confirmation bias taken to an extreme. It does not seem worthy of response. And yet here on Metabunk we've taken them on, and debunked many of their claims. We have occasionally been criticized for doing this, as the claims are so outlandish, denying that people died, that they are deeply offensive to the relatives of the victims. This was particularly the case for Sandy Hook, where the conspiracy theorists have gone as far as harassing the parents of the children who were murdered. Should we even acknowledge these people? In debunking them are we actually giving them more attention than they would get if we just ignored them? It's hard to draw the line. Some things are clearly way over it - suggestions than no planes hit the World Trade Center, or that what people saw were giant holograms, or that Sandy Hook School had actually been closed for years. Indeed you might think that the entire notion of events like Sandy Hook being fake, or the Boston Marathon Bombings being fake, is over the line - obviously ludicrous and offensive. And yet some people believe it. Now we are obviously not going to change the minds of the David Ickes or James Tracys of the world. These are people who's very identity, their entire reason for the way they live their lives, is tied up in their beliefs of a fake media and all major events being fake. Nor are we going to change the minds of the "true believer", the conspiracy theorist who has been thinking like this for decades, the type of person for whom evidence that should contradict his beliefs will bizarrely reinforce them. Where pointing out the errors in their evidence is simply more evidence that they are correct. They do come around, but very rarely. But then there are vastly more people on the fringes of conspiracy theory than there are deeply buried inside it. In particular there are many young people - people who are very impressionable, with flexible minds that soak up new ideas quickly, but who are also able to drop those ideas when they are shown they are incorrect. It is this group that is the target audience for the majority of the debunking on Metabunk. Conspiracy thinking, conspiracy ideation, is a black hole, a dark rabbit hole that once you get deep enough into, it is very hard to escape from. When I debunk I hope I'm preventing people from falling into that hole, or if they are already in it I hope to keep them close enough to the light so they will eventually climb out themselves. And that's why I address ludicrous and offensive theories like the Sandy Hook shootings being fake. It's not in the hope of changing the minds of the people who come up with the ridiculous claims of evidence - they are generally deep down the rabbit hole. It's to help people out who are not in too deep, and to help people not fall into in the first place - particularly the young. And so yes, I think we should address the inevitable Charlie Hebdo conspiracy theories. But only if it seems like they have some traction, if they might actually be influencing people. We don't need to respond to every single labored YouTube video of "why was this person stood there" type thing - especially if nobody is watching those videos. But if people are being taken in by claims, if their young or overly-open minds are being darkened by bunk, then I think debunking has a place here.

But both McDonalds in Hereford are owned by a local franchisee.. I don't think you can eliminate a business simply because they are bigger, given the choice for a take away after a good night out I would select Chinese - Indian - Kebab over a McDonalds everyday of the week but on the flip-side of that my brother cannot eat spicy food, so he would take the McDonalds option. People can choose to spend their money where they prefer. Colin has pointed out that it is about having a choice and I tend to agree, today we have no choice do we?

A lot of objections to this I see but I can see that there was inadequate parking.

I think that you might be able to request a larger bin but not 100% maybe a Councillor can advise?

I know that HV is nothing like the HT and rarely does Colin edit or remove topics and that is why I appreciate the facility that he provides us with. I never got involved in the recent topic only read the content. In the end I think removing the whole discussion was the best decision for HV and it's members and long may it continue.

We ate there last week and had a really good meal. It was busy too which was good to see.

Wow, nice to see, welcome to HV

We had the same experience a few weeks ago. I am really surprised because this new centre is not fully operational and not all the units are open yet, so this is very poor. Surely this should be part of the contract of renting the units, once one starts to close early others will follow. We had a coffee and saw several people wanting to go into Fat Face and you could see their disappointed expressions when they realised it was closed and this was only around 6.30pm. Once people realise that these shops are closed after 6pm they will just stay away, so the numbers will just continue to fall, simple economics..

I echo Denise, so good to see it open again.

He is a good guy but I think you might be wrong there CVP about him never commenting on this site and that is all I am saying on the matter.