megilleland

Taken from Here for Hereford website:

An Open Forum to discuss Transport Options for Herefordshire

Saturday 22nd September 2012 from 10.30 am to 12.30pm

Hedley Lodge, Belmont Abbey, Hereford HR2 9RZ

Let’s talk about RAIL…. Let’s talk about CYCLING…..

And BUS ROUTES…SCHOOL RUNS…CAR SHARING…

What ARE our Transport Options and What SHOULD they be?

Air your views and contribute to the Council’s consultation on

AN INTERIM TRANSPORT PLAN FOR HEREFORDSHIRE

Speakers are Cabinet Member for Education and Infrastructure, Cllr Graham Powell ; Cllr Adrian Bridges on Rail Infrastructure and Services…

and we will also be hearing from Council officers and consultants on a range of transport options. Bill Wiggin MP also hopes to attend.

PLUS

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Herefordshire Council’s transport consultation commenced on 10th September 2012. Here for Hereford will submit proceedings of this Open Forum to the Council as part of the consultation. All those attending can respond to the consultation separately and/or agree that their comments can be included in the Here For Hereford’s Open Forum submission to the Council.

Please note that the consultation closes on 16th November 2012.

Background papers and Council questionnaires can be found at: http://www.herefords...nsport/3204.asp

Thanks to Belmont Abbey for the use of their premises. Entry and refreshments, served from 10.00am, are free of charge. Booking is not required. Any queries please email vickiweggprosser@gmail.com

or write to Here for Hereford, PO Box 313, Hereford. HR1 9JO, with an SAE for reply.

Could be worth a look in

The traffic flows much better with the removal of traffic lights and road signs as shown in the following examples in Drachten, Netherlands.

The big problem is that A49 and A465 highway/roundabout is managed by the Highways Agency whose speciality is laying down as much concrete as possible and installing road signs every few yards along the route.

Look at the savings they made in Drachten. Also the Drachten experiment was more in the centre of the city so slightly different here. The problem is that all the traffic blocking the roads in Hereford is locally generated - take that out by using cycles and public transport then things should move a lot easier.

“Naked Streets†Without Traffic Lights Improve Flow and Safety

European Towns Remove Traffic Signs to Make Streets Safer

Magic Moments

From BBC Hereford & Worcester Radio today:

Herefordshire Council may privatise more services

 

Herefordshire Council has said it is looking at outsourcing a further 38 services including planning to a private company in order to save money.

 

In 2003 the authority employed company Amey to take on several of its services, including street cleaning, highways maintenance and grass cutting.

 

It said that as that 10-year contract was coming up for renewal, it was looking at what else could be included.

 

The council said it was not "looking at any redundancies at the moment".

 

If the extra 38 services, which include car parking enforcement, housing development, planning, archaeology, environmental health and pest control, bereavement services, licensing, markets and catering, are also privatised, the contract could potentially be worth £1bn over 10 years.

 

Council officials said the plans were only at their "very early stages" and were only looking at the possibility of outsourcing further services.

 

Richard Ball, from the council's commissioning department, said: "We are not looking at redundancies at the moment.

 

"This is very much about making sure we get the right quality of services. We are not under a commitment to any other outsourcing."

 

'Big experiment'

Steve Akers, regional Unison organiser for Herefordshire and Worcestershire, said it was important the council remained "transparent" over any decisions it made.

 

He said: "It's a big experiment.

 

"The spin is that this is about value for money and good quality services, but there are no guarantees of that."

 

The authority said it would be starting a consultation process over the plans, and will be holding a series of events from 20 September to explain them.

 

The Hereford and Worcester Chamber of Commerce has backed the proposals, saying they could potentially be good for the local economy.

Is this plan going to be any good for council tax payers. I don't like the privatisation of planning. What is lacking with this council is transparency and accountability.

Taken from "Have your Say" Hereford Times this week:

I WISH to draw your attention to the potentially dangerous situation at the junction of Goodrich Avenue and Waterfield Road.

 

For no obvious reason a number of container-type cabins, presumably used for storage, are parked on the greensward adjacent to the fairly new police sub-station opposite the entry/exit of the service road for Millard Close.

For the activities involved in using these cabins – which, in themselves, obscure or distract attention from other traffic approaching that junction – vehicles service the cabins and are parked on one or both sides of Goodrich Avenue and Waterfield Road, with workers moving to and fro.

 

That no incident has already occurred is, I think, entirely fortuitous.

It has occurred to me that the siting of these cabins might and certainly ought to have incurred an application for at least temporary planning consent as I doubt whether it would have been granted in view of the hazardous situation they cannot avoid causing.

 

DAVID J JORDAN, Millard Close, Hereford

I think he has got a valid point. This area of safeguarded open space has been turned into a large builders compound. Herefordshire Housing sure know how to ruin a decent green area for local people. No doubt they have plans for other open spaces bearing in mind the present governments approach to relaxations of development rules. It is a pity that they can't keep their estates tidy - the whole area is sinking fast. The area once had a youth club and church - useful community assets.

Very noticeable along Great Western Way the amount of broken glass which has been left for over a week - at least in five places. Amey just don't see this littering, even the men who empty the litter bins in their vans seem to ignore it. Maybe its another department who just do broken glass. All it needs is a brush and pan to remove it.

The work in Waterfield Road has been completed. Here are some photos showing the link to Haywood Country Park

Taken from the Hereford Times today:

New opening hours for Herefordshire police stations

NEW opening hours are now in effect for police station public service counters across Herefordshire.

Thirty-one counters across Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Worcestershire now have a wider range of opening hours, including evenings and weekends.

Chief Superintendent Trevor Albutt said: “The change to public service counter opening times will not affect local policing and all police stations will remain operational. We want to make sure we offer a good service to the public and be as accessible as possible. Visiting your local police station service counter in person is not the only way to get in touch with us.â€

As part of the review West Mercia Police carried out extensive research, and spoke to other forces, ensuring where opening hours are reduced alternative services are provided including telephone links outside police stations and information stands providing information on crime prevention.

Every Local Policing Team can be contacted by e-mail, voicemail, at local events and surgeries, Partners and Communities Together meetings and via diary appointments which are available at the police station.

The police can be contacted 24-hours a day, seven days a week by calling 101 for non-emergencies and 999 in an emergency, as well as by logging on to www.westmercia.police.uk or their Facebook and Twitter.

To check who your local policing team is visit the force website www.westmercia.police.uk

New opening hours for Hereford and South Wye are:

Hereford:

Monday - Saturday 8.00am - 8.00pm

Sunday and Bank Holidays 10.00am - 4.00pm

South Wye:

Tuesday - Friday 10.00am - 2.00pm

From today's Daily Telegraph:

"Authorities in England and Wales saw their surplus from parking rise to £511.6 million in 2010-11 from £489.4 million a year earlier, according to an analysis of local authority accounts by the RAC Foundation.

Local authorities were warned by Mike Penning, the road safety minister, last year to stop treating motorists as an easy target to raise funds.

Town halls are supposed to use their powers to control parking to improve traffic flow and prevent gridlock on their streets.

They are prohibited from using these powers to bolster their income. However, many councils seek to get round this by earmarking the cash raised for other transport projects.

Westminster came top with a surplus of £38,196,000!

Herefordshire Council was listed at 148 out of 371 authorities with a surplus revenue of £863,000 from parking charges. How long would it take to pay for a ring road at this rate.

The standard of grass cutting and weeding of kerbsides on the estates and county roads is dismal. City estates suffer due to different agencies being responsible for separate parts of the estate. Amey do not do it all - various Housing Associations and other bodies are responsible, but tend to pass the buck between one another. Time to get it back in one department and assume responsible for all parts of the estates ie one phone contact point.

Also litter, fly tipping, blocked drains, overgrown trees, overgrown pathways, damaged verges by car parking, black bags put out days before collection and left behind by waste collectors. All functions carried out by different agencies and departments of the council with a lot of time and money wasted telling us why they can't get these things sorted out.

Following the reduced bus services in the city has anyone noticed that certain buses do not appear to run as scheduled. This Monday (2nd July) my partner wanted to catch the 18.47 from Argyll Rise to meet me in the city at 7pm following a meeting I attended. The bus didn't turn up. I was waiting at Tesco to meet her and other people were waiting for this bus, I assume to travel onwards. When I spoke to these people, they had been waiting for this missing bus to take them up to Newton Farm as advertised at 18.32 and were still waiting until I told them that there was no bus running.

It was ironic that the meeting I attended earlier that evening was promoting a scheme called "Destination Hereford".

Following an annoucement earlier this year the Department for Transport confirmed that Herefordshire Council's "Destination Hereford" had been successful in its bid to its Local Sustainable Transport Fund. The project will receive £4.97million of funding over the next four years to promote sustainable travel amongst households and schools, support the Connect2 project, develop workplace connectivity and enhance rural access. Part of the package is to make improvements to connectivity within Hereford City, in particular improvements along Broad Street joining it with other newly refurbished areas.

To quote:

"Destination Hereford provides a package of integrated transport improvements designed to improve end-to-end journeys to and within Hereford".

The council should start with ensuring that the local bus services are running as scheduled and not on a please yourself approach. Then maybe people will leave their car at home to go into the city instead of blocking up the roads.

Can anyone tell me why certain pieces of land on housing estates are retained by developers/housing associations? I am discovering that when housing estates were completed the land/open spaces and highways would be handed over and adopted by the council to manage. However by retaining small areas of land, developers/housing associations could impose a service charge each year for maintaining these areas. This charge would be passed onto tenants in their rent and freeholders would be sent a demand for each year. So not only is there the council tax to pay, but also a further charge which varies from estate to estate to keep them tidy and in order.

The interesting thing is tenants are protected from unscrupulous landlords through various acts of parliament which enable them to see where and how the service charges are estimated and spent, but not freeholders, they have no rights whatsoever!

This explains why a lot of these estates look uncared for and untidy. Because as well as the council maintaining parts of the estate, other housing associations/developers also have a responsibility to do their bits of land. All carry out this maintenance on different days and to different standards and charge accordingly.

When you walk around the estates who is responsible for that piece of land that never gets cut, the weeds that are growing out of the kerb sides, the removal of graffiti, litter and fly tipping, hedges growing out over footpaths and numerous other eyesores which are reported through this forum.

Everyone in authority passes the buck around and very little gets done. I did comment on this forum that what each estate needs is to be completely adopted by the council and a task force created to solely manage and be responsible for it. Each estate then will get a facelift and be somewhere where we can be proud to live.

I see they have at last put something substantial in place on the Great Western Way bridge at Belmont Road.

From the Hereford Times today:

PEOPLE living in the county will soon be buying their own black bags to throw away their rubbish.

Herefordshire Council said today it will ‘reluctantly’ be withdrawing the black bag service in a bid to save £200,000 a year.

The council will continue to deliver recycling bags and collect rubbish on a weekly basis but says the black bags will not be handed out this Autumn.

Council leader John Jarvis said: “Due to the high levels of recycling in Herefordshire residents were often only leaving out half-filled black sacks each week, so residents can now decide how many they need depending on how much waste they produce.â€

This must be one of the hottest comment item in The Hereford Times. Now up to 34 and a comment from the editor of "24 housing magazine" as well.

Plenty of comments (21) about this topic on HT website. Like others how is this to be paid for. I think the motive is for Herefordshire Housing to save itself a lot of money on sending post out if it can access tenants through the internet.

Noticed on The Hereford Times website today:

"Herefordshire Housing has pledged to provide all its tenants with free broadband within five years.

The housing association, that has around 5,500 homes, has teamed up with Whitestone-based Allpay to provide the ambitious scheme.

While Allpay’s background is in social housing payment systems and it has breached out to broadband and recently created Herefordshire's Ofcom-approved broadband network using church steeples as transmitters.

Working together Allpay and Herefordshire Housing are trialling free broadband at speeds of up to 10Mb at three sheltered housing schemes, starting at Innesfield in Clehonger followed by Southgate in Ross Road, Hereford, and Bryngwyn Court, off Barrs Court Road.

“Broadband is increasingly becoming the fourth utility and we want as many of our tenants as possible to benefit from having high speed internet access in their home,†said Herefordshire Housing chief executive Peter Brown.

“Access to the internet can change people’s lives.â€

A lot of comments about this here.

I wouldn't mind a faster connection, but mine is ok for most things.

A new community information service has been opened by volunteers at Newton Farm Community Association in South Wye, Hereford.

Community Info is a drop in service run by specially trained local volunteers known as Community Wardens, who will be able to offer information or signposting assistance to relevant organisations in Herefordshire. The aim is to provide a friendly face and helping hand to local residents who have queries on a range of issues including how to apply for a blue badge, dispose of bulky items, access community transport or receive home repairs.

The service, which is run in conjunction with Herefordshire Council and NHS Herefordshire, is funded by Skills for Care, a national organisation which assists social care employers to improve their workforce.

Fran Warden, Herefordshire Council’s signposting officer, said: “The new service aims to create a stronger community in South Wye by enlisting volunteers to provide useful advice and support to local residents. They will be available to answer non-emergency questions and help people access additional information and services in organisations across Herefordshire.â€

“The service is currently being run as a pilot scheme and is available at The Oval in Hereford every Monday and Thursday 10am to 1pm.â€

Post at Brampton Road

From Hereford Times website today:

Hereford's first ever credit-card only petrol station plan withdrawn - for now

4:23pm Tuesday 17th April 2012 in Hereford City

A LEADING supermarket chain has withdrawn its plans for Herefordshire’s first credit card-only petrol station - for the time being.

Asda wants to build the 12 pump forecourt on the grounds of its South Wye store off the Belmont Island.

But the idea was met with opposition from councillors Chris Chappell and Bob Preece who feared for traffic on the already busy junction.

“We are delighted that we have been listened to and that this proposal, which would have caused mayhem on this busy road junction, has been withdrawn by ASDA,†explained Coun Chappell.

But Asda this week said it still wants to go ahead with the idea, saying the withdrawal was merely to provide more information to Herefordshire Council.

“We are just ironing out some details,†said press officer Oliver Jones.

“We still intend to go ahead with the plans.â€

One down 17 to go

I am afraid not, I have just seen another one on the right of the bike chicane by the Brampton Road Stores, next to the Royal Mail drop box. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Noticed today this post has been taken out at long last.

Had a walk over to the Country Park today. Noticed the children's play ground was open and very busy. Two points concerning the playground - both litter bins inside the play area where overflowing with rubbish and need urgently emptying and the play house in the play ground had some damage to a decorative metallic knob at its entrance, leaving a nasty edge which could cut a child's hand.

I was intrigued to see that those living in Belmont (Belmont Rural Parish Council) pay less than those in Newton Farm (Hereford City Parish Council). As the council tax is based on rental values, I would of thought these figures were the opposite way round. Have I read these right?

* Newton Farm in Hereford City Council Parish Council Band/£

#992.31 band A

*999.23 difference +6.92

#1157.68 band B

*1165.76 difference +7.88

#1323.07 band C

*1332.30 difference +9.23

#1488.45 band D

*1498.84 difference +10.39

#1819.23 band E

*1831.93 difference +12.70

#2150.00 band F

*2165.01 difference +15.01

#2480.76 band G

*2498.07 difference +17.31

#2976.90 band H

*2997.68 difference +20.78

I know it is only a few pounds a year, but it looks as if the less well off are paying more again.

Looking at last years council tax demand, when there was no council tax increase, and listening to David Cameron saying that councils should freeze the council tax, Hereford City Parish Council's proportion increased by 2.8%.

This is part of the road network that the government want to privatise! I imagine if it goes ahead there will be turnstiles placed here to catch the tolls.

For the past 4 years I have tried to get Herefordshire Council to cut back a tree which is behind my house and blocking sunlight reaching the garden. All I want is for some branches to be removed to limit the spread of the tree. I have raised this with my councillors and they have passed the matter to the parks department, but they are totally against taking any action. They have sent me two leaflets regarding their policy on trees which do not help.

This tree owned by the Council, the rest by Muir Housing

View of trees lopped by Muir Housing. Note the path separating land with bollards from highway verge.

The bizarre twist in this application is that this tree is one of twelve planted by Muir Housing Group when the houses were built, but because the Council say that this tree is on the highway verge they are responsible for it. There is actually a path between the land this tree is planted on and the highway verge - so I would say that it is not on the highway verge.

Muir Housing Group lopped their 11 trees in 2010 and their reason for this: "The reason that I (Susan Harris) requested tree work to be carried out on our trees was due to the fact that I felt the trees could become dangerous and therefore rather than an accident happening I had our contractors look at the trees who in turn contacted professional tree surgeons and they advised us on what they felt was the best way forward".

The work they carried out I thought was excellent. Not only were the trees thinned out, but the lower branches were removed to stop the children climbing the trees and reducing vandalism.

I believe the real reason that the council do not want to take any action on the tree behind me is one of cost, but I have offered to pay for the work myself by employing a tree surgeon. The council have refused this offer. I have posted this item because when you travel around the housing estates I have been appalled by the treatment some of the trees have received at the hands of Amey and Herefordshire Housing. Much of the work carried out resembles the after effects of a nuclear bomb.

Before Waterfield Road

After Waterfield Road. These must have been cut by the council as they are on the highway verge

Back of Kemble Court/Sherborne Close

Back of Kemble Court/Sherborne Close

The character of the tree has been destroyed and we are left with something that looks a very poor specimen. A lot of this work has been carried out on Herefordshire Housing trees due to the trees, in some cases, blocking light out of houses and blocking gutters, but the council do not seem to worried in pulling them up in the manner they have carried out the work.

So if you want to see a real tree visit the one behind Muir Close and we have another two council trees affecting properties further round in the street. I do not think I will be wasting any more of my time conversing with the council as they are totally unhelpful and not interested in the estates environment. No matter what you raise with them they couldn't care less using the recession as an excuse.