twowheelsgood

Looks like a news story pieced together from this forum!

Quite a few new names in the City areas, plus, unfortunately, some old lags who should have gone ages ago. It will be very interesting to see just how badly the Tories fare ... possibly the only good thing locally to come out of the ongoing Brexit farce is that they may well lose their grip on Herefordshire and we can pull back from the brink (unless the ingoing members find a note to say they've spent all the money!).

The esteemed megilleland has shown costs from the Council register further up this thread - true to form though, the sums don't add up! Take your pick - £53k for 5 years, which in Council sums appears to be £5k per annum!

The glazing and framing were assessed as having the potential to fail, potentially allowing one or more large pieces of glass to fall. As a public safety issue, and with the developer conveniently no longer answering the phone, Building Control were obliged to step in and make the building safe. Unfortunately the Council Tax payer is having to pick up the bill for this open ended arrangement whilst the developer manages his six other development companies. Presumably nothing will happen until the leaseholders of the flats can muster enough funds to put the matter right (and, in the meantime, their properties must be blighted). Given the last accounts of Jacobs Court Management Company Limited showed a grand total of £8 in the bank, I doubt we'll ever get our money back.

More akin to factory farm than a home - how much lower are we going to sink?

Just about every road in the County, and certainly those in the City, need 'surface repairs, line markings or replacement drainage', yet the Council choose to concentrate on the least trafficked bits of tarmac with the lowest traffic speeds. If you can't even get to a car park without a damaging your vehicle or being thrown off your bike or twisting your ankle on an uneven pavement, how on earth will £150k on some lighting and signs and a bit of macadam 'ensure continued growth countywide'. Do they really believe this trite nonsense or are they having a laugh?

That one is horrific - 12 rooms, reminds me of a factory farm. Lots of points don't comply with Building Regs either(not that that stops Planning).

Rather pointless as some of them may be out of a job in less than 2 months time! I hear Harlow isn't standing again anyway.

The question about the Kinnock's (and numerous other eurocrats) must be what have they achieved over 15 years that merits being paid such colossal amounts of public money?

Lost publicity opportunity for Herefordshire by holding the PR presentation in Malvern.

All valid points he makes, what a monumental mess. The old two and half party political system has to be in its death throes as a result of this - no one has any confidence in, or respect for, politicians any more, at local level or national level. We need a benevolent dictator ...

Truly mind boggling amounts of money. Yet, the more we pay, the less we seem to get. Never has the County, and the City in particular, looked so scruffy, dirty, run down, graffitied, pot holed and full of litter and weeds.

Ex MP and part time dancer Ed Balls, who lost his seat in 2015.

Not as much as that propping up the rear of Jacobs Court in Commercial Road - we've been paying for that for years (10?) since the developer went bust (didn't stop him developing elsewhere in Hereford though) leaving behind an unsafe extension. I recall some while ago it was £11k a year?

I would have thought a (former) councillor would at least have the correct election date to hand - Thursday 2 May - or is something else coming on 19 May?!

They've made a start, changing a perfectly good green sign for an orange one. Wonder how many meetings that took.

Blueschool House is in her ward and she supported the scheme at planning. She has been uncharacteristically silent on the subsequent ongoing and unresolved scandal of the £1m/100% overspend. She is one of many who have long overstayed their welcome, such as it was, and we can only hope that 2 May is her last day in the job. Unfortunately, the Council is so tainted by mis-management and corruption that the chances of decent up standing citizens coming forward to serve their community must be rather compromised.

Most if not all of our Council tips are now privately run as part of the 25 year integrated waste management PFI contract with Worcestershire County Council and Spanish owned Urbaser.

Urbaser are Spanish owned, so tens of millions of pounds of UK council tax payers money is leaving the country instead of being put back into the local economy, much as happened with the disastrous Amey contract Herefordshire Council took on, Amey being a subsidiary of Spanish company Ferrovial. I'm not sure Herefordshire Council are involved in the Javelin Park facility in Gloucester, but they certainly are up to their necks (in debt) to the PFI Severn Waste one at Evesham (where Herefordshire waste is driven to) and the 25 year integrated waste management PFI contract with Worcestershire County Council (both schemes run by, you guessed, Urbaser). Are Councillors getting cheap holidays in the sun?

I see that Architype have been bumped off the former Boys Home scheme next door in favour of Quattro Design Architects of Gloucester, presumably to 'value engineer' it. There is some hope then that this absurd manifestation will not go ahead, especially as September is barely 9 months away and there is no sign of any work starting on site. Given they're no requisitioning the Robert Owen buildings, will it even be needed, in the short term at least?

Priority Space Ltd comprises three chartered surveyors with 66 directorships between them but only £51 of capital and reserves and £21k of assets to front a £6m development ... you really HAVE to ask how much due diligence has been done by our very expensive council officers!

According to the HT from 2014, "Herefordshire Council owns the freehold for Maylord which is worth more than £33k a year in rent." I recall that they originally had a share in the development along with original developers Norwich Union, both of whom subsequently sold out.

Hard to say anything about these cases other than they're truly appalling, even more so that the abuse, for that it was it amounts to, has gone on for 10 years in the one case. According to the HT, "council officers will today brief councillors 'in secret' about two recent fiascos affecting the county’s children’s services". It must surely be the case that those responsible for ruining these children's lives and mentally scarring them for life have to be brought to book. Jumping ship to another authority and just carrying on isn't acceptable.

Perhaps they were taking the red 'Join us' sign too literally ...

But that arrangement requires a strong 'client side' management from council officers who (should) have a wider overview on how the service fits into the wider delivery of council services and councillor requirements. Unfortunately, that's where it falls over - we pay for the best, but really, what are we getting? The system clearly is not working - BBLP focus appears to be on high value/high profit work and routine maintenance is constantly pushed back, creating larger problems down the road, so to speak. Councillor Summers spoke last week about about poor security at the flagship Skylon Park and cited the graffiti on the Greenway as an indication of this - as I said above, I've reported it, but nothing happens. When left, it becomes the start of a rapid decline into vandalism and anti-social behaviour.