twowheelsgood

1.21pm - still offline - quite ridiculous - absolutely no excuse for this, when it is fundamental to the running of the Council and serving the County.

So our preferred partners, BBLP, will have routinely checked this tree and found that it wasn't about to fall over, so why the panic and chainsaws now? Perhaps they haven't been doing their job and haven't looked at it? Surely not. Our previous preferred partners Amey cut down a perfectly healthy, rare and historic tree in Mill Street, a criminal act, which the Council glossed over, so there is reason to question what we are paying for. I don't of course expect any answers.

Whilst not wishing to be an apologist for the council, I do think it is unfair to blame them for the appointment of the head. They had nothing to do with it. It is a free school sponsored by the Robert Owen Group and outside the control of the council. Indeed it took a lot of persuasion to get the school to share basic information, such as names of pupils attending, without which and given the difficulties of some pupils, the basic safeguarding checks could not be completed.

 

I thought the premise behind the school was sound, but why start at the end of Year 9? Why not at the start of secondary?

I wasn't blaming the Council as I appreciate they are not directly involved in this - the parallel I was drawing, rather badly perhaps, it that Herefordshire Council have a similar track record of employing senior staff with truly terrible ethics and employment history, which is available for all to see by a simple online search. We then end up having to pay for it when it invariably goes wrong. It's all part of the Common Purpose and public service jobs roundabout I know. Self serving in the guise of serving the public.

Well, those that have appointed him clearly haven't done a simple google search - but then we've seen that so many times with our own Herefordshire Council, and it's cost us dear.

The first post in this thread back in June 2014 said;

Coincidentally, a Mr Andrew Hubble resigned as principal of an academy in West Walsall earlier this year after it was found by ofsted to be inadequate in nearly all respects including leadership and management.  I wonder if this is the same Mr Andrew Hubble.  And, if so, what the kids at the school have done to deserve someone with that track record. 

It is the same Mr Hubble. 

The Whitecross High School and Specialist Sports College is a PFI scheme and was struggling to cover its contractual costs as far back as early 2014 (£750k pa and rising at 3.6% pa), as reported in the HT. It's pretty obvious that the Council have been taken to the cleaners on this one - the sale of the old Whitecross School site barely covered the cost of one year of PFI payment, and that's before the cost of demolition and site clearance, which the Council paid for as well.

It was owned by Claridge Nursing Homes Ltd who developed the Hampton Grange Nursing Home and others and subsequently sold out to the Rotherford Group. It had a planning permission in 2012 for alterations (now lapsed) and a subsequent application was refused. Since then - nothing.

Featherstone is now (re) employed by the Council on a consultant basis.

Planning Hereford: how to get it right

 

This isn't really anything to do with Hereford University … the clue is in the title.

I use fixmystreet.com to log faults as it is independent and outside Council control - I found that ones logged on the Council sometimes 'disappeared' even though they had not been resolved. fixmystreet.com forward them to the Council. I have an RSS stream that shows newly logged faults on their site (for Herefordshire - it covers the whole country). It usually shows a few logged each week, very often reporting failures of recent repairs. Interestingly in the last couple of months there has been a huge increase in reports, just reinforcing the fact that we are at the tipping point of the complete failure of so many of many of our roads.

Let's not repeat the propaganda coming out of Plough Lane that the Council have no money. They have a guaranteed income of over £300m a year with a guaranteed inflation proof increase each year. No business has that luxury. We pay some of that, some of it comes from Government and other sources. We pay it on the basis that it will provide the services they say it will, although in reality we have no choice but to pay it. 

All these things need planning permission, but I doubt a technicality such as that will get in anyone's way - see Freedom Church ...

It's Kath Greenow and she was writing on behalf of the Lower Bullingham Parish Council, not as an individual. That said, a very lame 30 word objection. Did they read the several hundred pages of the design statement and supporting documents before coming to their conclusion?

 

 

So a few years before the council sees any money from the re-locations.

 

HEREFORD ENTERPRISE ZONE

EXECUTIVE BOARD

13 SEPTEMBER 2016

 

 

Skylon Park website

 

I read those minutes - the ref to £200k was ambiguous. For sure it will cost way more than that to build, so is this just fees? As for ongoing maintenance - ha, we all know that the Council do not maintain any of their assets, ever, despite taking the money for doing so. I expect this to be no different.

It's not private money - it's public money via local and central government, safely held in an 'arms length' arrangement so that the pesky public do not have access to information. The Hereford Enterprise Zone is part of the Marches LEP, and even the minutes of meetings of the LEP are now being redacted. As the Leader of Herefordshire Council sits on the Board of the LEP, it's fair to say that it has everything to do with the Council.

"Skylon Tower will be beacon to existing and future investors attracted to the world class business landscape provided on the Hereford Enterprise Zone.â€

The applicant is Hereford Enterprise Zone who also it seems own the land. The applicant also states that no pre-application advice has been sought from Herefordshire Council, which is rather surprising (or perhaps not, as increasingly the LEP are running the County). Fair does, they have submitted the most extensive design and access statement I have ever seen. It seems they put a ballon up to 46m and then took photos from just about everywhere in a 3 mile radius.

A very high and a very high quality scheme - all very laudable but I wonder how much it will cost and who is to pay for it. The road surface on the straight mile is terrible and rapidly getting worse with potholes developing on that very roundabout. Rather than looking to the skies, how about looking down and doing some basic housekeeping?

The applicants were given the opportunity to withdraw, but asked for a determination, indicating that they may well appeal.

After over 12 months of nagging planning enforcement, we finally get an application, yet the application is skewed by not mentioning the fact that it is retrospective - why have the council not flagged this as they always do?

The wording is wrong - there are 12 signs, not 11.

Does any business need 12 signs on one building? That includes one saying 'This sign is not an advert, it isn't promoting anything*, this sign is here to simply say that whoever you are, you matter'. Please, put this drivel on a fridge magnet, but not on a 5m wide sign in a conservation area. *it patently is an advert ...

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I went through a period of reporting potholes and also blocked gullies - perhaps 20 or so reports - not a single one was fixed and two gullies in particular are still blocked solid two years later. Gave up being treated with contempt. If anything, for cyclists, these blocked gullies are even more dangerous than potholes - at least you can see those. A flooded road hides who knows what? Cycle through it and risk hitting a hole, falling off and being run over or cycle around it and risk getting knocked off by the idiot in the Citroen Saxo doing 50mph in a 30 zone? Been for a ride this morning in the rain - saw literally dozens of dangerous holes and blocked gullies - why should we list them?

They say everyone has their hour of fame,guess my day has come    

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3410599/Every-rip-helps-Shop-owner-paints-signage-strikingly-similar-style-Tesco-Express.html

Are you the busty blonde in the article then?

There is NO MONEY coming from Herefordshire Council CVP, read Councillor Kenyon's post.

 

So it can ONLY be privately funded so it is guaranteed!

 

A planning application has been submitted for the cycle track.

HT report today £30k of public money coming from Hereford City Council, so not exactly guaranteed privately funded then.

Also note that since this thread stared the NFTO cycling team closed at the end of last year when sponsors withdrew, despite doing fantastically well both in the UK and abroad. It's a tough financial climate out there.

Surely this is not he same one if so another example of the mighty toppling

It is the same one.

Whilst I can see that smaller sums in Social Care might need confidentiality, there is absolutely no excuse for concealing the nature of capital expenditure.