twowheelsgood

A welcome return to blogging by El Lukio - the thinking mans blogger. That JKay - didn't he used to wear a big hat, drive fast cars and sing on the telly? That leaflet - pathetic and risible, says nothing. Yes, he's been a Hereford City councillor since the last elections - who knew?

Recycling has been around a lot longer than since 2009. Councils don't do it for altruistic reasons - they face massive EU fines if they don't achieve certain targets and PFI funded and profit driven recycling plants are there to exploit that. Silver foil was probably one of the first items to be recycled, starting decades ago, and its great to see the article linked in Frank Smith's post, where good work by local people is put ahead of blind profit to shareholders.

• 5.30pm Gates open • 6.00pm Fire performers • 7.00pm Children's lantern procession • 7.30pm Fireworks display (No private fireworks or sparklers) • Come for your supper; • Pim's Thai Food • Friends Café - hot dogs • Barrels Beer Tent Wristband entry only, available from; Outback Records, Church Street or St James CE Primary School, Vicarage Rd, (1- 3pm, cash or chq only), tel 273961. Adults £6 in advance (£8 on the night) Children £4 in advance (£6 on the night) A family friendly community event raising funds for St James CE Primary School PTFA building fund and Friends of Castle Green.

philbates said "it seems criminal that in this day and age we are throwing valuable metals into landfill" following an unhelpful response from the council. I agreed with him for the reasons stated and gave an alternative which could help, as did Frank Smith. I don't think that’s doom and gloom. It’s a forum - people complain - that’s (partly) what they're for.

It takes a vast amount of energy to smelt aluminium in the first place, but, once done, it is 100% recyclable, and can be recycled indefinitely. It is grossly irresponsible just to bin it, when its more about envirosort making a profit than adapting their system to sort it.

The Learning Centre in Symonds Street will take it.

Odd that councillors are too busy sniping at each other to answer a simple, direct question.

Really? An hourly occurrence on this site? Can you give us examples please?

Disgraceful - not much of an encouragement to walk and cycle is it? There are blocked gullies everywhere you look - its been out of sight, just take the money for Amey through the summer period and now they're gone with, no doubt, all records of complaints binned. Whenever I ask what are councillors doing to bring their contractors to book I get no reply.

I think the Police reorganise almost as often as Councils do - good for keeping more people employed than would otherwise be necessary and for making it hard for the pesky general public to find their way round their labyrinthine corridors of power.

That doesn't answer the question as to who it was given to.

Who was it given to?

Except, of course, that he hasn't outed anyone - no names named - its not even clear if its his own party or opposition members, or both. What he has done is blown open the whole corrupt cabal that we all knew was running the show and now, with 2 by-elections scheduled, the balance of power can and should swing away from the tories. Looking at megilleland's link further up the page, there are many more revelations to come. With more and more people leaving the Council, its inevitable that beans will be spilled ...

Very important to try and drive home the difference between the District Council and the City (Parish) Council, which the majority still don't understand. I think the City has huge potential for taking over much of what the District should have been doing in terms of revitalising the City centre, subject to, of course, resolving funding, and hopefully not becoming too embroiled in petty party politics. Apologies to those outside the City - which in turn begs the question for this digital paper - are we talking City or County wide?

Come on megilleland, when did this Council ever stick to the rules? Having singularly failed to attract any businesses, I guess they have to look like they're doing something, anything, to justify the expense package. The headline is misleading - I thought this proposal (which has been around for a while) was about celebrating the munitions workers at Rotherwas, which is an excellent idea.

Of course another reason for endless restructuring is to avoid any traceability and/or responsibility for actions - with new job titles, management are off scot free for a few months as well as being completely inaccessible to the hapless council tax payers who had been dealing with them and who have to start all over again.

Sussed it I think - I was using the IP Board theme - if I switch back to Social, it seems to work. And yes, only apple juice has ever coursed through my veins, well for the last 26 years anyway.

I came to the conclusion some while ago that the only reason for Council's being is to constantly reinvent and reorganise themselves. Without this, the whole caboodle could be run with just a few dozen people (as indeed the older district councils were). Look at todays story in the HT on payouts and specifically the department names - carefully crafted to disguise their real purpose of not much at all really. What on earth does the 'Inclusion & Improvement' department do? No wonder the assistant director of 'Customer Services and Communications' left. And why indeed 'Director'? The Council isn't a limited company (yet) although parts of it are run like the FBI ... My favourite idiotic departmental name is 'Place Based Commissioning' (because Highways was just too, well, obvious) - HC actually employed consultants to come up with that one. Money well spent, don't you think? As for Environment (again too obvious), its had more name changes than I can keep up with - the latest being 'Economy, Communities and Corporate'. Nice and oblique that one - who'd have thought it was the planning department?? To quote the much missed bobby47 - we're all doomed.

Ok, good call, lets see if that works ... Edit, nope. Perhaps its my browser, Safari, but never come across this before, and I'm a heavy user of forums.

Nope - I've now clicked on the multi-quote and that looks like it might work ... lets click and see. Edit - no it doesn't. The preview is different to the posted version. Still needs fixing.

Jim, it’s a fact that posters on internet forums use aliases - its always been thus. Posters on here, on the HT site, on WIHAHC and other sites are local people responding to local issues. For their own safety or job security or for other reasons they want to remain anonymous. That doesn't stop them raising valid points and asking you to deal with things where they are within your remit. It hasn't stopped at least one other councillor here dealing with issues and nor should it stop you. It is noted that you are one of the few who've responded to Colin's invitation to join this forum, and that it to be applauded - the majority are noticeable by their absence. Don't spoil it by throwing your toys out of the pram.

Colin - can you fix the quoting issue - it's not working as you can see. All of the quoted post should be in a grey box, not just the poster )or somehow selected). It makes it hard to decipher the posts.

Hmmm, quotes doesn't seem to work properly Colin ...

Still pedalling the myth that the 'Rotherwas Relief Road is creating jobs' I see.

I suggested a committee lead system - I don't claim to have all the answers, but we all know the cabinet system has been tried, tested and found severely wanting and open to horrible abuse. It has to go. Perhaps we consider reverting to a two tier committee system, such as when we had the district and county system. This at least provided for some checks and balances. Perhaps we should consider merging with Worcestershire, perhaps Hereford City could become a District Authority again - there are many options to explore.