twowheelsgood

7 hours ago, Roger said:

I saw one of these bikes parked up [unattended] at the junction of Folly Lane/Church Rd/Mount Crescent today. Several also in a marked bay near the cheap tobacco shop on Commercial Road. Only time will tell if this initiative will prove to be successful. My own personal guess is that it will be a system that will not work in Hereford. Because of misuse. Or theft. Or bikes ending up in the river. How much time is there to investigate a bike theft these days? Probably not much. Punishment for a bike theft is also zero for someone who doesn't care about his/her/LGBQT actions. Whoever is operating this bike scheme will have to manage the scheme/losses themselves. Rather like shops. Who now have de facto security all over. As Police have fallen short in various areas. Not entirely their fault. Obviously. 

I saw that one at Folly Lane last night - it is in a green square, and there was one opposite the Rose Garden on Ledbury Road in a green square. Just sitting there unattached to anything and they do scream steal me (although they have a nurses lock on the back wheel). They do have a gps tracker and I assume bluetooth to link with the hirers phone to unlock and track it. Whether that works in the river is another question. I wish the scheme well, but you only have to walk through High Town during the day to see the preponderance of pond life looking for mischief to see that it is going to struggle.

On 29/07/2019 at 21:53, Robmozz said:

Seems bizarre that the hospital hasn't got a bay given that it must be the biggest employer in town 

Given that the hospital removed all cycle parking when they built the hideous 'temporary' winter emergency portakbins in front of the main entrance last year, the powers that be there don't appear to have much interest in encouraging exercise and it's health benefits. 

Excellent. Of course, no tax means no insurance as well and all the misery that can bring to third parties. Clamping is too good for them, just crane them onto the low loader and straight to the crusher. Getting rid of the visible tax disc was a serious mistake, but no great surprise with that. 

BBLP's admitted policy is reactive ie do nothing until someone complains (and then still do little or nothing). It's a shame that payment to them isn't on the same basis. Instead of proper, planned ongoing maintenance, everything is in terminal decline, with a man and a van turning up to react to a collections of complaints, patching it at best and clearing off again. Or just closing the logged complaint as finished without doing anything (as is happening with issues in my road).

That description is lifted directly from the application form - clearly not checked by the Council. Each apartment has two double bedrooms.

Grateful for very small mercies I suppose - at least it's not a tacky fast food outlet, which seem to blot most of the entrances to the City. That pseudo stone blockwork will have to go though.

Here's another. Look at the brickwork between the third and fourth bays from the left - the quoins are a  completely different coloured brick (that happens in the first photo above as well) it's not intentional, just no care in picking and sorting the bricks.

With the scaffold down, some of the worst quality face brickwork I have ever seen is now on view. The workmanship is just appalling. It's even worse than the photo suggests!

To put this in perspective, when the Town Hall was opened in 1904, it had taken 2 years to build, from scratch, and that included slum clearance beforehand. No machines, all manual labour, finished inside and out to an extremely high standard. Yet this relatively small repair took almost twice as long as it took to build the Town Hall in the first place!

An absurd amount of time, inconvenience and incompetence to deliver - once again, Property Services have a lot to answer for, yet they answer for nothing - think Blueschool House - so we're unlikely to know the true cost of this particular episode, and there's not much we can do even if we did. Hard to choose between them and £20m+ a year BBLP for very little in return as to who's having the biggest laugh whilst everything falls apart.

11 hours ago, Glenda Powell said:

H Wilson... You say your aunt lives in a modern block flats in Leeds, with respect Leeds isn't Hereford. Keepmoat who has the contract built the block of flats at top of Beattie Ave, they have not got lifts neither has the ones over the road from McDonalds. And both blocks of flats have had and still have problems, as well as all the houses and bungalows at the Oval.

All of which misses the point - it is perfectly possible to build accessible high rise buildings. That Keepmoat decide not to, isn't an argument for not doing them. It's a political decision. Likewise, that Keepmoat deliver very poor quality buildings isn't a reason not to build. Appoint a better developer - let's not forget their appointment to deliver the 'Edgar St Village' was yet another disastrous decision by the now sacked Conservative cabinet and is still scrubland.

Planning permission has been granted for this development.

20 x Social Rent

17 x Affordable Rents

17 x Shared Ownership

17 x Rent to Buy

I submitted a complaint to planning enforcement in October of last year and had a blunt response to the effect that enforcement action would be premature. Pre-start conditions were discharged by the end of last year so there is no obvious reason why work has stopped. Bio-fuel production is subsidised by the Government to help their eco-statistics and Layton is exploiting that. Perhaps that has stopped. In any event, it is worse to leave it unfinished than actually finishing and landscaping it. Or, perhaps he's in discussion about upgrading it to an eastern by-pass ...

The application by Layton for 6 houses on the triangle of land mentioned has been withdrawn.

It's worth looking at the political make up of this Planning Committee and notable that the so called 'True Independents' don't figure;

Councillor Graham Andrews - Herefordshire Independents (Kings Acre)

Councillor Paul Andrews - Herefordshire Independents (Hagley)

Councillor Polly Andrews - Lib Dem (Widemarsh)

Councillor Toni Fagan - Green (Birch)

Councillor Elizabeth Foxton - IOC (Eign Hill)

Councillor John Hardwick  (Chairperson) - Herefordshire Independents (Backbury)

Councillor Terry James - Lib Dem (Kington)

Councillor Tony Johnson - Conservative (Hope End)

Councillor Jim Kenyon - Herefordshire Independents (Tupsley)

Councillor Jeremy Milln - Green (Central)

Councillor Paul Rone - Conservative (Redhill)

Councillor Alan Seldon - (Vice-chairperson) IOC (Bromyard West)

Councillor John Stone - Conservative (Leominster North & Rural)

Councillor Yolande Watson - Herefordshire Independents (Kerne Bridge)

Herefordshire Independents - 5

Conservative - 3

IOC - 2

Lib Dem - 2

Green - 2

Hardly old, it was only announced by the Council last Friday. Ellie Chowns has been replaced by Trish Marsh and some of the job titles have been rationalised. All seems reasonable to me.

6 hours ago, Glenda Powell said:

Wasn't impressed by the first debate let hope the one tonight will be better, it will be interesting Boris will be there.

                                                                 BUT NOT RORY

Rory's there, why wouldn't he be?

1 hour ago, Tom Smith said:

Sue DOES NOT have to resign from the City Council. Parish Council matters DO NOT have to go the Unitary authority. You are very much confused or unaware.

Agreed. Parishes are consulted about some issues eg Planning by the District and their comments are considered. Other issues are dealt with solely by the Parish. In addition, you can be a Parish Councillor without needing to be a District Councillor, there is no enforced 'chosing' involved.

From IOC Facebook page today;

"We are proud to be part of the Alliance of Independent and Green councillors forming the new administration for Herefordshire Council. We look forward to delivering on our election promises - especially the move to a more inclusive and collaborative committee system of decision-making - as quickly as the council's constitution allows."

Nothing has changed? Everything has changed! Give them a chance, the first Cabinet meeting is on 13 June - no doubt they will start to discuss it then - it's not something that can happen at a stroke.

I am certainly not being disrespectful to anyone. I was merely stating the facts about the application for others that might be reading the thread. Clearly, you see different facts to me, and so I will leave it there.

There will be 24 bungalows (1, 2 and 3 bed), and 47 houses (2 and 3 bed) as per the planning application. Whilst they have their benefits, bungalows are a poor use of land generally, and some of the bungalows here are chalet with rooms upstairs to address that.

As I said, only one planning application has ever been submitted, and that hasn't been amended at all, so I can't say what it was you saw.

Only one planning application has ever been submitted. Perhaps you saw the public consultation stage scheme, which may well have been amended to take into account feedback.

It's the planning application, as yet undetermined, so it is current information.

None of them are for open market sale. There will be;

20 x Social Rent, 17 x Affordable Rents , 17 x Shared Ownership, 17 Rent to Buy.

Of these, 18 will be bungalows (1, 2 and 3 bed), 47 will be houses (2 and 3 bed) and 6 'OT Units' (bungalows, whatever OT may be).

Original tenants will be offered new properties.

At least, that is the plan ...