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Chris Chappell

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Posts posted by Chris Chappell

  1. I am hearing rumours that some cars in Newton Farm have been sprayed with acid over the Christmas break. Does anyone know what had happened ? I hear the police have been involved but I can not get more information. The story is that a women was seen spraying acid on cars in Charlton Avenue, anyone know what has occurred?

  2. No not that soon. There isn’t a regional parliament yet and Herefordshire is only a sub region. We need to fight it as long as possible which is one reason why so much economic, structural and cultural building is happening now. We have to be prepared to stand up for ourselves when we join the ‘big’ boys cause Herefordshire is seen as small fry although we bunch above our weight.

  3. Actually Megilleland, there will not be a Herefordshire Council in 25/30 years time. Herefordshire will send 6/8 elected representatives to the West Midland Regional government, and the parish councils in the county will Be much larger, with budgets, who will deliver the services they could deliver now. ( Parish Councils can control allotments, car parks, cemeteries, and a number of other responsibilities, although this is likely to change over the years)

  4. Sorry guys but the tram is not sensible. In South Wye there is a bus route within two roads of your house. A tram way would be ten roads at least fro majority of homes and going nowhere near where majority of people in south Wye want to go. No good for Hinton, Putson, Lower Bullingham or most of Newton Farm.

    Unless a tramway covered the whole city area, charged no more than 50p a trip, had return trips at least every half hour and could get 20,000 travel trips month, no commercial investor in their right mind would spend a £m on building a new terminus, garage, rolling stock and laying track plus put down a financial bond to the council for repairs, bankruptcy, etc of say £100,000, it is not going to happen.

  5. Welcome. Herefordshire is a wonderful county to live. Mainly rural but with some progressive towns like Ross and Ledbury. Hereford is well on its way to becoming city capable of looking after its self. Like many such rural areas it has its drawbacks, but with a new university, progressive businesses, and some great local pubs etc I think you will find not that different from Cornwall.

    Hope you will be happy here.

  6. First can we all be painent please. When you move into a new house is everything perfect straight away? It is not a road to no where , it is a road to the future. At nearly 70 I regret I am unlikely to see it full fill its true protential. It had opened up an area I suggest most of you have never seen before. It allows the new Police/ fire station to be built and access to the new doctors medical hub. New homes can be built for the people who so badly need them now and for those who will be coming into the county to new jobs at the university and at Rotherwas, that will help to build the economy of the county.

    It has taken nearly twenty years to design and build and advise given from road experts from outside the county who develop roads like this nation wide. Please give it a chance to settle in, it may have taken some of you by surprise and taken longer to get to your destination, but are you sure it was the new road that held you up and not the Christmas shoppers wanting to come into town to spend their money?

  7. You may be right but when the poppies arrive, the footfall is likely to be more than Coventry’s. please don’t let me find a retailer or food outlet not taking advantage of it in February and March! They will be named and shamed!!

    Let’s be positive about the city and county, we have so much going for us.

  8. Good Evening, Ubique and Everyone.

     

    I have already mentioned about the sound system. I agree we need to do more to make it more clear. I am a little deaf and find it difficult to hear what is being said. I will certainly pursue this as it is particularly important that we get it sorted for next year. I am not an expert on this, but it may be because of the surrounding buildings? You may have seen that this year there was a screen up close to the Town Hall, this was to enable people in St. Owen Street to see what was going on. Was this a success?

     

    More people than ever are attending and the event is planned some weeks ahead with the RBL, City Council and Police meeting up to discuss all the issues. I am not involved with that but I understand that the thing about the crowds getting closer is a logistical one.

    Leaving space for the uniformed groups to march and those laying wreaths to get to the cenatraph unheeded. There is also a security issue. But again I will mention it to those who do the organising.

     

    It was great to see so many there, paying thier respects. For the first time ever, we had the Munition Workers recognised. The lady in the wheel chair, Nancy, is 99 years old, she was going to be joined by two other ladies but I am afraid the other two ladies were too indisposed to take part. You may have seen a camera crew following Nancy. This is part of the BBC ‘In Side Out’ programmes campaign to get national recognition for all munitions workers. Without them, the result of both wWorld Wars would have been much different.

     

    Ubique, that poem is wonderful, not come across it before. It is great that so many people turn out to say Thank You, we owe all who serve to keep us safe a big Thank You.

  9. Good Evening Paul and Everyone.

    Yes, this event at St. Martins is open to the public. We all need to show our support to all our veterans and to those who did not make it home. Please come along, make yourself known to me, you will be welcomed by all the veterans.

     

    On Sunday 12th November, for first time ever, at St.Peters Sq, we will be joined by the last of the Canary girls. The women who worked at the Rotherwas Munitions Factory. We need to be proud of our mothers and grandmothers who worked there, sadly, to few to attend on Sunday.

     

    For those of you who are at home, watch Women at War on Friday, BBC 1 9.15 am. Three former local canary girls will be on the telly. Two of them, hope to be well enough to be in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday to watch a wreath being laid on their behalf. When you are 90 something you cannot be sure you are able to attend!

  10. Saturday,11th November at 11am, sees the annual commemoration at St.Martins Street cenotaph that former councillor Bob Preece and I have arranged for the last 15 years.

    We comemorate the deaths of 79 men from the area who died between 1914 - 1919. None of the houses in south Wye today were there then, so this must have been a devastating loss of young men for the families and farms where they worked!

    We also remember those who died in WW2 and countless other wars and skirmishes since. We are proud that within the grounds of St.Martins Church is a War Cemetery for the SAS.

     

    Most years we have students from the local schools attend. This year as it is a Saturday we probably will not. So I hope that residents from south Wye will join the veterans and pay respects to the fallen of south Wye, including the women from the munitions factory at Rotherwas, at our cenotaph.

  11. Councillors received email from Leader last evening, following HT report and councillors saying what is all this about, to say that nothing has been decided about Shirehall, it is only one of several wish list buildings, that university are looking at in the area.

     

    The judges have for some years been trying, with support from some councillors, to retain the law courts in Hereford. The council needs the officers closed by for members support and legal teams, and their is barely enough parking space now,so I would have thought that the Shirehall is not a serious contender!

  12. Well ragwort may be right but the Shirehall is a Council/ law courts building. Nothing to do with the university . The £ms is to go on converting etc buildings across the city. The tv interview was done from St. Peters Square but I dont think that is significant. It is not a council project, the council only helped to facilitate the coming of this important county asset, but if I was a betting man, and thought one of the uni buildings might be going to be in St. Peters Sq, I would suggest it would be in the former Connects building!!

  13. Not sure where the idea of the university being sited in shirehall came from, but no one working for the council or councillors knew this before we read it here! There will be several buildings across the city and ultimately the county that will be connected to the university over the years. As is the case with the university of Gloucester and many others.

    At the moment the office is in south Wye but I suggest that if we look around St. Peter’s Square, we may see a vacant property that has been used for offices before!!

  14. I agree with a great deal of what has been said.

    I have asked the police to arrest the drivers coming through the Saxon Gate bus only route, throw the keys away and maybe a child or someone's parents will not be killed or maimed. The signs are perfectly clear, they must have read the Highway Code to pass the driving test, therefore, outwardly perfectly decent men and women are no better than common criminals. Lovely people, have their own businesses, on the PTA, look after their aging parents, lovely kids, but the chance is there to take a short cut and break the law and driving code. Anyone you know!

    People complain to me about cars being up for sale by shops in Holmelacy Road. This makes it particularly dangerous as other car drivers come into area only to find there are no spaces. I have done what I can to stop these selfish drivers taking up parking spaces 24/7. Some days I watch and cringe as I watch some pedestrian almost get run over because of car movements in the park. It is still the highway not an area for selling cars! Yet I am sure these people selling their cars are pillars of society who want to imprison law breakers.

    Now before you all jump down my throat, the same applies to cyclists who ride along pavements and knock over pedestrians. There does have to be some give and take. How on earth can the cops be on every street you want them to be on? Even before cut backs and when bobbies were in their 'Z' cars in the 60's, they were never on every street booking cyclists or poor drivers.

    Cyclists get a bad press largely because they are not driving cars. But with such a poor standard of driving around, drivers being impatient, break and indicator lights not replaced, is it surprising that cyclists use the pavement to ride on. But please, use your breaks and bells.

    Now that Holmelacy road has three Tucan crossings, there can be no reason to cross the road several yards from those crossings, can there? Drivers having to jump on breaks, cyclists having to swerve to avoid pedestrian in mid road while the Tucan crossing lights are still on green!!'

    So, I have probably managed to offend most of you, that was the intention! We are all guilty of inconsiderate,thoughtless use of the highway, of which the pavements are part. I have constituents across south wye demanding I do something about irresponsible parking. I am, but suspect that when the plans are produced, several will complain about what is being proposed!

    We are only ten days away from taking the kids to school by car because we have at least a quarter of a mile to walk. Poor darlings, they get safely closely to the school in the car then run over by a car who is being driven by a parent who is trying to get their child safely to school! When all the time they would have been a lot more healthy walking to school and learning how to respect the highway.

    So yes, there is a problem. New restrictions shortly to come in in Belmont Road near shops, but who is going to police them, well all of us can if we drive our car/ bike safely . Not sure how This will all work out but can't see many getting out of their cars to help solve the problem.

    But I hope to be proved wrong!!

  15. Hi Jesse, yes it is confusing. Firstly, you can not be a 'group' if you are only one person, and if you are not 8n a group it is unlikely that you would get a place on a committee and therefore not be able to put forward a point of view. Membership of committees are assigned on a proportional basis, just like the House of Commons.

    So, in Herefordshire there are more Tories than any other councillors so they get the most seats allotted to them across the committees, and form the Executive, or government. The next largest group are the IOC so they get the next number of seats and so on. There is a formula!

     

    I am a member of the Labour Party and was a Labour councillor for many years but when there were no more Labour councillors elected except me, I had to decide to sit on the boundary and watch other councillors make decisions at committee or join a non political group. I chose the Independents for convienvence.

    There really is no such thing as an official Independent as anyone has the right to be an independent, but they do not have to affiliate to the Herefordshire Independents, and I know that there are councillors in the IOC who call themselves independent. Calling yourself independent just means that although you may belong to a political party or vote a different way at a general election, at county and parish level you prefer to be independently minded and not follow a ' Party ' whip, something I never did anyway!

     

    Hope this makes it a bit more clear for you, Some members of the IOC have done some great work focusing on issues of concern, so have some Independents but then, and here I speak as I find, there are Tories who put county before Party. I think people should vote for the individual who either has already demonstrated that they do things for the county, and their constituents, forward thinking and positive, or can demonstrate that they have that sort of mindset! The ball is in your court!

     

    Regards,

    Chris

  16. No that's quiet right. My fault probably I will try to explain. Hinton & Hunderton is one Ward within the parish council area of Hereford City Council. The parish council wards within the city boundary make up the city council.

    Hinton & Hunderton are within the Church of England parish of St. Martins. This is an ecclesiastical parish and not a civil one and has no relevance politically.

     

    It is not rue that most parish councillors believe it is a step up to becoming a county councillor. There are far too many parish councillors for that to happen. I became a county councillor some years before I became a city councillor. There is a lot more work involved being a county councillor, a recent survey within Herefordshire saw most county councillors report that they gave between 50- 70 hours a month of their time for council work. Far more than most people want to give.

     

    I hope this explains things.

    Regards

    Chris

  17. Hi Jesse, oh this gets complicated! Basically the IOC differ from the Herefordshire Independents in so much as they have a constitution, are organised, democratic, and meet regularly to discuss how to go forward with council issues. The Independents don't!

    Each independent makes up their own mind how to vote even if this might be against other Independents.

    There needs to be much better coordination between the two to defeat the Tories, but personalities have got in the way. Hopefully, Peter Jinman is his own man and may see his way through when elected, as I am sure he will be!!

  18. Hi Ken,/Jesse B, et al.

     

    It is confusing, hopefully I can explain. Each Herefordshire Council Ward is divided into parish wards/ councils. Some rural council wards have several parish council within them.

     

    In Hereford City there are Herefordshire Council wards, with one councillor each.. most of those wards have one parish councillor however in the larger wards there are two parish councillors. This is the case in Hinton & Hunderton. I am the Herefordshire Council representative but I am also a parish councillor for the Ward. The vacancy arises as the other parish councillor resigned and now has to be replaced. So that there will be two parish councillors for the Ward on the City Council. There are 53 Herefordshire councillors and 18 Hereford city councillors.

     

    There are often vacancies on rural parish councils and sometimes no one wants to stand so someone is co-opted. These councils usually have between 7 and 12 parish councillors depending on the number of residents. Ledbury town, Ross Town, Bromyard, Kington also have a parish council covering the town area made up of several councillors but Kington, for example has only one Herefordshire councillor but several parish councillors. Ross town, with a larger population has three Herefordshire councillors, I think, but their wards may go outside the town boundaries so include part of another parish council area. Confused!

    Many people are, but the ward boundaries are set independently by the Boundaries Commission who review the size of population every few years and to equal them up, adjust the ward boundaries.

     

    I hope this helps. I will look on site later to see if you need further explanation.

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