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Chris Chappell

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Everything posted by Chris Chappell

  1. Same old story, cops can not be everywhere. So sorry to hear about this incident but not sure unless full discription of cyclist and other witnesses come forward what can be done. It is not as if Belmont Avenue is that busy with school out, there can be little excuse for being on the pavement.
  2. Peter Jinman is a local vet and well known in the area. He will be a good representative. Anyone can stand as an independent. The clue is in the title. It is unfortunate that the leadership of the IOC and the leadership of the formal Herefordshire Independents can not see their way to bringing their groups more closely together. I live in hope that long before the next council elections that the differences might be solved and that the two groups, who sit under the 'Independent ' group umbrella at the Local Government Association, can at least have an understanding about who should contest each seat. I fear it is mainly a personality thing. The common aim is to be rid of the Tories!
  3. There is a bye election for a city councillor in the Hinton & Hunderton Ward, but I am not aware that there is an election in the Belmont Parish area. Best ask you parish council chairman, who I think is Adrian Bridges if you live in Belmont parish.
  4. The law says that the CE of a LA is Head of Paid Service. That means councillors have NO say as to who is shortlisted for interview. At CE and Director level, councillors are invited to an informal buffet to meet the candidates, then afterwards report back to the interview panel, who they think is suitable for the post on offer. highly paid professionals, from outside the county, will have shifted through the applicants, long before they are shortlisted. Now I agree these professionals have proved over the ylears that they not much good but they ones used by both private and public sector. Very unfair to blame councillors for something we have no authority over, but of course you all knew that! As for Norman. I take as long as it takes to ensure that those who do an injustice are brought to book! Maybe some of you need to look over your shoulder! But if Norman can be found guilty of half of those things he is accused of by bloggers, then it needs to stick and justice, something I am committed to what ever the supposed wrong, needs to take its place, no kangaroo courts please. If bloggers got an informed and evidenced based problem with Norman, put it in writing. if you want sent it to me, and I will pass it on to those who need to see it, but please, stop hiding behind these silly names you use. We have had our laugh about the things you say, now we need to use this site for real information and news that will get things moving. Some of you not going to like my response, but at least I got the balls to tell you how it is. ALL your questions can be found on LGA / Government// web sites if you want to look. Sorry guys but I give as good as I get!! If you don't like it get off this site!
  5. I suffered under Norman's incompetence. But I wait until I am ready to make him and others answer for their incompetence. Meanwhile, what are the law society doing about it? Perhaps we all have to wait until there are no more excuses, then we get the answers? It might cost his former LAs £ms, but then they should have thought of that earlier! ( I chose my words carefully)
  6. Not sure who told Glenda that Rone would get adult services, but that is unlikely. Mancell is on long term sick leave and no by- election pending, and Morgan has given up, as of 1st August, the Deputy Leader, and Johnathon Lester will take her place and continue with children's services.
  7. Savings, savings, savings in the budget is preventing a full weeding of all city and town roads and footpaths. However a number of community 'gardening' sessions take place in every Ward, please contact your local ward councillor for when you can help with the next. You do not have to do it at a set time! No point in moaning about it, please volunteer to get rid of the weeds in your patch. Thanks to government cuts in subsidies, LAs, across the country are cutting back on unesentials, weeding is not essential compared with social care although they are not same budget.!,
  8. Ragwort, how right you are! I not sung national anthem for 50. Years as it is abused by C of E who sing it inTheir churches and because I have yet to meet a service man/ woman who've joined service for the monarch! Also, like you I am a citizen not a subject, and no ones slave. I have had lunch and tea with Queen and Phillip, nice guys. Have met their children and grandchildren several times, they all seem to be decent enough, if somewhat in breed, and to have same sort of problems as rest of us, although their problems less serious than the housing problems of some of the ex service people that have come home to live in Hereford. Example; woman in 60s, husband and daughter died suddenly, she looks after two disturbed growing up grandchildren, but she can no longer get up stairs to toilet so told she can have commode in kitchen! Now apart from being unhygienic, think of the indignity of being interrupted mid crap by grandchildren, dogs in the kitchen. Then someone will have to take pot upstairs to empty, before meal cooked or dogs start smelling it...and she is by no means the only constituent I have in similar position....won't go into anymore details but you get picture. So 'God save our gracious Queen', but can we please ensure while God is doing His wonderful saving of a family who have everything, that He and the royal family, and their creepy friends, spend a little more time ensuring that the citizens, not least ex service people, are looked after!
  9. Be brace, many of us have been there and know of your pain. What ever you think we will ride this journey with you, you are not alone.
  10. Just to answer a few comments . Is Max homeless? I only ask because he must be around the meadows 24/7 if he believes that the area is not policed. It is but the problem is that respectable vandals wait until the police/ CSOs have gone out of site to protect other areas before they strike! DILILLIGAF, it is great that you know the names of vandal proof play equipment. If you will email the name of the manufacturers, I will pass it on to BB! I am sure that the kit will come with something that stops someone getting within ten yards to spray paint on play equipment, and at the same time allow young people to play on it. I look forward to hearing from you. The labyrinth, as stated in my earlier response is not being paid for by the council tax payers. However as it will be a grass construction, it will cost no more than the rest of the grass cutting, which as readers will know, is a different budget to that of the play areas. H Wilson. I can put you in touch with the local resident who came up with the labyrinth idea, and those locally who he has consulted with. Please email me as I am not often on HV. Balfour Beatty have a budget of £90k for 60 play areas. This includes maintenance and replacement. A new piece of kit was quoted recently for KG meadow, £9000. A spring for one of the seat things is approx £250. The £90k includes filling in the holes in the rubber beneath the equipment and the cost of the team of 4 who cover the play areas across the county. You do the sums and you can see the problem. The area does look a little shabby but it remains popular with children, and parents, who I assume are supervising to ensure that accidents are of the minimum. If Hereford City Council can find the income, without increasing the council tax, then we will hope to make the meadows just as popular as they are today but increase the things that there are to do there. Something for everyone!
  11. Here is an update on King George's Meadow and Bishops Meadow. Several play swings have had to be permanently removed because they can not be repaired locally. Often equipment can be repaired on the spot or is taken away overnight and brought back next day. Play equipment is very expensive, like for like difficult to replace and there is no budget for replacement equipment. You have to remember that there are many play areas across the county where equipment is in need of replacement but there is no money to do so. Balfour Beatty inspect KG play areas every other day and act as quickly as possible. There are a number of trees which have been felled or are to be in the next few weeks. This is because independent experts say that years of flooding have made these trees unsafe. It is hoped that some at least, will become tree sculptures. Life belt stands inspected regularly and missing life belts replaced immediately. There is a plan for a Labyrinth for Bishops Meadow. The funding for which will come from sources outside the council. So far the idea has received a lot of support. Herefordshire Council would like Hereford City Council to take over the running of KG Meadows and Bishops Meadows, the tennis courts, golf etc. HCC would welcome the opportunity and we are commissioning an independent person to produce a business plan and costing. However, in order for the HCC to be able to maintain the land, grass cutting, tree repairs, play areas Victoria Bridge, path ways, river bank, tennis courts etc, we would need to have an income! Hereford City Council is negotiating with Herefordshire Council various ways to provide an income to make it viable for the HCC to run the meadows and to enhance the area. As I do not often come on to Hereford Voice for any further information on developments please contact me by email; cchappell@herefordshire.gov.uk I also hold a monthly surgery on the first Saturday of each month between 10- 11am at Hinton Community Centre, no appointment needed.
  12. Much as I detest the Tories Cameron is not the only one who MAY have defrauded the tax people and the nation. My problem is what to do about two separate garage owners born and bred and living in Hereford who said they could repair my car for two hundred quid in hand! If nine other people took their cars to same garages, then tax man would have been defrauded nearly £800! Do I report them and hope their employees do not lose their jobs when the boss spends six months in jail, or do I say to hell with it, and report all the plumbers, sparkies carpet layers and builders that have also offered to do jobs for cash that the tax man and the people should have had. It mounts up to more than Cameron MAY have had without paying tax! I just ask these questions out of interest as it is easy to have a go at public figures but when your neighbour is doing the same thing, smaller scale but same alleged crime! 'He who is without sin, let him throw the first boulder' We have discovered nothing new in the recent revelations, it has only confirmed what we all thought, but kept quiet about because the rich have always taken advantage of their tax loops and the rest of us have always looked at ways of copying them!
  13. Time to stop talking about it guys. Find a business person who will do it or, as it is such a wonderful money making idea! form a consortium and get it going yourselves! I am not sure how many people from Newton Farm, Redhill & Hunderton will use the tram but if you have those figures then put a business plan together. It's not the duty of the council to do that and the external auditors would proably do their nuts if Council even suggested it,but a public consortium can put thier plans to the Council which then might put officer time together to see if it is viable!
  14. Those of you who are managers will know every business, organisation, charity, nation, LA needs a risk register? Tells you whT might happen if a, b or c happens. Allows you to make decisions before they happen. If they happen you have already been forewarned and have contingency plans in place. You have one for your family I expect. What if your kids decide they want to go to university and not Tech College? What if car breaks down often; AA or RAC.? This car or that one? What happens to council small holdings if this or that happens? So at Council I asked the Leader if he had asked officers, Chamber of Commerce, Charities Etc what would happen in a 'No' vote for Herefordshire. Simple. Answer, he has not asked the question. He did say in written reply that we might loose £65m income, but who cares, well apart from me that is! It does not matter if yes or no vote, what matters is that there is a risk assessment, done by the Tories, to ensure Herefordshire does not go down the drain which ever way the vote goes. Just food for though that some posters may want to pursue ?
  15. To be fair Balfour Beatty are cleaning the area every day. Then when someone contacts them they go out again to clean up. So why do we not boycott the local shops who nearly always are responsible for the front of their shops for cleaning up? Do they have a litter bin and if so do they empty it, if not why not? Your question with the mornings paper! Last week I have been told to f*** off several times when I asked politely for someone, no one under 21, to pick up their litter. Was that your father, mother, brother, sister or friend? Answer on a post card please. Thing is, we all have a responsibility to pass on our world when we leave it to the next generation. Instead of being negative and moaning about it let us all contribute to keeping it as we want to pass on to our children. No not chop off their hands! Although I can see that that might prevent serial litter louts from offending again, but a gentle word about not throwing away *** packets would help. Own your community, join us with 'Wally' take ownership of GWW and river path.
  16. You knew Albert of course ? Albert invented the bar code! His brother was killed by diamond smugglers . An interesting man, with many ideas, some good some bad. But even his time in his wheelchair, or out at his home in North Herefordshire, he did not seriously believe that he could make a profit from a tram way nor did he come up with a business plan for it. His support for the privatisation of the river cost you, the rate payer, a £m in High Court fees. But hey, we all make mistakes. As a result, Hereford became the laughing stock of the towns on the river Wye, and the High Court QCs walked away with loads of your money. Ask the Hereford Fishing Association. Dr Heign and his Company Secretary are both dead now, but their memory lives on in the Left Bank and Kate's Yard, but please do not associate these two things with his futile ideas for a tram line.
  17. Think about it. Who Is going to use it? Residents of Newton Farm, Red Hill, and Hunderton. Where they going, into town! Who is coming back on tram? Same residents. There is no LA of a similar size, or under a million residents, who run their own tram/ bus service. If we charge £5.00 a ticket one way, it may earn £500 pw. Can you imagine the carnage as the tram crosses the two bridges and collides with cyclists, dogs, oh and humans. If there is an entrepreneur out there who thinks he can make a profit from running a tram, laying the lines, paying for the trams to be built and extending the line around the city then they should come forward. Was that a police car I saw racing along GWW after a druggie? Hope they miss a collision with theHuman/dog/ tram! So posters, let us set up a cooperative and put this into action. Get a business plan together and present it to council. We can find the money, alter the street scene to accommodate the tram lines. The cyclists will not mind being pushed aside by another motorised vehicle! The elderly and blind have problems with the street scene in Widemarsh Street so a tram line should be a doddle for them! Stand well back as the external auditors blast Herefordshire Council out of the universe how wasting public money. In an ideal world...........
  18. The event on 19th of March has nothing to do with the Queen. It is a South Wye Community event organised by the south Wye councillors, South Wye Partnership, police, Newton Farm Community. Centre and other local groups. School children can win £100 in vouchers for a winning poster which will be erected on lamp posts along GWW and river path to remind people to take home their rubbish. We are calling the overall campaign, 'Walking With Wally'. Wally is the GWW but not such a mouth full and a name that may be remembered. The Clean Up With Wally, starts at 10am - 1pm at the Hunderton bridge. Its a community event as we want the community to take ownership for their rubbish! We envisage young and old joining us so posters will be most welcome!
  19. Health Watch do their best. My discussions with Paul their Chairman, leaves me with a lot of confidence. Health Watch does a very good job but can not be walking wards all the time.
  20. Two more reports this evening about discharge of patients that would seem inappropriate. Asked for them to be put in writing and with details. Some times hear horror stories some weeks after patients home. Problem is unless you have medical or nursing/careering experience, and you/your relatives are articulate and do not mind a fight, it is likely you will not be sure what should have happened to you in hospital and feel you do not have the capacity to speak out.! At the Health & Social Care Overview & Scrutiny Committee this week, I again suggested that there should be three 'Advocates' , walking the wards, , A&E, corridors, with ability to question staff, the most senior consultant if need be, or the newest cleaner, as to why something is not right. Independent of WVHT. We will wait to see.......! On a different but related subject. At the Audit & Governance Committee this week, I noticed that the auditors had highlighted that some of the agency social workers employed by the council, had serious gaps in their work CVs while three had not been able to provide references!! So that's comforting for us all! We can have full confidence in our social carers and HR! I have asked the Directors of Adult and Children's Services to report thier findings into how this happened and an assurance that these people no longer work in Herefordshire.
  21. I am totally confused, as I suspect many are. The public budget consultation last year put the sale of small holdings at the top of the publics list of savings the council could make. (See council web site) No councillor demurred from that at the briefing that was held for us. The scrutiny committee's task & finish group who only spoke to the agricultural community, decided it was a bad idea to sell the council's small holdings! I think they were overawed by the witnesses! So councillors go against the public's declared views. Nothing new there then The evidence is clear and published that the council's small holdings have not been used as they were intended. Stay with me please. There are at least two better land lords in the county, the Dutchy and the Church Commissionsers, both of who have much better experience, and more small holding tenants, and skills at being an agricultural landlords than Herefordshire Council. Meanwhile, the public, and most councillors, are saying save SHYPP and its loss of 60% of its council funding. Save CAB and take over No1 Ledbury Road. This is where I loose the will to live! I worked in agriculture for a number of years and was a union branch secretary for the NUAAW/T & GWU, for several years. I know the worth of the small holdings and that in Herefordshire a number of young, and not so young people, have not been able to get into the industry because some tenants have been given long tenancies, while you, the council tax payer, have used your money on renewing old and delapadated farm buildings. I can only assume that those involved with the council's small holdings over the last forty/ thirty years do not want young people with their new fancied ideas coming into agriculture. There is a scandal here for anyone who wants to investigate it! Anyway, a few £m saved from selling small holdings to the Dutchy or Church Commisioners or to the tenants, could possibly mean giving more elsewhere in the council's budget.....SHYPP, CAB, No 1 Ledbury Road and a host of other social groups. But hey, I am a Labour supporter, a socialist, I must be wrong about all this...........! I need to find a dark room and lie down! I will go with the public and say sell some small holdings, kick out the tenants not pulling their wait, and support people, ex military and others, who want to enter agriculture . Support young people entering agriculture and support local charities. So what are you saying about this?
  22. Glenda, what ever made you think I would think this had anything to do with you? You were the last person I would have thought would have the capacity to advice the parents on such an important issue! I will treat the rest of your thread with the comtempt it deserves, my one piece of advice being never think you are more important than others see you.
  23. Glenda, they knew that the T& F group were meeting and that the report was going to be reported before Council on 14 December. I told them myself. Someone, I am not sure who, advised them to go to legal, which is great, but only when they have the T& F reports in front of them! If any cllr or former councillorsr has advised them differently that is irresponsible because now it may be impossible to discuss the report, at a specially called meeting, as it is I suspect that a judicial review will find in favour of HC, WVHT on the evidence produced, BEFORE the T&F Group reported Which would mean that again, many of the things that need to be said at a formal meeting, will not be said! May I suggest Glenda, that unless you have the full facts, until you have read the report, heard our reasons for our recommendations, and listened to the parents that I have spoken to, off the record, that you keep quiet!. Yours Chris
  24. The TASK & Finish group has now finished its report an it is published on the council's web site. There is an extra ordinary meeting of the Health & Social Care Scrutiny Committe on 14th December at 2pm where the report will be discussed. It is regrettable that some parents have started legal action before the report was published. I can only guess where that advise came from, as it may curtail any real debate at the meeting. It is important that the T & F Group is able to explain its thoughts at the meeting or to be able to answer questions, but it may now be sub judicial, following the parents decision. Read the report carefully, read it again, then ask yourself if we have left anything out! You will see we are particularly critical of middle management, the lack of communication and the in ability of officers to speak same language as ordinary people. Nothing new there then, except some of us have been saying it for years and still nothing happens. I have a very real fear of being told I have gone too far in my criticism when I speak at the meeting.
  25. If you read the T & G report on No 1 Ledbury Road, you will see that we recommend it is transferred from being a Children's Hospital to being a social services building and therefore money from the farms can be transferred to up date, secure, licences etc the building. A capital receipt! The problem with the small holdings is which ever way it goes, any tenet with a lease over 15 years should be out as these farms are there to introduce young people into farming, give an opportunity to get started then to move on for the next tenant. A different argument I know, but the farms and their management have been run extraordinarily badly. Why are there life tenancies, that was not the purpose? Why should young people be prevented from having a small holding, which were set up for short term tenancies, when some tenants have been given long leases and prevented young people getting the chance to come into farming? Then there is the problem that in a recent consultation, where the public had at the top of their list of council savings, the sale of its small holdings! Are the public wrong? Should the council take no notice of the public? Should we not get £48m from the sale of small holdings and see if it is possible to use the money for the betterment of the people of Herefordshire?
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