Amanda Martin

Brave

Just spotted your post, Dazza333. That's very kind of you - it was no trouble.

Please don't tell him that. :-) I have been feeding John and the others at HQ to save them from themselves and the mountain of Werther's Originals which appears to be what they have been living on, along with custard creams, judging by the crumbs. The cheeky f*cker scores the dishes. I'm currently waiting for feedback on a vegan stir fry with coconut,tahini and spring onion fried rice.

Tell me about it. It's like an alternative reality. I didn't make it to work at all yesterday!

They're parasites, these people.

This appeared on IOC's private group FB yesterday. We kept quiet about it because we did not want to appear to be opportunistically using this incident to score political points but there was a lot of dismay. There's a whiff of "Lord of the Manor" syndrome about this. Some people from the horse and hounds set seem to think that privilege entitles them to behave as they please but they can't horsewhip the peasantry any more so they content themselves with running over their dogs. Julian's joke about these individuals having a shotgun out of each window of their pretentious 4x4s to blast peasants and wildlife isn't far from the truth. Cllr Greenow and his sort have privilege but they have no ethics, no compassion and no decency and demonstrate, on a daily basis, that being intensely stupid is no impediment to getting on in life if you have money and connections. In my opinion, they are the scum on the top of society's pond: soaking up the sun and stopping it from percolating downwards. They represent much of what is dysfunctional in society and demonstrate through their behaviour, the rottenness and moral bankruptcy of those who benefit most from our class system. They are unfit for public office and I hope that on May 7th , Cllr Greenow gets some buckshot in his own arse.

Costa Gate? Ubique, funny you should mention Nepal. I have been trying to get a diagnosis for an ear problem for more than two years. The last indifferent consultant I saw was Mike Smith whose apparently permanently taciturn face turned up wreathed in smiles in a photo in the Hereford Times showing him in Nepal where he is going to set up a new clinic. I suddenly understood how listening to middle aged women in Hereford whinging about their distorted acoustics and ear ache was a penance compared to the unimaginable suffering of people in this part of the world. Apparently Mr Smith has an army of ladies knitting woolly hats because, as the audiologist explained, it's freezing over there and if you've just had your head shaved ...... It would have been nice if Mr Smith had smiled at me and had some ideas about my impending deafness but I wish him well and everyone else impelled to give some comfort in Nepal.

That's a great shame, greenknight. I would have been proud to have had you as an ally. I accept your point about the difficulties of inter urban travel but supporting road building only kneecaps public transport even further. The appointment of Beeching was a dark day but this is where the money should be going. Can you name me a single ring road that has alleviated traffic congestion?

Yes and that went well didn't it? Do I detect a little goalpost movement? :-) I believe the conversation started in the context of the eastern crossing and southern relief road. The eastern crossing is promoted as congestion relief for the south and north western exits from the city on the basis that anyone on the east has to cross the city. My point is that it wouldn't solve the problem because most of the movements are within the city itself. If you reduce local car journeys, capacity is liberated for those entering and leaving the city and the new crossing would not be necessary.

greenknight, firstly I would hate Hereford to become the new Cotswolds or any other kind of chocolate box pastiche full of pleated skirts, labradors and retired brigadiers who have nothing better to do than pursue boundary disputes. Actually York , Oxford or even Cardiff were more what I had in mind but on a smaller scale, or again any Dutch city you can name. There's nothing mutually exclusive about reducing car dependence and having a thriving, mixed economy and socio economic profile. My point was that if you make your urban spaces unappealing, the only people who will stay around are those who have no choice and that is a recipe for poverty and decline as Newport illustrates on a daily basis. High quality architecture and street design, green civil spaces and transport choices benefit everyone and attract visitors as well - that surely is common sense. To answer your question directly : you seem almost to be saying that because you would find it infeasible to use alternatives to your vehicle, then it somehow isn't worth doing. What I'm saying is that there will always be some journeys that most of us can make by other modes and that people should have a choice. One thing is for sure: if there is no alternative but to use a car, then people will use a car and the 30% who still don't have access to one will continue to be disadvantaged. To make it less abstract, I would like to see: 1. Every residential street turned into a Home Zone, with cyclist/pedestrian priority measures and speeds limited to 10mph with good street design; 2. Every school with a Safe Routes to School scheme in place, identifying the principal routes the children take and re-engineering the streets to give them priority - this would encourage children to make the school independently and reduce the impact of the school run. This has been immensely successful in Denmark and other places on the Continent; 3. De -pedestrianisation of the city centre, opening it up to bikes and public transport with limited car access; 4. De-regularisation of parking, to provide more on-street parking for specific purposes, perhaps with a meter scheme. Cleverly configured parking bays actually make parked vehicles part of the traffic calming; 5. Network wide re-engineering of the roads, re-allocating road space away from motorised vehicles in favour of bikes and public transport to give these modes a time and convenience advantage. In particular I would like to see 50% of the road space in Edgar Street and Victoria Street re-allocated to cyclists and public transport. In Holland you often see streets with two way access for bikes but one way for vehicles; at the moment it's impossible to travel east to west on a bike without having to venture onto the ring road or get off and walk; 6. Removal of street clutter and traffic lights and replacement of the Highways Agency's terrible pinch point schemes with Poynton style roundels to maximise traffic flow; 7. Reduction of car park capacity overall (parking is the main determinant of whether people choose to use the car) but an increase in parking provision for people with disabilities and those who need a permit for access to the city; 8. Park and ride at the main gateways to the city: Ross Road, Ledbury Road, Holmer Road etc with a regular, cheap, efficient shuttle bus of light rapid transit vehicle; 9. Much improved public transport including Colin's tram idea, possibly using hybrid vehicles that will run on road and rail; 10. Bike hire stops around the city, including electric bikes for those not fit enough to attempt the hills; 11. Car clubs like the St James Car Club to liberate families from the need to buy and run second vehicles. There's a huge amount that could be done very quickly and at much less cost than roadbuilding. I appreciate that your cycling days might be over but we really do want to inculcate this habit in children instead of consigning them to a life of viewing the world through the rear window. If you travel out of Hereford frequently, you will be only too aware of how bleak and choked our road network is now, and that is after forty years of trying to tarmac our way out of the problem. It's a kind of madness.

Yes it's all relative. What questions haven't I answered: "Go on - on me 'ed".

greenknight of course it's about choice and balance - neither of which we have at the moment. I have a car but I don't use it unless I have to. Driving is a deeply antisocial activity and we should remember this every time we get behind the wheel. Our hypermobility and personal choice is someone else's asthma and a generation of children who will never know the freedom we took for granted. Interestingly as I cycle around with my rosette on, I'm starting to get recognised and tooted and there's an unspoken camaraderie on the Great Western Way. They're probably thinking: "There's that crazy cycling candidate". Making our living environment better is good for everyone, not just the rich.

It would appear so, Denise, although the arguments are the same.

Pete Redding, the forthcoming River Carnival looks well worth a visit and well done to all those involved. THese events involve an incredible amount of hard work and organisational skill.

Thanks, Jean, just read that- you're very kind. Yes I'll polish up my tin hat and carry on this afternoon.

One of the guys who came with us on the second trip to Utrecht, Delft and The Hague was Ken Spence: Principal Transport Planner with York City Council. York still bears the legacy of his influence and there are glimmerings of understanding around the UK but the road lobby successfully stifles most attempts to move us in a different direction. Hereford is suffering from planning and traffic blight in ways you don't necessarily think of. Someone at the hospital told me a couple of weeks ago that Hereford Hospital has trouble attracting and keeping talented practitioners because Hereford is seen as an increasingly unattractive rural backwater. Talk of "jobs 'n growth" and affordable housing is all very well but unless we pay some attention to the things that draw in the affluent, there is going to be a continuing serious shortage of professional capital in the county, along with an absence of the kind of spending power that can support local economies and culture which, in turn, provide choice, opportunity and quality of life for everyone. When Fired Earth closes down, you know your city is in trouble.

On the two occasions I have been, Cloudberry, we travelled by coach, ferry, train, tram, bus and bike. We didn't get into a car once! There are some truly inspirational speakers out there but they cost money. During the campaign against the M4 Relief Road (see SOuthern Link Road thread) we had an active committee and a well oiled publicity and fundraising effort. To be honest, I also had a rich husband back then and didn't have to work and, to his credit, he bankrolled my campaign. After the road wars, some of us went to on qualify as transport planners and, armed with my Msc, I developed an interest in the impact of traffic on how communities function and, in particular, on childhood independence and mobility. I was Transport 2000's South Wales spokeswoman and the motorway stuff morphed into a Safe Routes to School project which also had enormous support from parents and staff at the two school I worked with. Unfortunately, that was scuppered by the local business community who even objected to an extra pedestrian crossing on the main road on the grounds that it would put off car borne customers. We did get that crossing but the scheme overall was fileted of all of its controversial, and therefore useful, elements. I'm not over it. I have friends with a primary school age child. They told me recently that one of the mums liked to walk or cycle with her child and asked the school about secure cycle racking. The horrified response was "No we don't provide it. What if ALL the children wanted to cycle?"

In fact, it wouldn't just have to be for local authority bods. There's no reason why anyone with an interest in this shouldn't be involved.

In a nutshell Cloudberry. I've been thinking a lot about a study trip to the Netherlands for Councillors and officers so that people can see for themselves what we're missing. I also know from experience that public meetings and presentations are a fantastic way of getting this message over and getting public support for what are, on the surface, radical ideas that will mean us changing deeply ingrained assumptions. If you're going to ask people to change their habits, you have to paint a very vivid and convincing picture of the alternatives.

Jimbo, it won't solve the problem - see above !

By the way, green knight, i'm aware that the Welsh Assembly has resurrected the M4 Relief Road and there's no-one to stop it this time round. Our campaign was of its time: it harnessed the zeitgeist from the campaigns at Twyford Down, Newbury, Batheaston and Wanstead and it fought the road on its own flawed economic terms. It was an incredible time and we so nearly made a breakthrough at policy level that could have changed the course of transport planning in this country. Ironically, had the Liberal Democrats found their electoral support then, under Ashdown's leadership, instead of in 2010, we might have seen some real progress. The Liberal Democrats have completely forgotten their principles and what they used to stand for and I say that as a former candidate. I don't know whether people would have the appetite and heart to do it all now. The way those communities came together was phenomenal but in those days we had some civil rights. Some of those security guys were seriously brutal. Ordinary people stood side by side with the new agers to get beaten up, run over with machinery or sent to prison for breaching injunctions but there was a lot of tacit support from the wider public because in those days the right to protest was respected.

Cloudberry - no they don't. Traffic modelling is fun. It's a great boys' game and the people doing it are attracted to traffic lights in more ways than one. Greenknight I agree with your point about population growth but actually it vindicates my position on this: the more people and cars we have, the more imperative it becomes to curb traffic growth. The reason Holland went the way it did was that it is a tiny country with limited land and a growing population. Public transport is by far the most efficient way to travel so they made it easy - easier than driving. It's seems counter cultural to us to think of large numbers of people going about their business with bikes and on trams and buses but this is everyday routine to the Dutch. As a result, people's shopping habits change: instead of filling up the boot every fortnight, they take their trailers and frequent small, local markets and the resulting diversity in the local centres has to be seen to be believed. We absolutely have to pull out of this American dive and get a handle on this problem. Building roads to stave off congestion is like trying to keep a shark away by throwing it a chicken sandwich. The Southern Link Road is the road too far. Jean and Michael Harris are the latest in a very long line of families who have lost their homes, their land and their livelihoods to futile, pointless roads that haven't and could never scratch the surface of this massive challenge we're facing but enough is enough. We must not allow this scheme to happen and we should tackle the problem of local journeys in Hereford before we even think about yet another bypass or crossing.

Funny you should mention Twyford Down, Greenknight. I knew David Croker and Chris Gilham and walked the cutting with Joan Bakewell for Heart of the Matter and I know all about the Winchester bypass. The destruction of Twyford Down was an abomination and a turning point. It sparked a massive anti roads movement without which many of our towns and cities, including London, would have been ruined. My own group fought, and stopped, the M4 Relief Road in South Wales and many of us were involved in talks at shadow ministerial level for how we would be involved in shaping transport policy should New Labour find themselves in power. We all believed what we were being told. We went back to our ploughs and we were shafted. All the progress made during the Nineties by all those groups of ordinary people, from mums in flowery dresses to little old ladies in St Johns Wood to true blue Conservative councillors like David Croker and Barbara Bryant who swore they would never vote Tory again, was lost and now, here we are, twenty years later, still having the same tired old debates about whether it should be the red route or the blue route or the purple route and how the new latest new line through someone's garden will solve the problem.

The confused thinking on this was very evident at last week's Dinedor hustings during which Peter Sinclair-Knipe stated that roads were necessary to stimulate "jobs 'n growth". The bulldozer brigade do not seem to see the contradiction between wanting roads to stimulate development (not that it does by the way but that's another shibboleth) and, on the other hand, wanting new roads to deal with the congestion that stimulating development has brought about. By the way, when you build roads in peripheral areas, two things happen and neither involve the creation of jobs and investment: Firstly, there is a centralising effect as businesses rationalise their supply chain logistics. Economic activity is sucked out and centralised. It has happened nationally and on a pan-European and global level. Why? Because cheap road transport over a publicly subsidised road network means it is more cost effective to produce where wages are low and have the mother of all distribution centres in the Midlands or Belgium and truck your stuff all over the place than it is to run local centres of production and distribution, which do require keeping stock and creating jobs. Road building actually destroys employment in peripheral areas but the LEP will promote it anyway because the suits on the board want short term solutions that will favour their own businesses. They are more than happy to spend public money on keeping the traffic moving for a couple more years whatever the collateral damage to local economies and quality of life. The second thing that happens is the induced traffic effect: in congested networks, the congestion itself serves to suppress demand for road space. Build a new road and, immediately, all that latent demand is liberated. From the day a new road opens, the traffic starts to build with induced traffic and also because suddenly people can travel further for shopping or employment and make more numerous journeys to do the same things. The time savings benefits, which inevitably form the main benefit element in the computerised cost/benefit software used by highway engineers, are quickly cancelled out. Meanwhile, every new road we build will skew travel behaviour further in favour of car based development and prejudice cycling and public transport and so the vicious circle goes on. In America, we can see the extreme effects of this dystopia manifested in degraded landscapes and impoverished urban spaces deserted by all except those who have no choice but to remain. Streets become deserted thoroughfares: noisy, uncivil corridors of movement in which no human activity is evident - think about Edgar Street, Victoria Street, Newtown Road and Eign Street: there is nothing inherently wrong with these streetscapes but they are hostile, bleak spaces that we pass through as quickly as possible. Car culture accelerates social polarisation and isolation and environmental poverty with the rich isolating themselves from the consequences of their own transport choices and retreating to gated and secure enclaves. Communities break down, crime rises, children and the elderly become prisoners in their own homes. This is happening already. Our transport choices have a huge impact not just on how we travel but how we live and how we interact with each other and every new road we build is another nail in this coffin. We are never going to accommodate traffic growth and logic dictates that if we can't accommodate it, then we must start to reduce it and that means turning our backs on crude "predict and provide" solutions like this eastern bypass and any other scheme emanating from the LEP and its creature, the Local Transport Body.

This is an issue on which there is more than one view within the party at the moment. We didn't want to rule it out at this stage (well I did but I was in a minority) because it was felt that it was better to keep options open and re-assess once we had access to information that would enable us to make an informed decision. My own view is that we should be looking at the lesson of history which is that increasing capacity can only ever be a short term palliative (five years max) to the underlying problem of too much local traffic and absence of alternatives and that the financial and human cost and environmental damage massively eclipse the miniscule benefits- I've seen motorways justified for time savings of 5 minutes on journeys for working motorists. The point is that road building does not solve traffic problems - it never has and it never will - and if an eastern crossing would fail to solve the problem, then there's no point building it and in doing so squander money that is desperately needed elsewhere. I hope that as we start to put in place the package of measures for providing alternatives to the car, enthusiasm for this crossing will dissipate but I'm distancing myself from this from the start. We all have to remember that the A49 and the inner ring road were once, themselves, bypasses that people thought were indispensable to keeping Hereford moving.