Cloudberry

The Woodland Trust are doing a great job, and their trained volunteers are spending a lot of time recording trees. New records of ancient, veteran and notable trees are being put on the open-access Ancient Tree Inventory lists and maps: http://www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/ Anyone can add records of trees to this site (subject to verification) and this is very important for older and special trees on private land, where Woodland Trust Recorders cannot access easily. No-one else has spent any time recording the locations of our best trees for years and years, so without this initiative no-one would know they were there. Herefordshire is already the top County for old oaks, but there are many more important oaks, ashes, yews, etc. here yet to be recorded! These trees really matter. You would be amazed at the huge biodiversity of creatures and other plants depending on, and living on, in and under our older trees.

A walk-in centre is efficient. it takes pressure off A&E, leaving that for real emergencies. It provides a fail-safe option for minor injuries and illnesses that suddenly appear or take a turn for the worse. I have a chest infection, as I often do at this time of year. I hope I won't need antibiotics, but if my condition deteriorates I will need to see a doctor and get a prescription as soon as possible. Without access to this service when my GP surgery is closed, over a weekend for example, I could even find myself with pneumonia and needing hospital care. I doubt if the wide-reaching benefits of walk-in centres have been monitored or reported accurately.

I really don't like the new logo. It is not attractive, not friendly. What was supposed to be wrong with the green apple?

It is madness to sell off these farms to build houses on instead. The country is going to need all its top grade agricultural land to grow food and reduce our dependency on imports. See: https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/17/morrissons-to-hedge-bets-and-recruit-more-uk-based-suppliers "Morrisons is aiming to recruit 200 more British suppliers after a report commissioned by the supermarket found that only just over half the food eaten in the UK comes from local sources. The report, by Professor Tim Benton of the University of Leeds, highlights the growing risks associated with a global food supply chain. Benton warns that increased frequency in severe weather events caused by climate change, combined with political changes, such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, may affect global trading relationships and compromise the food supply. Trump’s protectionist agenda may lead to countries hoarding the crops they specialise in, for example. The effect of restricted food supplies has been highlighted by recent shortages of fresh produce due to poor weather in southern Spain, where more than 80% of the UK’s leafy vegetables come from during winter. “The future of the UK food system that we advocate is a response to the risks and uncertainties of the future. It is not to disengage from reliance on global trade, but to hedge our bets by increasing local production for local consumption,†Benton argues in the report. The chairman of Morrisons, Andy Higginson, said: “Morrisons is already British farming’s biggest single customer, and the publication of the report today from Prof Benton makes us more determined to produce more of our food and source more from local British suppliers … We want small UK food suppliers to become bigger ones and we also want to give our customers the option of more food that meets their local food tastes.â€

So we know that - Before Christmas the Council did not receive the large amount of funding they hoped to get from the Department for Transport to work on plans for a western bypass But the western bypass is a priority, so work using the usual consultants, including outdoor environmental surveys by WSP, has been noted going ahead in the last couple of months This work has had to be paid for, but what with? Why is this not clear on the expenditure figures? Why hide it?

Many people still fondly imagine a "bypass" as a nice fast road through open countryside, like where the A49 goes round Ludlow. But for Hereford it's unlikely to be like that. There is a corridor for a "bypass" marked on the plans for the vast Three Elms housing application, so this "bypass" would be a road through housing estates, presumably with lots of traffic light junctions, like around Worcester. Housebuilding is necessary to help pay for any road. As Maggie May and Ragwert have pointed out, all the people in the new homes will be adding to those trying to get into the centre of Hereford to shops, schools, hospital etc. Any benefit from the perceived greater capacity of a new piece of road will be immediately cancelled out (and more) by all the extra traffic from all the new homes.

Maybe they've realised that you can't make a plausible bid to be City of Culture without a fully-functioning Library? It will be great to be able to go in and browse the books again.

On paper, and especially for those who have never visited Herefordshire, enlarging the capacity of our A49 looks like the perfect solution to take pressure off the M5! It's a straight line route apparently! Highways England are consulting on their "Road to Growth" discussion paper right now: https://highwaysengland.citizenspace.com/he/strategic-economic-growth-plan/supporting_documents/The_Road_to_Growth_discussion_paper__FINAL__high_res.pdf

Rather than road building, I wish there could be more investment in the railways: better connections, more carriages, more freight, maybe even open parts of some old lines. It disappointed me that Councillors rejected a rail link to Rotherwas. The good location of Hereford Station means that many people can walk to where they want to go from there (shops, pubs, restaurants, cinema, hospital, college etc.) and if there were bikes for hire, perhaps even electric bikes, that would help even more, and then fewer people would need to bring cars into Hereford at all. It's certainly a horrible idea to think the A49 could be turned into an alternative route to the M5.

It gets fishier.... only Bobby managed a comment on this story on the Hereford Times online. Then there was a Deletion, and now it's not possible to add any more comments to the thread.

Having read all the background I am utterly appalled. Could no-one see that these unelected LEPs would quickly become based on cronyism? And that this would prove a so-called legitimitate way for some to make a mint? Far too tempting for those without a moral compass. Everyone should read the Daily Mail article The Hereford Times today just reports the story as the IOC having a bit of a hissy fit. Lots about the LEPs being fully transparent! No-one mentions that in October the LEP and Herefordshire Council all agreed that the LEP Director could authorise spending without consulting the Committee at all, - up to £500,000 no problem and even up to £5m if the situation is "urgent"!

With the old "Sportsman" pub demolished, I have often wondered why the redundant A49 bridge over the railway has not been removed (see it in map above), as it would be an opportunity to widen the A49 a bit there (which would help cyclists a lot) and improve general visibility.

People who are "crying out for a bypass" can't have read the reasons why the Southern Link Road is not a good idea, and do not understand the implications. Campaigners are not saying No, just for their own benefit, but because they can see it's not going to work and most Herefordians will be the losers in the long run. Only those with vested interests stand to gain. How do you fund a new road? Some from central government if you are lucky, the rest from developers prepared to build new houses. If you build loads of new houses, is that bad? Don't we need them? We need affordable homes so that people, particularly younger people, can afford to remain in Hereford. BUT affordable homes won't bring in lots of dosh, so developers will want to build mostly "executive homes" instead. If the plans for all these proposed new houses on the edge of Hereford go ahead, like the 1200 at Three Elms, it doesn't take much imagination to realise that each property may have more than one car, and all those cars will be travelling in and out of central Hereford to go to shops, restaurants, cinema, football, schools, hospital etc. With city roads as they are, that means much MORE CONGESTION, and pollution from slow traffic in the city. And even less incentive to cycle instead if you can't breathe. So you see, a "bypass" in the sense of a fast road around Hereford could only be achieved if there were NOT all these accompanying huge housing developments being planned to fund it. Housing developers may get planning permission, but they won't actually build unless they are sure they can sell. How many houses do you reckon will be built and sold in Hereford in the next year? Watch and see....

Our Jim, The Mayor, will be giving a talk about his Childhood Memories in Breinton on Thursday this week, 7.30pm at The Victory! All Welcome! Childhood Memories.pdf

New campaign from the Woodland Trust to save ancient woodland along the proposed route of the Southern Link Road Below is the link to the Woodland Trust campaign action about the Hereford Southern Link Road that has now gone live. Please pass it round and make sure your local community or network is aware of this action to sign: https://campaigns.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1743&ea.campaign.id=49873 Grafton Wood is more special than it looks to an outsider. It's ancient woodland, as indicated by the bluebells flowering now. Ancient woodland has great biodiversity, a huge number of trees, animals, birds, plants, insects, microbes above ground and also in the soil. Most counties have hardly any ancient woodland so ours in Herefordshire is extra precious!

I don't see how the Enterprise Zone trading estate at Rotherwas can flourish without being connected to the motorways (M5 at Worcester, M50 at Ledbury). So why is a road to the west still a priority, and no mention of anything on the east? The Enterprise Zone was supposed to be bringing us 6000 + new jobs, but I think I read it is only 254 so far. Not hard to see why, in that rather isolated spot, (see map at top of this topic). If there are few new jobs, then Hereford won't need so many new homes. And if Hereford doesn't need many new homes, then the money from developers won't be enough to pay for any road. We need more affordable homes, not estates of expensive profit-making homes that no-one can afford to live in. Why is the Council set on roads in the wrong places, not making life easier for cyclists and pedestrians, and not promoting the Enterprise Zone that could bring lots more jobs?

Dippy, I agree this seems to be a mountain made out of a molehill. Political correctness these days means you are always going to offend someone, but the more you try and please everyone the more some groups get irrationally "offended". No-one will dare to put up any bunting anywhere at all at this rate. And what a terrible shame that would be!

Chris, - please don't lose the will to live, you are doing some great work! However, remember that some so-called public consultations are rather biased. If I remember rightly the public were given a list of options to save money and were asked to say which they preferred. It's likely that this list was carefully chosen, and although most people would not like ANY of the options, there was little choice not to rate their preferences putting sale of farm assets at the top of the list. Also bear in mind that we, the public, probably don't know all the background, and are sometimes not in a very good position to make a "preference". And no, we are not going to read umpteen poorly-explained support documents first. The farms ought to make a profit, they do in other counties, so surely they should be kept as assets for the future. And yes we definitely need to save 1 Ledbury Road, CAB, SHYPP, etc. because if we don't, the fallout from not having this support will be much worse for those who need these services, and much more expensive in the long run. If the funding is not going to be available from central government anymore then I would support a rise in Council tax beyond that currently proposed to support thes essential services. The problem is I can't trust the current administration to use extra funding effectively in the right places.

I have just heard that this Group have succeeded in stopping this large Broiler Unit plan. Well done! There are so many environmental concerns over this plan that the farmer has now backed down.

I've just read about a new report about too many traffic lights from the Institute for Economic Affairs "a two-minute delay to every car journey made in a year equates to an astonishing loss to the economy of around £16 billion." Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3414870/Eight-ten-traffic-lights-ripped-cut-jams-Report-says-regulation-traffic-detrimental-road-safety-economy-environment.html#ixzz3yFmodEKG And turning off traffic lights is such an easy thing to at least try!

Thoroughly agree that building on flood plains has cost us dearly. Will anyone begin to listen now? Planting more trees could also help a lot, especially where planted across our upland areas. The roots help the soil soak up water like a sponge, and so the heavy upland rainfall does not reach the rivers so fast. Where there is a lot of grass and pasture the water flows to the rivers much more quickly, and we end up with spectacularly high volumes arriving in our cities. More trees also help with climate change as they store carbon. Building new and very expensive, bigger flood defences are not necessarily the best answer. I'm sure the EA know all this, but they have to kow tow to the government's house-building agenda.

So why is the Council so reluctant to improve transport connections to the Rotherwas Enterprise Zone with a rail link,when we learn from Glenda that it wouldn't require a Council subsidy? Why was an Enterprise Zone ever placed there in Rotherwas, with no rail connection and no easy road connections to the motorway network? It's hardly attractive for global investors, is it? And why the Cabinet decision last week for the Council to suddenly become a member of the West Midland Rail Limited Company? What are the benefits of doing this and paying £13,200 in 2016/17 and £7,464 in 2017/18? The railway is nothing to do with Council services, is it? Something doesn't sound right here.

Well I don't believe they are scrapping the Rotherwas rail link idea to put funding into adult social care instead! What do readers make of this Cabinet Decision published today? Decision: THAT: (a) the council becomes a member of the West Midlands Rail Limited Company, subject to legal agreements being satisfactorily finalised; (b) authority is delegated to the director of economy, communities and corporate to complete these agreements; © Subject to recommendations A and B, the leader be appointed as a director of the company and the cabinet member transport and roads be appointed as substitute who will be authorised to make decisions in this capacity relating to the strategic direction of the WMRL; (d) Subject to recommendations A and B, funding of £13,200 in 2016/17 and £7,464 in 2017/18 be approved as the council’s contribution towards the costs of administering the partnership and developing the case for full devolution of the rail franchise. see http://councillors.herefordshire.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?Id=3107

I agree with Clarkester that a rail link could really help traffic congestion. Now we have the Enterprise Zone, why not make sure it prospers by providing potential for moving freight by rail? Just think about the road journey options any lorry has to make to connect with Worcester, Birmingham, etc. It's not easy and those options won't impress potential investors. It could be so much easier for many employees to travel too, - not just from central Hereford but beyond, e.g. Leominster. AV has been put off the rail link idea after reading the report on viability. But did the Council's PB consultants have the imagination to consider all the potential benefits in their calculations? I don't think so. As well as the potential for moving freight more easily, did they think about the potential for students from the colleges and proposed university using a rail link to get to work experience placements? Did they think about the potential for providing a large car park (free!) for people driving towards Hereford from the south along the A49 (park and train ride), so those people would not need to bring their cars into central Hereford but would reach their destination faster? The cost of their rail fare could be offset by no car parking costs and using less fuel.

The Council's blog on this self-congratulatory "2020" website is rather ahead of itself! "The planning application for the South Wye Transport Package - Southern Link Road has been submitted and will be considered and consulted upon by the Councils planning authority." Well actually it has not been submitted yet! There is still a public consultation going on about the Southern Link Road, with an opportunity for everyone to comment on the latest documents like the archaeological report, see https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/development-control/planning-applications/details?id=151314&search= This consultation has not been advertised very well but it goes on to 5 November so please send more comments to kgibbons@herefordshire.gov.uk