This popular programme has a section in it where the panel are asked to complete blanked out headlines in an obscure journal. Maybe someone might like to guess the blanked out bits in this local document worthy of a place on this show.

Witness Appeal For Information Following Theft From Shop In Hereford

West Mercia Police are appealing for information about a theft that occurred at Co Op Stop and Shop, Whitecross Road, Hereford.

It happened between 7.45pm and 8.05pm on Saturday 5th July 2014.

A selection of scratch cards, cigarettes and other groceries were stolen.

Officers are eager to hear from the women seen in the attached pictures, as well as anyone who witnessed the incident, in connection to their enquiries.

Information can be given by calling West Mercia Police on the non-emergency number 101 quoting incident 0699S of 5th July 2014.

Alternatively you can give information without giving your name by calling the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or by visiting their website: www.crimestoppers-uk.org.

The Herefordshire Council have an online survey about the parking in Hereford. In my opinion, there are far too many disabled bays along broad street and in King Street and Bridge Street they they could increase the maximum parking time to 2 hours, at least this way you have a little more time to shop etc.. The traffic wardens are too keen to issue tickets too, all of this does not encourage people into our city.

This of course is just my view but there is an online survey which I think is worth completing, see below.

We are undertaking a review of on street parking arrangements in the historic core of Hereford city centre. National good practice indicates that we should review on-street parking restrictions periodically in order to check that they continue to meet the needs of all road users. In addition the review will aim to support current schemes in the historic core including street de-cluttering through rationalising existing signage, 20mph zones and more cycling facilities.

We are consulting with businesses, residents and visitors who use on street parking in the historic core of Hereford. Questionnaires for residents and businesses will be delivered to properties within the city centre area. In addition our survey staff will be out in the city centre talking to people who are using on street parking and providing them with questionnaires. Surveys can be returned via the Freepost address supplied.

Alternatively you can complete the questionnaire online.

The closing date for responses is 17 March 2014.

 

 

Some weeks ago, Councillors Paul Rone(no embarrassment is intended) and Andrew Atkinson put forward a motion for Councillors to take a cut in their pay packet.

My initial reaction was to hurl bile and phlegm upon these two lads suggesting that it was a political gimmick designed to win favour from their constituents and upon the pages of the Hereford Times, I kicked them as hard as I was able to.

Then, after giving it some thought, which is what I should have done in the first place, but because Im dull I didn't, I realised that this was no gimmick. It was simply two young lads choosing to do things in a different way. They simply wanted to raise the issue of huge and unsustainable salaries that exist within the Council and set an example in the hope that others would follow.

Im given to understand that when these two lads tabled their suggestion within the Council Chamber they took a kicking from all who were in attendance.

I am aware of the views of Councillor Powell but Id like to know what our other Councillors think about the Rone/Atkinson proposal and explain to us why these two lads didn't receive any support for what was a thoroughly good and well intended suggestion.

I'd like to know what our Councillors think about this issue and why it was that their suggestion was met with hostility.

My view is that these two lads tried to break the mould and thought in a different way which is what I now want from our local leaders. I want free thinkers who are prepared to think outside the old ways of delivering democracy and approach local issues in an entirely different way. I believe, after some reflection, instead of hurling shouts of 'gimmicks' and other choice words of derision, I should have said, 'well done'. I'd be very grateful if our new Councillors would take the time to explain their views on this issue and perhaps shed some light upon why it was that they were subjected to a political kicking.

My warmest regards to you all.

It's wet outside so I thought I would start a new topic!

Does anyone ever pay a ticket for parking on double yellow lines in the city?

I would have thought that good a defence would be - I will pay when you start enforcing the double yellow lines in Bewell Street which are always clogged up with taxis. Every day that road is blocked and nothing is done. Surely this is more dangerous given the need for emergency vehicle access on a narrow road than parking on double yellow lines in Commercial Road.

But is there one law for us and another for taxis?

Queuing patiently to buy my weekly Lotto ticket in Morrisons the othe other day, I fell into conversation with the bloke standing behind me.  'You realise you've more chances of sleeeping with Joan Collins than winning this thing, don't you?'  It could have been Al Read speaking from the grave.  As there were 17 people in front of us, I thanked him for this fascinating statistic and legged it into High Town.

Clustered around the bull statue in front of the Old House was a small knot of East Europeans, avidly buying £5 raffle tickets from a man I'd recently seen featured on a 'Police are anxious to interview this man' CCTV freeze-frame on the Hereford Times website.

'Excuse me: what's the first prize?' I impudently enquired from the back of the throng.  'A night with John Major at the Castle Pool Hotel,' came the rapid response, like a Hamas rocket.  'And suppose the winner's a bloke?'  'Send the missus; Edwina never complained!'

But it was the fascinating array of runners-up prizes which were the real clinchers for me.  Second prize was a week's suuply of bacon butties, cooked in the winner's own kitchen by Councillor John Jarvis (ketchup not included).  Then there were half-hour bedtime readings for a whole month from the Highway Code, by Councillor Brian Wilcox - surely guaranteed to get you to sleep.  Next was a signed copy of Roger Phillips' little-known gem 'All you could ever want to know about farming' (a slim volume this, just 24 pages long); and then, to cap it all, the piece de resistance: a weekend's weeding of your own garden by Councillor Patricia Morgan, dressed only in khaki short-shorts and a wet T-shirt reading: 'I really, really want Big Tony's job!'.

Has anyone else on the voice received a form from ipsos mori about a survey they are carrying out for several local councils across Britain including Herefordshire council?

They want to know how you want to see local transport & highways improved & what your priorities are?

Bike store burglars steal £50k in stock

4:40pm Friday 1st August 2014 in NewsBy Adam Knight

I thought I would enjoy the sun recently with a leisurely ride on my bike.

Coming out of Rotherwas on that relief road (heading away from Rotherwas), the lane is absolutely covered in glass for about 1 mile from the Rotherwas roundabout end.

I don't know why this is, but there is A LOT of it, perhaps a special glass waste lorry drives past?

Anyway, it flicks up in to my legs and embeds itself in my tyres - as well as everyone one elses who uses that road I imagine - is there any chance that once a fortnight or something one of those road sweepers could head along the "hard shoulder" of that road and suck it all up?

I am not sure I would want to live this close to the police station doors..

These are the new houses being built on the site of the Vortex and St Francis Saviour church

CAR park prices at the Old Market in Hereford have been released.

The prices are exactly the same as the Maylord Orchards car park, although Maylords is cheaper on Sundays.

There will be 600 car park spaces available at the Old Market, including 31 disabled bays and 22 parent and child spaces.

Merton Meadow car park is  Â£2 all day.

Old Market Car Park Charges

1 hour: £1.20

2 hours: £2.40

3 hours: £3.60

4 hours: £4.80

5 hours: £6.50

6 hours: £8.80

Over 6 hours: £10.50

This is my first foray into asking you good people, who do I complain to; and is it worth it.  I work in Ledbury, and, on occasions, I bike ride from home(Bobblestock) to catch the train there and back instead of using the car. Kills me, but at least I can have a beer the night before and have no fear of our illustrious Police Service/Force pulling me over. My gripe is as I ride through Widemarsh Common and out onto Prior Street, who is responsible for cutting back the overhanging tree branches. Has this service gone the way of the grass cutting, or been forgotten entirely, as it is a slalom at 0600 to avoid trees, pedestrians and other riders going the opposite way.  Your help, acerbic comments and general lampooning is appreciated, and expected.

Course, it hasn't been my best day down at Plough Lane has it! There I was, sat in me office nibbling on a kilo of Pork Rind harvested following the slaughter and strangulation of the Council's prize winning Razorback Suckling Sow, when me secretary Agnes tapped on the door and said, 'have you finished pleasuring yourself. I've got your ten thirty here'.

I said, 'bloody hell! Tell the world won't you, I can't help it if I produce an ungodly amount of semen.Is it Little Bill and has he agreed to present himself naked?'. With an odd mix of tones that could best be described as gently feminine whispers and a howling screaming yell brought about because she'd stubbed her toe on an old cast iron cooking pot whilst preparing a meat stew to feed a table of eight, Agnes cried, 'Yes, but he ain't happy with it'. 'Excellent', I responded, 'send Little Bill in and we'll begin my scrutiny of his Strimming activities'.

And in he came. Naked, angry and clearly uncomfortable that I had chosen to wear my Grannies old boxing shorts, her sports bra and had consequently placed him at an immediate physchological disadvantage to me. Greeting him with a manly hug and a firm handshake, I immediately put him at ease by saying, 'your penis is flaccid, as is mine so please relax, banish any thoughts that you'll be violated in this room, help yourself to a scratching and lets deal with the issues that need to be addressed by me, the Councils new Ethics And Standards Monitoring Officer'.

Cognisant that Little Bill was at his most vulnerable, I went straight for the jugular. I said, ' on dates unknown in the hamlets of Orcop, Pencoed and Saddlebow Hill, whilst engaged in Strimming the grass bloody verges, you Little Bill, the Wild Beast Buggaring scoundrel, ninny and downright stinker crept into several lush green meadows and subjected a herd of bovine beasts to acts of manly love. The games up Little Wild Billy. Lets have the truth. Admit it and clear yourself before God and Man'.

Course, it didn't go well. He screamed, 'I'm no Strimmer. Im the finest legal mind in Herefordshire'. I said, 'slow down. Reverse a little. There's no need to overeact. Why get so upset. It's a perfectly reasonable question. I put it to you that you've subjected untold numbers of commercial farming animals to acts that even God would describe as 'the work of a complete rotter'.

He said, 'I ain't no Strimmer. I've never Strimmed, ive no desire to ever Strim and I'll be damned if I sit back and take this'. And then the penny dropped. The realisation that I'd perhaps strayed into an area that placed me in a frightfully difficult position with someone who had the Latin. Oh he had it all. 'Habeas Corpus, Mens Rea and Affadavit. I had in fact put my beastly allegation to Herefordshire's finest legal mind Bill Norman instead of a Strimmer of overgrown grass.

I said, ' Are you a Strimmer of Grass'.? 'Have you ever been a Strimmer'. Would you ever choose to Strim even if it weren't your job, and then, after perusing through my notes and realising that I was interviewing the wrong Billy, I said, 'I sincerely apologise Bill. It's all an administrative error.'

Brousing through the notes, whilst the finest legal mind in Hereford tried to throttle me with Grannies bra I desperately tried to explain to Billy that I'd mixed him up with Little Bill the notorious beast Buggaring Violator of members of the Animal Kingdom. Quite simply, because the Chief Legal Officer was described on my list as ' A Beastly drain on public funds and a dodger of FOI's to establish how much money he'd been able to get from the public purse, the term 'beast' had completely thrown me, ruined me entire day and left me with a sore neck after getting throttled for perfectly understandable reasons.

The moral of this pointless and nonsensical pile of rats urine? Get your facts right. Study your brief and above all, ensure that a Strimmer of overgrown grass does actually involve themselves in the Strimming of overgrown grass and, better still they own a Strimmer to cut that overgrown grass or have access to a Strimmer that would enable overgrown grass to be cut at hazardous road junctions.

As for Freedom of Information requests that perhaps try to she'd some light on the wrongdoing that can lawfully take place nowadays because 'we' no longer matter, I often wonder whether or not its become a pointless excercise.

So which **** said that long grass that was cut and left to dry wouldn't be a problem as long as we didn't get summer?

I'd love to hear what you have to say about it now - let me guess, the grass fire wasn't because of the grass right?

https://www.facebook.com/YourHfdshire/photos/a.452936028176885.1073741829.451112681692553/457830044354150/?type=1

I see that the Coffee Cart people have applied to the Council for a licence to serve alcohol ...

Link to application

It is bang in the centre of the No Drinking zone but that doesn't seem to count for much these days as the Castle Green is a booze free zone and that regularly gets a beer tent when the great and the good decide they want booze at their event.

I see the rateable value for the business is £0 ... but I don't know how much rent they pay the Council for their pitch ...

First we had the pleasure of the mightily impressive Paul Cardin who's currently celebrating his third success against Wirral Council who desperately want him branded a 'vexatious person', then Wirral Leaks, then Level80 registered with us and now, perhaps the most prolific tapper of vowels and consonants on the Wirral Globe, the incomparable Growl Tiger.

Mind, I've got one problem with The Wirral. Wrong side of the tunnel. My old man used to tell me on our trips to New Brighton, 'they think there bloody it on The Wirral. They've all got curtains up against their windows'.

Hour glass traffic lights, now that's something different...

Police Appeal For Help To Find Missing Teenager From Hereford

West Mercia Police are appealing to the public for their help to locate a missing teenager from Hereford.

Charlotte Cotterell, 15, was last seen in the Bath Street area of Hereford on Wednesday July 23.

She is described as of slight build, with very long blonde hair and is 5’4” in height. She was wearing blue denim shorts and a light blue t-shirt when last seen but this outfit could have changed.

Police are growing increasingly concerned for her welfare.

Officers are asking people to report any sightings of anyone matching her description to West Mercia Police on the non-emergency number 101.