Once the new Odeon cinema opens at the end of this month in the Old Market, what will happen to the one in Commercial Rd? I assume the cinema will close or will the nightclub be extended possibly? Anyone know?

Ferret Racing at Withington Village Hall Saturday 17th May -7.30 £12.50 inc food, licensed bar Tickets from Kevin Hewison 01432 850074 kevinhewison@btopenworld.com In Aid of "End Polio Now" and Rotary Foundation.

For info ... 

I heard from one of the school parents that plans are afoot for a new gym and trampoline facility on Rotherwas industrial estate. It seems Hereford Leisure Centre cannot offer enough space for boys' equipment (dunno why boys need different kit but there you go) or facilities for the disabled.

https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/planningapplicationsearch/details/?id=132530

Probably a good thing? Diversify what's going on in Rotherwas and south of the Wye generally. Maybe another reason to open a railway halt there? Wasn't it only going to cost £10 mln for a railway stop in Rotherwas?

Also there was a sign at leisure centre saying there is a bag-packing charity raising thing going on at Tesco Belmont this weekend to help fund this gym, so be prepared if you are shopping there.

Quote

Primary school head paid £200,000

 

The executive headteacher of a primary academy enjoyed a salary in excess of £200,000 last year after being handed a massive pay rise, official accounts show.

 

Sir Greg Martin, executive head of Durand Academy in south London, saw his salary increase by around 56% in 2013 to a total of £200,822 - meaning he was earning more than the Prime Minister.

 

Durand Academy is a state academy - a school that is not under local council control and has freedom over areas such as curriculum and staff pay - and is run by the Durand Academy Trust. It was judged to be good by Ofsted following an inspection in December.

 

Data published by the Department for Education (dFE) last month show that the average salary for a leadership teacher in a primary academy stands at £53,000.

 

Sir Greg was knighted in last year's birthday honours for services to education.

He's obviously good at Maths!

- The only new retail & leisure development to open in 2014 -

British Land and Stanhope are pleased to announce that the £90 million Old Market shopping centre in Hereford opened today. The scheme is the only significant retail development to open this year and the first major retail development in Hereford for 25 years. Old Market was developed by Stanhope and funded by British Land, who now takes ownership of the scheme.

Full Article Here

I popped up today but due to the exorbitant prices my wallet stayed shut.

But I did notice that inside the space has almost entirely been divided up into little stores - Brantano shoes - Mountain Warehouse - Books - Bedding - Woollen Mill - etc.

I know there has been a debate about the OLM and its impact and I know some of these stores are already in town but there would be less empty shops if these were in town and Wyevale remained as a garden centre and not a shopping centre.

What do you think? Should/can the Council do anything about it?

I'll be damned if I ever set foot inside that salty hulk of a new shopping development. Never! I'd sooner give up ale, quit smoking and stop nibbling upon pork rind than ever tippy toe inside that place and part with a single penny piece.

Never! Ever! They can dispatch a team of highly trained negotiators to my threshold demanding that I come outside, stagger down to this monument to stupidity and simply have a look around. I'll tell them, 'clear off. Be gone. Go bother some other fool. I'm watching Whitecross Housewives on me web cam and I ain't leaving'.

They can threaten me with a thrice yearly bin collection and it'll have no impact upon me. They can lock me in cupboard with Aylestone Voice and despite the hardship of it all, when they open the door after a week and say, 'times up', I'll beg them for another fortnight rather than accompany my wife into that shopping centre.

And as for her, my wife of forty years, she was waving her ten pound Debenhams Gift Voucher in my fat face last night and I told her what Im telling you. 'We ain't bloody going'. It'll take more than ten quid off your next pair of knickers to get me within a stones throw of that bloody place.'

Quite simply, I ain't going and anyone who does attend thinks very differently to me. Im a High Town Man. I've always been a High Town man and I'll always will be a High Town man. Even when all the shops in High Town are closed and there's clearly not a hope in hell of purchasing any food from our once beautiful town centre, still, even then, when there's nobody to trade with me, still I'll be a High Town Man.

I'll starve before I ever visit that monstrous place. Never!

The police are failing to record more than 700,000 offences - including cases of rape and serious sexual offences - according to the first official inquiry into crime reporting.

An inspection of 13 forces found 14 rapes were among offences not recorded by officers, including an allegation made by a 13-year-old autistic boy which was written off as "sexual experimentation".

Another rape was not recorded due to "workload pressure" as recording the crime would "entail too much work", the report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has found.

The police watchdog also found some offenders have been issued with out-of-court disposals, such as cautions, when they should have been prosecuted.

Inspectors said they could not rule out "discreditable or unethical behaviour" on the part of officers for the failure rate. The Home Secretary Theresa May said the report exposed "unacceptable failings by the police" and warned that once HMIC concludes its work in October, official figures may show a spike in police recorded crime.

Channel 4 News

Seems we have found out why the crime figures are down! 

Jury has been deliberating for over a day now .... 

Banksy style stuff has appeared as he's in the news ...

If he gets cleared then he has been ridiculed and financially penalised ... So he is on a loser straight away! 

System is strange! 

The salty hulk (partly) opens tomorrow - on the Councils website they say 'We expect around 15,000 to 20,000 visitors to Old Market on 1 May. For those planning to travel inside the city, walking and cycling is recommended.' Oh dear lord, the traffic will be stationery for a 10 mile radius. At say 2 to a car,  that’s up to 10,000 cars - the council, in a masterly understatement to avoid widespread panic, say 'with large visitor numbers anticipated, car parks on the Old Market site may become full.' For once, they may be right. Never mind the jambs, count the money from the car parks … 

I work on the first floor of an office in Bridge Street. Heard a large crash at 4pm today and looked out of my office window. A guy had run over the brand new road sign at the top of Bridge Street.

How could he possibly do that?

Well, he pulled up right outside Bill Jackson estate agents, got out of his car and it was quite apparent he was drunk as he was struggling to stand. He staggered across the car to the sign and picked up the items which had fallen off his car from the crash.

Quite a few people came out of the offices near the top of Bridge Street, but even though it was OBVIOUS he was drunk, nobody stopped him pulling off and driving down St Nicholas Street!

Obviously I reported it to the police straight away, so I hope they caught him before he had another crash or hit any pedestrians!

My colleague took a photo of the car and emailed to West Mercia police. I hope the police van I heard coming past a few minutes later went straight to his home address and arrested him!

Recently the Hereford Times were asking for nominations for a local Hero. Someone who does great things, inspires all those around them and is undoubtedly a local treasure.

Obviously I tick all the boxes but I'll be damned if I accept the nomination from my good friend Ubique who understandably put forward my name to receive this accolade.

No, the person I have in mind is a truly wonderful lady. An inspiration to all those who come into contact with her and someone who provides everything to her pupils, her staff and the parents and Carers of the children who attend Blackmarston Special Needs School.

The person who I tip my hat to is the Headteacher at the School Mrs Sian Bailey who is quite simply a remarkable person who's driven to give her all for the little ones in her care. This is one 'mighty' individual who, whenever Im in her company, Im very aware that Im in the presence of greatness and its this lady and all her staff who are my hero's.

To her, all that matters is the children and the education they receive. Everything else is of little consequence to Sian Bailey. This young woman is a long way from retirement but when her time comes to go, put her feet up and reflect upon her life and her achievements she'll have thousands of people forever grateful for all the things that she has done.

What a woman! What a teacher and what a hero to the people of our City.

Michael Owen has just tweeted his congratulations to Hereford United for staying up, nice touch.

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie and I wanted to open a new topic to ask if anyone has experienced rumbling\vibration noise from Tescos store?

I live in Belmont, just down the road from Tescos store. Our family has been suffering from lack of sleep due to a constant low rumbling\vibration noise (like a car engine - as if its parked outside with the engine running).

We have traced it to Tescos store and we have logged complaints with the store, but they have failed to respond or do anything about the noise. So we had no choice but to report it to the Environment Agency. We are maintaining a log of times of the noise and rating it between levels 1 (not too bad) through to 5 (to very loud). We will have to fill in and send the report by the end of the month.
It has been going on since August this year and we have since found out that Tescos had their freezers\air con upgraded a that time. We have also noticed two metal looking extractor type funnels near the back of the store on the side of the delivery bay. The Environment Agency have implied that Tesco's haven't had planning permission to install these, though were not 100% sure that is true.
The noise is driving us mad and its made worse at night as the rumble vibrates through the bed! We have had endless cups of teas at 4am in the morning where we have no choice but to get up as we cant sleep for the noise and vibration. From our time log it starts any-time from 9pm through to 11am the next day.
I just wondered if anyone else is experiencing this noise? Have you complained to Tesco's or the Environment Agency? Could you let me know please?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post,
Take care,

Newbie cv5

Where did your Heart go? My debut novel has been chosen as one of the ground breaking novels to participate in a new revolutionary imprint Britain’s Next Bestseller. Britain’s Next Bestseller has a simple mission – to shake up the way the publishing industry works. “We want to give authors a new, fairer way to get published without relying on literary agents, traditional publishers or selfâ€publishing houses. We want to empower readers so they can decide the books that get published. The books they want to read! Readers get a great deal too… search out and support my novel Where did your Heart go? And get your name printed in every edition of the book, along with a copy of the book 2 weeks before public release.†If there are any book shops in the area who would be interested in a larger order then I am able to offer discounts and also be available for a free book signing session too.

Where did your Heart go? Is the first book in the Heart Trilogy? It is a nostalgic, bittersweet novel about 1st love. The main character Stephanie first falls in love with James back in 1988. She is currently a single mum to her daughter Charlotte in 2012. We see 1988 in diary entries which Stephanie shares with her daughter as she struggles to cope with the failure of her first relationship. At the same time Stephanie relives those feelings and emotions that she has always struggled to forget and wonder if she will ever find the courage to love again? As Charlotte falls in love with dancer Mitchell a strange twist will help the two of them remove the haunted look from Stephanie’s eyes.

My novel is set in Herefordshire and I'm appealing to all those in the local area to get behind me in having the chance to become a published author and at the same time give some much needed publicity to the local area. Also if I'm lucky enough to reach the target of 250 pre-orders I will receive some free copies of the book which I will be donating to the Library Service in Herefordshire.

To read a excerpt of the novel and to pre-order your copy visit www.britainsnextbestseller.co.uk To pre-order you need to join the site but if you have any problems with this then please get back to me. Also no money will be taken until the end of the promotion period and if you allow your name to be seen on the supporters list I am also happy to refund you the p&p costs saving you £2.50!! You can keep in touch with me via my website www.audrinalane.co.uk or on Twitter and Facebook.

If there are any other local authors or budding authors out there then I would be more than happy to offer friendship, help and support too. I'm currently working on the sequel called Un-break my Heart.

Not sure where else this issue fits - it has hints of several others in Hereford.

There is a building in Ross now called the Ryefield Centre - half of it is used by the Children's Centre (although the council has never seen fit to put any signposts up to let anyone know it's there).  The other half is rooms that are rented by community groups for lots of purposes.  The building is an attractive old school building.  The old playing fields have been developed for housing and the Larrurpez Centre.

There was consternation a few weeks ago when the weekly Luncheon club, to which isolated and lonely elderly people are brought for a meal and company - run largely by volunteers, were told they would have to stop using the premises.  So far, so very Herefordshire Council.  The Ross Town brass band which enlivens many community events rehearses there and stores instruments etc is also being kicked out.  I assume there are others likewise affected.

One of the local councillors (The Lib Dem Cllr Bartrum) has written to the Ross Gazette that he has been able to find out that there is a possible new future tenant and the Council is kicking (my words) existing tenants out to make way.  He doesn't say if he knows who the new tenant might be. 

My suspicion is that the Council would like to declare those premises as `surplus to requirements' (i.e. surplus to council requirements rather than surplus to community requirements) and this is part of the process of being able to do so.  It may or may not be connected to another Free School proposed for the area looking for possible premises - a Montessori school, - is the council again kowtowing to central conservative government at the expense of local interests?   If that is the case it is scandalous to tell these groups that they must leave well in advance of any government approval for the free school.  If it isn't the free school,  then why be so secretive - is it just the Bramer/Hughes way of doing things?

Interesting in the Harry Bramer thread that he is a former director of Age Concern in Ross - I wonder how he would justify kicking out elderly and vulnerable people from their luncheon club in order to free up an `asset'.

Or so I hear - the power was out all down Edgar Street last night.

Just want you want on a Friday night