Bursting the bubble

[SON OF GRIDKNOCKER]

Frustrated by an inconclusive meeting in the council's plush Plough Lane redoubt, a friend recently exploded: "Those merchant bankers (that's Cockney rhyming slang folks) are all living in a bubble!"

 

Here's a classic example of our council's blinkered thinking, which confirms this 'bubble mentality'.

[SON OF GRIDKNOCKER]

Campaigners fighting to save the former Working Boys Home, Bath Street, from demolition, were told that the Country Bus Station (behind the old Odeon cinema) could not be offered to Hereford & Worcester fire service as a site for their proposed new fire station, as it would remain is use until at least October 2016.

 

Last week I had to walk across the said bus station on three occasions: mid-week, morning and afternoons. And the number of passengers waiting in the ten bus stands? Respectively, seven, four and two! Travellers at Worcester's bus station at these times would have been in hundreds!

 

Thursday 7 May seems to be the perfect moment to 'burst the bubble'. Let's elect a party that has a coherent, sustainable transport policy for this county. And show the present incumbents the exit door!

[bobby47]

There's no needle manufactured by bloody man that's long enough, strong enough and bloody sharp enough to burst the skin of that bladder of a bubble that's bopping about surrounding the machinery that drives the Council madness.

If there was one such rotten needle that'd do the job, I'd be the first to grab a hold of it, hurtle across High Town, up Whitecross Road and thrust it into the side of this bureaucratic beast of burden. I'd do it, I'd happily do it and I'd happily face the consequences if the point of my needle happened to pin just one unlucky 'suit' to the bloody wall and rid us of one single over eight thousand pound yearly salary.

But.....it ain't going to happen. If it were ever going to happen it'd have occurred several years ago just after 2008 when it became obvious to any observer and political commentator that this model of public service was not fit for purpose and we'd all been fooled into believing that paying the best got us the best. It's all been a lie peddled out by fools who reached their own personal level of incompetence before they ever began their feeding frenzy upon us here in Hereford.

If, for one single moment in time I actually believed that this bloody bubble would burst I'd be with the lads in The Commercial making plans to get my bloody handcart and me bloody drinks cabinet set up outside Plough bloody Lane ready to take my place at the top table where I'd begin the culling the suits and starting the destruction of whatever it is that pis.ses me off every single bloody day.

But it ain't going to happen! We are, in short, bloody buggared!

[SON OF GRIDKNOCKER]

Carefully-modulated understatement, as ever, from King Bobby!

[ragwert]

Campaigners fighting to save the former Working Boys Home, Bath Street, from demolition, were told that the Country Bus Station (behind the old Odeon cinema) could not be offered to Hereford & Worcester fire service as a site for their proposed new fire station, as it would remain is use until at least October 2016.

 

Last week I had to walk across the said bus station on three occasions: mid-week, morning and afternoons. And the number of passengers waiting in the ten bus stands? Respectively, seven, four and two! Travellers at Worcester's bus station at these times would have been in hundreds!

 

Thursday 7 May seems to be the perfect moment to 'burst the bubble'. Let's elect a party that has a coherent, sustainable transport policy for this county. And show the present incumbents the exit door!

 

Campaigners fighting to save the former Working Boys Home, Bath Street, from demolition, were told that the Country Bus Station (behind the old Odeon cinema) could not be offered to Hereford & Worcester fire service as a site for their proposed new fire station, as it would remain is use until at least October 2016.

 

Last week I had to walk across the said bus station on three occasions: mid-week, morning and afternoons. And the number of passengers waiting in the ten bus stands? Respectively, seven, four and two! Travellers at Worcester's bus station at these times would have been in hundreds!

 

Thursday 7 May seems to be the perfect moment to 'burst the bubble'. Let's elect a party that has a coherent, sustainable transport policy for this county. And show the present incumbents the exit door!

Problem there is who?

I can see us in another 5 years saying the same thing.

I'd also like to see both the fire & Ambulance service located at the County bus station site with the bus station relocated to the train station

[SON OF GRIDKNOCKER]

@Ragwert: I couldn't agree more. I recently spoke to an experienced transportation specialist based in Worcestershire, who has played a key role in setting up efficiently-opertated transport hubs, both in the midlands and Wales. I promise you, the guy knows what he's talking about.

 

I put to him this hypothetical question. Given the need to establish a Transport Hub in the vicinity of Hereford Railway Station, combined with the fact that seed-funding IS available (from both central government and regional development agencies) for forward planning such enterprises, if I was a fly on the wall of Geof Hughes' office (and could work his computer), what  amount of forward planning for a Hereford Transport Hub d'you suppose, Mr Transportation Specialist, I'd find? In percentage terms please?

 

He laughed; "O%!"

[megilleland]

Talking of transport strategies and the proposed development at Holmer West, Hereford

 

TECHNICAL NOTE

Date: 19th November 2013

Project: Holmer West, Hereford

Title: Note Regarding Bus Services

November 2013 DRAFT

 

(extracts)

 

This shows that in the morning peak there is quite a good range of departures into the city centre; though some are indirect in their routing, i.e. 72B dep.0750 and 77A dep.0837. 

 

The afternoon is less good, there being no departure after 1805, and the service 802

departure at 1715 running college days only. 

 

1.5 Sunday services comprise five departures each way on service 492, running between

Hereford and Leominster; four departures connect with Hereford Railway Station and three

departures extend to/from Ludlow]. The first towards the city centre departs at 0929, arriving at 0942; then departing at 1159, 1459, 1759 and 1929. Departures from the city

centre are at 0832, 0954, 1254, 1554, and 1824, arriving at 1837.

 

1.6 There is no evening services other than the final departure on service 492 to the city

centre, at 1917 on Weekdays and Saturday and at 1929 on Sunday. 

 

2.1 Liaison has been undertaken with Alan Lewis, Public Transport Manager at Herefordshire Council, regarding the appropriate provision for bus travel from the proposed development. 

 

2.5 While he did not explicitly specify a need for provision of evening and Sunday bus services in his email, in a telephone conversation on 14+^ November Mr Lewis suggested broad aims for a Sunday service in terms of serving retail travel destinations; he gave no particular guidance regarding evening travel markets.

 

Sounds as if this is going to fit into the transport plan that is already not running throughout the city.

 

 

[greenknight]

Yes I'm with Ragwert. A lot of town and cities are creating combined transport hubs and let's be honest with a new university banging on the door it should make sense.

I also agree with the merger of both the Fire and Ambulance Service onto one site as I actually believe this will be an enforced action by government anyway. Our current Home Secretary would like to combine all three services but this is a nonsense.