Roger

Illicit tobacco seller has to cough up after being caught for second offence 18 August 2014 On Friday 15 August, Ali Omar Shukir (32) from Hereford was sentenced to 300 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £750 costs by Hereford Magistrates in a case taken by Herefordshire Council. In addition to the penalties imposed, all the non-duty paid tobacco products seized, which have a street value in excess of £4,000, were forfeited for destruction. The duty that should have been paid on these goods amounts to over £10,000. Mr Shukir had taken over the Zabka continental food shop at 16 Eign Gate, Hereford in January this year and immediately started selling illicit tobacco. The illicit goods included fake and unknown foreign brands of cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco. All were non UK duty paid and failed to carry the English health warnings. Smokers were spending money in this shop at the expense of legitimate local retailers. Mr Shukir has a previous conviction for selling illicit tobacco two years ago. Following intelligence received, trading standards officers with the assistance of West Mercia Police and a sniffer dog executed a warrant at the shop. They found a large quantity of illegal cigarettes and tobacco on the premises. The shop was using a sophisticated and ingenious hiding place for storing the illicit tobacco, involving a secret compartment hidden within the building walls, which was covered by kitchen cupboards. This could only be accessed by the use of an electric switch linked to strong magnets. Mike Pigrem, Herefordshire Council’s head of trading standards and licensing, said: “The sale of illicit and counterfeit tobacco is disturbingly still prevalent within the county. However, most consumers will be unaware of the effects such purchases will have on the economy, legitimate businesses and the exchequer nor its potential links to serious organised crime. "Billions in tax revenues are arguably lost each year to the exchequer and the product’s low cost encourages increased and continued uptake throughout the community. Trading standards will continue to tackle such illegal activity and will bring any perpetrators before the courts.†If you have any information on people dealing in illegal tobacco products, please contact Herefordshire Council’s trading standards in confidence on 01432 261761. Herefordshire Council Website The photo from the story is May 2014 so not the raid that started this topic off .... But it's the same shop ... So the shop is probably going to feature in the Courts again this year ... Defendant unknown !!

That's the last result ... Lib Dems are dead in the water over Clegg and the tuition fee disaster so Jesse Norman hasn't got to do much ... He can probably stay in bed ... UKIP will improve their vote but 3.4% last time won't suddenly leap to 40% ...

I really am massively into Football so have been following this closely. Although HUFC is not the team I support as everyone should know. The story is a long one but recently Hereford hit the financial skids under the Keyte regime. He sold the Club to Tommy Agombar who could never pass the FA fitness test as he's got a lengthy prison sentence for lorry hi-jacking on his record from 1987 that is never spent. They all knew that. Agombar then says that the debt he thought he was taking on was much bigger than he thought ... Some suggestions he thought it was £250k that was in fact £1.4M Some creditors get paid after a lengthy wait ... The 'owner' cobbled some CVA agreement together which in someone's deluded mind was going to work out to pay outstanding creditors 100% of monies owed over 3 years ... Or was it part of a sinister scheme? Tommy gets banned by the FA so he sells his shares to Alpha Choice Finance (in existence 13 months) who appear to be run by Alan Gerald McCarthy who has been involved in 7 dissolved companies' (cash issues on that link). Various suggestions that they have had previous contact. Why buy the Club when the impending CVA decision was obvious? CVA proposal then gets thrown out at today's meeting so the Club is probably going to get wound up ... There must be a whole plan behind all this that has not yet emerged ... We all have ideas but it has not panned out yet ...

Balfour Beatty Website That quote is from July 2013. Is it that the contract was awarded and then BB wasn't paid the pro rata rate for the period and so never cut the grass? Or is it that they were never up to the job? I do see they have a load of 13 plate vehicles tho ... When the grass cuts went from 7 to 3 did part of this £200M contract not get paid? And where is the cash coming from for all this desperate catch up stuff involving a Surrey firm? The credit crunch started in 2008 so a 2013 contract should not have ended up so poor so soon. Oh ... And the local elections are next May so the grass might see a cut in the run up to that I suppose ...

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014 CVA Proposal Rejected By CreditorsBy Bobo The CVA proposal by Hereford United has been rejected by creditors at today's meeting. The meeting went for nearly two and a half hours as creditors quizzed the IP Marc Landsman and the trio of board members present. Debate centred around the budget projections, with a letter being produced and shown to one creditors of an offer of a six figure sponsorship. The letter was dismissed as not being credible by the shareholder due to the geographical location of the company. The new owner of Tommy Agombar's debt and shares was named as Alpha Choice Finance Ltd of Essex. It's sole director is Alan Gerald McCarthy, listed on various searches as an Irish Accountant. Creditors were told by Landsman that HMRC, whose debt was now up to £170,000, had already rejected the CVA proposal. He took only a few minutes to glance at the votes of those in the room before declaring the CVA to have been rejected as it was obvious it was not going to pass based on the votes he'd seen. There is now an uncertain future for the club. Directors were discussing their next move as creditors left the room. bullsnews

Broadleaf (Surrey firm) have been in Churchill Gardens this morning from just before 8 am. The grass is of a scruffy length and should not be beyond the capabilities of BB but there you go ... The people don't seem to have enough of the right equipment as they are strimming swathes of open grass which would more efficiently be cut with a ride on mower. There is one on site but it's deployed by Churchill House ...

The topiary (in the picture) shows the property was very cared for ... I would be crawling up the walls if I had a similar situation confront me . I would not condemn John Knott for his actions ... His behaviour (based on what I've read) seems to suggest he was reaching for a resolution to the intolerable situation they were in. RIP is all I can say ...

Herefordshire Council Planning Application Proposed change of use of land from agriculture to a one family travellers site, with stationing of one static mobile home, two touring caravans, new access, ablution block and septic tank. 18 representations ... One representation from John Knott available as a pdf file ... on that link I saved the objection in case it disappeared from the link ...

By Bill Gardner, and Nicola Harley 6:30PM BST 13 Aug 2014 A retired company director who was “devoted†to his terminally-ill wife shot her dead and killed himself after battling to stop a gypsy camp being built next to their picturesque home. John Knott, 71, is believed to have used his own shotgun to kill Anne Knott, 70, who had Alzheimers, when the stress of caring for his wife while fighting the travellers' plans became "just too much for him". After family members raised the alarm at 10:20am on Monday, police entered the house to find the bodies of the couple lying alongside the weapon, each with a single gunshot wound. Mr Knott had spent recent months struggling to stop plans to allow the travellers to move permanently onto a field next to the £500,000 cottage near Bosbury, Herefordshire, that he shared with his wife. The camp was initially granted permission for two families, but a fresh application was made two months ago to allow a further eight more families to move onto the field. The couple’s next door neighbour, who helped Mr Knott draft objections to the plans, said the stress of caring for his sick wife while struggling against the plans may have caused him to "snap". She said: “It was terrible. John spent every single day trying to think of ways to stop this happening, and it caused him a lot of stress. It was all he thought about. “It was a huge source of trouble for him, and Anne hated the idea too, although she was very ill. “He found it very difficult to accept, and he couldn’t get his head around why the council would even consider allowing this to happen. “It got worse and worse, and he was getting more and more agitated. With all that was going on at home with Anne, it all got too much for him.†Neighbours yesterday expressed their shock at the deaths and described the couple, who organised and took part in village fundraising events, as "pillars of the community." One woman, who said she had been in contact with the couple every day in the weeks before their deaths, said: “They were absolutely lovely. They were sweet, devoted to each other, and very much in love. It’s an absolute tragedy. “He was lovely, a very clever guy. He was still full of beans and had so much to give. I knew he was very stressed about the travellers, but I could never have believed that this would happen.†Mr Knott and his wife paid nearly £500,000 for their Bosbury home in 2006, after he retired from his role as managing director of Birmingham-based Ashford Construction Plc. However, another of the couple's neighbours said they had recently been informed that £100,000 would be wiped off the value of the cottage if the gypsies were allowed to move in next door. The neighbour said: “He and Anne loved that house, and they had worked their whole lives for it, so he couldn't bear to see it ruined. “It was terrible for him. He spent every day battling this application, and he thought he was getting nowhere. “He was very upset about the whole thing. He never stopped talking about it. It all just built up and up.†The original plans were to allow the travellers to camp in the front part of a field next to the couple’s cottage, nearer a main road. But Mr Knott told neighbours that at a recent planning meeting, one councillor had suggested the camp be moved away from the road and nearer the cottage, so people did not have to see the caravans as they were driving into the village. Six weeks before the couple's deaths, Mr Knott wrote a letter to the planning inspector at Herefordshire Council begging them not to allow the larger camp to go ahead. He wrote: "There are at least eight settled (gypsy) families within a one mile radius of the proposed site. The area cannot sustain any more." West Mercia Police are treating the deaths as a possible murder-suicide and are not looking for anyone else involved in the incident. A spokeswoman said: "Police attended an address at Bosbury, Herefordshire at 10.20am on Monday following the concerns of the occupants family. "Police unfortunately found both elderly occupants, a man and a woman, at the property deceased. There is an ongoing investigation as to the cause of their deaths." The Telegraph

Saw that ... Will probably mean that the reduced stickers get stuck on later!

I think Tony Blackburn is 74 ... He is all over the radio ... Berkshire Radio is one ... He must love his job! Over all sorts of channels ... !!! I do like his output as I tune in!

Sunshine Radio always has local ads on ... And local prizes ... The content is various popular music ... The Ads are not too intrusive to be honest ... Good station in my opinion ...

That role is a fudge/mistake (by David Blunkett) and does not exude Authority or attract respect ... Just my view ...

My condolences to all concerned. RIP I thought this event might spawn a new topic ... I think it's worth one ... Ultimately I think it is down to how that central space is managed. It seems to me that it's a chaotic area of town that has permanent movement with pop up this and pop up that going on, vehicle movements as unpredictable as the weather, and a hit and miss tolerance/enforcement of cyclists ... Plus you could probably factor in that certain people don't understand the signs or are just oblivious to them ... After all ... Commercial Street is a street ... Topic on HT currently getting over 30 replies ...

Lately the shop was Colonnade Insurance ...

Yeah ... I just threw the comment in there for fun really ... If I was honest I think a green bin of recycling must be lighter if it wasn't compacted ... Cans/bottles/ are mostly air ... General rubbish might well be more solid ...

Herefordshire Council

I did notice tho that the old Insurance shop by the Charcoal Grill is now a Gents Hairdressers .... It proudly displayed on the window that it was £12 for a cut ... Ridiculous price as I walked to West Street and paid £6 ... I think it has been stuck at that price for a few years but the place is always busy ... Having said that I went in today and it was empty ... Hair Guys were reading newspapers' !

I walked into town today from Aylestone Hill ... Big bunch of drinkers' sat on the usual large grave at the top end of the Burial Ground at 2.40 pm ... Getting a sun tan as it was a sun trap at that time ... Had a hair cut at West Street ... Then walked back about 3 pm ... 2 of the usuals had arrived with cans outside the Baptist Church ... And the same bunch of drinkers still on the large grave. I then saw my first cop who was in a car going outbound by Wetherspoons ... At a regular speed ... No disorder at all ... But no cops on foot at all either! Maybe they were all at the duck pond?

I think local Commercial radio will run any sort of business advert if you book a slot and pay the appropriate fee ... I suppose the level of Hereford adverts you would hope to expect to hear aren't on because the slots haven't been booked. You don't say what stations these adverts are on tho? Radio listening is changing tho. People use 'Tunein' a lot which has got 120,000 stations. It enables me to hear Sunshine855 from Ludlow when the FM signal doesn't reach here. I do get irrelevant Shropshire adverts but it goes with the territory I suppose ...

On the back of this Council decision I've gone away and read the rules. It looks like The Council has issued a conditional safety certificate that could never meet the minimum standard. All Southern League grounds have to be at least a 'Grade C' ground. There is a document that outlines over 8 pages what you have to achieve to get a Grade C status (viewable on the web) but one is a minimum capacity of 1950 and a second is 'It must be possible for spectators to view the match, either standing or seated, for the full length of at least 3 sides of the playing area.' Obviously with only 2 stands open and a capacity half of the minimum it could easily be argued that the Southern League should not permit HUFC to participate in that League as Edgar Street is unfit.

Herefordshire Council Capacity won't be an issue ... I would be surprised at any more than 300 at the game on Saturday ...

#Bump ... No update yet ...

This is bad news ... I used it ... But not very often ... Just a victim of changing licensing patterns .... I will certainly miss the 'old school' atmosphere and service ...

Police raid pub in search for Holy Grail A village pub was raided by police hunting for an ancient Holy Grail relic - and discovered it was just a salad bowl. The team of officers accused pub workers of hiding the stolen Nanteos Cup which has been kept in Wales for centuries. ITV News