twowheelsgood

I've skimmed through this - it appears as if history is being re-written in terms of original costs and who was paying for what. The lions share (£700k) of the original £950k was to be paid by the DWP, the Council paying £250k. This is now being presented as the DWP paying £400k and the Council paying the balance (£1.52m). So, we're hobbled with a six fold increase! The scheme was universally slated at the planning committee as mediocre at best, yet councillors voted in favour on the basis that it was too good a deal to let go. Not looking so good now is it? I also note that the building contract has not been signed! Another potentially catastrophic oversight. An incredible shambles yet no one in opposition seems remotely interested. At the same time, the Council has the audacity to ask us how they might save £10m over the next two years ... As an aside, the original drawings were clearly wrong, which I flagged up in my planning objection, ignored of course. Take a look at the boundary with City Electrics - known in the trade as a lash up, as there isn't space to take the cladding right around as proposed, which I did point out.

Ask our invisible (except when royalty are present) returning officer?

Extraordinary, as are those salary figures. Perhaps the Chancellor has a point about public service salaries (the upper echelons at least).

The proposal has been revised and re-submitted. They have learnt their lesson and not submitted any visuals that the pesky public can moan about, just straight plans and elevations. P172380/F - Planning Permission

Ward councillors - where are they? There was a time when they would be shouting long and hard to keep their wards clean tidy and free from potholes. No more it seems - they have clearly given up, which begs the question - what is the point of them? The Cabinet does what it wants regardless, there is no democracy at that level, so councillors just turn up, shut up and take the money. When will someone realise that BBLP are merely contractors who have no allegiance to the County, no interest in it save for what they can make out of it. As such, they need to be watched and held to account at every turn - formally the domain of the feared clerk of works. That does not happen - and why not - and we have what we have. Desperately disappointing.

We are considering that scheme, given the cost of green bags, the inconvenience of buying them and the ridiculous situation of it going to landfill anyway, or now, it seems, being driven to Hartlebury to be incinerated. Clearly, Biffa are doing it to make a profit and at less cost than the green bag scheme - yet again our Council are shown to be both lacking, as Denise says. Collect and compost locally - make a profit and reduce vehicle journeys to Hartlebury - too much effort for Plough Lane droids it seems.

Some of those items can be recycled at the local 'tip', such as aluminium foil and batteries, but you have to take them, whereas some Counties offer a more comprehensive recycling collection.

Another picture of the neglected Greenway. The tiles at the join are loose - a couple of have been replaced/refixed after much complaining as they were badly done at the outset. They're mostly all loose now.

If she wishes to bring attention to all those things, she's not doing a very good job - I crawled past the roundabout in todays log jam traffic and saw nothing to highlight her causes. My first thought was sanitation, or rather lack thereof ...

Hereford's £3m flagship Greenway bridge, opened by Cllr Chappell in Dec 2013, has not had a single penny spent on it since. It's covered in graffiti, dog mess, mould and weeds. Once again, why aren't the ward councillor/s demanding some action? Chose how you move, but be careful where you walk/cycle and try not to read the very large and very offensive graffiti. I also had to dodge an idiot on a motorbike this evening.

BBLP's overall written strategy is a 'reactive' one ie do nothing until something happens. That something may be a complaint at one end of the scale to a serious incident at the other. Either way, until that wall falls over or those blocked gullies flood someone's property or cause a crash, nothing will be done. Of course, our Council tax will continue to be aggressively collected regardless. Whilst most people can see the folly of this approach and would prefer 'a stitch in time', our Councillors have decided that is the way the BBLP contract will be run. Year after year we see the City decline further in a seemingly endless downward spiral. Yes, some socially minded people get together from time to time and tidy up a small area, but they can never address the overall picture, nor should they have to - that is what we pay Council tax for and that is why we elect councillors to act in our best interest. It's a well documented scenario that the more run down an area becomes, the more vandalism and crime it attracts. The gap between the £20 MILLION pounds we pay BBLP every YEAR and what is being done on the ground seems to be getting wider on a logarithmic scale, yet councillors roll over, keep their heads down and do nothing. You have to wonder why. For all its faults, the OLM development is kept spotlessly clean by a small team - it doesn't take much because it's done all day every day - a stitch in time.

All available funds this year appear to have been invested in several tins of white road lining paint - there's been an outbreak of white line renewal throughout the City - seemingly regardless of the potholes and the general crumbling surfaces it is being applied to. Complete madness. Once again - what are our ward councillors doing about it?

Unfortunately, in England, there is no legal requirement to display ratings in premises at the moment. Those that do well often do display them, those that don't, well, that's a pointer!

How many staff are on a junket in Birmingham to collect it then?

Given Cllr Matthews comment "I had to obtain this information from Companies House, because members generally have never been briefed with respect to the workings of Hoople Ltd, which is after all financed by us, the taxpayers of this county" it would seem that the Council(ors) have no control (or knowledge) at all.

I stand corrected on the terms (and it was me providing the information to the ex-councillor, not the other way round), but the point I was making is still valid ie other than having heard of it, the ex-councillor had no idea about how Hoople worked or its limited accountability. Your ref to dimwit councillors is on the nail.

At the same meeting, an application on the other side of the County was approved for a dwelling for a disabled person, contrary to planning policies. Just a couple of fields away from the Sutton St Nicholas application, permission was granted for a new house a little while ago - contrary to the same planning policies. The applicant was a former Tory councillor's brother. Let's not forget Cllr Greenow was granted planning permission for a new house in the open countryside a little while ago - with no extenuating circumstances and contrary to planning policies. It's the C word again - consistency, or lack thereof, one of this Council's many failings.

I spoke to a former Herefordshire Councillor today who had no idea that Hoople was an arms length company … despite it coming into existence whilst serving as a councillor.

Building Regs are widely mis-understood. Individual materials do not pass Building Regs (although there are requirements for CE marking etc, replacing the old British Standards). A combination of materials will make up an element ie a floor, wall or roof. Combinations are endless. It is for the applicant to demonstrate that their required combination satisfies the numerous requirements which may include including fire resistance (numerous variations e.g. spread of flame, combustibility), water resistance, thermal resistance, sound resistance, air resistance, structural stability and others. There are no prescribed construction methods - there are suggestions, but they are just that. This has been the case for many years - it is not a new development. The amount of rubbish spouted over the last few days by the media and politicians, all of whom suddenly think they are experts on 'Part B', beggars belief. They grab a word like 'sprinklers' and repeat it ad-nauseum and it builds its own momentum. That said. sprinklers within individual flats would be extremely effective and would have stopped the fire at source - I've seen them demonstrated and it is no surprise that the Fire Brigade have been asking for domestic sprinklers for years - they really do work (and it's only a very fine spray, not the deluge you get in commercial buildings). You can fit out a new house for £2k. Part of the refurbishment was supposed to include new smoke vents at the top of the stairwell - these open automatically when there is a fire to keep the stairwell clear of smoke. No one seems to have picked this up as they clearly didn't work. Neither did the dry risers, which meant the fire brigade couldn't get water to the higher levels. It is a litany of failures by another Council 'arms length' company, with a truly tragic outcome.

The Council's press release for the opening of this plant is now online, heavily edited from the previous PR in March, quoted above, to skew the glory to Herefordshire; https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/news/article/315/herefordshire_waste_will_help_to_power_the_country Note our previously invisible Chief Executive makes a rare appearance, presumably because royalty were cutting the ribbon. The press release is written to give the impression that Cllr Bramer single handedly built and delivered the project on time and on budget himself and also nowhere does it state where this facility is (in Hartlebury, Worcestshire, not Herefordshire). The link to the Council's EnviRecover page is equally skewed to give the impression that this is a Herefordshire facility, when in fact all of our waste now has to be driven to Hartlebury.

Good letter in this weeks HT by Cllr Matthews, restating the massive losses that Hoople are making, which the Council seem unable to address. I've quoted it here. The 2011 launch of Hoople where savings of £33m over 10 years were stated is now looking rather optimistic at best. Watchful eye AT the full council meeting of Herefordshire Council on Friday, May 19, the councils constitution was debated and approved. It was noted that the document clearly stated that the Chief Finance Officer has determined that staff from Hoople Ltd, which is a public business owned by Herefordshire Council and the Wye Valley Trust NHS, would be responsible for writing off all the council’s uncollectable debts up to a certain level. It should be noted at this juncture that this company provides numerous other services for both partners. It was at this point that I informed members that Hoople Ltd’s latest accounts for two years to March 31, 2016 stated that the company has accumulated losses of £1.396m and the amount of its pension deficit has gone from £101,000 to £2.7M and its turnover year-on-year has decreased by 8%. During the financial year 2015/2016, five of the six non-executive directors resigned within just one month, and none of them signed their emolument certificates. I asked Cllr Tony Johnson, leader of the council, if he would arrange for a council select committee to urgently review the activities of this company, to ascertain who is responsible for monitoring this publicly owned business, and this he readily agreed to do. I had to obtain this information from Companies House, because members generally have never been briefed with respect to the workings of Hoople Ltd, which is after all financed by us, the taxpayers of this county. The public may be assured that the Herefordshire Independents will continue to closely monitor ALL council expenditure, to ensure that value for money is obtained at all times. CLLR BOB MATTHEWS Credenhill Ward. Leader Herefordshire Independents CLLR P CROCKETT Queenswood Ward.

I'm listening to Radio 4 now and it is staggering that Grenfell residents and neighbours are saying that there is still no disaster management in place - no one knows what is happening and no one is co-ordinating anything, no one is telling residents what is happening, hence the angry scenes that nearly erupted into riots last night. Gavin Barwell is on, less than impressive, saying it will happen today - we'll see - but is dodging why it didn't happen immediately. I understood all Council's had disaster management scenario's in place, but not in one of the richest borough's in the Country it seems. Absolutely disgraceful, bad enough that this happened in the first place, but to compound it by a lacksadaisical response is unforgivable. Some on the spot sackings of over paid, smug and insular Council 'director's' wouldn't be out of order on my watch.

Did anyone attend? I was supporting a Bike Week event doing a 10 mile time trial and dodging the holes, ruts and gravel that form what was once a road through Clehonger.

Responsibilities The previous incumbent was responsible for: high speed rail (HS2) devolution including Northern Powerhouse motoring agencies local transport road and vehicle safety and standards buses and taxis traffic management sustainable accessible travel (including walking and cycling) smart ticketing Osbourne's pet project the 'Northern Powerhouse' seems to be flailing around with endless chiefs and no real results, save no doubt for lots of expensive meetings.

Standard issue we know best attitude - decide, consult, ignore, do.