twowheelsgood

There's a shunt here practically every day of the week - it's probably the worst junction in the City and has been for years, but, as usual, NO ONE will do anything about it! There isn't even a proper facility for pedestrians to cross - come on Councillors, do something about it - and, yes I know, it's the A49 and Highways England but we need to cross it and turn on it safely!

Road resurfacing on a national level race route is usually done at the cost of the organiser - yet another reason to try and attract these events. Yes, Team Wiggins decided not to join the local event last year, due to road conditions. The Tour de Britain in 2014 skirted around the Herefordshire border, staying safely in Wales. Hereford Wheelers have had to abandon one of their regular time trial courses as the road surface is now too dangerous to use. And so on - more short sightedness, more lost revenue, more chance of injury and cost to the NHS.

What a great testament to both you and the benefits, financially and physically, of cycling. Once you can get out of the City, the road surfaces are not as bad as within the City, where they really are terrible. I use the new car free Greenway a lot to get access to the country (look out for dozy dog walkers) - I used to use Hampton Park Road, but now think is too dangerous to ride safely and traffic speeds are ridiculous.

Tourism is the county’s biggest income source at £140m pa - hard to believe given how little interest the Council show in it - they have now withdrawn all funding from Visit Herefordshire following on from the closure of the tourism office in King Street. Cycle tourism is worth £90m pa to Wales - nearly two thirds of our entire tourism revenue. Not hard to see then how much cycle tourism could be worth to the county, especially with the various Sustrans routes we now have, but with the majority of our road surfaces approaching danger level, I know for a fact that cyclists are discouraged more and more from visiting, especially when they can hop over the border and have near perfect roads. It’s all a matter of priorities isn’t it? £2m paid to consultants for barely adequate information on the SLR would go a long way to promoting tourism, repairing roads, etc, etc.

Why not refer to the definitive Council maps at the link that megilleland provided above? It is Hinton and Hunderton.

Rather closed mind approach to say 'it won't happen'. Cabinet members come and go, as we have seen with Cllr Powell, and elections can change the whole system (if people were rather less apathetic). The SLR may get called in, may be stopped by Government, the Council may have to look at alternatives, the permutations are endless and we should not dismiss options unilaterally because of the dictat of one person who, in the end, will be replaced regardless. We've already had Cllr Chappell on here with an equally closed mind approach, and who can only go on about how trams wouldn't make a profit (surprisingly for a former socialist). Technology moves at a fast pace - electric cars are here and are the future - (and self driving electric cars are coming) - in 20 years time they will be the norm. A tram system will no doubt be entirely feasible within that period. In fact we should stop referring to 'tram' because that relies on rails and is too restrictive, rigid and expensive to implement. Better options are already here.

A press release by the Council a couple of weeks ago was published by HT without challenging the apparent facts. It concerns Herefordshire's electric vehicle charging point network - the Council have handed over management of this to Chargemaster under the brand name of Polar. The Council say 'To continue its support of EV drivers in the county Herefordshire Council will continue to offer free electricity and free parking whilst recharging at all its charge points.' All well good you may think - what they don't say is that Chargemaster (not surprisingly with such an aggressive name) charge £8 a month for the privilege of accessing a charger or £1.20 a connection, when previously there was no cost. I'm told their chargers are not compatible with all electric cars and there are only 9 in the County anyway, 6 of which are in Hereford. Ok, so the electricity is still 'free' which actually means it's subsidised by the government (not the Council) to allow green boxes to be ticked, and for sure this won't last forever. It's a sad indictment when, to paraphrase, there are lies, damned lies and Council statements. Choose how you move, but read the small print first.

Good grief - so is Herefordshire Council run by and for the masons then?

I cycle every day in Hereford and yes I see terrible driving every time I am out. Top of the list are white BMW's - drivers are psychopaths, closely followed by big 4 x 4's. I've never yet been knocked off, although not for the want of trying by some drivers. I think because I am a driver and a good one at that (30+ years, no accidents, no convictions, no fines, IAM) I know how other drivers behave and can react accordingly. There are some safe cycle routes in Hereford and it should be easy to move around on a bike, but it isn't as those routes are disjointed. Once again, we have to lay the blame at Herefordshire Council's door, not that they care. I cycled up the Great Western Way the other day and it reminded me what a fantastic resource it has been all these years - in fact, it was years ahead of its time when it was opened by the then Hereford City Council. Probably hundreds of thousands of pedestrian and cycle journeys with nil impact on the environment and with a maintenance cost of practically nil as well - bikes don't wear out tarmac very fast. For just a fraction of what the Council are proposing to squander on new roads, we could have some of the best cycling infrastructure in the world. We can but hope and dream.

National Bike Week 2016 starts today with thousands of events all over the country, except, sadly, in Hereford, where Herefordshire Council seem to have abandoned support for this key promotion of cycling for all ages and levels. Strange how they constantly bang on about better cycling provision, choosing how you move, but when push comes to shove, nothing. Bike Week is an annual opportunity to promote cycling, and show how cycling can easily be part of everyday life by encouraging ‘everyday cycling for everyone’. Demonstrating the social, health and environmental benefits of cycling, the week aims to get people to give cycling a go all over the UK, whether this be for fun, as a means of getting around to work or school, the local shops or just to visit friends. The 2016 event will take place 11-19th June but events still take place through September and beyond! This year’s Bike Week has a special focus and will encourage people to use their bikes to cycle to work. Many people will use the events to ride and take part in ‘buddy’ rides with colleagues, scope out the easiest route to their place of work or take part in work place challenges. Cycle Hereford seems to be taking a pass on this as well. Hereford Wheelers are doing their bit with their ’Come and Try It’ 10 mile time trial on Thursday evening at Allensmore Village Hall. Start at 6.30pm and all riders are required to sign on at least ten minutes before start. Open to all ages and abilities! www.bikeweek.org.uk

Looking at that Companies House link, the auditors resigned in March of this year followed by the Director of Finance a month later. Perhaps Robinson calling himself Managing Director Designate might explain why he doesn't appear in the Companies House filing.

Important to keep the distinction between Herefordshire Council and Hoople - despite Robinon's senior role in both. Presumably the SWAP audit was for Herefordshire Council and should be transparent. As Hoople is an arms length company, it can keep all of it's dealings secret, despite being wholly funded from the public purse. Talking of which, I note that Hoople have quietly relocated its Training Centre to a refurbished Churchill Gardens - how much did that cost us to bring it up to 'fit for purpose' standard after many, many years of neglect by the Council? Hoople, despite being IT experts, have yet to update their website reflecting recent departures.

From SWAP's archive, June 2014; The Unitary Council of Herefordshire will be joining SWAP with effect from the 1st June 2014. This opens up further opportunities for our auditors to share information on cross cutting audits and more importantly identify best practice across our Partners. A team of three will be TUPE transferred into the Partnership and SWAP have recruited additional staff to deliver the annual plan. Herefordshire’s joining will represent a significant cost saving in excess of £100k for the Authority with assurances of improved productivity. My emphasis - were the savings and improved productivity delivered? Does any councillor ever follow these things up?

Hidden away in there is a proposal to look for development partners for ... housing for the Urban Village! (As well as the Rockfield Car Park - now going for housing?) Dear Lord, we were here 10 years ago, they were supposed to have built over 500 of the 800 by now - yet nothing, nada, zilch. Looks like the deal with Sanctuary is dead, if it was ever alive. In 2008 Jonathan Bretherton (remember Hereford Futures?) said “Blackfriars will be a ground breaking scheme, a community led development not one led by a private developer. Housing experts are watching its progress with interest. Importantly, it will not be a huge out of town estate, but an inner city community with all its associated shopping and leisure facilities and employment opportunities close to hand. It will create a new and more sustainable lifestyle, for those who choose to live there. Working closely with our partners, Sanctuary we will be pushing the boundaries of modern housing development, creating a great sense of community for the families who will move into the Blackfriars Urban Village.†Community led eh? Whatever happened to that concept?!

IOC have formally requested the Secretary of State to call in the decision.

It's Hereford - it's hard to know what is happening, but you can be sure it's not happening very quickly. Back in 2015 the HT reported "NMITE (New Model in Technology & Engineering) should be seeing the first 300 students on its Hereford city centre campus by September 2017". Currently the NMITE website says "We’re Britain’s first wholly new, purpose built university in 40 years Our partners include the world leading University of Warwick and Olin College of Engineering (USA) We are located in the City of Hereford and will start building our campus in early 2017 We will be welcoming our first cohort of students in 2019 and expect to grow to 5,000 students over a decade" I suspect the reality is that they're up against the shifting sands of Herefordshire Council … and the fact that they need start-up investment capital requirement of £47 million to be funded from corporate and philanthropic (£18.25M), HMG and EU (£18.25M), and debt (£10.5M). They currently appear to be operating out of a private address in the City.

Another consultation coming any day now - the previous Amey scheme disappeared into the shredder along with a million other documents we had paid for. For once, not a bad thing, as it was a terrible, and dangerous, scheme with vociferous disapproval from cycling and local groups, to little avail. So, we have to pay again for the whole process, from the measured survey of the street onwards. The inside word is that this scheme is equally awful. How can be it so hard to design 200m of contraflow cycling provision? Don't give it to a road engineer would be a good start - there is a huge wealth of volunteer and professional skills available locally - utilise them for goodness sake!

According to WikiPedia, ownership and operation of the bridge passed to Severn River Crossing plc on 26 April 1992 as part of the deal to build the Second Severn Crossing. As of November 2010, Severn River Crossing Plc was owned 35% John Laing, British developer infrastructure operator 35% Vinci, French concessions and construction company 15% Bank of America, American multinational banking and financial services corporation 15% Barclays Capital, British multinational investment bank[36] The company's 2011 annual report showed the same companies still owned, through subsidiary companies, all the issued ordinary share capital of the Plc.[37] Ownership of the bridge and the Second Severn Crossing will return to the UK government when the revenue required to build and maintain them, as defined in a Concession Agreement with the Secretary of State for Transport, has been collected. As above, this was supposed to be in 2017, but due to various issues, seems now to be an open ended agreement.

I don’t know, but I do know that the tolls keep going up well ahead of inflation. Tolls that have been levied since 1966 (on the original bridge obviously) were due to finish in 2017, but not now, simply to be reduced, according to that nice Mr Osbourne. No doubt the banks and builders that own it spoke nicely to him about that.

I don't disagree - I was referring to the 'highly paid "best"'.

Unless the tippers conveniently leave their name and address in the rubbish, there's practically nothing that the Council can do. Even then, it's a struggle - I do recall a case some years ago of a massive tip out towards Pixley that I reported - evidence was found of the perpetrators and the Council did pursue a case against them which was won. The punishment was minimal. I doubt there are resources or interest within the Balfour Beatty agreement to do much than collect, if that.

How many of the highly paid 'best' have been through those revolving doors at Plough Lane in that three years - too many to keep track of - golden hello's, golden goodbye's, recruitment fees, reorganising, restructuring, new and renamed departments, silly job titles, broken audit trails. Massive inefficiency - does any work ever get done amongst all the politics and back stabbing? The cost to rate payers must be huge, the money desperately needed for real life, squandered on empire building. Councillors appear powerless or too interested in their power struggles to do anything about it. Disgraceful and depressing.

Ohhh yes, this came to light as part of the High Town Public Realm Consultation. I am reliably informed it was put together by a senior officer on his kitchen table, using his children's felt tips, the night before a deadline. Sorted - consultation be damned. Although it references hereford2020.com, it doesn’t figure on that website. See the extended discussion in Hereford Civic Society's winter2015/16 magazine (available online) at www.herefordcivicsociety.org.uk

Massive fail, as young people say - that constitution document is 300 pages long - and on page 2 we have "The Council’s Director of Resources is responsible for the effective application of the Code in matters of financial probity, performance and risk." That's the Director of Resources that is currently suspended, albeit for reasons which we are not allowed to know.

Dinedor mattresses still there as of Thursday evening.