twowheelsgood

Sent back to Cabinet - so what does that mean? They were the ones that arrived at this mess first time round -are they to be allowed another go at it? The independent report in Supplement 1 says 'PB route selection exercise is so poor that it has no credibility, so there can be no confidence that the preferred route is indeed the best route'. PB being the Council's Consultant's Parsons Brinckerhoff, who just happen to be owned by Balfour Beatty (or at least they were until a couple of months ago), so an entirely unbiased view from them. PB were sold to raise cash for the ailing BB, whose shares have been in free fall as senior staff/directors/CE's abandon ship. Ridiculous that councillors were only given a few days to read and consider 250+ pages of information and that some of the data wasn't even available today, requiring an adjournment for an hour whilst it was found. Why the obscene haste to push this through - is someone's pension pot riding on it?

Work doesn't start until Sunday - todays jams more likely 'Black Friday' stupid shopping hysteria.

It needs a couple of flat bed Transits equipped with brooms and shovels cruising the streets picking up and clearing up dumped bags - with a strongly worded letter through the nearest door of each. Too many desk jockeys pushing the blame from desk to desk and not enough feet on the ground dealing with the 'early stages of this transition period', as it was described to me by a council officer recently.

An arms length private limited company managing public assets - hmmm, haven't we been here before? Herefordshire Council's record of 'pioneering' schemes is dismal to put it kindly. In reality, a few people will make a lot of money out of this, new posts will be created, endless meetings will be held behind closed doors and the whole thing will be quietly rebranded and/or wound up in a few years times. The 'vehicle' will be the one delivering the swag to arms length directors.

They're not ferrets - they're well fed rats, gorged on the contents of endless black bags left out for them. Saw one the other day, bold as brass running down the pavement in broad daylight and it was bloody huge! Nearly as big as the neighbour's cat that was chasing it!

I'm sure that Emelia and her brother John would be horrified to see our late night City. Gaol Street was formerly known as Grope Lane, and the gaol itself was built by Johnson, a contemporary and colleague of John Venn and who built many of his buildings (and has his own almshouses in the City - Johnson's Hospital). Perhaps the likes of Play and other late night venues could be asked to make a contribution.

Early editions of the HT had the unfortunate typo of 'pan' instead of 'plan'.

What a sad indictment on today's society that this sort of facility is needed.

Welcome back b47, batteries fully charged to overflowing I see!

That list of senior management salaries was as at 1 January 2014 - with the constant shuffling of chairs I have no doubt some have risen already and most will rise again in the new year.

Yes, the Millau Viaduct is one of the world's greatest structures - designed by a UK architect, Norman Foster. At 343m high it would be overkill for the Lugg Flats, which needs only to be perhaps 10m above the ground level, but nonetheless, its entirely doable and something to be proud of -after all, we are told 'Here we can', albeit by the departed Jarvis. Far better a fine piece of architecture, or art even, sweeping through the countryside, than a bog standard strip of tarmac flanked by thousands of identi-boxes thrown up to pay for it. Interesting that the Millau is a toll bridge with a 75 year pay back - 7 Euro's to cross - so there's an idea - make it a toll bridge to pay for it - with perhaps a reduced rate for locals, using automatic number plate recognition for registered users so they don't have to stop.

Bilbobobby - there's only one ward district councillor representing the city centre (Cllr Hubbard, Central Ward). Have you contacted him about your concerns? The Town Councillors have no say in such matters.

Just under £0.5m to Whitecross School PFI funders - why?

BB are no doubt desperate for money as they slide towards oblivion - a £20m per annum contract is £1.66m per month. Questions need to be asked why we are billed almost 3 times that in September. I believe BB have been in place for more than 12 months now - time to add up the annual spend. I've no doubt there is truth in mgelliland's last sentence - in addition, gold plated pensions, themselves based on hugely inflated salaries, have to be protected above anything. When that's done, there's little left to spend on real services, particularly when we can all cite examples of profligate waste and spending still within the Council. With elections coming, we have the classic local government reorganisation to break audit chains and bury evidence. In addition, the elections will bring new ward boundaries - less councillors and smaller wards in the City, so one councillor per ward.

Hard to see a lot of profit in a quarter of monkey nuts when you look at the rent and rates for somewhere like this. That said, I wish them well - and it's a very high profile position - so lets hope the foot fall AND spending will keep them going.

Yes - 'Grape Tree' - feel good foods (they say). Nuts and the like.

Cost - £25m upwards (a lot upwards depending on how much the contractor can shaft the council).

Cockney Rejects not Rebel - big difference! Sometime punk rock figureheads of the 1970's Oi! movement, associated with extreme right wing NF tendencies. Their hit 'The greatest cockney rip off' comprises merely of 'It was the greatest cockney rip off' repeated ad nauseum ...

Round them all up and put them in the Buttermarket?

The red route would need to include a dramatic upgrade of the existing Worcester bound road over the Flats - very narrow, worn out and dangerous. Cycled it recently and scared myself half to death.

As would the 350+ objections.

Both the Maylords complex (including the open streets) and of course the OLM are in private hands and their security staff tightly control what goes on there. Its about keeping standards up, not something the council are interested in. Hawkers and their tat continue to make High Town look scruffy and downbeat, something which suits the council and their OLM bias very well.

I would imagine their business cases will go something along the lines of 'we'll take it off your hands for a £1' to which the council will say 'no, no, 50p and it’s a deal'.

I saw them on Sunday, they look excellent, and a lot of people were looking at them (but no one was sitting on them!).

The application was in outline form, so they still need to deal with approval of reserved matters ie the detail design and the conditions. I doubt you'll see anything happen within a year, even if they are keen to start. As for the traffic lights at the Foley Lane junction, something has to be done about these - the traffic consultants report that accompanied the application was farcical - the junction will be 105% overloaded (as I said in post no 8 above) and the only way they could explain it away was to encourage rat running! Jim - its much cheaper to take things away than to install them we are told - who can forget the infamous traffic reversal experiment - £250k to install yet only £68k to remove! These lights were never asked for, residents were not consulted, their views after the event, including those of the MP, were disregarded and the whole saga was left 'under review', ie forgotten about. Plain sense can see it doesn't work, the stats say it doesn't work. You'll only get one shot at it, and I would venture that money spent on this is more beneficial than on the two parks, essential as they are, as they will always be able to attract further monies.