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twowheelsgood

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Everything posted by twowheelsgood

  1. twowheelsgood
    I doubt it, this is how they work - fob you off lie until you get bored, move on or die.
  2. twowheelsgood
    According to the HT the freehold was estimated at £1.25m. With Council debt now at £200m, the fire sale continues it seems, but it ain't going to make a jot of difference. All our silver will be gone and then what will they do? The City's 'jewel in the crown', used and abused by those in power to suit their own means, passed around consultants so they could all have their fill of fees before being discarded, open to offers from allcomers. What a disgraceful outcome and what a disgrace this Council are. How much lower can they sink?
  3. twowheelsgood
    The Highways Agency are working here at the moment (at night) - I cycled through the junction from Barton Rd yesterday. Brand new tarmac at the junction, abutting a gulley blocked solid with weeds growing out of it - standard issue 'not our department, guv' I suspect. Usual numpties parked in the Advanced Stop Line box as well ...
  4. twowheelsgood
    I fear they would soon be cut down to easily saleable packs at car boots ... Turning it into hay is a good recycling - dumping it at Brockington would just be a waste!
  5. twowheelsgood
    Just to show I'm not making it up, I saw this today - it’s a 500m stretch of lovely new tarmac which has been laid on a no-through lane which serves a single property. Having been nearly shaken to death and struggled to avoid lethal potholes along Aylestone Hill (east side), Venns Lane, and Whitecross Rd whilst on my bike, I really question the vaidity of such work - it simply cannot be the best use of limited resources. Ironically half a mile down the road, longstanding flooding is still blocking the road and a little further on Ruckhall Mill bridge is still closed two years on since its temporary closure.
  6. twowheelsgood
    Do we really need a cabinet member for grass cutting, for goodness sake? Particularly when there isn't any being done! It's madness!
  7. twowheelsgood
    Colin, the bulk of this thread has disappeared, including my original pictures. I went past the site today and I guess this is what passes as a repair these days under Balfour Beatty. It's very sad to see everything sliding into disrepair and decay. Whilst I was there looking out over the huge area of uncut grass, it occurred to me that this would make really good organic hay - any farmer should get two cuts off this field through the summer. Glenda, how about a bit of lateral thinking and offering it to a farmer in exchange for a free cut or two? There'll be usual health and safety ninnies moaning - give them a red flag to wave while the tractor is around. Seems like a good idea to me - anyone else?
  8. twowheelsgood
    I with you dh, having been out on my bike this morning and seen more of the council madness that is driving this county to become its own little third world.
  9. twowheelsgood
    What?! Not Merton Meadow car park - the one they're going to dig up for housing - say it ain't so ...
  10. twowheelsgood
    Remind me what he DOES again.......!!
  11. twowheelsgood
    Tailor made for a certain Mr Bretherton methinks. These arrangements always headline on how many millions it will save over 10 years - £30m in the case of Hoople I recall, £??m in the case of NHS/Hfds Council, £??m in the case of Amey etc etc - its never a saving though - its bigger salaries for those who nab the top spots and after 3 or 4 years it falls apart and off they go to set up the same sham at another authority.
  12. twowheelsgood
    The last of those is for Poundland going into the old TKMaxx - internally illuminated signs were a complete no-go in the City until the OLM arrived, and then all the rules were quietly put to one side. Those Debenhams signs are a travesty. I shall object to these outside signs being internally illuminated.
  13. twowheelsgood
    The civilian fireman at the public consultation told me categorically that the new station is not a PFI project - the funding is coming from central Government. It is still designed by an estate agent though. I think the new Gloucs ones are PFI funded.
  14. twowheelsgood
    Decant in the context of the councils's response to Colin's FOI request is the cost of moving offices - they have £0.5m set aside for shuffling around the city as they come up with increasingly ridiculous property strategies. Seems a lot money to pay removal men ... dippyhippy - the £4m is for Plough Lane refurb only. The Shire Hall is a separate cost, I believe in the region of £3m. They have also just taken on and refurbished the old job centre in Bath Street at a cost as yet unknown. As if that were not enough, of course they also now have the old Bulmer lab in Whitecross Road (Nelson House?) which is being re-roofed following a couple of slates blowing off in the bad winter. Cost - £silly. Odd that Plough Lane was originally meant to be the HQ to enable all other buildings to be sold and services centralised. Instead they keep expanding, despite claims of reducing staff levels. Brockington Towers is scheduled to go on sale this year - for lots of housing in the grounds no doubt. Is there any hope they will get the market rate, or will it be a quiet London sale again?
  15. twowheelsgood
    Generally capital budgets attract specific grant monies from government, which is why councils prefer to knock things down and start again. They build something with a capital grant, spend nothing on maintenance at all for say 25 years, declare it beyond reasonable repair and then apply to government for a grant for a new one. This equally applies to our roads. Of course, during those 25 years, the accounts and council tax collect for repairs and the like, which they are then free to divert to the latest crackpot scheme or senior salary. It’s a very lazy, unattractive, environmentally damaging and and ultimately costly way of doing things. Another example is the ridiculous 'improvements' to King Street - some while ago, a perfectly normal junction was changed, resulting in something which was dangerous, with literally dozens of accidents there. After a while the council could demonstrate to government that this was a dangerous section of road and got a grant to improve it (£0.6m). This they have now done, building a dangerous 'improvement' which in due course will be ripped up again. Lets just that say the construction business does very nicely out of these arrangements ...
  16. twowheelsgood
    And, as we've come to expect, no comments allowed on the HT site - censorship still alive and well under the new editor then.
  17. twowheelsgood
    A monopoly will never result in prices being reduced! Just the opposite I imagine.
  18. twowheelsgood
    Another good word for the Journal - I've always liked it - it seems to me that the letters page was better and, perhaps not so much now, but they used to do some pretty good digging of council dirt (of which there is always plenty to dig).
  19. twowheelsgood
    Another slice of madness not widely discussed or known is that BB are concentrating on resurfacing C class and unclassified roads throughout the county - this was a harebrained scheme developed by the former Cllr Hamilton before he had a tantrum and resigned. The remotest of lanes that might only see a few vehicles a day are now being completely resurfaced, yet the plan, confirmed to me personally by Hamilton in a letter, is to effectively abandon B and A class roads for the time being, with only makeshift repairs, which is what we are seeing. Some of these roads, such as at Hampton Bishop are benefitting from government flood money, but they wouldn't have been done otherwise. Hard to fathom the level of idiocy that pushes through a scheme like this. Similar to one that abandons mowing the grass I guess.
  20. twowheelsgood
    Dear Lord, we're getting there! For the last time, they did it as a 'goodwill gesture', having been leant on by Jim Kenyon to help.
  21. twowheelsgood
    Bins are nothing to do with Balfour Beatty - that service was flogged off to Focsa some years ago. Focsa Services UK Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of FCC Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, S.A., a global, market leading Spanish company. So, a good share of our council tax goes to shareholders in Europe. Here You Can keep it global.
  22. twowheelsgood
    The ward councillor will be pivotal in the process.
  23. twowheelsgood
    The well is indeed bone dry - the council only have £100k in general reserves ... that last minute £500k bung to Stanhope doesn't look so smart now (not that it ever did).
  24. twowheelsgood
    No, Roger!! Been recycling yoghurt pots for years - it's quite clear on the council info - "Plastic containers e.g. yogurt pots, margarine / ice cream tubs fruit / vegetable punnets plastic meat / fish trays cream / custard pots /cake / pastry trays soup / sauce pots egg boxes ! Rinse bottles and containers ! No black plastic ! No tops, lids, pumps, film, foil etc" Not much joined up thinking between councils and the recycling world then.
  25. twowheelsgood
    Blimey, this is a struggle - HH don't own the buildings or the land! The Quarry park is owned by the council. The houses around it are private. The grass was cut by HH as a goodwill gesture. That’s it! As to your last para - Leader Johnson has said publicly that this is the council's doing and not to blame BB. However, as I understand it, we the rate payers have paid for it, so councillors who represent us need to be asking questions of the leadership.
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