Month: May 2012

Let’s have a bit of give and take and respect each other


From a recent article in The News.

DRIVERS have criticised cyclists for not using a designated cycleway – arguing it is a safety hazard and causes traffic jams.

Motorists say traffic queues are building up on Hambledon Road between Waterlooville and Denmead as cars wait to overtake cyclists.

What a weird article this is with suggestions that cyclist are responsible for traffic congestion in and around Waterlooville.

According to this article the main complainant, leastways the only one that is quoted, is a Ms McGeady, of Linda Grove, Cowplain.
She is quoted as saying

‘Drivers have to take their life into their own hands, zooming round bikes and worrying people coming in the other direction.

Well Ms McGeady, I have news for you. Your not supposed to “zoom” round cyclists. You are supposed to drive around them with due care, giving plenty of room. You are supposed to leave plenty of time for your journey so that you don’t have to “zoom” around.

‘The other day there was a little old guy who was cycling almost in the gutter and there was a queue of cars trying to get round him.

‘Everyone was winding down their windows and asking him to use the cycleway.’

I will be 60 this year and when I was a youngster we had it drummed into us that you should not ride your bike on the pavement. From the sounds of it this “little old guy” was of a similar vintage and he too, probably, has it ingrained in his psyche.

I have personal experience of using this road to get to and from my place of work over the last 30 years. I too have experienced hold ups on this road. However, my experience has been that it is motorists that are causing the hold ups.

Not because they are driving badly.

This road has seen a steady rise in the volume of traffic over the last 30 years that I have been using it. The housing developments in and around Denmead are contributors to that increase. At peak times the traffic can build up very quickly, especially if there are vehicles slowing down to make turns. For example a single car waiting to turn across the traffic to enter Soake Road, Closewood Road or Sunnymead Drive will quickly cause the traffic to build up.

Of course the new traffic lights are a contributor and when the new housing developments are complete the additional traffic volume will far exceed any hold ups by cyclists.

Ms McGeady made a complaint to Hampshire County Council after seeing a cyclist on a racing bike on the road.

She said: ‘There was a cyclist with a very expensive racing bike and the full kit.

‘He was not using the cycleway. You have to say why?’

No, Ms McGeady, you don’t have to say “why ?”.

As John Holland, chairman of Portsmouth Cycle Forum, says

‘A cyclist has a right to be on any highway, apart from a motorway, just like a horse and cart has.

‘A vehicle is there by licence.

and the most sensible comment from John Holland

‘If you are driving down a road and there is a cyclist and you have to slow down, by how long does it delay your journey? Twenty seconds, five seconds?

‘Let’s have a bit of give and take and respect each other.’

Safety warning as cyclists steer clear of new cyclepath – Transport – Portsmouth News.

LoL – Oh Dear


What has how Cameron signs off his emails got to do with the Leveson enquiry ?

I thought the enquiry was supposed to be looking into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal.

Yet much is made of how Prime Minister Cameron signs off his emails to Rebekah Brookes.

The persistent questions on this subject reduces the enquiry to the level of a typical puerile article in The Sun. Titillation for titillation sake but no real news content.

Lets’s keep the questions on track.

15th June Deadline – Get your choices in.


15th June, 2012 – That’s the deadline to give your opinion on sites for new Havant homes.

THE public is being urged to make its views known on plans for 5,000 new homes in Havant.

Havant Borough Council’s planning policy team wants help deciding where the homes and nine employment areas should go.

The News headline is misleading. What we are really talking about is the Havant Borough Council area. Of prime interest to me, of course, is Waterlooville.

So I did my civic duty and I visited the exhibition held at Waterlooville Library yesterday lunchtime.

On entering the foyer I was handed a form on which I was invited to indicate my preferences.

I could choose Option A, B or C and then further define my choice by indicating my favourite site and my least favourite site.

There were three large maps each with a number of shaded areas indicating possible housing developments.

Although I did have some discussion with one of the council reps on duty the venue was hardly conducive to absorbing the details of the proposed development sites. Or to be able to determine the differences between the options.

I asked if the information was available on-line and was told yes it is. That may well be true but I could not find the same maps on-line that were on display in the library. Certainly the maps are there, but without the supporting information about each of the sites.

Once again it seems like HBC don’t want you to easily understand what they are up to.

Needless to say I haven’t let them know what my choices are. I need to do some more digging.

What I did find was some maps indicating sites that have been excluded for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most surprising is that they are so desperate to find land to build on that they were considering the kiddies play area at Sage Close, Woodsedge, Waterlooville.

The hand out suggests that you can submit your choices on-line at http://www.havant.gov.uk/havant-12298

However, you do really have to do some digging to find the background information.

Here is another link to get you to useful information http://www.havant.gov.uk/havant-12133 and take a look at this map to see what is being proposed

So come on folks. You need to get your opinions registered. Go see the exhibition or trawl the council website and get your votes in.

Give your opinion on sites for new Havant homes – Politics – Portsmouth News.

Development Benefits – Really


The residents of Sarisbury Green have my sympathy.

The planners are doing it again. Selling the “benefits” of a new development assuming that the locals are gullible enough to be distracted from the reality.

Miller Homes and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) have submitted plans to Fareham Borough Council to build 168 homes and 40 sheltered housing units on the old Coldeast Hospital site in Sarisbury Green.

The plans also include the restoration and extension of the existing Mansion House, which would become a hotel, and a project for Brook Lane Lodge to become a house again.

A swimming pool, sports pitches, a cemetery, allotments and a new community building with changing facilities also form part of the plans.

Anyone who travels through this area on a regular basis will know that the traffic levels are already horrendous. The local roads feed the A27 which in turn feed two major junctions of the M27. Junction 9 to the East with the notorious Segensworth / Whitely road network and Junction 8 to the West.

Rachel Allinson of the Coldeast Action Group, appears to be resigned to the development.

‘We don’t believe that we can stop it. Our view now is to minimise the impact that it will have and try and make it as few dwellings as possible and make sure that there is adequate green space.’

Well I wish you good luck with that. The powers that be seem to be hell-bent on covering every last bit of green in the south of England. The “Western Wards” has been in the spotlight for many years. Solent City just keeps creeping closer and closer.

The council, typically, are viewing this development through the obligatory rose-tinted planning goggles.

Councillor Sean Woodward, leader of the council, said: ‘Overall, there is tremendous support for the community benefits. We have been working to achieve this for the past 20 years.

‘Without doubt there will have to be some amendments to the housing side. There is understandable concern in terms of the impact on traffic, schools and doctors.’

Those rose-tinted goggles obviously come with special ear plugs which prevent the wearer from hearing any dissenting comments.

The traffic is going to be horrendous, as it is already – Politics – Portsmouth News.

Royal Mail driver is caught parking in disabled spot in Crookhorn


Well it’s the Royal Mail that are caught and getting the public flogging but the problem is much deeper.

Since our local Tesco Express was burnt down my wife and I tend to use these shops on a regular basis and I have often observed the “couldn’t care less” attitude of so many drivers. It’s not just the Royal Mail drivers but “white van man”, “joe public” and also the “yoof of today” that quite unashamedly park in the disabled parking bays or just in the designated turning spaces. They will use the disable spaces even when there are other spaces available just to save themselves a few extra feet of walking. Never a thought for the disabled users.

Of course the problem has been exacerbated by the demise of the Tesco Express which has caused a lot more people to be using the Purbrook Chase Precinct and as we have recently heard, that situation will be ongoing for at least another 18 months.

I’d say that the mail mans actions are just a reflection of society today.

Royal Mail driver is caught parking in disabled spot in Crookhorn – Local Business – Portsmouth News.

Cheers all round as council vows to protect old Denmead pub


Yes indeed, Cheers All Round

I for one am glad that the council has seen sense and put a stop to the destruction of this fine old pub. It would have been a travesty if it had been replaced by the two planned houses.

Well done to the council. Lets hope that someone with vision can take over the running of the pub.

With all the new housing developments going on in the surrounding area there should be enough customers to keep it going.

Cheers all round as council vows to protect old Denmead pub – Politics – Portsmouth News.

Headteacher in Forest of Dean vows to shop parents over pupils web use, including social networking


Paul Woodward is to be applauded. His is a voice in the wilderness.

A primary school head has threatened to shop parents to social services if they allow his pupils to use Facebook and other networking sites.

Paul Woodward is concerned that youngsters who use the sites risk being exposed to porn and online grooming.

He has warned parents that persistently letting children flout Facebook’s 13-plus age rule could warrant investigation by child protection teams.

He estimates that at least 60 per cent of the 270-plus children at his school in the Forest of Dean have access to social networking sites.

Reporting parents to social services is, on the face of it, a bit extreme. However, where the parents have been informed and they take no action then I think he is justified.

Mr Woodward, a branch secretary for the National Association of Head Teachers, the country’s biggest heads’ union, yesterday demanded a ban on children setting up social media accounts – because of the risk of accessing inappropriate material.

Unfortunately a ban would be a waste of time. How on earth could this be policed. The only way to stop the underaged from gaining access is to enforce some kind of  control based round a credit card or some other kind of ID that can be validated on line.I believe that Facebook themselves would not want to do this unless they could actually charge a nominal fee for the  for the privilege.
Of course there will always be the kid that steals, sorry, borrows his parents card to bypass these controls.Just take a look at how six-year-old  Jake Sadler ran up a bill totalling nearly £1,000 while playing a game on his parents’ iPad.
Then there are the parents who are either too stupid to recognise the risks or choose to give in to their kids pestering for a quiet life.
Mr Woodward should also be a tad cautious before tagging parents as persistent offenders.
There are many kids out there who routinely create more than one facebook account. There is the one they keep for parents and family access. Strange that they don’t seem to access this account from one week to the next and they only have a few “friends”. Strange that their mobile is constantly pinging and buzzing as they chat with their “friends”. I have first hand experience of this having stumbled on my granddaughters facebook presence on which she has over 2500 “friends”. This is despite the fact that she has been on the receiving end of the dark side of Facebook and claimed to have ditched her Facebook account. Her public, to the family, Facebook account only has a few hundred “friends”.

Many parents lack awareness of the potential dangers to children from the variety of links and ‘apps’ that can be accessed through Facebook and other sites, he warned.

As soon as his school becomes aware a child has a Facebook account it contacts the company to get the profile blocked.

Now this is an action which I think deserves more support. I wonder how quickly the likes of Facebook are at shutting down these accounts. In the past they have been somewhat reticent.
Many of the comments received for this article on the MailOnline website have derided Woodward’s stance.

This is too far. He is a head teacher and should stick to teaching not snooping. I thought we wanted an end to big government and its snooping or is only when it serves us that we agree with it.

This is not snooping. This is trying to protect our children.
When I was a pupil my parents had an expectation that the school, to which they had entrusted me  for five days of the week, would provide me with the same protection that they did for the rest of the week. Nowadays there is an apparent expectation that teachers are only there to teach the subject matter.

Maybe he should concentrate on teaching rather than parenting! Interesting how DM have two opposing articles written from the same perspective.. Anyway, if he cares about children being exposed to the horrors of Facebook why not do that old-fashioned thing and TEACH about the dangers rather than sit in some sort of arrogant pious judgement of others.

Teach them about the dangers, that’s a laugh. Our schools are doing such a grand job of teaching about the dangers of drugs, getting pregnant and so forth lets put the responsibility on them to teach about the dangers of the Facebook and the internet.
I’m not criticizing the schools. I think they have an impossible task and they don’t get the support of the parents.
No I think that Mr Woodward has the right approach. Keep on shopping the underage kids to Facebook. Keep on warning the parents.
Ultimately it’s the parents responsibility but when they don’t step up to the mark then thank god for people like Paul Woodward.

Headteacher in Forest of Dean vows to shop parents over pupils¿ web use, including social networking | Mail Online.

Five and a half years is not enough !!!


Two young women were crossing Stoke Road after enjoying an evening in a pub, when Matthew Styler drove his car into them.

Daniel Riley, defending, told the court Styler, who was wounded on a tour of Afghanistan in 2010, had expressed remorse for what he had done and said he had been since diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

But

Sentencing, Judge Sarah Munro said: ‘It was nothing to do with post traumatic stress that let you to get into the driving seat.

‘You were so drunk you couldn’t see what was outside the windscreen of your car.

I think that the sentence is too lenient. Styler wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what he had done. He knew enough to try to cover his tracks. After the incident he tried to destroy the evidence and change his appearance.

He drove the car into a secluded wooded area four miles away from the incident and set fire to it in an attempt to destroy the evidence.

The 36-year-old washed his clothes, as well as boots and sunglasses, and shaved off his beard to cover-up the crime.

Five and a half years is not enough !!!

Gosport man jailed for ploughing car into friends – Local – Portsmouth News.

Cinco de Mayo


Happy Cinco de Mayo

To all my friends and colleagues in Mexico and particularly in Guadalajara.