I lived in Winter Road, 43 years ago, when I moved to Pompey to start my Fitter and Turner apprenticeship. I was sharing digs there, with a number of other dockyard apprentices, for just over a year before moving on to a new place in St. Davids Road.
What is amazing is the lack of motor vehicles in the photo accompanying the article in the News.
How Winter Road has changed in the last 80 years – Remember When – Portsmouth News.
Jon Lord, founder member of Deep Purple, died yesterday after losing his fight against Pancreatic Cancer.
Johns keyboard playing provided the backcloth and some times the lead for Deep Purples distinctive sound. His Hammond organ sound was a key component and counterpoint to Ritchie Blackmores guitar playing.
Besides playing with Deep Purple Jon was part of Whitesnake and the collaboration Paice, Ashton & Lord. He also appears on, or is credited on, recordings by many well know artists including David Gilmour, The Kinks, George Harrison, Sam Brown and Nazareth to name but a few. We should not omit the many solo and orchestral works that he has created over the years.
I was priveleged to see Jon Playing as part of the Purple incarnation that also featured Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice and Ritchie Blackmore when they played Portsmouth Guildhall (9 February 1971). A stunning show featuring stunning musicians.
The music world has lost a great talent but his legacy will play on.
My apologies to Pink Floyd but this is good news for employees of local business Astrium
Jobs have been secured in Portsmouth after space firm Astrium signed a contract to send a satellite close to the sun.
The deal is worth £245m for Astrium UK, which has bases in the city at Broad Oak, and in Stevenage.
Astrium sign deal to build Solar Orbiter satellite – Local Business – Portsmouth News.
Today I received a letter from HBC (Havant Borough Council) pertaining to the proposed development of the Dunsbury Hill Farm site, adjacent to the A3(M).
The description of the development is as follows:
Site Address: Dunsbury Hill Farm, Park Lane, Cowplain, Waterlooville
Proposed Development: Hybrid planning application comprising a part outline application relating to employment uses and a hotel with conference facilities and a part detailed application for a new link road with bus gate to Woolston Road; together with landscaping, infrastructure and associated works.
I am sure that they don’t intend to hide what this development really means but on first reading I was quite happy to go along with it. After all a new hotel and conference centre would not increase the daily traffic levels and road traffic noise. The additional employment opportunities that this would bring is also to welcomed.
However, without reading the actual proposal one is not likely to see what this really is. In their own words …
… proposed development of agricultural land at Dunsbury Hill Farm, Havant into a business and technology park with hotel, conference facilities and associated infrastructure
The development proposal includes the creation of a new roundabout and potential dualling of a section of the Hulbert Road. In addition there are plans to create a new parking area double the area of the current lay-bys this development will replace. All of this is an indication of the increased traffic that the developers are anticipating.
I have lived in this area since 1985. The survey that I had on my house at the time carries a final comment
shame about the noise from the motorway
Over the years I have become aware of the increasing noise levels and the changing nature of the noise. Waterlooville, specifically Junction 3 (J3), the junction of the B2150 with the A3(M), has become something of a hub for the emergency services. As a result anyone living near to this junction will have noticed the increased siren activity. If recent news articles are to be believed the newly opened Hindhead Tunnel is also contributing to increased noise levels along the A3(M) due to heavy goods traffic choosing the A3(M) in preference to the M3 now that the Hindhead traffic jams have been eliminated.
The application pack includes tables indicating noise levels. The constant theme running through the comments section is
A3 constant and dominant.
What is wrong with these tables is that they are taking noise level reading from a point on the centre line of the A3(M) into the development area and on into Calshot Road & Park Lane areas of Leigh Park. No measurements seem to have been taken from the Waterlooville side of the A3(M).
Yet this is the area that will probably be most affected by the additional traffic generated by the new development.
The location of this new development makes total sense when you consider the easy access to the motorway. Allowing traffic to clear the area very quickly. However, the very fact that all that traffic will be coming and going via J3 of the A3(M) is going to have a negative effect on the area.
Presumably the planners are thinking that this new development will provide jobs for the soon to be residents of the Berewood (ex Newlands) development on the opposite side of Waterlooville. Did they also consider the additional traffic that will inexorably be sucked across the town ? Such traffic will also be using the J3 roundabout.
I also have other questions, ones that I have asked in other of my posts …
I am the first to bemoan the fact that the planners don’t seem to have done much to provide employment for the residents of Waterlooville. So I am loath to be totally negative about this proposed development. However, I don’t believe that the planners have got the true measure of the impact that this development will have.
As usual the only people who will truly gain from this are the developers and, for a short while, the folks employed to carry out the construction.
Instead of trying to redirect the little darlings, which costs money and leaves them on the streets to continue committing crime, why don’t we lock them up ?
It’s already costing Joe Public money to chase them down and persuade them of the error of their ways so lets just cut our losses. Lock them up. The shop keepers and their other victims will be able to relax. The reduction in shoplifting will allow the insurance premiums to come down and we will have cheaper goods to buy.
Seems like a win win situation.
On this day in 1864 a letter appeared in the Hampshire Telegraph drawing attention to ‘the monstrous evil which has been permitted to exist for a considerable time past without any effectual attempt being made to check it’.
The writer was referring to the nightly assembly on the main roads crossing Southsea Common of prostitutes of ‘the most vile and abandoned character’ who ‘assail every passenger, even in the hearing of the guardian policeman, with their filthy invitations, couched in language the most revolting and obscene’.
The preceding text was taken directly from The News. I have highlighted a few words and only suggest that the venue may have changed but you only have to visit Guildhall Walk when some of the noisier clientele spill out of the many hostelries. I am not suggesting that they are prostitutes but the language of some of the “ladies” can leave a lot to be desired and many of them are not wearing any more than the ladies of the night who used to frequent Southsea Common just a short walk away.
The following week the newspaper reported that ‘we understand that the authorities have given instructions to the police to remove these creatures from all places where they are a nuisance to passengers and more particularly from Southsea Common’.
WrAnTz 