Mr Bluh seems to have some very basic misunderstandings of communication.
We said we would listen to them and that is what we have done, even if they didn’t like everything they heard.
Hint to Mr Bluh: if you’re listening, it’s you that should be doing the hearing, not the other way round. But then if, as has been reported, the staff at Groundwell Park & Ride have already been made redundant, the whole ‘listening’ exercise was a sham anyway.
Mr Rushforth of the University of the West of England believes that the Oakfield site in Swindon does not feel like a university.
I am not sure that people thinking of sending their sons or daughters to university would think it was appropriate. It does not have the feel of a university campus.
I’m not sure what Mr Rushforth thinks a university campus should feel like: his own Frenchay campus in Bristol is not exactly stunning. Oakfield is mainly flat open fields, much like the site near Coate Water that he would prefer to locate a UWE Swindon branch on. Frenchay is also quite flat, but looks like a factory estate and office park. Neither feel like a university campus to me, but Oakfield does have the benefit that with some good architecture and landscaping — plus a smattering of students, of course — it could be made to look and feel like one. For the Frenchay campus it is already too late.
The fields around Coate don’t feel to me like a housing estate. I doubt that would convince Mr Rushforth’s developer partners. Logically, the planning inspector should find Mr Rushforth’s argument equally unconvincing.
How clever of the Adver, on the day rain washed much of the remaining snow away, to publish a story exalting residents to clear the pavements in front of their homes. Reporting has never been so timely….
I see that Ms Snelgrove is having trouble with her memory.
I pride myself upon being an open and accountable Member of Parliament and I am happy for my constituents to see what allowances I use in order to serve the people of South Swindon.
She seems to have forgotten that in 2007 she voted against making it a legal obligation for those expenses to be published.
If you’re a bureaucrat in charge of one of Swindon’s numerous partnerships, what would be the best way to justify your cost to the local taxpayers? Do something worthwhile perhaps? On second thoughts perhaps not. Do something worthless instead and write a piece in the Adver, claiming that everything in Swindon is within your remit. That’s the approach of the head of the Swindon Cultural Partnership.
What does the ‘C word’ actually mean?… As far as the Government is concerned, culture means just about anything that isn’t working or sleeping…. So, yes. According to that broad definition of culture, anything goes…. Culture may be all the things that the government say it is, but it is something else too. It is us.
If culture is ‘us’, then we don’t need this bureaucracy to tell us what culture in Swindon is.
I find Mr Greenhalgh’s reasoning, if one can call it that, for proposing closure of the Groundwell Park and Ride odd.
We either make savings where we can or we put up council tax.
That didn’t seem to cross your mind when you voted to put up your own allowances.
While the park and ride is an excellent service we are losing a lot of money because it is simply not covering its costs.
Until last year, Thamesdown Transport ran the park and ride bus service for a fee and Swindon Borough Council kept the profit or suffered the loss, depending on how successful the service was. Then that was changed so that, like any other bus service, the bus company runs the services that are profitable and keeps the profit from them, whilst the council subsidises the loss making ones. As parking in the park-and-ride car park is free, the council have, of their own choice, changed the funding arrangement to one where by definition they are guaranteed to make a loss and the bus company guaranteed to make a profit. It doesn’t cover its costs because you’ve set-up contractual arrangements that guarantee that, Mr Greenhalgh.
The number using the service is not that great so I don’t think the effect on traffic will be huge.
That seems to contradict the assessment in the council’s own budget proposals.
“There is some risk that this proposal may impact on our Local Transport Plan assessment and the ability of the Council to secure regional/national funding for future transport schemes. There may also be some impact on general bus network as the operator will lose profit from these services.”
Translated from public sector bureaucracy-speak, that’s quite huge.
We have good parking facilities in the town centre and while this is not an ideal situation it is something we have to look at.
And I’m sure that the knowledge that you’ll make much more money from charging them to park there had no influence on your decision….
This would not be a permanent move and hopefully there will be a change in government and Swindon will be given the kind of funding it needs.
To quote from the council’s own budget proposals again.
“This proposal may impact on our Local Transport Plan assessment and the ability of the Council to secure regional/national funding for future transport schemes.”
Regardless of the colour of the government, a habit of abandoning facilities in an ill considered financial panic is hardly a way of encouraging government to spend taxpayers’ money here.
This morning the sales signs were being cleared from the windows of the now closed Woolworths store in Regent Street. It will leave a big gap in the town centre… but probably only physically. With every passing acquisition and demerger — of which there were several — the offering and Woolworths was diminished. Much of its hardware range was lost to B&Q and much of its electrical range to Comet, both of which were once part of the same group. The Woolworths of my childhood was a store more like Wilkinson is today. In its final years, Woolworths seemed to be the home of a narrow range of overpriced low quality goods. Its one bright point was its chocolate range at Easter, but a store chain cannot survive on chocolate eggs alone.
In the end, the wonder of Woolies was that it survived quite as long as it did.
It seems Ms Snelgrove has been a little forgetful when it comes to paying her internet bills.
From a comparison of the fines reported today for a driver convicted of careless driving after a fatal accident and another convicted of fly-tipping three bags of rubbish, the answer to that question appears to be 2½ bags of rubbish.
