Category: Uncategorized

It’s difficult to believe how quickly the local red nest manage to contradict themselves when talking about bus services in Swindon. Step forward once again Mr Montaut to maintain his impressive record of twaddle.

There is a big issue about cutting down on the amount of subsided funds to Thamesdown Transport and other bus companies. People should also be encouraged to use bus services, but it is not helping that elderly people cannot use the bus with their passes before 9am.

Wow! In the space of just two sentences, he’s criticised the level of subsidy as being too high, and then asked for something to be done that would put the subsidies up. Don’t forget either that it’s only a month since his colleague Mr Wills was accusing the council of taking too much money out of the bus companies rather than putting too much in.

Having spent much of yesterday walking along the Kennet & Avon Canal, may I commend The Mad Hatter Tearooms at Avoncliff for a most delicious cream tea. All the better for a mistake in their taking my order which lead to it being free. Quite how one can misinterpret ‘A ham, cheese and pineapple hot baguette please.’ (also delicious) for ‘Two cream teas and a ham, cheese and pineapple hot baguette please.’ I am still pondering. The Cross Guns pub just across the way may be better known and have a better range of beers, but the quality of its food and service — of the ‘lets fleece the tourists for all we can get’ type with hurriedly prepared food on paper plates and plastic cutlery — are distinctly second rate. By comparison, at The Mad Hatter china crockery and steel cutlery are the norm and, even on a busy sunny bank holiday weekend, time was taken (tho’ not excessively) over the preparation of the food. The Black Rat Cider was quite good too.

Given how bad a mess the council has been making of the the changes to its waste and recycling service, it is, perhaps, not surprising that they have received a one star rating for them in an Audit Commission report on Swindon’s waste management services. The report notes the dissatisfaction of residents.

The waste collection service is variable with different parts of the Borough receiving different services and there are low levels of residents’ satisfaction with recycling and waste collection.

Just how low is only apparent from page 16 of the full report.

Satisfaction with both the waste collection and waste disposal service in 2005/06 was poor and in the worst 25 per cent of national performance with 74 per cent of residents’ satisfied with the waste collection service and 72 per cent of residents’ satisfied with the waste disposal service.

That’s over a quarter of the population dissatisfied with a service that most people ordinarily take for granted. The Commission also confirms my own experience.

The free garden waste collections service is also variable with some residents not having received a regular or reliable service.

The commission recommends that the council sets targets for improving residents’ level of satisfaction with the service. The council’s response, from our old friend, Mr Wren? Complacent.

I am delighted that the Audit Commission has recognised the council’s commitment and enthusiasm to continue to improve our waste services and increase the level of recycling and composting that our residents help us to achieve. If they were to come back this time next year, I think they would be totally impressed.

Perhaps they should first try to impress their local residents.

No, a Gateway that is full of only houses. It seems that now, not only is there no university interested in the plans to concrete over the area around Coate Water, but the GW Hospital is not interested either. Apparently the developers’ plans have not allocated enough space for the hospital, proposing instead that an area reserved for an expanded park-and-ride car park be used for hospital development. Guess that means there’ll be no alternative but to build houses over the entire Gateway site. I’m sure the developers will be distraught at the thought.

I see that whilst I have been away, quite a fight has broken out over waste and recycling collections in central Swindon.

Now that a quango has changed its guidance on alternate weekly collections, particularly in relation to food waste, Councillor Montaut has written an open letter to Mr Wren, the councillor in charge of waste and recycling, questioning the decision to collect ‘non-recyclable’ waste once per fortnight, and has then gone on to play petty politics with the issue. It is also worth noting that Mr Montaut is rather selecive in which parts of said quango’s guidance he chooses to take note of, with some of his points (e.g. about the effect of fortnightly collections on recycling rates) totally contradicting the same guidance document that he quotes elsewhere.

What Mr Montaut hasn’t questioned are the rules about who does and who does not get a wheelie bin, which seem to have been applied differently in the vicinity of the council leader’s home than the rest of central Swindon. But then, frequency of collection is, to some extent, an issue for all of Swindon, whereas the problem of where to put a wheelie bin is only an issue in the cramped terraces of central Swindon, so, as he lives in Moredon (oddly enough the ward of Councillor Wren), Mr Montaut is not personally affected.

(I note in passing that, according to the August edition of Swindon News, the start date for fortnightly wheelie bin collections has been put back from September to November, though they will be introduced over just two weeks from 5th November rather than over six months as originally advertised.)

If the government continues to believe it is doing so well on being ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, why the continuing growth in private and now semi-public security? Swindon has not only the bouncers seen on pub and club doorsteps throughout the country, and the security staff employed by the local pubwatch, but now we also have a new ‘Street Team’ employed by the inSwindon company, a company backed by Swindon Borough Council, the South West Regional Development Agency and the public-sector New Swindon Company. Any doubt as to the latter’s role is dispelled by the images used on the inSwindon website.

I was, perhaps, a little premature in my suggestions of amnesia amongst our local councillors. Yesterday’s Adver carries a story about ongoing discussions between Swindon Borough Council and universities, but about a town centre campus, not a Coate Water campus. ‘Story’ is quite an apt description in this case. The leading paragraph suggests that discussions are well developed.

PLANS for a town centre university are in the pipeline and the University of the West of England is believed to be the top choice to meet Swindon’s higher education needs.

The quote from The University of the West of England* is considerably more guarded.

UWE, along with other universities has been involved in preliminary discussions with Swindon Council to which no outcome has yet been reached.

That reads like nothing more than ‘maybe’ to me. The figurative pipeline in the newspaper story could be very long.

*Mind that initial ‘The’. It’s in their legal title and they can get very picky about it.

(Despite the palm tree, this house is in England.)

Compare and contrast. The leader of Swindon Borough Council, Roderick Bluh, quoted at the beginning of July.

We have been having discussions with various universities, but this is about what is best for Swindon not what is best for developers.

And quoted today, less then four weeks later.

Before a university can be brought to Swindon there would have to be discussions with the council and MPs and as far as I know there hasn’t. We have certainly not been party to any discussions about a university and the developers should certainly be pushed on who this university is.

That looks like a bad case of amnesia to me.

Having done a fairly rapid U-turn last year when their new residents’ parking policy of one permit per house ran into strong public opposition, Swindon Borough Council is having another go. This year’s policy appears to be blatant buck-passing.

A Residents’ Parking Advisory Group made up of elected members will also represent the wishes of locals. It is said to be one of the first of its kind in the country.

Strange… I was sure I already had some elected representatives. They’re called councillors.