komadori’s green corner

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.

It’s so nice to be labelled. Apparently, I’m deprived.

The rollout of the new centres is already making youngsters’ lives better in deprived areas…. Children’s centres exist in Drove Road, Pinehurst, Freshbrook, Middleleaze, Park North and Westcott Street and the final touches are being made to one in Gorse Hill.

In the list of areas that most locals might think of as being ‘deprived’, only some of those listed by the Adver would be included. Deprivation through wealth is rather novel, don’t you think?

’Tis amazing how that rarest of things – a bank holiday weekend with good weather – makes so many people forget all their concerns for the environment and rush out to burn some food over charcoal. The acrid fumes from my neighbours’ “cooking” this evening have been really enjoyable.

It seems that most things electronic have taken a disliking to me this week. Both mobile phone and hifi, amongst other things, have suffered an untimely death. Normal blogging service will hopefully resume at the weekend, once I have finished dealing with the repairs.

Swindon Borough Council has now published a list of which streets will not have to use wheelie bins and will instead have fortnightly blue bag collections. There’s several things that are irritating about this. Looking at the list, it’s mainly of roads where the houses front straight onto the pavement. But streets such as The Mall, Faringdon Road and Park Lane, where the houses all have reasonably sized front gardens and the roads are level, are also reprieved, whereas the many terraces with a mere 3 ft front yard (Tennyson Street, for example) will receive wheelie bins, despite the difficulties of manœuvring them in such a confined space. This is inconsistent with both the council’s published basis of assessment of wheelie-suitability and that the slightly more generous criteria that councillors were told. Not surprisingly some people in Broadgreen are not impressed. According to the council’s director of environment and health

The survey was done by an expert refuse driver who walked the streets around the town assessing the road and properties to see which would be suitable. It has been done by someone who knows how the system works and understands the service and its needs.

He seems to be forgetting something. Services are there to serve the people and it is the people’s needs that are being forgotten. Also Councillor Wren is back spouting, appropriately for his council responsibilities, utter rubbish.

We mustn’t lose sight of the two key reasons why we’re making these changes. Firstly, we have to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, otherwise each and every one of us will be hit in the pocket. And secondly, it’s damaging to the environment to bury re-usable materials.

All of which is totally irrelevant to the issue of blue bag versus wheelie bin.

It’s not all sweetness and light for those receiving blue bags either. The blue bags will be twice the size of ordinary black refuse sacks. That’ll make them easy to carry when full!

It’s so nice to see that Councillor Montaut retains his ability to make stupid statements. This time, commenting on the Streets for Living project in the Broadgreen area of Central Ward which he represents.

It is a positive initiative that we welcome, because the area is in need of support. There has been massive investment in the town centre and it is crucial that attention is paid to the wards further afield.

Err… what was the name of the ward again?

I have found an explanation for the abysmal punctuality of First Great Western Trains. It seems the wheels are coming off their trains! Walking to work on Wednesday, there was a set of wheels lying on some short rails in The Park on Faringdon Road, near to one of the stones dropped a few months ago by the council, not far from the railway line. The wheels definitely weren’t there on Monday.

It’s so comforting to read of the reasons that a group of campaigners from Wootton Bassett are opposing the plan for the western end of the southern relief road around the developments on the Swindon front garden to be near Wootton Bassett and their homes.

Lady Inchcape and campaigners against the junction fear the changes would create more traffic on local routes and congest Old Town.

So magnanimous. Concerned for the people of Swindon rather than themselves…. Except that it is a bit like suggesting that moving the western end of the M4 from Pont Abraham to Aust would lead to greater congestion in central London. It just wouldn’t be right to allow some logic to get in the way of an old fashioned nimby campaign.

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.