Tag: bluh

With the counting in the election now over, there’s hardly any change. The red nest regain a total grip on Central, taking the seat vacated by Ms Darker who has successfully run away to St Philips ward, but the blue nest have gained one of the two seats in Parks. I also see that the council leader Mr Bluh came second in Dorcan, where two seats were on offer, so he’ll be back up for election in two years’ time. ’Tis hardly a ringing endorsement of his performance, as a self-styled leader with vision, to be beaten by a novice.

I’ve seen the new new illumination of St Mark’s church during some of the testing. It’s pretty, but not quite up to Mr Bluh’s now customary exaggeration.

St Marks is a stunning building, and lighting it up is a simple yet effective way to showcase that architecturally, Swindon has more to offer than some people might imagine. It will also benefit Swindon’s nightscape generally.

As the council’s own press release states,

The Church will be illuminated by energy-efficient LED lamps mounted on the building itself, rather than by floodlights. This allows the features to be picked out more effectively and with more subtlety.

Subtlety, not a concept Mr Bluh seems to be familiar with. When illuminated the church appears as a low-key glow across the Park, rather than a ‘new and positive landmark to identify the town’… especially when one considers that the David Murray John tower is prominent nearby.

The Swindon Strategic Partnership (which often seems so close as to be indistinguishable from Swindon Borough Council) has published the final version of its Community Strategy or 2030 vision. It reads slightly less like a socialist eutopia than the draft version did, but still remains fanciful. Perhaps it’s meant to be that way.

Rural areas will benefit as much as the urban areas with work undertaken to address issues like public transport, local jobs and affordable homes.

Presumably because they’ll have been subsumed into the urban sprawl that government development plans are imposing on the town.

The rural areas of the Borough will be made up of diverse, vibrant and economically sound communities.

Told you so: most people would think of rural areas as being made up of fields, woods and villages; for Swindon, it’s housing and communities all the way.

Swindon’s appeal will stem from having an attractive and well-equipped town that has successfully blended traditional architecture with high quality contemporary buildings that incorporate sustainable design and construction principles.

That is, every historic building will have been converted to flats, with only the original facade remaining.

The town centre will be a far more attractive place for everyone to visit in the evenings thanks to significant reductions in the amount of crime and anti-social behaviour.

So, the lollipops will work.

Not surprisingly, given his past record, Mr Bluh is ecstatic.

This important document is the ultimate vision of how local people want their borough to be. Thank you to everyone who gave their views which have helped shape this exciting, ambitious set of aspirations.

As the vision itself states,

This document has been produced with help from nearly a thousand local people.

That’s less than one percent of the population of the borough. Whilst clearly well intentioned, I suspect the vision owes more to the officials that drafted it than to the population of Swindon as a whole.

Mr Bluh, in his obsession to bring a canal back into the town centre, is reaching the point of delusion.

It could make Swindon a destination of choice.

Really? That’s like suggesting that having a violin playing a few chords in a pop song makes it classical orchestral music. Also, I don’t recall many reports recently of Woking being inundated with tourists visiting the canal that runs through its town centre.

The green corridor would be a popular attraction, not just for tourists but the residents of Swindon as well.

The canal walk that runs along the old canal route from Kingshill to the town centre is already fairly green and certainly comparable to what the council’s central area action plan proposes for the green spine in terms of the amount of vegetation. I haven’t noticed many tourists there.

It’s about looking at the vision and seeing the issues involved, then seeing if it’s sensible to fulfil the vision.

It should also be about ensuring that the fog of exuberant enthusiasm doesn’t obscure reality.

It’s nice to have a leader with a vision for Swindon, but in believing, as he seems to, that of itself a canal will turn Swindon into a tourist attraction, Mr Bluh is forsaking vision for fantasy.

With it being less than a month since Swindon Borough Council introduced weekly kerbside recycling, it’s far too early to draw conclusions as to its impact… unless you’re Ms Snelgrove that is. We can, as always, rely on Ms Snelgrove to jump in with a bit of cheap political point scoring.

Figures I have seen have Swindon Council’s recycling and composting rate at 32 per cent, and it is excellent that they are doing what they are doing. But when you look at Wiltshire County Council it is recycling 38 per cent of the waste it collects. So although it looks like we’re doing okay what we need to be doing is exceeding our targets. MPs need to keep the pressure on our councils so that they beat their targets quickly and we can all reduce our carbon footprints.

Recycling is about re-use of materials; reducing carbon footprint is about reducing energy consumption. Ms Snelgrove isn’t the first to assume the two are inextricably linked, but for her to restate it does highlight her ignorance of the issues.

Mr Bluh, leading the defence for the council, has, presumably, seen some more up-to-date figures than Ms Snelgrove has.

We’ve already achieved 38 per cent currently, and that will climb once the new service has settled down.

You may also recall Ms Snelgrove’s previous statement that she always puts the concerns of her electorate first. Compare and contrast.

Ms Snelgrove:

One of the big problems we have in this town is that the main recycling point we have is in the northern part of the borough. I think we need a new facility in the south of the borough. It could be a one-off capital project. Once up and running it would not cost too much to maintain and it would make a huge difference to the amount we recycle. We all know the council is receiving a fair amount of cash from building works – I cannot think of a better issue to put money into.

Mr Bluh:

All the changes we’ve made this year have cost the council an extra £2m to introduce, yet we’ve had no financial assistance from the Government to do it…. When we consulted residents about what they thought our priorities for waste should be, they placed a comprehensive kerbside recycling service for the whole borough, including plastic bottles, above a second waste site. We’ve now delivered that.

I suppose it should come as no surprise really that Ms Snelgrove is trying to spend more of our money and would no doubt be the first to complain if council tax had to rise to deliver her plans. That said, there couldn’t be a more apt monument to Ms Snelgrove than a centre for collecting and recycling rubbish. I trust she’ll be at the front of the queue when it opens, with copies of most of her press statements and parliamentary speaches.

The introduction of the new recycling service may have been incompetent, but in picking her latest target for petty political point scoring, Ms Snelgrove has totally missed the main concerns of her electorate.

I see that Swindon Council leader, Mr Bluh, has been drinking at the fountain of verbal garbage again. To quote.

We need to drive the whole community forward including businesses, partners and residents. We all have to play our part in meeting a global challenge. The town’s growth agenda doesn’t play into sustainability. We have an even bigger challenge to make sure it does. We have the vision and the low-level detail. Now we need to get it embedded into everything we do.

Really? And the meaning of that pile of twaddle is what? Mr Bluh may think he has ‘vision’ but what he’s saying is just a fog of tired, content-free phrases. If he does have ‘the vision and the low-level detail’ then why within the same article is one of his council officers quoted as saying.

This council recognises that it doesn’t know enough at the moment. It is about being an example, but at the moment we are not.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Mr Bluh has just slung together several sentences of imprecise waffle to try and sound impressive, without knowing anything about which he speaks.

At last we have a price tag for Mr Bluh’s wish to run a canal along Westcott Place and Faringdon Road into Swindon town centre. It’s not a cheap price tag. £50M according to Swindon Borough Council’s consultants, Halcrow. I wouldn’t disagree with Mr Bluh’s opinion that a waterway within the town centre would be a great improvement to the attractiveness of the town. But at that price, and bearing in mind that the chosen route, unlike the original route of the canal, will run near to the town centre rather than right through the heart of the town centre, some serious thought is required. Swindon’s main attraction for tourists is well known, even amongst locals, to be no more than that there are many very interesting places nearby (the Cotswolds, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury, Marlborough, the Kennet and Avon Canal…). Of itself, another canal will not change that.

To be worth the price and inconvenience, we need a benefit better than those identified so far.

I have previously commented on some of the trees being cut down in Wharf Green. The felled trees are now to be put to use, as art. Mr Bluh thinks this is recycling.

These artists have come up with a really imaginative way to use wood – they are leading the recycling agenda in the area and supporting regeneration at the same time. It’s great to see.

Allow me to quote from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

recycle
• verb 1 convert (waste) into reusable material. 2 use again.

Whilst it is certainly better than just burning the logs, if an item hasn’t been used before, then it isn’t recycling as most would perceive it. As to whether it’s great to see, I’ll reserve judgement on that until I have seen the products of the artists’ work.

I find the level of enthusiasm exhibited by Swindon Borough Council’s leader Mr Bluh and the New Swindon Company’s chief executive Mr James in their video interview with SwindonWeb quite remarkable, commendable… and cringe-inducing.

The big screen will be a major attraction for Swindon, the only one in the south of England…. You get that feeling when things are right, and this feels right for this location.

Hmm… Mr Bluh may have that feeling but the feeling I get is distinctly different. I just cannot believe that a big BBC screen in Wharf Green will be a popular meeting point for visitors to Swindon, as Mr James seems to think. An attraction maybe, but a meeting point?

[We’ve got to] make a place that people can meet and sit down and say, well lets meet at Wharf Green, by the big screen, because we understand there’s something going on there.

One other thought. Is SwindonWeb’s Ms Heber-Smith not subject to health and safety laws? I see that she alone is not wearing a high-visibility jacket in the interview on what is a construction site.

Apparently, Swindon Borough Council is being overwhelmed by universities interested in opening a campus in the town.

Council leader Rod Bluh, said he could not reveal the identities of the universities as talks were ongoing but that he remained optimistic a deal could be struck. He said: “We have spoken to one or two universities, but investment is far from certain at this stage.”

Wow! So many! I’m impressed!

“This is a great example of cross party politics working at its best. I have already been working closely with Michael Wills on this and Ann Snelgrove is also concerned about exactly the same issues,” said Coun Bluh. Speaking in Parliament on Friday, South Swindon MP Mrs Snelgrove said she was concerned about the delay.

If this is cross party politics at its best, I hope we never see it at its worst.