'Snow Good, We Must Do Better!

Dorothy Thornhill, Mayor of Watford says of the snow: "This kind of weather is here to stay now and our current policy (as a nation) of gritting the main roads then expecting a thaw to take care of the side roads and pavements is no longer going to work!"

So, I say what do we do?
Deposit grit bins on every little slope that is likely to contribute to The Great Gridlock?
All live closer to where we work?
Buy 4x4's?
Close companies down for the winter?
Create more laybys so that abandoned cars have somewhere to be abandoned?
Or all of the above?

We Can't Duck The Issues

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December 21st Snow-Locked

A disastrous evening on the roads for local people just trying to get home from work. Arriva removed their buses from the roads, Luton and Stansted airports closed.
The roads around the Three Counties were gridlocked. And all because it snowed.

My own journey of an hour (tops) on a normal rush-hour took 5.25hours.

When I was coming home I think I saw 2 real problems at M1 Junction 10.
Firstly, traffic has to move up a slope from the spur road to get onto the roundabout above the M1. My car slipped lots. I almost didn't make it, and aftewr I got up there was quite a gap before the next one made it.
The slope contributes to a backlog all the way back down the airport road, and that in turn holds up the Lower Luton Road.
Secondly, the traffic coming off the M1 northbound, blocks the traffic on the J10 roundabout trying to turn off that roundabout to go onto north on the m1. The roundabout there should never have been built. They should have built flyovers.

Dunstable Northern Bypass

An announcement was made last week about the "Northern Dunstable Bypass". The powers that be seem to think that a new road linking east to west and to the M1 will relieve the traffic running north-south through Dunstable's A5.
But here's the reality of the new road: Thousands of extra homes are expected to be built in the north of Houghton Regis parish. Clearly without the new "bypass" Poynters Road, Park Road North, and the High Street Houghton Regis, would be unable to cope with all the extra traffic. I'm not sure that even the Northern Bypass will actually relieve Houghton Regis of it's traffic jams every rush-hour.
Nevertheless, the news from the Highways Agency will be welcomed by many throughout South Bedfordshire. Clearly, for those who want to travel north south via the A5, nothing short of a Dunstable town-centre circumnavigation will be sort.

ACT now ... to Change the Law, and CAMPAIGN!

I've just joined ACT, a Liberal Democrat "facebook" style Web site for people, members AND non members, to get involved in, to deal with the issues that anyone wants to deal with.
Here's my starting page.

Here's your starting page.

See you in a Liberal Democratic UK in the future?

X Factor Boycott - Change the Rules

I just blogged ...

So the Central Beds want the parishes to do more...

I went to Chicksands last night. Town and parishes conference. Seems to me that CBC expect to have their income cut next year, and strongly hinting that they want the parishes to pick up the tab and push up their part of the Council tax, even asking us to think about what services they want the parishes to take on. So, will it be grass cutting, footpath mending, litter picking, .... what ? And Con, Lab, and Libs all saying they want power devolved to the lowest level. So whoever wins, more power to the lower levels. But it's a fine balance deciding to put up a localities local precept to pay for these services if that locality is on the poor side. So, if the services are taken on from the central authority, the central authority must follow through with the funds. Come on, public, contact me!

Where Politics Meets the X Factor

In my other blog I have been writing about the X Factor.

For me, being a Liberal Democrat is seeing that something is wrong, and seeking to intervene to make a change. So, here's where politics meets the X-Factor.
Each week is themed. The singers may be poor on one theme and good on another. But if they're poor one week, they could go out. And all the times people voted for them before, when they might have been much better, those votes won't help to save them.

I think the current voting system is wrong. The acts that leave should be the ones that have polled the lowest number of votes over ALL the weeks they have been on the live programme. It shouldn't be the ones that score the lowest in a particular week.

HRTC and Planning

At a Special meeting of the Houghton Regis town council this week, councillors resolved to continue with the current arrangement of Planning and Licencing committee meetings approximately every three weeks. At these meetings parish councillors get to comment on local planning applications, and if they feel it necessary, can alert a Central Bedfordshire councillor to a particular application. In turn, that Central Beds councillor can "call it in" and the application will be looked at by a committee of Central Beds council. The Houghton Regis Town Council does not decide planning applications. Town councillors also resolved to ask the town clerk to put together a special Town Crier leaflet that would help to clarify the planning system.

Consultation Exercise: East of England

During this week I was one of the Houghton Regis town councillors who attended a consultation meeting of East of England Regional Assembly (EERA).
The purpose of the meeting was to obtain views on how fast the region should grow and broadly where that growth should go. As the meeting was held at Chicksands, the questioners were by and large from Central Beds, and Luton areas.

There were appeals for the A5-M1 bypass to be built first (Cllr PeterWilliams, Houghton Regis), and for other infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools etc. ) to be in place before building starts. General response: government short of money, EERA looking for section 106 money from developers to fund infrastructure, followed by a general sense of fustration from the assembled questioners. There were appeals for homes to be built for rent (Cllr Rita Egan, Houghton Regis), to make them affordable for local people. There was an appeal for electricity to be made available, as the region will face supply problems. There was a question about where water supplies will come from; and given that people need food, why is a farming region to be concreted over? Several questioners made the point that they didn't believe the government statistics on population growth : response from EERA, whatever statistics are used the population is growing and needs homes.

We Shall Fight Them on The Beaches

Clicking the link below brings an interesting response! No one can now say that they don't know what people are saying in the House of Commons, because speeches back to 1935 are now available online.
We Shall Fight Them on The Beaches

Salmon Fishing in The Yemen

This week I read Salmon Fishing in The Yemen by Paul Torday. Sprinkled with interesting facts about salmon, and fishing terms, the novel combines emails, newspaper reports, diary entries, and interviews to tell the story of why a government scientist is "put up" to see through an impossible project to introduce salmon fishing in the Yemen. The story gets behind the news to inform the reader about how government and diplomacy might work, and how the little man is easily walked over by those in the upper echilons. Peter Mandelsohn is easily parodied in the story as "Peter Maxwell", while Tony Blair finds his fiction self in "Jay Vent".

"Harry" cashes in, but are Council Chiefs just Creaming It?

With Daniel Radcliffe said to be picking up £8.65m for his latest Harry Potter film, it has made be wonder what all the fuss was about with MPs expenses. Apparently there is no public outcry about actors. I guess that's all right, then?
We all come into this world with nought, and leave with nought. Something happens with money in the middle of all that.
What I want to know is, do you think £185,000 (minimum) a year is appropriate for a Chief Executive of Central Bedfordshire Council? The argument being that this salary sits between established unitary Councils of a comparable scale (between c£140k and c£160k), and larger new unitary Councils and London Boroughs (c£200k). Personally, I'd say the figure is far too high. No one needs that kind of income to live a decent life. They could all manage on £100,000 a year less.