Readers' Times January 23, 2014: hospital care was excellent, more concern over roads, a new supermarket would have been good for Leominster, hot air over energy (EfW) plan for Hartlebury, and more.

I WOULD like to bring the following to the attention of your readers.

Last week I visited the KFC restaurant in Hereford and while in store enjoying a meal with my two young grandchildren, I was issued a parking fine which stated that the reason given was “not using venue”.

Fortunately, I had received a receipt and this is the only proof I have at the moment that I was actually there. From previous visits there I know that a receipt is not always issued, so wanted to inform other residents of Herefordshire to make sure they always obtain a receipt if visiting KFC Hereford.

I have spoken to the parking company that monitor this car park and they have stated to me that they “have a problem monitoring it”.

I would be interested to hear from any other residents who have encountered a similar issue.

CHARLIE MORRIS, Yazor Road, Hereford

Hot air over energy plan

COUNCILLOR Durkin (Readers’ Times, January 9) states that he is convinced that the Energy from Waste (EfW) incinerator proposed for Hartlebury is value for money.

Perhaps, as the Conservative vice-chairman of the council’s planning committee, he is in receipt of very privileged information – because even KPMG, the council’s own professional auditors, found themselves unable to confirm the development represented value for money for Herefordshire when specifically tasked to advise on this matter.

If he has such special knowledge, I wish he had shared it with the scrutiny committee when we were desperately trying to understand how this decision was being evidenced at our meeting before Christmas.

It is misleading for Coun Durkin to imply those arguing for the council to properly consider the fast emerging alternatives were suggesting that such an alternative plant could be built within two years of today.

Concerned, informed and very sensible members of the public and members of this council point out that there are 10 years to the end of the current PFI contract – plenty of time to see new technologies de-risked and a more efficient state-of- the-art plant built in time to service the subsequent waste disposal contract.

Meanwhile, continuing with the current contract without building an EfW for the last five years of operation is significantly the cheapest option modelled for both councils.

The options considered for disposal of household waste never considered the newer technologies.

The technologies which were considered were never assessed in terms of their suitability specifically for Herefordshire and Worcestershire’s requirements... the technologies were just compared with one another in abstract.

Even if you dismiss this (actually very material) point as nit-picking, it is yet more significant that the abstract analysis which was undertaken gave no weighting to the performance criteria used to rank the alternatives. Some of these criteria are very much more significant than others in their impact on the choice of any waste disposal solution.

This means that the whole case for going forward with the EfW plant is built on evidence which has never actually been assessed against the actual needs of Herefordshire and Worcestershire; and this is why it is not possible for anyone to confirm that the plant delivers value for money.

This is why members of the public in both counties and councillors in Herefordshire continue to be very concerned about what is being proposed.

This is why the options modelled for both cabinets were carefully constructed to disproportionately load the costs for the ‘stay as is to 2023’ option out to 2041.

This is why the administration parachuted its most capable, non-cabinet, councillors into the scrutiny committee for the meeting while they still had the majority of councillors on the committee. [This Friday at full council all the council’s committees are rebalanced to reflect the Conservatives’ loss of overall majority.] This is why we would all be wise to continue to question this decision and challenge the £40 million of additional borrowing for Herefordshire which it demands.

LIZ HARVEY Vice-chairman Overview and Scrutiny – Herefordshire Council

County on a road to ruin

WHO is responsible for the maintenance of our highways and byways, ditches, drains, gulleys and culverts?

The county used to do this on an annual basis in conjunction with the local lengthsman 25-30 years ago, but in some instances it hasn’t been done in a satisfactory workman like fashion since. Why is this? Yet we continue to pay for this work in many ways, including damage to our vehicles.

Why did it take exactly 12 months to obtain compensation for tyre damage to my vehicle? If I get behind with my community charge payment I get threatened with court action within days – what’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

My tyre supplier wanted his payment when I had the tyres put on. Where do our parish councils responsibilities begin and end?

We inform them of a problem, they tell the county and nothing gets done, we go to the next meeting and ask why nothing’s been done, they shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing more they can do.

It’s a joke isn’t it?

But a very serious one, our roads are now dangerous in places. Where’s our so called health and safety experts when we require them?

Why is it our county always seem to choose a partner to train up with who appear to be less than able to do the maintenance work that’s required or is it that they inherit the previous management and work force teams who leave little to be desired?

As far as the work ethic goes we don’t see many eight-hour days being worked, do we, in this 24 hour society of ours? Is this part of our malaise?

Our local councillor, Cllr Graham Powell, advocates self-help schemes. That’s fine, but as I mentioned earlier, we’ve paid for this work to be done and it hasn’t been through one excuse and another, no one’s interested, but yes, they’ve all got their hands out.

Those people adjacent to a problem won’t lift a finger to help, but they’re the ones that complain.

We walked the B4347 last Sunday and cleaned all the gulleys and drains between the bottom of the Cwm pitch and Bacton. No one else had bothered.

We’re the fools by not looking after what our fathers, their fathers and their fathers before them put in place for us a long time ago.

Our county is negligent in not looking after this infrastructure on our behalf, it’s heart breaking to see it all go to wrack and ruin for the want of a shovel here and a shovel there, would you agree? Why is the standard of work so poor, why is the county continually revisiting pot holes to repair again and again? Are we continuing to pay again and again. If this is the case, heads should roll, do the work properly.

I think it’s time the county started to liaise with the local farming community and the local hedge trimming contractors to make mechanical road sweepers available during the autumn hedge trimming seasons to minimise blocked drains and ditches, so prevent erosion damage to our highways and byways. Ditches are meant to keep water off our roads.

If they aren’t cleaned out on a regular basis they don’t work. Who inspects work done? Who signs it off as satisfactory? Who writes the cheque?

JACKIE GWILLIAM Southview Abbey Dore

Hereford Hospital care was excellent

ON December 15, 2013, I was rushed into Hereford County hospital A&E with chest pains. After some treatment there I was taken to the Cardiac Care Unit.

On the Tuesday I was taken by ambulance to Worcester hospital, where I had an angiogram andrastent fitted into an artery. I returned by ambulance to Hereford and the CC Unit, from where I was discharged on the Thursday.

Not once did I have to put my hand in my pocket, so thank you to our NHS.

What I really want to say is a huge thank you to all the staff who looked after me with their skill, professionalism and above all great ease and kindness. In my own mind, you saved my life. May God bless you all and keep up the good work you do.

Lastly, but certainly not least, I want to say thank you to the staff at Bromyard surgery for their care. They really are a wonderful team and when I was in need I was able to see a doctor within a short time.

I felt I had to write about my positive experience.

Many thanks again to all concerned.

ROSEMARY LLOYD, Bromyard

Here’s to new supermarket

HAVING read Maja Storey’s letter in the Readers’ Times, Jan 2, I felt compelled to reply.

I have lived in and around Leominster since 1964 and have watched over the years just how Leominster deals with change.

After 50 years of watching Leominster fall behind the times and fail to progress I think it’s about time the “nimbies” got a life.

Having a new supermarket to bring fair trade and competition to the town can only be a good thing. For years following the demise of Safeway, I have seen the replacement supermarket hold the town’s residents to ransom on the price of fuel and is currently five pence a litre dearer than Tesco and Sainsbury’s in Hereford.

So having a supermarket and fuel station on either the FH Dale site or on the industrial estate will bring over 100 jobs to the town directly and probably save 400 jobs in construction and supply jobs.

Then taking into account that Dales want to expand and double its workforce, you have a substantial reason to say ‘yes’ to development.

The fact that currently the A44 uses Mill Street to go through the town is really only down to the short sightedness of our council any way. Going back over 30 years ago, there was a plan to route the A44 via the cur - rent roundabout at the A49 junction with the A44 Bromyard road, through the industrial estate going by Bengry’s car sales and joining up at the current access road to Morrisons supermarket.

The council should have carried out its plan instead of wasting money hand over fist on white elephant ghost industrial estates which have not really brought new industry to the town or substantial investment.

Our nice fancy police station is a prime example of wasting public money building a multi-million pound unit, that is closed more than it is open, to sell off its old site in Rylands Road to developers who built flats ten years ago that are only just being lived in, in the last year or so.

The Mill Street access to Dales has to cope with daily steel deliveries that are often far bigger and longer than supermarket trucks.

By virtue of this, Dales has already in place extra wide access points for the lorries which could be used “as is” for access to the site.

From my point of view, a supermarket in Mill Street would give anyone living in Ridgemoor, Paradise Court, Middle Marsh, Bridge Street, Millers Close to name a few estates, easy flat and level access to a supermarket rather than trudging all the way up Bargates for more than a mile to get to a store.

Given that a large proportion of disabled and elderly people live down here, they would have a much better shopping experience.

Leominster has a huge population of people who have to commute 15 to 25 miles each way to get to work just because it has no major employers setting up shop here.

I commuted to Worcester every day for nine years to get a decent paid job which meant I drove 14,000 miles a year just to go to work and had to buy a specific car to do so cost effectively.

Instead of Leominster being de-generated into a holiday town open half the year, with its main streets consisting of cafés, pubs, antique shops and charity shops, let’s go forward and make the town open all year to shop in.

It has been proven time and time again that people who travel to supermarkets often carry on to look at other shops in town, as when there is healthy supermarket competition, the customer saves money and spends that on a few luxuries in the smaller shops of the town.

MR S LLOYD Paradise Court Leominster

Where’s it going to end?

THIS newspaper will never go on record as failing the people of Hereford. The Christmas edition really hit the jackpot big time.

On the Readers’ Times, page 23, the submissions from Sue Lindsay, John Faulkner, Elinor Kelly and Robert Waddington under “Cuts threat to libraries”

are a perfect example of this council’s shameful term of office.

On the same page from John Palmer was “Beautiful city ruined”.

Where is it going to end?

There are a number of things that come to mind when you read the letters pages every week and see so much truth expressed by so many. Where is it all going to end and where indeed will we be at the end of the day?

We have been told about the road to nowhere, we now appear to have a “bridge to nowhere” coupled to that on page 18 “Traffic system one big mess”. It goes on and on.

Council leader Johnson has a mountain to climb with no end in sight.

It comes as no surprise that traffic problems are just not confined to Hereford when we read about Barbara Ellis and her campaign about road safety.

Councillor, we are now a year on, so time is running out to get your crew together and do for Hereford what these readers’ letters suggest you should do.

One concern of mine and many more like me is of public health and this, with the closure of our local public conveniences, is of very serious worry to the local community in general.

The future of this council and of Hereford will be in the hands of the electorate in the not too distant future.

It is therefore all in your hands to do for Hereford what you were elected to do. Here is a closing thought Coun Johnson, there is much more to do for this city than what is going on around the old livestock market.

PS If it is enterprise you need, have a word with Jesse Norman.

CRAWFORD POWNEY Richard Weaver Court Geldof Grove Hereford

Leader hits out at critics

IN answer to Mr Marshall’s comments (Readers’ Times, January 16) – a route for the bypass was established and then opposed (not by Conservatives) resulting in considerable delay and the need to spend even more taxpayers’ money to re- assess and arrive at exactly the same conclusion as the first examination.

The new affordable housing he asks about will be part of the development including the link road which, itself, is part of the traffic problem solution.

This also has been consistently opposed (not by Conservatives), causing further delays.

Mr Marshall complains about there being no income from shops which have not yet been built as part of the old cattle market development. He goes on to say that the income will go to developers, perhaps oblivious to the fact that it was developers’ money, not taxpayers’ money, that will build it or that we will get income via business rates and spin-off trade plus new jobs, from which we will all benefit.

He also asserts that the whole thing was built as a result of secret planning.

Oh dear.

He then claims, without a shred of evidence, that the new cattle market is “doomed”, apparently unaware of the record sales regularly achieved there and the value/convenience to our farmers.

Mr Marshall appears to live in a county unconnected with the rest of UK when he asks, where are the reserves?

Given that we came into being with little and have only existed since 1998 the answer would be evident to all except to the deliberately blind.

With regard to the arts, libraries etc, if Mr Marshall might care to suggest where the money will come from for continued levels of present support for these, we are all ears.

This council, in the midst of the most difficult financial times in memory, is getting on with the job of looking after the vulnerable in serious positions, taking care of children at risk, investing for houses and jobs and doing what anyone with a brain knows has to be done – working to live within our means.

What has this council done? How about, city centre redevelopment, hugely successful new cattle market, new swimming pool, new crematorium, new archive centre, reduced annual running costs by over £20 million since 2011 etc. What’s left to do? Take another £33 million out of running costs by 2017 because that’s the difference between rising costs and income over that period. It would have been helpful, although unlikely, had Mr Marshall produced anything like evidence to support his assertions, but then you would not want ignorance on a subject to get in the way of mindlessly parroting what passes for informed opinion, would you?

TONY JOHNSON Leader Herefordshire Council ajohnson@herefordshire.

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