Entries Tagged 'Maidenhall Estate' ↓

I was at the Maidenhall Residents Association yesterday and they have been a victim of typical bureaucratic heavy handed over-reaction.  Essentially due to out of area drug users sheltering in the flats in Station Street they’ve cut the trade access to all the flats across the ward.

This makes sense near the town, for example Station Street and Vernon Street, but the Maidenhall Estate is not in the same position.  It’s a decent walk from the town and there have been few complaints of drug users sheltering down there.  This means that there’s no post, no milkman, no visitors.  If you are out in Station Street you have around twenty neighbours to buzz you in, in Maidenhall Approach you only have three.

The solution – to petition separately for each group of flats – is not practical.  So Station Street has a genuine problem and the housing department did the right thing there.  But Maidenhall Estate was happy with the current set up.  Can’t they just get it back?

This sort of one size fits all knee jerk solution is what Labour specialises in.  A Conservative led administration should do better than this,

Our councillor Phil Smart appears in the Evening Star saying that “The solution to traffic congestion is through better traffic management and the reduction of demand through better public transport.”

This is all very worthy.  However when I was at the Maidenhall Residents Association there were only two people who did not walk to this very well attended meeting, and Phil Smart was one of them.

So here’s a strategy for reducing demand – represent a ward that you live in.

Another photo of Bridge, this time it’s the Stoke Green Baptist church, where Maidenhall Hall approach  meets Halifax Road:

One thing that is fascinating about this congregation is that they are one of the oldest non-conformist cogregations in Ipswich, but unlike the Unitarians in St Nicholas street it doesn’t get on the tourist trail.

Right at the beginning of April 2007, intrepid local historian Simon Knott (of the Suffolk Churches website) decided to build a site devoted to the Ipswich Railway Station.

There are pictures of Halifax Quay, which is near the Bourne Bridge on Wherstead Road:

I do think Simon made one mistake, which was to ascribe the following to St Matthew’s underground station rather than the EUR public house in Croft Street, which closed a couple of years ago:

If you are wondering why it no longer exists, indeed why so few people talk about it the answer is in this link:

Simon Knott we salute you!

I was going through my statistics today and noticed the search Ipswich Noise Abatement Group (this blog comes first).  I rarely take these things that seriously but I thought I’d find out who’s looking at this, from the web address 80.34.174.215, and what do you know, it’s owned by Telefonica de Espana.

Looking further it seems that 11.05% of my web hits are from Spain.  Allow for the fact that this is getting low traffic (it’s a new blog, I say defensively) that’s still abnormal.  You’d expect a few people to be assigned wrongly (1.93% of my visitors are from the Republic of Moldova), but not this wrongly.

So the only people who would be interested are Uniland SA, the parent company of Southern Cement, the most offensive noise polluter in Ipswich port.

So a big Hola to all you Catalan cement makers, and please keep the noise down.

Sometimes it’s hardest to see what’s in front of your own nose. So hidden in plain view is a very important fact, Southern Cement- the people causing misery for all those people in the Hayes, in the Maidenhall Estate, on the Wherstead Road and in Chatsworth Crescent, is in fact the British subsidiary of Uniland SA, a large Spanish cement company. It was on their homepage:

http://www.southerncement.co.uk/

Southern Cement still holds itself out as quite independent saying “This gives us the benefit of independence in the UK with the support of one of Europe’s leading cement manufacturers”.

They were bought out in 2004, not long after they started, although there doesn’t seem to be any press mention of Uniland, which makes it sounds a lot more British.

In fact, according to their results, they make up rougly 1-2% of the turnover and employees of the group.

So not only are they disturbing our sleep two weeks in three they are not even the British based independent that they claim to be.

No wonder they are happy to crank up the noise pollution, they don’t just not live in this town – they don’t even live in this country.

The People’s Community Garden (or the Maidenhall Allotments) will be having a free Art in the Garden event on Saturday 10am to 3.30 pm as part of the IP Art program.

See here for details:

http://www.ip-art.com/event_listing_details.php?id=62

I have heard reports that the Southern Cement landing crew is ready to start up again.

If you are disturbed by an incessant high pitched noise then please make sure you ring the environmental health department on 01473 433115 or email environmentalprotection@ipswich.gov.uk as soon as you are disturbed.  This is especially the case at night as it is necessary to give a case that this is producing a statutory nuisance.

It would be helpful if you could additionally email me on james@bridgeward.org.uk if you are having any problems.

The People’s Community Garden (or the Maidenhall Allotments) will be having a free Art in the Garden event on 4th June 10am to 3.30 pm as part of the IP Art program.

See here for details:

http://www.ip-art.com/event_listing_details.php?id=62

If you’re not from the area, then here’s a map:

http://www.ip-art.com/event_listing_details.php?id=62

Should prove useful for our councillors.