Hi James,

The high pitch noise started at 12am last night and its know 6.36 and appears to be getting louder. It’s starting to drive me nuts. What exactly is making the noise a siren or a piece of machinery?

Please let me know on james@bridgeward.org.uk

An earth embankment is being built at Ipswich’s docks to protect homes and businesses from flooding.

The Environment Agency is spending £1m on the defences behind homes on Wherstead Road and through the West Bank Terminal.

The earth bank aims to protect homes against a one-in-100-year tide and storm surge.

Well done to Des Pawson and the Wherstead Road Residents Association, and also to Ben Gummer who has been obsessing about this – the first time I remember him talking about an issue in Bridge was when he was telling me I really should put something in my leaflets about flood defences on Wherstead Road.

Whatever you think of the Gummeristic obsession with global warming this is a real achievement.

I’ve been saying, both on this blog and whenever someone’s asked me, that Phil Smart is someone who is dedicated to public transport and who really cares about that issue.  The problem that I have with him, and another councillor, is that they see Bridge as a platform and not an end in itself.  It’s very easy when you don’t live there.

Consider this, from the council agenda for Wednesday:

To consider the following motion moved by Councillor P Smart:

This Council notes with concern the decision of Suffolk County Council to close Bury Road Park and Ride and calls on the Executive of Ipswich Borough Council to work with local bus operators and others to establish a replacement service from this site.”

This will involve quite a considerable amount of money being spent on Norwich Road bus routes.  This may be a perfectly good thing for a councillor who represents the Norwich Road area to be doing, but this is money that Suffolk or Ipswich will not have to help Wherstead Road, which has a far more pressing issue with the buses.  The most frustrating thing about this is that Wherstead Road would need very little extra money, instead needing  co-ordination with the bus companies to space out their services.  Something that stupid EU regulations insist that  councillors need to be involved in.

Park and Ride is very nice, but shouldn’t there be some focus closer to home?  Or failing that, closer to your ward?

Related articles

• Suffolk: Bus routes face the axe (eadt.co.uk)
• Council to ‘outsource everything’ (bbc.co.uk)

This is from a written question tabled by Ben Gummer:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to assist competing bus companies to reach cooperative agreements to provide regular services on (a) Wherstead Road in Ipswich constituency and (b) other routes with an identified need.

And here’s the answer from Norman Baker, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Regional and Local Transport:

The regulatory framework for buses permits co-operative agreements between bus operators as long as certain conditions are met. We have seen good results in places where local authorities and operators work effectively in partnership to improve bus services-such as in Brighton, York and Cambridge.

While it is the role of Government to set this framework and encourage more of this type of activity for the benefit of bus passengers in Ipswich and elsewhere it is up to local authorities and communities to make it happen. This might be a local authority making a statutory quality bus partnership scheme, as in Nottingham, or instead endorsing a qualifying agreement between two operators, as in Oxford.

Ultimately, however, it is for commercial operators to decide whether to run services such as the route 66 bus in Ipswich, and at what frequency. If a service is not considered commercially viable, a local authority can decide it wishes to tender for and support a replacement service, or discuss with the local community alternative forms of transport provision.

Of course it is for commercial operators to decide what routes they should operate, and the irony here is that First actually created a demand where it had previously been limited.  However if the current services were better spaced out (which would involve some collusion) then there would be a more reliable service, without the need for a subsidy.  European anti-competitive rules are really hampering us here.

Come on Suffolk, get your act together!

On Friday 5th November at 5.30pm on Wherstead Road, Ipswich a female was walking along when she felt someone tugging at her handbag, she turned around to find a male forcefully trying to pull her handbag from her, she shouted at him to let go and he ran off empty handed.

The male was described as a white male, clean-shaven, approximately 5 foot 10 inches of slim build and he was wearing a black shell suit type top with a white ribbon effect on it and a hood.

Were you in the area at the time, did you see anything suspicious? Do you know the name of the offender? If you have any information please contact Suffolk Police on 01473 613500 quoting reference IW/10/4944.

Usually it’s been quiet, but there has been a complaint along Wherstead Road. Hopefully it’s not going to travel and it won’t hbe around tonight.

Here’s hoping – I’m not keen on doing more leaflets. (For the record it’s been great so far.)

Between 9pm on Wednesday 1st September & 11.10am on Thursday 2nd September a Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on Wherstead Road in Ipswich had a window smashed and two portable DVD players were stolen from inside.

Were you in the area between these times, did you see anyone acting suspiciously around the vehicle? If you have any information about this theft please contact Ipswich police on 01473 613500 quoting reference IW/10/3938

Or

Please use the following link to pass any useful information to Suffolk Police about this incident.

http://www.suffolk.police.uk/News+And+Appeals/Report+Information+To+The+Police/Tell+The+Police.htm

DO NOT USE THIS LINK IN AN EMERGENCY OR IN A SITUATION THAT REQUIRES AN IMMEDIATE POLICE RESPONSE WHEN YOU SHOULD RING 999.

Police Direct Team

The Evening Star now has a crime map of Ipswich, if you want to know whether there’s a spate of crime in your local area:

It predicts that Wherstead Road is going to have to close down more frequently due to flooding. Which rather begs the question as to why the Labour Party has always opposed a relief road. Hopefully they’ll stop that now that Bridge is no longer a safe Labour seat. Let’s hope in this case that Wherstead Road is not once again sacrificed as a sure fire electoral bet for Labour to be sacrificed for more marginal wards.

I’ll be back on this later, but it is important for anyone in this part of Ipswich that we keep on top of this, even those of us who live on high ground as we’ll be regularly cut off without some real action.

In the meantime the relevant part of the Shoreline Management Plan is here (it’s in PDF format so you may need to download Adobe) :

https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal/re/flood/anglian/smp150310/consult?pointId=1267547879064