December 28th, 2010 — weather
Outside my house is a new yellow box full of grit. Ironically there’s not been much call to use it yet, but hopefully this will make Belstead Avenue into less of a skating rink, which has been due to a change in policy to encourage grit bins. I’ve also got the County Councillor to push for a grit bin in Brecon Close and I’m pushing for one in Maidenhall Green, outside the Stoke Green Baptist Church to cover the pavement.
If your street does not have the gritter visiting it, then get in touch with me about the grit bins. We can’t rely on the greenhouse effect to clear our roads. Unless we’re the Met Office.
December 14th, 2010 — Crime, Ipswich Borough Council, Maidenhall Estate
I was at the South West area forum today and it was a subdued affair, rather to be expected when you have it in the middle of the day. I had to plead quite a lot to change my hours and work at home to accommodate it. As it was in Austin Street it was great to see some old faces (including the Larters) and a couple of new people as well.
Anyway the meeting had a presentation about the Big Society, and I had a chance to buttonhole one of the decision makers who decided to decommission the Iceni project. That deserves its own post. It makes me angrier each time I learn something new about it.
The next presentation was on the gritting operation, and some of the earliest readers of this blog know that I have something to say on that. Again there will be a separate post on how to get a grit bin in your road if you are not on the gritter route. Proper Big Society stuff.
Finally there was a talk from the Police about the crime. I really appreciate the police involvement in these meetings. After the meeting I tackled the police on the issue about the vandalism in the public spaces in the Maidenhall Estate, including the Stoke Green Baptist church and the Community gardens. I was relieved to find out that this was something that the police were aware of (although it’s not one of their priorities) and that they were both treating it as more than a collection of separate incidents and they also shared my concern that this could get more serious – indeed it was already very serious.
A surprisingly productive hour and a quarter.
December 13th, 2010 — Ipswich Borough Council
From the South West Area Safer Neighbourhood Team:
South West Ipswich residents are invited to attend the Bridge Ward Social Club, Austin Street, Ipswich at 11am on Tuesday 14th December for the latest Area Forum meeting. Present will be representatives from your Safer Neighbourhood Team to listen to concerns and report back on the latest priorities and performance.
Everyone welcome.
Regards
South West Ipswich Safer Neighbourhood Team
There will also be discussions about what the Big Society means and the gritting plans.
December 12th, 2010 — weather
I understand that our County Councillor has funds allocated to her for her area, and that other County Councillors have managed to get grit bins installed in their areas. If you are on a road that is unlikely to be gritted (follow the instructions here to see if this is the case for your road) then getting a grit bin can be a good idea.
Please email me on james@bridgeward.org.uk so that I can help you through the process.
December 1st, 2010 — travel
Where’s the gritter going? Well here’s an old post that gives you instructions to find out whether your route is being gritted (I think I’ve used as many keywords as possible):
http://bridgeward.org.uk/gritted-road-routes-in-ipswich/
I’ve tried it out, it still works. It’s not very intuitive so do try to follow the instructions.
January 11th, 2010 — travel, weather
The gritting routes have now been published. To find them follow these instructions.
1. Go here:
http://suffolk.elgin.gov.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=streetworks.streetworksMap&layers=streetworks
2. Go to the “Zoom To” box
3. Choose Postcode
4. Enter your full postcode
5. On the left hand side scroll down until you get the Highway Network folder and then choose the salting routes box
If you are on a purple route you are priority 1 and you’ll have your road (not pavement) gritted reasonably frequently. If you’re on a green route you’ll be gritted quite infrequently, but still gritted. If you have no route (like I do) then there will be no gritting. None.
January 9th, 2010 — weather
Nothing seems to go right for our poor under-secretary of state for roads, trains and drains. When news of his announcement as minister of railways was given the good Lord showed what He thought by smiting Ipswich station with lightening. Now he’s on the hook for the lack of rock salt.
It seems that there was a phenomenally poor prediction and calculation of the rock salt needed. While I could get out Hayek and talk about how this failure is bound to happen, why not look at something less controversial, how rubbish the Met Office proved to be?
They are continually erring on the warm side of any medium term predictions and while this is merely annoying when they predict a “barbecue summer”, people are dying because of their poor predictions this month. Piers Corbyn, left of Labour activist and brother of ultra left wing MP Jeremy Corbyn, says that he has predicted the cold snap with far greater accuracy far in advance.
His contention is that the Met Office didn’t just believe in global warming, they really, really believed it and were prepared to predict on the basis of it. And that’s why people are dying on the roads and we don’t know whether we’ll have to ration gas through the cold snap.
This is not to say that global warming is nonsense. As the BBC and the government (or did I repeat myself?) have been telling us for the last week the weather is not the same as the climate. A pity the Met Office seems to have forgotten.
(Just to cheer you all up, Piers Corbyn reckons that the cold snap will prove more than a snap and despite a couple of warm spells go well into February.)
December 29th, 2009 — Uncategorized
On another note, to all those people who’ve been asking, the ice did clear from
Belstead Avenue.
December 24th, 2009 — travel
Why are some through routes gritted and others aren’t?
Will our road be treated?
When you phone up to warn of impending accidents and told that the road will be gritted, why isn’t it?
I think we’ve got to be honest and say that people have been very confused as to the response of Ipswich council on the gritters. But the problem is not that there isn’t a gritter up every street, it’s just we don’t know where the gritters are.
The council needs to tell people before hand whether or not there road will be gritted. This will mean that people can prepare, by for example keeping rock salt. If they want to elect someone who’s going to tax them till the pips squeak but put a gritter up every path and side road (and run out of rock salt within three days) then they can vote Labour. That’s what a democracy is.
It’s the not knowing that’s really infuriating. Both on the Ipswich Council site and the Highways department there’s no update or advice. There’s no explanations as to why no pavements are treated, even busy ones such as those leading down from Belstead Road and into Burrell Road. There’s a perception that gritting is much less than in previous years.
One of the most troubling worries is that council officials (I know that there is a taboo on publicly criticising council officials, but it needs to be done) will come down on people like a ton of bricks if they clear the road or pavement. This perception doesn’t come about by accident.
So we need to be informed of whether or not the roads and pavements we use will be gritted. We should be kept informed through the cold period as to what’s going on. And we need to be told clearly that we will not be punished for helping to maintain the safety of our streets.
I’ve just picked up this piece in the Star talking about fury at the ungritted paths. One of the more interesting comments at the bottom of the article was this:
…How about … clearing the path for yourself? No if somebody slips on the path you have cleared you will be sued. Society is caving in on itself! Compensation culture and a lack of community spirit are destroying Britain.