tenthofjune

The Horwich Morris Men performed their annual parade around Horwich today to celebrate St.George’s Day, but thanks to the sad compensation-led state of our legal system, Police will no longer organise rolling roadblocks, so roads must be closed ‘for safety reasons’.

Horwich Morris Men make their way down Church Street from the Brown Cow

Fortunately, rather than canceling the event, the organisers decided to continue but stick to the pavements.

According to the Bolton News, teams who were due to take part included: Wrigley Head, Mossley and Saddleworth morris men, Ripon City and the Britannia Coconut Dancers, from Bacup.

Saddleworth Morris Men performing outside the Bridge Inn

Bolton Council make recycling collections on a fortnightly basis. Addresses are assigned to a Blue or a Yellow week. You can check which week you are on at their Sort-it website, but it fails to tell you one very important piece of information: which weeks are blue and which are yellow. They do include a calendar hidden inside the free council propaganda newspaper ‘Bolton Scene’, but many people will have binned this as soon as it dropped through the door and therefore lost the calendar.

When we moved in last year, I emailed the council to ask which weeks were which and they very helpfully emailed back a well formatted excel spreadsheet showing blue days. This begs the question why this spreadsheet is not available for download on the Sort-It website.

Here, therefore, is a calendar for 2008 showing blue and yellow weeks.

I have since found links to poor quality scanned PDFs on Bolton Council’s own blue and yellow calendars on the normal council website. Why these are missing from the Sort-It site is still a mystery.

According to the Bolton News, Officers from TV Licensing have chosen the 31st October (Halloween) to target the homes of people who have failed to pay up.

I don’t know what kind of twisted logic they have used to come up with that idea. Of all the days in the year, I would say that Halloween is the single most likely night NOT to open the front door.

I’m curious…

How many pieces of silver did it take for Bolton Council to betray the people of Bolton to the Manchester Congestion Tax?

No doubt, they are labouring under the delusion that “we’ll get a share of the money, but it won’t affect Bolton�. Well, it might not affect the councillors who work in Bolton, but it certainly will affect thousands of council tax paying, (and don’t forget voting) residents of Bolton who do work inside the M60. A clear case of “I’m alright Jack�.

Flawed

The congestion charge scheme is flawed for one very important reason: it wrongly assumes that motorists have a choice. We don’t. We still have to get to work, but the public transport alternatives simply do not exist. This is not London who enjoy a co-ordinated transport system, we instead have the GMPTA. It is therefore nothing more than an additional tax on the motorist. The motorist has already paid several times over in the form of road tax and one of the highest fuel duties in Europe. It is not our fault that successive governments have squandered this money rather than using it to provide a decent public transport system.

Since I work flexitime, it would seem sensible to alter my hours from 8am-4pm to 10am-6pm to try to avoid the charge and ease congestion, but since the evening charging period lasts until 6:30pm, it is clear that the GMPTA’s aim is to maximise income rather than ease congestion.

Expect queues of parked cars just before 9:30am around Manchester, as people hang back before crossing the M60, then an increase in speeding and road rage just before 4pm as drivers race to get out before the charging period starts. This along with several other issues were put to the representatives of the GMPTA at a Salford Chamber of Commerce meeting – not a single question could be answered.

Before anyone compares me to Jeremy Clarkson, I would point out that I would love to use public transport to get to work. I live around the corner from Blackrod station, and work right next door to Clifton Station. The journey time should be around 25 minutes, except for the fact that only one train stops at Clifton each morning. In order to connect with this train, I would have to leave Blackrod the night before. I have contacted GMPTA regarding this lack of service, but it is clear from the excuses in their replies that they have no intention of rectifying the situation.

Metrolink? What Metrolink?

Finally, much hype is being made of money being used to extend Metrolink. Since Bolton is one of the few areas that will never benefit from this, why should we be forced to pay the same as other areas who have the option of using it?

An edited version of this post has been published as a letter in the Bolton News.

I was relieved to read in the Bolton News that the ridiculous chicanes installed on Crown Lane in Horwich, are to be removed.

The full details of the decision can be read here, but the summary reads:

Residents of Crown Lane/Station Road have had a longstanding concern about the speed of all traffic and volume of heavy goods vehicles, using this route. In August 2006, following a consultation and public meeting to discuss the options, an experimental scheme was introduced in the form of two chicanes and a 7.5 tonne weight limit. At the end of the first six months of operation, local residents were consulted to determine their views on the operation of the scheme. This report summarises and comments on the concerns expressed, both in response to the introduction of the scheme, and in response to the consultation. Having considered the comments made in response to the latest consultation and by those who have submitted formal objections in writing, the Director of Environmental Services recommends the Executive Member to agree to the removal of the chicanes on Crown Lane, Horwich, to the north of Vale Avenue and on Station Road, Blackrod, at the M61 motorway bridge. The Director further recommends that the Planning and Highways Committee be requested to confirm the Experimental 7.5 tonne Weight Limit as a permanent Order.

Not before time! This is not some back road being used as a rat-run, it is a classified road (the B5238) and forms a vital link between Horwich and Blackrod (and the A6). You only have to look at the chaos caused when the A6 was closed by roadworks, the alternate route via Chorley New Road and De Havilland Way ground to a halt.

If traffic calming is required, then two mini roundabouts at Vale Avenue and Moss Lane would achieve this, (Moss Lane is going to be getting a lot busier, since the Council approved the building of a large number of apartments there), but that would of course cost a lot more money.

I drove past the new Spirit of Sport sculpture next to the Reebok Stadium this morning.

For something that’s supposed to be 21ft higher than the Angel of the North, it doesn’t look very tall, although the Angel of the North is raised up on a hill, rather than stuck in the middle of a roundabout.

Add to that the fact that this has cost over 300,000 pounds, not including the numerous times Bolton Council have dug up the surrounding road, changing the dual carriageway to three lanes and now back to two, causing traffic chaos and delays in the process. This, at a time when the council are whinging that they are 400,000 pounds short on the roads budget. No doubt, someone will point out that the money for the sculpture has come from some different pot, but it doesn’t solve the fact that money has been wasted on the surrounding roads for this.