The Liberal Democrats' week started well with Jennie Brent, the Independent councillor for the Eastney & Craneswater Ward of Portsmouth City Council joining the Liberal Democrats and the Portsmouth City LD Group. Jennie had left the Conservatives early in the Summer when she became an Independent.
Like many delegates Nick and Rosemarie from Tring combined participation in the Liberal Democrat Conference with visits to rellies and a short holiday. They went down by train - taking a car to Brighton is a crazy thing to do - stayed in a convenient sea front hotel and had some excellent meals.
At Dacorum Full Council on 26th September, Conservatives were keen to talk about improving household recycling until Lib Dem Councillor Adrian England pointed "over the fence" at how much more next door councils are already achieving. In questions to Cllr Janice Marshall, Cllr England asked: "Does the Portfolio-holder agree with me that, as good as it is to see incremental progress on recycling there is still low-hanging fruit to be picked? Our neighbours in Liberal Democrat controlled Three Rivers DC have been over 10% ahead of Dacorum on this for at least the last five years! How long is the Council prepared to wait before making a serious attempt to reach AT LEAST 60% - can Councillor Marshall give us a year?" The Conservative Cabinet member was unwilling to commit.. Background: In 2014 Dacorum introduced its new recycling system, designed to take advantage of technology which made recycling easier to process. Official "Waste Data Flow" figures show that this had an initial impact of 2.8% points in 20
The news of the closure of the Bellgate Post Office will be a serious blow to the Highfield Community. Many local residents have relied on its services to avoid going into town. Older residents, and those not on the internet, will be hard hit as they rely on the local post office to pay bills, transfer money and perform numerous other transactions that others take for granted.
I think we can now be very clear that the future for cars and light vans could easily be electric. The following posting is based on a report published on the https://www.nextgreencar.com web site.
WATTON-AT-STONE (East Hertfordshire District Council) 23rd August, 2018 By-Election Result:
Tring Fire Station held a well-attended Open Day last Saturday, 4th August, 2018. However, during that time they had to send both engines out - one to deal with an electrical fire in Berkhamsted and the second to a separate incident elsewhere. Both despatches were handled with speed and efficiency and the first engine returned only just after the second had left. The Open Day was able to proceed without interruption with at least one engine present for the visitors to examine for most of the day.
On Saturday 4 August work was going with a swing at the Tring & District Community Centre in Silk Mill Way.
As the first tram-train project in the UK the constuction of the Rotherham to Sheffield Line was never going to be a particularly easy.It was designed to run partly on the type of rails used on the Sheffield SuperTram System and partly on existing Network Rail "heavy rail" track. There were various interactions to be considered apart from the rails, such as power systems, signalling, communications and control equipment.
County Councils are about more than just potholes! As Northamptonshire has show, county councils are also about good governance and financial prudence.
The new HS2 railway line, when it is extended to Leeds and Manchester, is currently estimated to cost £56 billion. To put this into context it is roughly the cost of keeping the NHS going for about 6 months. However, while the NHS benefits everyone (at least potentially) the benefits of HS2 are restricted mainly to the travellers along the lines. The headline benefit is that it will reduce the journey time between London Euston and Birmingham by 49 minutes. Indirect benefits are that it will take traffic off the West Coast Main Line and potentially increase capacity for people commuting into London and provide more longer distance services from stations like Watford Junction. This will also enable Crossrail to be extended up the West Coast Main Line to Tring and possible onwards to Milton Keynes. HS2 Phase 1 services are due to start in 2026.
