Author Archives: gambba

Too many drivers speeding where we live

Posted on by • Posted in Everyday life, Spalding, Spalding Wygate ward • Tagged , , , , , , • 2 Comments

Below is the detailed report from Lincs Road Safety Partnership, following the traffic speed surveys I requested on Wygate Park and Park Road in Spalding. Although the numbers of speeding vehicles is relatively low compared to the overall numbers checked, it’s still extremely disappointing to see the numbers in the hundreds. R U 1 of these?

I now have the results of the Archer survey carried out on Wygate Park and Park Rd at Spalding.

In relation to Wygate Park a survey was carried out on Wygate Park near the junction with Law Court monitoring traffic flow in both directions.

Over a five day period a total of 13,713 vehicles were checked 9,992 of these vehicles were travelling towards the town centre. Of vehicles travelling towards the town centre 442 vehicles (4.4%) were travelling at a speed where a speed awareness course would be an appropriate course of action. 189 vehicles (1.9%) were found to be travelling at a speed where prosecution would be an appropriate course of action.

Vehicles travelling towards the A151 21 vehicles ( 3.4%) were travelling at a speed where a speed awareness course would be an appropriate course of action. 25 vehicles (0.6%) were found to be travelling where prosecution would be an appropriate course of action.

In relation to Park Rd the survey was carried outside 214, Park Rd monitoring traffic flow in both directions. Over a five day period a total of 26,095 were checked 10,479 were travelling towards Spalding town centre and 15,616 travelling towards Pinchbeck Rd.

Vehicles travelling towards the town centre 107 (6.1%) were travelling at a speed where a speed awareness course would be an appropriate course of action. 36 vehicles (2.1%) were found to be travelling at a speed where prosecution would have been an appropriate course of action.

Vehicles travelling towards Pinchbeck Rd 286(11.0%) were travelling at a speed where a speed awareness course would be an appropriate course of action. 189 vehicles (7.1%) were travelling at a speed where a prosecution would be an appropriate course of action.

I realise the survey results may not support your impression of vehicles speed using these roads indicated by your correspondence. However, I deal with many complaints relating to speeding and I find ‘Speeding’ is both a very emotive and perceptive subject. To one person speeding may simply mean exceeding a given speed limit,when to another speeding may mean travelling too fast for the conditions whilst staying within the speed limit.

An indication of whether drivers are using a road too fast for conditions is its collision history. I have checked the collision database of all collisions recorded on Wygate Park and Park Rd with eight slight injury collisions on Park Rd and two slight injury collisions for the last three years and out of the ten slight injury collisions none can be attributed to speed.

The aim of the Lincolnshire Road Safety is to try and reduce the amount of fatalities which is distressful for those involved, however caused in the county but we put our resources into the area’s that have high collision figures and a high recorded data in relation to drivers ignoring the speed limit for the road their on. With the ultimate aim to make the roads safer in the whole county.

I will pass on the results of the survey to the local neighbourhood policing team for them to take any action that they feel is necessary during the the course of their patrol.

More weasel words on Overseas Aid budget farce

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How much longer do British taxpayers have to suffer cuts whilst their hard earned cash continues to flow into countries that are more than able to pay to look after their own citizens, but just don’t want to? They must be laughing their heads off every time they cash our cheque.

And the sternest statement our MPs can make on this scandal? ‘Tory MPs want Britain to use the meeting to call for bigger contributions from other countries’. WRONG! The British people want the British Government to stop lording it around on the world stage and cut these contributions without further delay.

British aid supports schemes in Iran and China
By Colin Freeman Sunday Telegraph 7 Oct 2012

FRESH concerns over Britain’s spending on foreign aid were raised last night as it was disclosed that the country is helping support projects in Iran and China. The Department for International Development (DfID) is a key supporter of the World Bank, set up to help develop poorer countries.
The bank, established after the Second World War, is funded by developed countries to provide capital to lend on interest-free or easy terms to poorer countries, and to use as collateral to raise further funds on the international money markets.
It also provides grants from cash given by donor countries, of which Britain is fifth largest, behind America, Japan, Germany and France. However, the level of aid given to the World Bank raised new worries last night over how aid funds are spent, and there is also concern over some of the bank’s loan schemes.
Inquiries by The Telegraph found a number of projects that bore only limited relevance to Britain’s development goals. They include:

• £50 million in loans for a road safety campaign to improve Iran’s appalling road accident rate. The country’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, holds a PhD in traffic management.

• A £30 million loan towards the cost of a Confucius “cultural heritage protection” project in China.

• £122,000 for a “radio reality format” project to encourage women in central India to use water more efficiently.

Last year DfID contributed £953.4 million to the bank. In stark contrast, China gave only £98 million in 2010, while Russia gave just £70 million. Additionally, Britain is still giving aid to “middle income” countries through its contributions, despite the Government’s recent pledge to restrict handouts to only the neediest nations.
In a major review of aid 18 months ago, ministers promised a “tighter focus” on 27 of the poorest nations. However, among those in receipt of World Bank grants are Moldova, Cambodia and Kosovo, which were on a list of 16 countries for which DfID stopped direct funding.
The three receive grants totalling £56 million from the World Bank’s International Development Association, a fund to which Britain paid £2.64 billion – 12 per cent of the total – in the last round of contributions in 2010. On that basis, roughly £7.6 million of the grants to Moldova, Cambodia and Kosovo came from the British taxpayer.
The money is part of the 0.7 per cent of national income that Britain spends on overseas aid, which critics say must either be reduced or more carefully monitored. The lack of control that Britain has over how its foreign aid budget is spent by international bodies was highlighted by The Telegraph last week, when it was revealed that British aid cash channelled through the European Union is being spent on projects such as tourism parks in Iceland and energy-efficient holiday complexes in Morocco.
This week, the World Bank will hold its annual meeting in Tokyo, when talks will start on the next round of handouts, due to be finalised next year. Tory MPs want Britain to use the meeting to call for bigger contributions from emerging economies, especially if they want a greater say in the bank’s affairs.
“As a layman, I would have imagined that the voting rights should follow the money,” said Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley. “By anybody’s standards, we appear to be overpaying relative to other countries, and it is more than we can afford in this time of austerity.”
A DfID spokesman said the Government had not made any decisions about its future contribution to the World Bank’s aid programmes. But he added: “We are committed to a faster programme towards poverty reduction worldwide – this includes pushing other countries to increase their contributions.”

Andrew Mitchell – nasty as well as arrogant

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Hardly a surprise to find out that this man is a ‘nasty’ piece of work as a career choice. No wonder he was chosen to be the chief whip. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t get rewarded by Cameron, rather than being punished, as a way of sending a message to the Party’s rebellious back benchers.

From today’s Daily Telegraph – POLITICS
How I felt the full force of chief whip’s rage, by volunteer, 21
By Steven Swinford

THE Conservative Chief Whip accused of insulting a Downing Street police officer flew into a rage with a young party volunteer who was critical of an aid trip to Africa, it was claimed last night.
Lucy Kinder said she received an angry telephone call from Andrew Mitchell when, as a 21 year-old, she drafted a newspaper article about a Conservative Party trip to teach English to Rwandan teachers in August 2009.
She claimed that Mr Mitchell accused her of betraying his trust before contacting her father and saying that he “did not blame” party members for threatening his daughter with violence.
Miss Kinder, now a trainee journalist with The Telegraph, was invited on Project Umubano after doing work experience in Mr Mitchell’s private office. She was one of 100 volunteers who paid up to £2,000 each to go on the trip, led by a delegation of senior Tory MPs including Mr Mitchell, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Nick Hurd. While not a Conservative Party member herself, she wanted to improve the lives of Rwandans and told organisers that she planned to write an article about her experience.
On arrival, Miss Kinder said the group faced an uphill struggle. She claimed that they were given just one day’s training and the Rwandan teachers did not receive an allowance from the country’s education ministry as promised to cover their food and travel. This meant that they had to walk up to 10 miles each morning to attend class. The ministry eventually gave them a lump sum, but only after the course had ended, she said. In an article submitted to The Independent newspaper, Miss Kinder wrote: “I found myself in a class of 45 who could barely speak a word of English. Progress was frustrating and the ministry of education did little to make this easier. It made a mockery of our fortnight. We have been instructing teachers who were hungry, tired and disillusioned.”
She praised the volunteers’ enthusiasm and the Conservative Party for the “impressive feat” of attracting so many to Rwanda. Mr Mitchell, however, was unimpressed. After learning of the draft article, he telephoned Miss Kinder at around midnight when she was on a coach journey to Zanzibar.
“He was furious,” she said. “He accused me of going behind his back and betraying the Conservative Party. He told me he couldn’t believe I had written such a damaging article and that he would make sure it wouldn’t be published. I tried to tell him it was a first draft and could be changed, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Mr Mitchell then allegedly called Miss Kinder’s father, with whom he had studied at Cambridge. “He said, ‘You know your daughter is writing this story? I can’t believe you would let her do that,’ said Miss Kinder. “He was really, really angry. He then sent him a text which said, ‘They are threatening her with physical violence and I can’t say I blame them.’”
Miss Kinder, now 25, said she felt intimidated and was forced to leave the group on her own when they arrived in Zanzibar for a week’s break.
A friend of Mr Mitchell said: “The volunteer was the daughter of one of his oldest friends. Yes, Andrew was angry but what he said was quite obviously figurative and he does not believe it could have been taken in any other way.”
A Conservative Party official said: “Hundreds of MPs and activists have worked on Project Umubano under Andrew Mitchell and this is the only time anyone has ever complained. There are two sides to every story, suffice to say that a lot of people felt very let down by this volunteer’s behaviour.”

Rubbish recycling companies are playing dirty

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An important letter to all local authorities from the Local Government Association.

Judicial review of Waste Regulation: Recent press coverage

Dear Colleague,

As you may be aware, there is an important judicial review case currently under way involving a challenge to the current legal basis for waste and recycling collection.

The claimants in that case – UK Recyclate and a number of other recycling contractors – want some councils to be forced to change their arrangements at significant cost. The LGA is also a party to the case and is arguing that councils are legally entitled to retain a level of discretion to choose the appropriate arrangements for their areas.

A recent article in the Municipal Journal (MJ) by the claimants contains a number of factual inaccuracies and misleading statements. It appears to be designed to spread misinformation and persuade local authorities that the judicial review has already been decided and that they are at legal risk. The case has not been decided, and the purpose of this letter is to put the record straight.

What is at issue in the judicial review (UK Recyclate v Defra) is whether EU law requires every council to impose separate source collection of waste on its householders, outlawing co-mingled collection, or whether it permits co-mingling in appropriate cases. As you know, every local area is very different, and being forced to change to a single collection approach could have significant cost implications for many councils, and may well not be appropriate in many local circumstances.

The Government has recently made amended regulations in order to put the legal position beyond any doubt. Those regulations continue to allow for co-mingled collection where appropriate for local circumstances. They are the law of the land unless a court says otherwise. The LGA’s lawyers, and the Government’s, believe this approach is correct under EU law.

In the recent MJ article, the claimants’ lawyers attempt to tell councils that a judgment has already been made by the court and that councils which use co-mingled waste collection are now in a legally dubious position. This simply isn’t so. The judicial review is ongoing, but as yet there has been no hearing before a judge, and no finding made by the court.

As you will know, it is unusual for parties to litigation to run their arguments outside the courtroom while the case is ongoing. The MJ article therefore appears to be an attempt by the claimants to stir up local authority concern before the case even gets to a hearing, and suggests that they are arguing from a position of weakness.

It is of course in the commercial interest of the claimants that councils should move away from co-mingled collection. The LGA’s strong view is that the law permits councils discretion to make their own decisions in the light of local circumstances and in accordance with the clear legal provision made by the amended regulations.

Councils should certainly not be influenced by an inaccurate and misleading article written on behalf of parties with an obvious commercial agenda.

You may be asking yourself if there is anything you can do to influence the situation. The LGA is a party to the case and if you would like to follow events more closely and contribute, should the need arise, to developing evidence further, please do put an officer in contact with Abigail.burridge@local.gov.uk.

The LGA has also communicated with your officers about this case and will be happy to provide further information on the position.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Mike Jones
Chairman of the LGA Environment and Housing Board

Personal note: I trust that when the dust has settled on this issue, all local authorities will consider very carefully, whether or not the companies involved in this legal action would make good partners in any future ventures.

Modified car enthusiasts bite back

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Several responses to my post on the fallout following the modified car meeting, none of them very happy with my comments. One of them, was a well balanced and passionate plea for a better understanding of those who genuinely enjoy modifying their cars.

Another took the time to criticise my poor grammar, but offered little else. The third one suggested that I should have, or is it of?, been criticising the police for allowing the meeting to go ahead.

Having stirred up these enthusiasts, I suppose I should at least apologise for some of my more sweeping statements and also for classifying them all universally as boy and girl racers. However, I hope they will in turn accept that they were bound to stir up a s**t storm of protest by doing what they did in the first place – taking over a town centre car park without any form of permission.

I was going to suggest that if this had been a rally for mobility scooter enthusiasts, the response would have been very different. However, thinking about the bad behaviour of many of these people on our streets and footpaths, I’m not so sure. So let’s use mothers showing off their baby buggies as the example. Whilst the owners of the car park may have been slightly miffed at the uninvited takeover, the general public would probably have responded by saying, what’s the harm?

Unfortunately for the modified car enthusiasts, they come with a significant amount of baggage when it comes to public perception. Not least the belief of non-enthusiasts, such as myself, that they are all boy and girl racers at heart. Right or wrong, the simple act of congregating in a town centre location, to display the most obvious badge of the boy and girl racer fraternity – the soup-up motor car – was always going to create a negative response from the general population.

Can I therefore suggest that in future, if modified car enthusiasts don’t want to be pilloried in the local press again and see all the good stuff they do for charity ignored, they don’t takeover town centre car parks without notice. Also, if the local press is to be believed, it would also appear that a lot of litter was left behind, a particular bug-bear of mine and something that definitely winds me up.

It would also be nice if they could convince the less socially responsible boy and girl racer element of the modified car enthusiast brigade, to stop peeing off the rest of us!

Modified car rally – the acceptable face of boy and girl racers?

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Outrage at car park takeover by modified car meet, followed by outrage at biased and unfair treatment of modified car owners meet in local press!

Those outraged modified car owners seem to have conveniently forgotten that they didn’t have any sort of permission to takeover the private car park they invaded for their meeting. They’ve also ignored the fact that those people who are unhappy about this coming together, we’re not really expressing their unhappiness at the car park takeover, but much more about the anti-social behaviour they have experienced involving modified car drivers – generally known as boy racers and more recently, girl racers.

I would also of been very interested to see how many of these vehicles were sporting the illegal number plates so many of these car drivers seem to treasure – or is that yet another illegal act they consider to be okay?

If these car enthusiasts really want to improve their reputation with the general population and not continue to be seen as anti-social yobs, then I suggest they clean up their act and encourage the bad eggs amongst their ranks to stop wheel spinning and speeding around our local streets and car parks at any opportunity they get.

If there are any modified car drivers reading this and muttering about the many being condemned by the behaviour of the few – tough. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and paddles about in water, then it’s probably a duck!

P.S. – While you’re at it, see if you can get our local Royal Mail van drivers to act more responsibly when driving around our local streets

Does this remind you of anybody you know?

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Reproduced with thanks from The Daily Telegraph 15 August 2012

Confidence is key to success, but don’t trip on your ego

By Hannah Furness

THE secret to career success is not talent, hard work or education, but sheer, unashamed confidence, a study has suggested.

Although workers with big egos will often perform poorly and make more mistakes, their colleagues consistently fail to spot their errors and continue to believed they are “terrific” or “beloved”.
Their personality means they are often promoted over those who are more competent, as colleagues mistake their confidence for talent.

A study of more than 500 students, academics and workers, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, showed that those who appeared more confident achieved a higher social status than their peers.

Within a work environment, higher-status individuals tended to be more admired, listened to, and had more sway over group decisions.

Prof Cameron Anderson of the University of California, who led the research, said that, as a result, “incompetent people are often promoted over their more competent peers”. He said those who were overconfident often sought power, fame or success and that overconfidence was encouraged by the prospect of increased social status, respect and esteem.

“Our studies found overconfidence helped people attain social status,” he said. “Those who believed they were better than others, even when they weren’t, were given a higher place in the social ladder, and the motivation to attain higher social status therefore triggered overconfidence.”
The researchers found that many of their subjects believed sincerely that they were more physically talented, socially adept and skilled at their jobs than reality reflected. In one study, 94 per cent of college professors were found to believe that their work was above average.

Prof Anderson said: “In organisations, people are very easily swayed by others’ confidence even when that confidence is unjustified. Displays of confidence are given an inordinate amount of weight.”
In a series of six experiments, the researchers found evidence that companies should be sceptical of individuals’ confidence. In one test, they found overconfident individuals talked more and participated more extensively in group tasks, even when they were less competent.

In another experiment, a general knowledge test, those who made loud claims to know the right answers were held in highest regard, even when they got the answers wrong.

Prof Anderson, of the university’s Berkeley Haas School of Business, said: “Group members did not think of their high status peers as overconfident, but simply that they were terrific.”

Two final studies found it was the desire for status that encouraged people to be overconfident.
The study, entitled A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence, concluded: “The individuals among us who are elevated to positions of status wield undue influence, have access to more resources, get better information, and enjoy a variety of benefits.

“Although we may seek to choose wisely, we are often forced to rely on proxies for ability, such as individuals’ confidence. In so doing we, as a society, create incentives for those who would seek status to display more confidence than their actual ability merits.”

Fly tipping initiative

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Reproduced from: http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/index.php

Wednesday, 01 August 2012 14:38
Joining forces against fly-tipping
Written by Ruralcity Media

LANDOWNERS have joined forces with a local authority to make it easier to remove fly-tipped waste from private land.
The partnership between the Country Land and Business Association and Suffolk County Council aims to solve waste issues at a local level.
It builds on work already undertaken by the local authority on tackling trade waste.
CLA president Harry Cotterell said: “It costs around £800 to deal with each incidence of non-toxic fly-tipped waste on private land.
“Although we would like to see waste taken to local tips free of charge, we understand this is unlikely without a change in the law.
“However, the partnership with Suffolk County Council should help identify the barriers preventing fly-tipping from being dealt with.
“There must be a long-term sustainable solution, so we are pleased Defra is seeking to provide funding for the joint effort and, if successful, the outcome could be rolled out to other local authorities.”
One idea the CLA is keen to explore is a ticketing scheme for victims that uses a reference number to trace the crime, from the point of reporting the fly-tipping to the police or local authority to disposing of it at the local tip.
Mr Cotterell added: “The CLA will also continue to lobby the government to remove the potential for landowners to be prosecuted purely because they have not removed waste tipped on their land.”
The partnership was announced at a recent government summit on fly-tipping, chaired by Defra minster Lord Taylor of Holbeach.
The summit was a key government commitment to bring organisations across all sectors together to galvanise support for regional action on fly-tipping.
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Seb Coe for ……?

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The Conservativehome website has a post suggesting that Sebastian Coe should be considered as a successor to Boris Johnson as the next London Mayor.

Let’s not get carried away. Sebastian Coe was found wanting as an MP and would be even more out of his depth as a replacement for Boris Johnson.

There’s been a few banana skins for him as the face of the Games, not least his dismissive approach to the tickets farce. It’s extremely fortunate that much else has been so good and that the security issue was saved by the intervention of the military, as well as all the good feedback heard about the volunteers, who it appears are well named as, Games Makers.

Will we ever know the full story on how much the London Games owe to the role of Seb Coe? I somehow doubt it, these things have a way of taking on a life of their own and turn into a fog of myth and hype, that can propel people into roles that often prove beyond their capabilities. Which of course takes us full circle to Coe’s selection as an MP; too much hype and not nearly enough substance seems to have been the propellant there.

Forget the mayoral job and just make him a saint, he’ll do far less harm.

Bin the bags everybody

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Prompted by the CPRE, I have written to John Hayes asking for his support to address the plastic bag blight our public spaces suffers.

John Hayes MP
South Holland and The Deepings House of Commons
London SW1A0AA

I am writing to ask for your support on the important issue of single-use carrier bags.

Last year was the second in a row to see an increase in the use of single-use bags. In 2011 a total of eight billion ‘thin-gauge’ bags were issued throughout the UK, which represents a 5.4% increase compared with 2010 (7.8 billion). I am very concerned that all of the net growth occurred in England, particularly as England remains the sole home nation not to have a single-use bag levy in place or to be actively seeking to introduce one.

Single-use plastic bags are wasteful of resources and all too often end up as litter, which takes hundreds of years to biodegrade, whether on land or at sea; strewn in our towns, countryside or beaches they are an eyesore, and often a hazard to wildlife.

In 2011, when commenting on 2010 plastic bag use, the Prime Minister said: “Progress overall went backwards last year, and that is unacceptable. Retailers need to do better. I want to see significant falls again. I know that retailers want to do better too but if they don’t I will be asking them to explain why not.”

Locally, I have tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade our local Co-op shop to stop giving out plastic bags as a matter of course, as these have proven to be one of the most significant and obvious causes of local littering. A legally enforced charge, would be a huge step to achieving my ambition for our community.

In October 2011, Wales introduced a levy of 5p per plastic bag. Since then retailers have reported a drop in plastic bag usage of between 70-96%, while Welsh public support for the levy grew to 70%. When Ireland introduced a plastic bag levy in 2002, plastic bag use fell by 90%, as did the amount of litter.

I strongly support the Break the Bag Habit campaign run by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Keep Britain Tidy, the Marine Conservation Society and Surfers Against Sewage, which calls on the Government to reduce litter and waste by requiring retailers to introduce a levy on all new single-use bags.

Please raise my concerns with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline Spelman MP, and urge her to introduce a levy on single-use carrier bags in line with the successful actions being taken in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so that England is not left behind.

Yours sincerely