Clive's Posts

Now in Truro the council in their wisdom charge a ridiculous amount of money for a permit for taxis to stand on the station rank there. Consequently, there are often so few taxis that unsuspecting arrivals off principal trains have to stand in line for ages whilst the few taxis that do have permits desparately shuttle back and forth trying to recoup the cost of their licence before their business ...

The fire brigade are excellent at pinpointing causes of fire - was there a definitive statement from them?

Pre-paying for hospital parking anywhere is the most disingenuous form of parking revenue I can possibly think of.  Planners know full well that many people will be obliged to overpay from fear of being stuck waiting in the hospital for unpredictable lengths of time.  Worse still, at a time of stress or emergency it is very likely you won't have a pocket full of coins on arrival, just to add to ...

Heard today that, London excepted, more men have walked on the moon than there are non-tory MPs in the south of England, however you define that. Oh well, at least the far SW got it's all important rail line pledges, 'What's that Sooty, they didn't?'

If it's of any comfort, it may be of interest to know that for once Londoners are in it together.  Although services are not being cut, the off-peak daily price cap (for Zones 1 to 6) on the much promoted Oyster Card rose this year from £8.50 to £11.70.  This is a whopping rise of 38% !!!!!!!!

...and I'll come off the fence and say I think they should remain free, maybe not as low as 60, but definitely 65. It is doubtful how much revenue would be gained if charged.  But I think it is safe to say that pensioners being out and about provide a better society and more spend in shops etc.  Also it keeps the health bill down by keeping them fitter and less depressed.

@leatash - well yes i see a certain irony there. With HS2 it is just the sort of glam project that most politicians love to have as their legacy.  The Channel Tunnel and the Olympics being two other points in case.  Both being very worth while but costing 'loadsa money'.  Not to mention that the channel tunnel in effect went bust but luckily had to be rescued by the banks because they owned it! ...

Yay, all power to Margaret for giving Dawlish a big thumbs-up  :)

All sounds very David and Ruth Archer and Justin Elliot's 'Route B'. Fact can be stranger than fiction. Listening to the interviews again, the Weekes sound like very decent people. Goode just came across as a bully.  If I am forced to aquire the land by compulsory purchase, then it is because you made me do it.

It is a 'cracking job'.  Crisis management is no way to run such vital infrastructure though.

@Stephen - Answer to your first question - Both lines will always be sub-optimal, but at least there will be an 'heir and a spare' providing resiliance.  Also plenty of extra happy Devon communities. @flo - as for the plymouth bashing, remember that all the same arguments from plymouth and cornwall for wanting a reliable service apply to a far greater extent to na and totnes and torbay.  and that ...

There will be very many property owners (ill conceived Tavistock council offices et al built on the line excepted) in mid-Devon rejoicing if the Oke-Tavy line is actually reconnected. Also, at least Plymouth will be able to rejoice in having an alternative line for whenever there are disruptions ANYWHERE on the South Devon line and cheaper fares by a competing SWT line.  i.e. Just look at the ...

@wondering - it is perfectly technically possible to push the waterfront away from the line - spend permitting!! Beach would look somewhat different though Think Dutch - problem solved.  Can then electrify. Chudleigh - am sure they too would love their station back - so too would most of north Devon and Cornwall !!!  But it is not the correct strategic solution @ MC - On the premise that any g'ovt ...

QED, think long term.

A promising sign.  However, for the sake of the west country as a whole, it would be helpful if other threads didn't keep beggaring one town against another with phrases like, 'the Plymouth mob'. There is a fantastic window of opportunity to get some game changing improvements to Devon and Cornwall transport links. Just go for it TOGETHER before the waters close over after the election and you ...

As below: http://www.ice.org.uk/News-Public-Affairs/ICE-News/Happy-engineers-get-dancing-to-Pharrell-hit

Excellent 'straw poll' survey there Lynne. Am sure this uptake of buses is not at all uncommon where there are free pases. Totally agree that the NHS savings are well worth it.

When mass hysteria like this becomes common place  .....  it is only a matter of time before .....

'On the Buses' with Reg Varney?

Great, so now you need to file a complaint about the complaints procedure Here some points I have heard on Radio 4 recently.  It goes something roughly like this. It costs £610,000 for the basic training of a doctor. Of the 5000 being trained for the shortfall, the prediction is that half of these will be moving to Australia. When a student graduating with a loan of say £40 to £50k leaves the ...

Perhaps the district council planners also like to put their reputation 'on the line' that west of Tiverton will not be disrupted again this winter. Do they really believe it was just an extraordinary 1:100 year event? I think not.  Services terminating at T.Parkway has become a perfectly predictable part of our winter timetable.

Am actually a fan of HS2 - it's about 50 years late and very badly needed.  It's not about the speed but capacity.  The justification for it being so fast is that when you build new infrastructure it has to be future proofed.  Having said that I do believe that it is not the optimun design.  It's the interconnectivity with existing lines that is lacking, that plus it is a bit unnecessarily fast, ...

Joking aside, Tangmere did actually have a potentially serious accident last November 23rd at Winchfield on the way back to Waterloo from Weymouth.  It was reported in this month's rail magazines that a connecting pin at the front of it's driving wheels sheared off leaving the long connecting rod potentially able to 'pole vault' the loco off the rails.  Luckily the train was only doing 40mph and ...

Thanks Ken, - maybe this could be fixed please Webmaster, it is very discouraging.

You might just be right about snow Elvis, my neighbour has just added his contribution to climate change by filling up his back garden with loadsa loadsa logs ready for the big freeze he is anticipating.

I find myself agreeing with JC here.  Verity is a work of art because it is a one off, challenging, striking and is apparently a 'modern allegory about truth and justice'. The 'mermaid' (wot no tail?) is let's just say, ...well... it just looks like something fom the garden centre ...but oversized. Suggest you may actually get several hundred pounds for it down there. At best try putting it in a ...

Investigating how the truck became overwhelmed...don't they know already that the answer is something to do with the moon and some clot who clearly cannot read a tide timetable :)

May I suggest that one of the best value for money deals out there are U3A events - 'University of the third age' Great healthy activities at low cost.

So if we can believe our politicians that crime rates are genuinely down, and add to that only 50% of sentence lengths are served, can someone wise me up why the prisons are bulging with inmates? Are police and justice simply more sucessful at catching and prosecuting or is there another factor at play here? @fannyann - hmm, kind of fits with what a retired policeman once told me - '...if you knew ...

Am always amazed at how councillors plead ignorance, as some kind of line of defence. Surely it's a core part of their job to keep a close ear to the ground, 'the roof' or at least to have better lines of open communication with staff at these sort of facilities so as to be told straight away!!

Apparently one mistake solar panel planners make is to have most of them facing south.  Although intuitively this makes sense, they have found in Germany that it is better to have a mix of east, south and west facing panels to avoid a midday spike in the supply.

Seems you folk got lucky? Unlike later shows :(  And no this wasn't a stunt.

Not sure that is a distinction that needs to be made. - If you make it universal then firstly it is cheaper to administrate. - Assuming 'most in need' is a financial reference, then those most in need would make greatest use of it. - Those not most in need will probably be disposed to swan around in cars anyway.  So I would see it as inherently self balancing, to some extent at least.

I also think it is brilliant that councillors have the courage to put their 'heads above the parapet' to post on here and take some stick whilst answering genuine concerns - well done to that group

I am not a lawyer but... If a man were to expose himself on the lawn I think it would be considered sufficiently 'pervey' to justify calling the police straight away. In the case of a woman, most right-minded people (i.e. those not delighting in encouraging/making sport of her) would think she is in desperate need of help - in the first instance from say a community support officer - or doesn't ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28551480 Odd I should mention East Coast erosion – is this really what the Sea Lawn noise protesters would rather experience (see link)!!

As per last RTA posted, best least said me thinks.

...and horrendous hailstones in S.London.  I'll give you one good guess where the sewage goes when the rain is torrential...it's designed not to follow it's normal treatment route...so let's just say it may be worth thinking about whether swimming is such a good idea straight afterwards...

Perhaps this might be the solution http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/dog-owners-in-deep-doo-doo-if-they-don-t-bin-it-on-clare-beaches As highlighted for jocularity in Radio 4's 'Have I got News for You', this tannoy system is claimed to be 'motion-activated'.

No views on what is potentially the most significant infrastructure investment in the SW since I don't know when, or is February 'so yesterday' now that the sun doth shine?