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Monday, February 28, 2011

Welsh Assembly Greater Powers Referendum 2011


The vote is on Thursday. I'm not voting. I'm going to Lidl for one of their special offers. The WAG planned and constructed the A55 Warren Bank exits knowing Chester Rd would get extra traffic and it does. The WAG have shafted Chester Rd with increased traffic. I've said to wifey I will drive her to the polling station but she too says she will decline. I'm saving my main fire power until the first week in May.

postscript: changed my mind.............

Link: The badgers revenge

Cllr David Williams in the Leader

More carnage on the roads. Condolences to family and friends.
Links
The Leader.
Daily Post
The Flintshire Chronicle

I am not on my own

As the daily rat run flies through the village I read the Transport Secretary Philip Hammond suggested that in some towns speed limits could be reduced from 30mph to 20mph, on both environmental and safety grounds.


In The Independent


The only problem being Penyffordd transport policy is decided in Wales.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

An email from Cllr David Williams re village developments


I am indebted to David for keeping me informed. I have made a few comments which I hope he and other councillors will find helpful.
To: Colin Hughes ; Cindy Hinds ; Cllr Linda Vidamour
Cc: Arnold_Woolley@flintshire.gov.uk ; Cllr Robin Baker ; Mold Cllr Chris Bithell ; Cllr Clive Carver ; Elwyn Davies ; Cllr Glenys Diskin ; ERDirector@flintshire.gov.uk  ; Cllr Robin Guest (Mold) ; David Hanson MP ; Patrick Heesom ; Nick Herbert MP ; Mark Isherwood AM ; Hilary Isherwood ; Carwyn Jones AM ; Cllr Chris Jones ; Cllr Stella Jones ; Cllr Tom Jones ; Ieuan Wyn Jones ; Cllr Colin Legg ; Cllr Nancy Mathews ; Rt Hon Theresa May ; Clllr David McFarlane ; Jim Moore ; Cllr Tim Newhouse ; NWPA ; North Wales Police ; Chf Supt Ruth Purdie ; Go Safe ; Carl Sargeant AM ; Cllr Tony Sharps ; Aaron Shotton Cllr ; Mark Tami MP ; Cllr Carolyn Thomas ; PC 1469 Howie Williams



postscript: I don't send emails to the above over such parochial matters as lorries using the village instead of the bypass. The above list was most probably emailed over the continued downplaying ( I say lying) by North Wales Police about speeding in the village in the Flintshire Chronicle.
 
Subject: Re: Lorries - Penyffordd Bypass - A reply to Colin

All Recipients

Sorry for sending you all this e-mail as it is a reply to all recipients of Colin Hughes nonsense. If you are not interested please just delete it.

Hello Colin,

Thank you for your recent e-mails. Insults and nastiness obviously back on your agenda, but given the fact that they have not been directly aimed at me personally recently, I considered it only fair for me to put you right on a few points. I have therefore itemised the efforts that the Community Council, Howie Cindy and I are making with regards to road safety in the ward.

Measures to reduce the problem of speeding.

The week before Christmas, Cindy arranged a site meeting with Highways to discuss the entrance to the proposed Woodlane development that is causing us a great deal of concern. Assurances have been given that suitable arrangements will be made and we will keep a close eye on any proposals that are made.
With regards developments there was a letter in The Flintshire Chronicle last week where a complainant from St Mary's Park, Mold stated that using TRICS methods and data ( it looks complicated to me)
it was possible to prove that an extra 50 dwellings can generate up to 400 vehicle movements a day.
Wood Lane of course will have more than 50 houses. Who would want to live next to a bypass is a constant mystery to me. lol

Wishes of myself and the Community Council over road safety measures

Whilst on their visit I took advantage and took them around all the problem areas of the village with regards to road safety. They were again given a copy of my suggested improvements that have been endorsed by the Community Council. A copy of these wishes and our conclusions are attached with my monthly report with the minutes from January in the Post Office. Thank you.

Penymynydd Road

A warden is periodically employed by the Community Council to monitor and if necessary book motorists using the access only along Penymynydd road. On his last ‘tour of duty’ he booked 15 motorists! He will be employed again from time to time and we are now public enemy number one of people living in the Well House and Hazel Drive
It's used for the same reasons drivers use Chester Rd as a short cut.
It is still regularly used, I walk the dog along there. Sometimes you have to be unpopular to guard people and children's safety.

School Crossing Patrol – Institute.

Following an advertising campaign from September that I instigated, applications for the post were finally received at the start of the New Year. Interviews were completed the week before last and an appointment was expect last week. Hopefully the new officer will be in place soon after half term. Well done, lets hope he is a part deterrent to those that hammer up Chester Rd every morning. Can we have a speed camera in his lolipop please?

Criticism of Howie

Howie has worked very hard on all issues in the village including speeding. With the reopening of the Warren I contacted Howie to ask him to get the gun on Chester road and Hawarden road. To my knowledge he has done this on at least three occasions. On Chester road improvements, it was Howies suggestion to set back the 30 mph sign which was pursued by myself and the Community Council. He has also dealt with numerous other issues efficiently and effectively. It is a fact that over a 1000+ vehicles speed through Chester Rd everyday. 5.30 - 6.00 am shift workers. 7.00 am onwards, the morning rat run. You could do no better than ask Flintshire Gosafe to do an audit then Howie would know exactly where to use his time efficiently. Its time Gosafe started working for communities instead of hiding data. ( I am on my way to the Information Commissioner to force their hand) Talking of Gosafe can we have them here again in Chester Rd they know when the speeding happens they've got the data. They have even done Bretton at 5.30 am in the morning !

HGVs using the village.

I recently received a call from a resident of Chester road who advised me that the problem of HGVs seemed to have eased with very few instances of hill starts outside his house. That is correct. The main problem of HGVs was the fact that Pen-y-ffordd is one of the set test routes. The reduction was hopefully a result of my request to the DSA in Newcastle, from which test routes were previously issued and controlled, to ask them to reconsider the test routes and stop using Pen-y-ffordd. They contacted the test centre manager in Wrexham and the request was made to avoid Pen-y-ffordd as much as possible. Sods law though, last Wednesday I spoke to the gentleman who phoned me and he told me that since his call he had seen two more HGVs doing the hill starts. I will therefore get back to the DSA to repeat my request. There has been a big local HGV contract going on the last 10 days with maybe 50 extra lorries each day they have top soil on board

Warren Hall.

I am working closely with the Broughton action group whose main member is one of my Coalition colleagues. I am monitoring the situation to establish how great a role people of Pen-y-ffordd need to play, and given your interest in this and the fact that you had not attacked me for a while, I asked if I could involve you in the group. Unfortunately though, I was told that you would not be welcome because you would be too much of a liability! Lots of laughs. Broughton has gained environmentally we suffer extra traffic. Perhaps time to get Highways to measure how much extra traffic is coming through the village? Sometimes its in the region of 15 to 20 vehicles a minute.

Alan Skips.
There was a problem with a while ago with their the lorries using the village, and in February 2009 I asked Neil Hassal politely to see what he could do. He responded positively and there has not been the same level of problem until recently. I will therefore ask Neil again politely to see what he can do and I am sure he will react positively again. To insult and abuse him and his work force the way that you do is totally out of order.
If its the Neil I met and talked to at their Bretton headquarters you can be sure he is not a person to abuse. I am of the opinion he might not work for the company any longer. As you say Alan Skips have not been using the village this last year. This however changed last week when I saw at least 6 ASK lorries coming through the village with many others.

As you know, I have no problem whatsoever with what you are looking for and fully support your ideals. The problem I have though is your methods, and although I appreciate the lack of action is very frustrating, your manner and behaviour at times is disgraceful. It gets very frustrating when traffic in large volumes hammer through the village every day.

The fact that you claim to represent Chester road is also of concern, as knowing most of the residents along there myself, I would be very surprised if any of them would want to be associated with the disgusting things you come out with, especially calling hard working HGV drivers scum bags and idiots! 
HGV drivers who hammer through the village are a danger to our community.
You ask George or Mr Davies over the road or ask Alf who walks a white labrador. Speeding is well over a 1000 everyday. You could get Gosafe to prove me right or wrong with an unedited set of speed traffic data. They can even tell what make of car goes along roads by the distance between the wheels !
Chester Rd is mainly commercial. The point is its a major route to school and we live in a village with a bypass.
I would therefore be grateful of you letting me know the names of the residents who are part of your campaign, but would be very surprised if you could name three. I really do doubt though, that any more than three people on Chester road would give you the time of day, let alone allow you to represent them!

Unfortunately you are talking nonsense in most of your e-mails and your abusive tactics are unnecessarily offensive and counterproductive. I do not intend getting embroiled in more e-mail exchanges with you but will continue to work for my community in as conscientious and effective a manner as I am able.

Regards,
David Williams

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Flintshire Hanson cement plant health probe continues

in The Daily Post.

Trouble at County Hall

The Alliance playing into Labours' hands. Aaron has a plan. I think he needed to have a word with Gordon Brown and Ed Balls ten years ago when they set in play plans to bankrupt this country. ( or should I say they tried to use our money to make any party except for Labour unelectable )
Anyway he leads the opposition doing what he should.
in The Daily Post

IT manager for the day

I hate computers when they go wrong. I spent a month at Xmas trying to get a machine to work which ended in failure. We have three networked computers plus a blackberry for on the move. Lisa's went tits up two days. It's a Dell. You press the start button it goes orange then refuses to start. In the old days having one machine that went wrong with no internet was a nightmare and costly.
If you go to PC World the queue for things gone wrong is always bigger than the sale queue.
Computers are not yet white goods.

A little research on Google reveals the GX 270 has issues with a row of capacitors on the motherboard. Ten minutes to learn how to open the machine up ( no screws) reveals about 4 of the capacitors are burnt out.

This makes the motherboard toast. So we have what many go through. A computer dead with no backup of important files. We thought we had backup but its incomplete.

I removed the hard drive and tried getting it to work as a slave on another machine which has Windows 98. The computer recognises the different hard drive. Windows however refuses to cooperate. We are 4 hours into this and its grinding to a halt.

I come across Pc File recovery by accident, its also free. Surprise surprise it works. Most of the files are there but some are still missing. Anyway I now have a way at looking at dead machine hard drives.

Link http://www.pcinspector.de/FSGuard/info.htm?language=1

Its in German but has an English translation.

Chester Rd traffic further

I unfortunately had to witness traffic volumes and densities yesterday. Was traffic coming through at 10 cars a minute or was it nearer 20 at times? We in Chester Rd have been betrayed by the Welsh Assembly Government and Flintshire County Council and our village elders.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Climate change uncomfortable truths



 A clever man speaks. Professor Freeman Dyson in The Independent

Traffic levels in Penyffordd pre and post A55 Warren Hall exits construction

There seems to be an increase in traffic through Chester Rd. It's irritating, it's no good for village environment, we have a bypass for through traffic. Problem is its faster through the village than to use the bypass. Who sat on his hands whilst whilst A55 Warren Hall was planned. I think Tom Jones and Colin Bithell. Perhaps someone will tell me if I'm wrong.

There's an interesting full letters page in The Flintshire Chronicle. A community at the back of Mold called St Mary's Park are up in arms because more houses are planned using their roads for access. These people are really switched on about traffic which can't be said for our village elders in Penyffordd. They quote TRICS Data. They say that 50 dwellings generates 400 daily movements. So Mr Hewitt's land when built on will generate a lot of extra traffic for Chester Rd.

The late Derek Darlington said may be 8 or 10 years ago that A55 Warren Hall exits would have a big effect on the village. What was done after that by our councillors? It appears nothing.

Cllr David Williams and Cindy Hinds are left to try and salvage an environment for the village. We are currently a giant short cut courtesy of Flintshire County Council and the Welsh Assembly government.

Our AM Carl Sargeant and Mark Tami MP are saying nothing. How the Labour led WAG think they can stitch Penyffordd up with regards extra traffic and come looking for votes in May is beyond me. All it took was a fraction of a tenth of a percent of the A55 Warren Hall money to slow down traffic and it make it awkward. But no they decided that Chester Rd was going to be fine as a spare trunk road. So much for community environment WAG.

‘Get behind us’ pleads Penyffordd TV dance finalist

in The Leader

Traitors on the council?


An email to Carl Sargeant AM

cc Chief Constable Mark Polin, Minister for Policing, Home Secretary, IWJ, Carwyn Jones

Morning Carl

Just been given the finger by a lorry driver hammering through the village. I'd take the reg but my confidence in NWP is in the gutter. They are nothing but scum. (that's the lorry drivers)

A police sargeant warned me about lorry drivers he said they carried knifes and iron bars. They should be using the bypass but we have traitors on the council in the pay of the local lorry firms or are they just plain incompetent?

I've had my FOIE back from NWP which I asked Insp Best to explain the lies he told to The Chronicle with regards speeding traffic in Chester Rd.

I can't understand police. Do they think we are all thick?

They get a CBM to stand there with a high res coat on with a speed gun at the quietest part of the day. Everyone warns one another. He manages to stop one or two unlucky ones who get a telling off.

What's the problem they say? Don't they realise we actually live here?

A good example of pretend policing

They then think that's the end of the matter when there is over a 1000 speeders coming through the village every day.

The proper way to do it is for Gosafe to do an audit. Then the police, councillors and residents to be given unedited copied of the data for study on their computers

Advice and or enforcement follows then another audit is carried out and data is shared amongst various interested parties to see whether further action if any is needed.

Of course we can't be doing that can we as there is a precise measure of the effect or non effect of police or Gosafe action.

My councillors should be pressing for this. Why am I having to do it?  It's 4 years now.

It's about safety and environment for the village for God's sake.

Have a good weekend

Colin

Penyffordd District

ps I see the natives are getting restless in St Mary's Park, Mold over traffic

copied to blog.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Door to door salesman on the loose in Penyffordd

A gang of 4. Most probably doors and windows. I hate them. I have no problems with firms or individuals doing leaflet drops. The other day I saw two 6 foot glass patio door windows next to a skip that would come in handy for a green house project. I left a note in their letter box with a phone number saying I would take them away. They phoned later on and we took them away job done, no invasion of privacy. Our friend calls us skip rats.

Door to door salesman should be banned, nobody likes them. There are already canvas free zones, what about the rest of us? Our politicians a waste of space as usual.

Penymynydd pupil Alex wins stained glass window design competition

in The Flintshire Chronicle.

Spring has sprung

Do winters seem to get longer as you get older? Newts are in the pond, they use water for courtship and mating. There is frog spawn in the ponds already. Snowdrops have been out for ages. The sun gets warmer.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Alison Blogs

Highly informative on matters Flintshire. I always know when Alison has a blog because the Welsh Ombudsman's office appears in my blog log.

1. Dog poo
2. Klaus in his yellow shorts ( no photo)
3. Arnold Woolley
4. Sphereing
5. Developers pulling flankers
6. Patrick Heesom ( he of three quarters of a million in costs)
7. Envirowatch
8. Cllr Carolyn Thomas, Treuddyn

Link Alison Halford

Lorries - Penyffordd Bypass - Speeding and in Flintshire

An email to Cllrs Cindy Hinds, Linda Vidamour, David Williams ( the rest who have email addresses hide them)

cc Chief Constable

Morning Penyffordd Councillors,

Just seen a 20 ton lorry hammering through the village centre
Amongst many other vehicles I may add
One would have thought our wise old men would have
pressed for no lorries when the new bypass was built.
Asking a bit much on that ( average age 75)

So what's the current state of play?
Must be still over a 1000 vehicles a day
speeding through Penyffordd.

Penyffordd Cllrs will not press North Wales Police to do their job

Gosafe ( formerly Arrive Alive) will not release three sets of data
recorded for Chester Rd. They say its vexatious to persist.
You of course back Gosafe by your silence

Mark Tami MP is silent

Carl Sargeant MP is silent

Chief Constable Mark Polin is silent

Flintshire County Council are not interested

The Welsh Assembly back the refusal of Gosafe to hand over data that affects
Penyffordd Village centre environment.

Never mind the Middle East there needs to be a revolution closer to home.

This stonewalling, hiding of incompetence needs to end.
Is this sort of thing endemic in local government?

Or am I wrong to want to live in a village environment with a bypass?

Colin Hughes
Penyffordd District

There is a rotteness here that starts at community council level all the way up to first minister.
More powers? You don't deal with your current powers in a proper manner.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Hughes family Greek contingent in Thessaloniki


A birthday for nephew the precocious Gregory (in green) aged 6 going on 30, fluent in English and Greek. I suppose it happens when you have a school teacher as a parent. On the left Gregory's grandad holding nephew Derek who we met a my brother's wedding one of those Greek affairs.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Gosafe

have decided my request for traffic speed data for Chester Rd is vexatious, its only vexatious because they do not want to answer the questions I have asked for 4 years. I can go through their complaints procedure and if there is still no joy (which there will not be) I can go to see the Wizard of Oz , the Information Commissioner.

The bottom line being that an unaccountable quango ( Gosafe) refuses to hand over three sets of traffic speed data for Chester Rd, Penyffordd which shows the true nature of our dangerous daily rat run and environmental noise damage to our community which the refuse to do anything about.

Link http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/request_traffic_speed_data_for_c#incoming-152551

Here continues a record of public servants refusing to be transparent and accountable whether they work for Flintshire County Council, North Wales Police or Gosafe. You may ask where my elected representatives are....................................



keyword: Geraint Evans, data manager, Jim Moore, Inspector Martin Best
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