Monday, 26 February 2007

Southgate and the Demise of Churchill House

Well, well, well!!!

At last the editor of The Bath Chronicle has woken up and seen what is replacing Churchill House. Well done Sam.

I have been aware for a year or more that BANES managed to sneak a nasty amendment to the planning consent for 'The Southgate Project' as a replacement for Churchill House past the electorate in Bath. On the early graphics displayed for many months in the current Southgate Precinct there has been a small but not insignificant round object where Churchill House presently stands.

It has now come to light and public knowledge (not always the same thing) that the planned building to house the offices of First Bus in Bath is an abomination in aluminium, glass and steel.

In concert with First Group, the developers and BANES, a monster is to be perpetrated on the people of and visitors to Bath. First insisted on a size of bus station that has forced the developers to destroy a piece of beautiful example of Art Deco Georgian pastiche complete with interiors. Yet again First are screwing with us and our money for the benefit of their shareholders. This is our city and First are only meant to run bus and train services. They must not be allowed to get away with this arrogance.

This is a World Heritage city next to the site is a proposed World Heritage Site in Brunel's Great Western Railway and our elected representatives want to destroy the context and endanger the proposed status of the GWR.

Well done Sam for coming out.

Thursday, 22 February 2007

A Thought for The Last Day

Fact: The planet Earth, our home, is about 8000 miles wide.
Fact: The useful part of our atmosphere, which we can breathe, fly through and provides our weather and climate is about 8 miles thick.

Take a beach ball of diameter 1 metre and the useful atmosphere is a mere 1 millimetre thick.

Have a look at pictures of the earth from space. http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/search/search.cgi?searchpage=true&selections=AS17&browsepage=Go&hitsperpage=5&pageno=11 or from the moon http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html.

Now you know how precarious life on this rock is.

PLEASE LOOK AFTER PLANET EARTH

Tuesday, 20 February 2007

Policing the Smoking Ban in public places? Why?

Well here we go. Our dear government has announced that it will provide £30m for local authorities to 'police' the smoking ban in our public places.
My feeling is that following the scottish experience that £30m would be better spent funding the support service for those that are giving up smoking prior to the ban.
After all, the citizens of this country who don't smoke will happily 'police' the ban themselves once the legislation becomes active in July.
Already our local service in Bath is stretched and as was seen in Scotland the number of people giving up smoking will increase toward the dead line.