I've already taken a couple of points of discussion out of the notes I made at the last Council meeting - about Hay's toilets and the wind turbine - but plenty more was discussed as well.
And at the beginning of the meeting, two new councillors were welcomed.
As there were two vacant places, and only two people came forward to fill those places, Dawn Lewis (of the LDP Plan Action group) and a lady called Helen (Davies? Sorry - I didn't catch her full name) there will be no election and the council is now up to strength again.
Also at the beginning of the meeting, Rob Golesworthy invited all the councillors to the Conservative Club after the meeting for Christmas drinks - if they finished in time for last orders!
The Woodland Group have been doing some clearing along the railway line path - I met Anna from Drover Holidays last night, who was one of the volunteers, and has been working her way up from saplings to cutting down really quite big trees as she gets more practice. They are waiting until they have enough waste there to get a chipper in from Powys, and it was suggested that they wait until January, and then they can get people to come down with their old Christmas trees to dispose of them.
Although the Council put a request in for fruit trees from Powys, they haven't managed to get hold of any. The County Council say they were inundated with requests. Councillors wanted more information about why their request failed, so they can put a better application in next time the offer is made.
PC Fion Thomas was there to give his police report. The police are doing an anti-shoplifting patrol in the run up to Christmas, and have been testing local licensed premises on whether they sell to under age drinkers along with the Trading Standards people. It's also been magic mushroom season up on Hay Bluff recently, and 8 people were dealt with for drugs offences ("They tend to bring other things with them as well," he said). The brass plaque from the British Legion Club has been stolen - and of course, it's not the British Legion any more; it's now a social club.
Red biodegradable dog poo bags are now available free from the Library (cue all the dog walkers in the room waving one which happened to be in their pocket!). Dog waste can be put in any of the bins around town, and the wicker baskets that were woven over the summer are filling up.
Mr Gittens has offered to shot blast and paint the old Hay sign to make it ready to put up on one of the approach roads to Hay again, possibly by the bridge, and Alan Powell has framed the Timbuktu sign ready to be put up by the Tourist Information office.
The old Hay fire appliance has been offered to someone else to restore, but at present is buried in a barn under a load of stuff. When it's cleared out, the owner will inform Alan Powell so he can go down and take photos. A similar Shand-Mason Horse Drawn Fire Appliance is at a museum in Worcester.
The bungalow by the school is still not ready for the Youth Group to move into it - there seems to be some problem about change of use.
Claiming ownership of the Gliss for the Council with the Land Registry is not as straight forward as it first seemed. There is some dispute about the land just in front of Chantic, one of the houses that faces the area, and fishing rights do not seem to be included. The situation is also complicated by the railway that used to pass through the land (and in fact through Chantic's front room!) and by the responsibility for maintenance being split between the council and the National Park. Hay Council should have the fishing rights, which they bought along with the railway line, and the River Authority will be contacted for clarification.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Small Business Saturday
Golesworthy's, selling good quality outdoor wear, hats, shoes, knives, and even archery equipment, for something like a hundred years. Rob Golesworthy is currently Mayor of Hay.
Friday, 6 December 2013
Clyro Wind Turbine
Clyro local council have objected to the development of a wind turbine at Cold Blow (which is about the most apt name you could have for the site of a wind turbine) after a meeting where something like 170 residents were against the project and only about five (being the family who own the farm) being in favour. Apparently someone in the audience had done their homework, and demolished the case for the turbine.
Maybe they would have liked it better if it looked like this:
This is the windmill at Lytham St Anne's, near Blackpool, taken from the blog John Burke's A-Musings. When I was a kid, my family used to take the Yelloway coach from Bury to Blackpool, and spotting this windmill on the outskirts of Blackpool was almost as exciting as being the first one to spot Blackpool Tower!
So I've always rather liked windmills.
A leaflet was put out advertising the public meeting in Clyro, and also mentioning the opposition website at http://no2clyrohillwindturbine.com
The main - in fact the only - argument against the turbine made in the leaflet was basically that it would spoil the view. It will be 84 metres tall(about the same height as Big Ben). They warn that the presence of this turbine will encourage others to apply to build turbines, and this will have a bad effect on tourism in this unspoilt area.
Now, I get my electricity and gas from a company called Good Energy, which provides 100% renewable energy. This includes wind farms in Cornwall, solar panels dotted all over the place, and biogas. Recently a survey was done of tourists in Cornwall. They were asked if the presence of wind farms had made any difference to their decision to come and holiday in Cornwall, and having seen the turbines, would they come back and holiday there again? Overwhelmingly, the tourists said that the turbines had made no difference at all to their holiday plans, and would make no difference to their plans to holiday in Cornwall in the future. The press release talking about this can be found at (again, sorry for the long url):
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/press/releases/2013/11/04/wind-and-solar-farms-are-accepted-part-of-landscape-says-new-survey-of-holidaymakers-in-cornwall
So I don't really see that a walker who wants to walk the Offa's Dyke Path, for instance, will be put off because he might possibly see a wind turbine in the distance.
The last time I came back from Hereford on the bus, I noticed a wind turbine above the village of Dorstone. In fact, I had to look quite hard to see the wind turbine, as it was almost invisible against a grey sky. In the B&R this week, on the front page, there's a story that claims that the Clyro wind turbine would overshadow Rhosgoch and Painscastle as well as Clyro. All I can say is that the Dorstone turbine does not overshadow Dorstone.
Far more obtrusive in the landscape are the Madley radio telescope dishes. They must have been a huge shock to local people when they were first built, but now they are an accepted part of the landscape, and I've never heard anyone complain about them, or suggest that they have harmed local tourism.
And we don't even notice the vast army of electricity pylons striding across the landscape everywhere in the country any more.
A lady in Rhosgoch is worried about the impact on her small airfield - the dangers of hitting the turbine, and turbulence. I'm not sure how far away from the turbine her farm is, but as far as hitting the turbine goes, in Rugby the huge radio masts on one side of the town used to have small red lights up them at night, and no aircraft ever hit them (I believe that they became obsolete and were taken down, and some people in Rugby were rather sorry about that, because they liked to see them on the skyline).
I can't say anything about turbulence, because I don't know enough about it - but it seems unlikely to me that it could have such a large effect over a wide area.
The piece in the B&R also mentions noise pollution. I understand that wind turbines do make a sort of humming noise. I've never been close to one, but my sister and her husband visited a wind farm in Germany on their holidays - the Germans are far more enthusiastic about renewable energy than the British - and they said that they couldn't see what all the fuss was about. They could still hear the birds singing even when they were standing right under the turbines.
New sorts of wind turbine, which are more efficient than the present model, are being developed. Maybe the people of Clyro would prefer something like this?
Because at the moment, their electricity probably comes from somewhere that looks more like this:
(This is - or was - Stuart Street Power Station in Manchester, where my grandad used to work).
Maybe they would have liked it better if it looked like this:
This is the windmill at Lytham St Anne's, near Blackpool, taken from the blog John Burke's A-Musings. When I was a kid, my family used to take the Yelloway coach from Bury to Blackpool, and spotting this windmill on the outskirts of Blackpool was almost as exciting as being the first one to spot Blackpool Tower!
So I've always rather liked windmills.
A leaflet was put out advertising the public meeting in Clyro, and also mentioning the opposition website at http://no2clyrohillwindturbine.com
The main - in fact the only - argument against the turbine made in the leaflet was basically that it would spoil the view. It will be 84 metres tall(about the same height as Big Ben). They warn that the presence of this turbine will encourage others to apply to build turbines, and this will have a bad effect on tourism in this unspoilt area.
Now, I get my electricity and gas from a company called Good Energy, which provides 100% renewable energy. This includes wind farms in Cornwall, solar panels dotted all over the place, and biogas. Recently a survey was done of tourists in Cornwall. They were asked if the presence of wind farms had made any difference to their decision to come and holiday in Cornwall, and having seen the turbines, would they come back and holiday there again? Overwhelmingly, the tourists said that the turbines had made no difference at all to their holiday plans, and would make no difference to their plans to holiday in Cornwall in the future. The press release talking about this can be found at (again, sorry for the long url):
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/press/releases/2013/11/04/wind-and-solar-farms-are-accepted-part-of-landscape-says-new-survey-of-holidaymakers-in-cornwall
So I don't really see that a walker who wants to walk the Offa's Dyke Path, for instance, will be put off because he might possibly see a wind turbine in the distance.
The last time I came back from Hereford on the bus, I noticed a wind turbine above the village of Dorstone. In fact, I had to look quite hard to see the wind turbine, as it was almost invisible against a grey sky. In the B&R this week, on the front page, there's a story that claims that the Clyro wind turbine would overshadow Rhosgoch and Painscastle as well as Clyro. All I can say is that the Dorstone turbine does not overshadow Dorstone.
Far more obtrusive in the landscape are the Madley radio telescope dishes. They must have been a huge shock to local people when they were first built, but now they are an accepted part of the landscape, and I've never heard anyone complain about them, or suggest that they have harmed local tourism.
And we don't even notice the vast army of electricity pylons striding across the landscape everywhere in the country any more.
A lady in Rhosgoch is worried about the impact on her small airfield - the dangers of hitting the turbine, and turbulence. I'm not sure how far away from the turbine her farm is, but as far as hitting the turbine goes, in Rugby the huge radio masts on one side of the town used to have small red lights up them at night, and no aircraft ever hit them (I believe that they became obsolete and were taken down, and some people in Rugby were rather sorry about that, because they liked to see them on the skyline).
I can't say anything about turbulence, because I don't know enough about it - but it seems unlikely to me that it could have such a large effect over a wide area.
The piece in the B&R also mentions noise pollution. I understand that wind turbines do make a sort of humming noise. I've never been close to one, but my sister and her husband visited a wind farm in Germany on their holidays - the Germans are far more enthusiastic about renewable energy than the British - and they said that they couldn't see what all the fuss was about. They could still hear the birds singing even when they were standing right under the turbines.
New sorts of wind turbine, which are more efficient than the present model, are being developed. Maybe the people of Clyro would prefer something like this?
Because at the moment, their electricity probably comes from somewhere that looks more like this:
(This is - or was - Stuart Street Power Station in Manchester, where my grandad used to work).
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Save Hay's Toilets!
At the Council meeting on Monday evening, there was some discussion about the recent decision by the County Council to close all the public toilets in Powys (or nearly all of them). They had managed to buy some time by suggesting to the County Council that the Town Council might be willing to take over the running of the toilets, but they have nothing like enough money in their budget to take it on.
Just a little while ago, there was a big public meeting in Glasbury, where they have a toilet block which is on a layby where people park to go walking or canoeing. The meeting had a turnout of around 200 - and Glasbury is a lot smaller than Hay. There was 100% support for keeping the toilets open, and 100% support for increasing the council tax in the village to pay for it, even though the amount they pay locally would have to go up from around £7 to around £27. They are also willing to provide volunteers to clean the toilets.
One of the problems with the funding is that the County Council have only supplied approximate figures for the costs of running the toilets - they must know what it costs exactly, since they are running them, and have been for years, but they're not giving out accurate figures.
The Chief Executive of the County Council is coming to Hay to meet with the Town Council next week. One of the things he's going to be asked is whether he will allow a levy to be added to the car park charges which would be used to fund the toilets - at least the toilets by the car park - but it seems he will be unlikely to agree to this. The County Council are offering a grant of £6,500, but this is only part of the total cost.
Another suggestion was to start charging for the use of the toilets, but in other places the money collected has only really covered the cost of the person collecting it, and there hasn't been enough left over for maintenance - and there have also been problems with vandalism where people have forced their way into the toilets without paying. Which costs more money to fix.
The National Park authority hasn't been consulted, and they are concerned about the effect on visitor numbers, but have been so far reluctant to get involved. And the toilets are running out of time. They will be locked up for good on 1st January unless something can be sorted out before then.
One of the ways to challenge the decision to close the toilets is by going down the equality route - lack of toilets will adversely affect vulnerable groups such as the elderly and disabled - and this could be the basis of a legal challenge against the County Council.
The Town Council are going to have an emergency meeting on Monday evening to discuss what they can do.
So there is going to be a public meeting, at 7pm at the Parish Hall on Thursday 12th December. Barry Thomas from the County Council has already said he will not attend a public meeting (though it's the same day he's meeting the Town Council), but other county councillors will be invited, and so will Roger Williams, MP and Kirsty Williams AM. John Evans of the Chamber of Commerce has offered to chair the meeting, as it's a subject of great importance to local businesses, but it may be Gareth Ratcliffe or one of the Town Councillors instead.
There is also a petition hosted by 38 Degrees, set up by Ellie Spencer. I know it's a long url, but here it is:
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-closure-of-public-toilets-in-hay-on-wye?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1386153718
As of Thursday evening at 8pm, the petition has 456 signatures, and needs a minimum of 500.
Just a little while ago, there was a big public meeting in Glasbury, where they have a toilet block which is on a layby where people park to go walking or canoeing. The meeting had a turnout of around 200 - and Glasbury is a lot smaller than Hay. There was 100% support for keeping the toilets open, and 100% support for increasing the council tax in the village to pay for it, even though the amount they pay locally would have to go up from around £7 to around £27. They are also willing to provide volunteers to clean the toilets.
One of the problems with the funding is that the County Council have only supplied approximate figures for the costs of running the toilets - they must know what it costs exactly, since they are running them, and have been for years, but they're not giving out accurate figures.
The Chief Executive of the County Council is coming to Hay to meet with the Town Council next week. One of the things he's going to be asked is whether he will allow a levy to be added to the car park charges which would be used to fund the toilets - at least the toilets by the car park - but it seems he will be unlikely to agree to this. The County Council are offering a grant of £6,500, but this is only part of the total cost.
Another suggestion was to start charging for the use of the toilets, but in other places the money collected has only really covered the cost of the person collecting it, and there hasn't been enough left over for maintenance - and there have also been problems with vandalism where people have forced their way into the toilets without paying. Which costs more money to fix.
The National Park authority hasn't been consulted, and they are concerned about the effect on visitor numbers, but have been so far reluctant to get involved. And the toilets are running out of time. They will be locked up for good on 1st January unless something can be sorted out before then.
One of the ways to challenge the decision to close the toilets is by going down the equality route - lack of toilets will adversely affect vulnerable groups such as the elderly and disabled - and this could be the basis of a legal challenge against the County Council.
The Town Council are going to have an emergency meeting on Monday evening to discuss what they can do.
So there is going to be a public meeting, at 7pm at the Parish Hall on Thursday 12th December. Barry Thomas from the County Council has already said he will not attend a public meeting (though it's the same day he's meeting the Town Council), but other county councillors will be invited, and so will Roger Williams, MP and Kirsty Williams AM. John Evans of the Chamber of Commerce has offered to chair the meeting, as it's a subject of great importance to local businesses, but it may be Gareth Ratcliffe or one of the Town Councillors instead.
There is also a petition hosted by 38 Degrees, set up by Ellie Spencer. I know it's a long url, but here it is:
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-closure-of-public-toilets-in-hay-on-wye?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1386153718
As of Thursday evening at 8pm, the petition has 456 signatures, and needs a minimum of 500.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
The Magus of Hay
Phil Rickman's new book is out - the twelfth in his Merrily Watkins series, about the Diocesan Exorcist (also known as Deliverance Ministry) of Herefordshire - and it's about Hay.
I went to see him speak as part of the Winter Hay Festival on Sunday evening, in the castle (which features in the book), being interviewed by Peter Florence. One of the questions from the audience was why had he waited so long to come to Hay for a story, and his answer was that he was saving it, because Hay has so many good stories associated with it of the sort that he can use for a Merrily Watkins plot. Like Ken Ratcliffe's story of seeing Cusop Dingle lit up as though from within, just for an instant, when he was a young man, which features in the story.
After the talk, I got my arm twisted (they didn't have to twist very hard!) to have dinner at Red Indigo, where Eklim greeted me by saying I was wasting away because I wasn't eating enough curry! The Lamb tikka masalla was very nice indeed, accompanied by good conversation.
I started reading the book (obtained from Addyman's Murder and Mayhem) on Tuesday night, and it was one of those un-put-downable books right from the start. Phil Rickman brings in a couple from an earlier novel, the Crown of Lights, as a pair of beginner booksellers in Backfold. He's added a couple more shops down there, backed up against the Castle wall - and the advice the couple are given about bookselling is absolutely spot on! He mentions Derek Addyman in the credits at the back of the book, and I suspect this is where he got his information from - and being an ex-journalist, he has obviously listened very carefully!
And then he goes and puts his first murder victim in the pool of my favourite waterfall on Cusop Dingle!
Sadly, Jane, Merrily's teenaged daughter, is away learning to be an archaeologist in West Wales, and Lol, her boyfriend, is out on the road performing his music, so Merrily is very much on her own in this story - Phil Rickman said something about not wanting the series to turn into something like Heartbeat!
He has some scathing things to say about Hereford, too. On page 71:
"The City of Hereford seemed to be dying, the way a venerable tree died, from the centre outwards - long-established businesses left to rot while councillors turned away to nurture their doomed, peripheral shopping mall, hand-feeding it with taxpayers' money badly needed elsewhere.
Most people were saying that, but nothing came to save the city."
Which is a concise summing up of the present situation.
Having started the book, I started seeing Phil Rickman's name elsewhere, too. I follow tor.com, which has all sorts of information about SF and Fantasy novels and films and comics and TV, and one of the books recommended in a recent round up is December, a non-series book about musicians playing at a ruined Welsh abbey, with paranormal results.
And in SFX Magazine, one of the reviews of paperback re-issues is for The Man in the Moss, Phil Rickman's book about a remote village in his native Lancashire. It's one that I enjoyed very much, partly for the bog body itself, and partly because of the traditional brewery that is involved in some of the action. "Featuring well-drawn characters, this is a powerfully atmospheric read." says the reviewer.
I went to see him speak as part of the Winter Hay Festival on Sunday evening, in the castle (which features in the book), being interviewed by Peter Florence. One of the questions from the audience was why had he waited so long to come to Hay for a story, and his answer was that he was saving it, because Hay has so many good stories associated with it of the sort that he can use for a Merrily Watkins plot. Like Ken Ratcliffe's story of seeing Cusop Dingle lit up as though from within, just for an instant, when he was a young man, which features in the story.
After the talk, I got my arm twisted (they didn't have to twist very hard!) to have dinner at Red Indigo, where Eklim greeted me by saying I was wasting away because I wasn't eating enough curry! The Lamb tikka masalla was very nice indeed, accompanied by good conversation.
I started reading the book (obtained from Addyman's Murder and Mayhem) on Tuesday night, and it was one of those un-put-downable books right from the start. Phil Rickman brings in a couple from an earlier novel, the Crown of Lights, as a pair of beginner booksellers in Backfold. He's added a couple more shops down there, backed up against the Castle wall - and the advice the couple are given about bookselling is absolutely spot on! He mentions Derek Addyman in the credits at the back of the book, and I suspect this is where he got his information from - and being an ex-journalist, he has obviously listened very carefully!
And then he goes and puts his first murder victim in the pool of my favourite waterfall on Cusop Dingle!
Sadly, Jane, Merrily's teenaged daughter, is away learning to be an archaeologist in West Wales, and Lol, her boyfriend, is out on the road performing his music, so Merrily is very much on her own in this story - Phil Rickman said something about not wanting the series to turn into something like Heartbeat!
He has some scathing things to say about Hereford, too. On page 71:
"The City of Hereford seemed to be dying, the way a venerable tree died, from the centre outwards - long-established businesses left to rot while councillors turned away to nurture their doomed, peripheral shopping mall, hand-feeding it with taxpayers' money badly needed elsewhere.
Most people were saying that, but nothing came to save the city."
Which is a concise summing up of the present situation.
Having started the book, I started seeing Phil Rickman's name elsewhere, too. I follow tor.com, which has all sorts of information about SF and Fantasy novels and films and comics and TV, and one of the books recommended in a recent round up is December, a non-series book about musicians playing at a ruined Welsh abbey, with paranormal results.
And in SFX Magazine, one of the reviews of paperback re-issues is for The Man in the Moss, Phil Rickman's book about a remote village in his native Lancashire. It's one that I enjoyed very much, partly for the bog body itself, and partly because of the traditional brewery that is involved in some of the action. "Featuring well-drawn characters, this is a powerfully atmospheric read." says the reviewer.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Glorious Food
The morning after the lights were turned on (and the donations for mulled wine and mince pies raised around £700 for St Michael's Hospice, which was the charity Mac Eager chose), the marquee was filled with stalls of local food and drink. I always get something from Jacobi Brewery - I never see their beers anywhere else - so this time I took one of their cardboard beer carriers with me, and chose bottles of Red Squirrel, Winter Warmer, and Dark Roasted Ale. The chap at the stall was so pleased that I'd brought one of their carriers back that he gave me a 50p discount!
I got some elderflower and gooseberry jam, too ("Grown up jam," the lady at the stall said; "the children go for strawberry.") and some bread from Caroline's Patisserie.
I also thought it was about time I bought a tile in the Cheesemarket mural - for £10 I now have a small piece of the river, and my name inscribed in a book which will be kept in the Library. It's all to raise money for the renovations, and produce something interesting which will last for many years to come.
There were a few craft stalls in the Buttermarket as well, and stalls round the outside of the marquee too. In the afternoon, the Brecon Town Band played in the spot where the choirs had been the night before.
I got some elderflower and gooseberry jam, too ("Grown up jam," the lady at the stall said; "the children go for strawberry.") and some bread from Caroline's Patisserie.
I also thought it was about time I bought a tile in the Cheesemarket mural - for £10 I now have a small piece of the river, and my name inscribed in a book which will be kept in the Library. It's all to raise money for the renovations, and produce something interesting which will last for many years to come.
There were a few craft stalls in the Buttermarket as well, and stalls round the outside of the marquee too. In the afternoon, the Brecon Town Band played in the spot where the choirs had been the night before.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Turning on the Lights
"What sort of carols are those? They're not the old sort we used to sing. They're in another world!" The old farmer in the audience didn't think much of the Community Choir's selection of songs - they were singing the Boar's Head Carol at the time, which is medieval and partly in Latin, and later they did Gaudete (also in Latin) which was introduced as being by Steeleye Span, though it's also medieval.
I saw the farmer again later - he'd bought light up devil's horns for his grand children, and he needed help to switch them off.
Later the Hay School choir sang seasonal songs about shopping and Baby Jesus, with lots of waving at parents in the audience, and the littlest children dancing around at the front. And everyone could sing along to White Christmas and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer!
In the marquee, there were lots of local stalls. Deb was there with children's books from the Cinema Bookshop, and there was fudge and hot chilli and Hay School doing raffles and games - I got a bunch of holly from them, and spent the rest of the evening pretending to be a shrub. Gwyneth was there with some lovely Canadian-style mittens she'd knitted (which really are toasty-warm), and Pugh's were doing hampers.
Outside Jackie and James were sharing a stall between Castello de Haia soaps and The Thoughtful Gardener, and Stuart the greengrocer was selling festive fruit.
In the Buttermarket there were mince pies and mulled wine, and Karl Showler was acting as Father Christmas - it was lovely to see him back in Hay.
Mac Eager (celebrity for the night) was looking very smart, and pushed the plunger to turn on the lights to great cheers.
I saw the farmer again later - he'd bought light up devil's horns for his grand children, and he needed help to switch them off.
Later the Hay School choir sang seasonal songs about shopping and Baby Jesus, with lots of waving at parents in the audience, and the littlest children dancing around at the front. And everyone could sing along to White Christmas and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer!
In the marquee, there were lots of local stalls. Deb was there with children's books from the Cinema Bookshop, and there was fudge and hot chilli and Hay School doing raffles and games - I got a bunch of holly from them, and spent the rest of the evening pretending to be a shrub. Gwyneth was there with some lovely Canadian-style mittens she'd knitted (which really are toasty-warm), and Pugh's were doing hampers.
Outside Jackie and James were sharing a stall between Castello de Haia soaps and The Thoughtful Gardener, and Stuart the greengrocer was selling festive fruit.
In the Buttermarket there were mince pies and mulled wine, and Karl Showler was acting as Father Christmas - it was lovely to see him back in Hay.
Mac Eager (celebrity for the night) was looking very smart, and pushed the plunger to turn on the lights to great cheers.
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