HIRA - AGM, Thursday, 20th October: attend & be heard!

- Wed 21st Sep 2005

HIRA Report for   October 2005

Our AGM will be held on the above date, at 7.30, in the URC Hall. HIRA needs you to attend so that it can better understand your views and desires. Monitoring of planning applications is a key area and we would love someone to join the Committee and make an impact in this area. After the formal meeting we hope to have a talk by the Langstone Harbour Master, Nigel Jardine explaining the aims and activities carried out by his organisation.

I was fortunate enough to take part in a trip round the harbour recently, to see what is going on there. I can confirm there are seals in the harbour, looking as if they had not a care in the world. Please come and hear more about this and many other aspects of the commercial, pleasure and environmental life of the Harbour.

Big Issues for Islanders

As people will be aware, the Community Board is progressing in trying to improve the human environment of the Island and it is hoped that contracts for the major development at Eastoke Corner will be in place by Christmas and that work will then start. Other programmes should be well on the way or even completed by then.

The other big programme is the Market Town Initiative, which is aimed at improving the business and commercial health of the Island. This will place considerable emphasis on providing local services for local use. This work will start soon and anyone wishing to participate in the process should contact HBC.

Recent 'Traffic, Transport and Parking' public meeting

After last month's public meeting covering transport, roads and parking, we had a comment criticising our lack of attention to the provision of buses, needless to say by someone who had not attended the meeting. I have now checked the time-table. The first bus leaves Sandy Point at 0609 and the last arrives back at 2250, these early and late buses being subsidised by Hampshire CC. For most of the day there is a 15 minute interval between buses up the core of the Island. Do people believe this is reasonable or should it be extended? Let me know.

The Carnival

There seem to have been a number of criticisms of the Carnival. The route was wrong, the entertainments were too dispersed etc. The problem here, as with many Island activities, is that there are many who criticise, but few who are prepared to help. The procession was very good this year with many imaginative and well presented floats: congratulations to all involved. I hope that all those who felt it was otherwise will offer to help next year.

Residents' Suggestions for Programmes

Some 20 years ago the road from Havant to Chichester was opened, with its 'noisy' surface. I believe it cost some £12M. Because of the noise a figure in excess of this was paid in compensation, because it was claimed it would be too expensive to change the surface. After intense lobbying, half of the road was resurfaced this spring, resulting in a dramatic reduction in noise level. This was achieved in a few weeks, at what must have been a minimal cost in terms of the compensation paid earlier. Many people pushed for this work to be done including our MP, David Willetts. As I have commented before, many organisations never have the money to do things properly but they can always find the money to do them twice. Should not our representatives have the tax-payers interests more at heart?

This approach of 'we know best' is always being put forward by bureaucrats and is the basis of the refusal to take any suggestion other than their own as having any validity.

The big problem is that our representatives on various administrations always seem to take the party line rather than helping the views of locals to be at least considered.

There is a proposal to put a light controlled crossing at Mengham, to improve traffic flow. We are told this is not possible without having to move the crossing northwards, which would lose a couple of parking places. We see no evidence to support this view and have not had access to the report justifying it.

Similarly, on the leisure bridge issue, we have all sorts of specious arguments opposing the idea, but even after refuting all the points being made by our council representative, we still are getting letters such as the one in the Portsmouth News of 5th September, which completely ignores all the reasoned arguments being put forward.

We even get statements like 'I am not an engineer' being made, but still having completely erroneous engineering arguments being put forward to present the HCC case. This is particularly galling, as at least two chartered engineers have put forward genuine views on various aspects of the matter.

In both of the above cases there may be reasons why there are problems in the approaches being put forward. However our representatives should at least give people the courtesy and credit to give genuine, rather than specious, reasons why the approach suggested is untenable, even if they clearly fail to understand those reasons themselves.

Please let us have both these matters resolved in ways that allow people to make decisions based on hard evidence, rather than on ill-conceived opinions.

Little Terns

Looking at the world distribution of little terns, (from Sri Lanka to the Eastern US) I note that most of them breed in areas of relatively low tidal excursion. As in Langstone Harbour they keep getting washed away, I wonder if this is part of their problem locally?

The Summer

I should imagine this summer has been pretty good for the tourist industry. On the whole the weather has been good and we have had enough rain to keep everything looking reasonably green. For those who are interested, the blackberry season seems to have been superb and is unlikely to be over by the time this goes to press. Good picking if you have not already been out.

Finally, please try and come to our AGM. All are welcome.

Tony Higham.

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