bubble

Forum Replies Created

  • Author
    Posts

  • bubble
    Participant

    [quote quote=175148]But we do have 9 new bin wagons coming .. plenty new vehicles in the WBC fleet I think?! How old are current bin wagons?[/quote]

    And thankfully there was money to spare recently to resurface the councillors’ car park.
    Are councillors’ own parking charges increasing too?


    bubble
    Participant

    [quote quote=175099]great idea. get more households to compost and recycle.[/quote]

    It would be great if everyone did compost and recycle. But not all households live in a house or give two hoots about the state of the bins. I live in flats that have communal bins. The bins closest to the entrance to the bin area are literally overflowing & bags of rubbish are also dumped on the ground by the bins, torn open by cats – yet the bins a couple of steps further back can be completely empty. All manner of sh*t is dumped in the recycling bins & all sorts of recycling is dumped in the general waste. Residents don’t care because their flats are not next to the bins and those households responsible cannot be identified because the bins are communal. The household next to the bins ends up with the smell and the flies from all those bins (for 9 flats in the block I live in). In my previous flat I was the unfortunate sod who lived nearest the bins. When I moved here I was adamant I would not take a ground floor flat or one near the bins.

    In my block, three-weekly collections is going to be awful for the flat next to the bins. The council and/or landlord (in our case, Wales & West Housing Association) could at least improve matters if they had the will, e.g. if they gave each flat a designated lockable bin. Then they could take appropriate action against those households who still let their own bins overflow & don’t recycle. But the council, landlord and Assembly Member won’t do anything – they’ve been fully aware of the issue for several years now.

    Households with their own bins at least have some control over the state of their bins & the council can perhaps claim that these households can improve matters by compacting rubbish, composting & recycling. But I don’t have any such control with our communal bins. It doesn’t matter how responsible I am when most of my fellow residents don’t give a sh*t about the state of the bin area.

    Fortunately, it honestly makes no difference to me now if our communal bin area gets worse as I live on the opposite side of the building. As is the case for all but one of the flats in this block, I’m alright Jack! But I understand the injustice of it when the council, landlord and AM will not remedy the situation and are content for the consequences to be borne by a single household (in our case, one with small children).

    I doubt that the consequences for properties with communal bins will even feature in the council’s plans for this change.

    in reply to: Train Chaos #175090

    bubble
    Participant

    LOL, Margaret, that was my first thought when I read the article! The cancellations due to sporting events in south Wales is something I use as an example to people not from Wrexham when I try to explain how unreliable – and unprofessional – train services are in Wrexham. And those problems didn’t even affect me personally – I was just appalled that a train company’s regular customers from north Wales, including people who relied on those services for work, were treated with such disregard and indifference.

    On Tuesday the 07:03 to London was cancelled. Online it suggested the entire train to London was cancelled but at the window in Wrexham General we were told it was just the Wrexham to Chester portion and that a bus was coming to get us. I don’t know whether the bus eventually arrived (and in good time) as a few of us got ourselves a taxi to Chester at our own expense. We were able to join the existing service at Chester (i.e. it was indeed only the Wrexham to Chester portion of the service that had been cancelled). The 07:03 is the only direct train from Wrexham to London and is Virgin Trains (for now). Five carriages should have collected us in Wrexham and coupled up in Chester to the train that comes from along the north Wales coast. The five Wrexham carriages were instead attached in Crewe.

    I long ago gave up catching trains from Wrexham to Chester and changing to the London service in Chester, as the Wrexham to Chester leg just wasn’t reliable – the platform display in Wrexham would keep changing to show it due later and later and then suddenly the display would change to show the following scheduled service (due an hour later). There would be no explanation, announcement or apology. I started simply getting a taxi straight to Chester to start my train journey there. Back then the Wrexham to Chester service was still Arriva – maybe Transport for Wales is better. But these days I only ever get the 07:03.

    I’ve caught trains many times from Wrexham to Chester this summer on Saturdays and have never been able to get a seat. It is absolutely packed full of people, e.g. including young families off to the seaside (what a horrible start to their trip). The train company must be aware of this increased demand over the summer – why do they not increase the number of carriages? They seem happy to take the extra train fares.

    Obviously people choose train travel for various reasons – e.g. shopping trips, days out to the seaside, travel to holiday destinations – but one steady and year-round demographic is commuters. Yet public transport (trains and buses) in this region has no commitment to commuter travel at all. Matt mentions the Welsh Government wanting to reduce car emissions – and its lack of joined up thinking. How on earth does the Welsh Govt not see that our truly inadequate public transport in north Wales effectively forces people to travel by car instead.

    in reply to: Wrexham Rejuvenation / Designing Out Crime #174562

    bubble
    Participant

    [quote quote=174558]The benches removed were the ones on the Egerton St corner next to the travel agent – by the British Heart Foundation shop – next to the door that Council staff use to get into the Contact Centre[/quote]

    Thanks, Derek. I honestly have not noticed that anything has changed!

    in reply to: Wrexham Rejuvenation / Designing Out Crime #174557

    bubble
    Participant

    Did they remove the benches? Was this supposed to be in the pedestrianised area near the Co-Op and Cats Protection shop? Or somewhere else?

    in reply to: Opposing Brexit could cost me my seat – Labour MP Ian Lucas #173988

    bubble
    Participant

    Andy, I note that you are citing the BBC. This is what I found out:

    So I tried to find out how the referendum results were distributed across parliamentary constituencies. To my surprise, it’s not actually possible. According to the House of Commons Library, results were published by “counting area” (this seems to have been NUTS 1 level) and “local authorities weren’t ever required to publish the results by Parliamentary constituency or by ward”. Results that have been published by parlcon (e.g. on Wikipedia) are generally based on ESTIMATES produced by an academic (Dr Chris Hanretty). The BBC later wrote to all local authorities asking for specific counts by ward where available and the result is that of the 650 parlcons in the UK, we only KNOW the referendum results for 169 of these (26% of the parlcons). The largest difference between Dr Hanretty’s estimates and the known result for a parlcon is Hall Green in Birmingham – he estimated that 43.3% there voted leave, when in fact 33.6% actually did. Other discrepancies were much smaller – and he got the leave/remain result the wrong way around in 6 constituencies – but we still only know the discrepancies for those 169 parlcons the BBC obtained the actual results for.
    Given that there are no actual referendum results by parlcon for 74% of parlcons (and this includes Wrexham), it would be difficult for an MP to vote according to the referendum wishes of their own constituents. To be fair to MPs, another difficulty for them in knowing how best to interpret the wishes of their constituents is that since the referendum we’ve had a general election. Despite his stance on Brexit being at odds with the result of the “counting area” of “Wales”, Ian Lucas was voted in again, with 49% of the vote. This is a marked improvement for him on the 2015 general election result where he got 37% – but perhaps this is at least in part due to the fact that UKIP, which got 16% of Wrexham’s vote in 2015, managed to make a pig’s ear of their registration in the 2017 election and so did not field a candidate.
    Wikipedia gives various distributions including “major cities” – in Wales, Cardiff voted remain and Swansea voted leave. The ward level data obtained by the BBC is available to download and does not appear to include any ward level results for Wales.
    I think it’s easy to pick an approach that an MP could adopt to base their decision on. Ian Lucas could use the results from the counting area of Wales, or the fact that he was elected after the referendum despite his views being contrary to the referendum result. My own opinion is that Wrexham voted leave – but it is only my opinion based on anecdotal evidence and I could well be wrong. There is a wealth of information out there; but nothing is clear cut or directly comparable and everything is open to interpretation. How Ian Lucas interprets things may be different to you and I. I do find it astounding actually that disaggregated data on referendum results was not collated as standard. But I think that whether a person is pro-leave or pro-remain, the one thing we can surely all agree on is that this process has been a shitshow from the getgo.

    in reply to: Opposing Brexit could cost me my seat – Labour MP Ian Lucas #173983

    bubble
    Participant

    I’m still waiting for someone – anyone – on this forum to provide the evidence that Wrexham voted leave in the referendum. I’ve previously provided links to show that the results for Wrexham are not known. It seems to me that Brexiteers are eager to perpetuate the claim that Wrexham voted leave – possibly simply because that piece of propaganda suits their argument. I’m not suggesting Wrexham voted to remain – and I haven’t seen Remainers or anyone else make that claim either; I’m saying that we do not KNOW for certain how Wrexham voted.

    Why do people claim that Wrexham voted leave? Is it because subjectively they THINK that Wrexham voted leave (I also personally believe that, but it is just my opinion), or because they’re repeating in good faith what other Brexiterrs have told them – or are they deliberately lying about knowing how Wrexham voted?

    in reply to: “Holiday hunger” #172420

    bubble
    Participant

    Obviously there are “bad” parents who prioritise the wrong things. I think it’s hard to see the wood for the trees – “problem” families tend to stick out like a sore thumb whereas those who are quiet (yet possibly struggling despite their very best efforts) tend to be overlooked. I’ve had so many problems with neighbours yet when I stop and think about it, most of my neighbours have been absolutely fine – it’s just the odd one or two that cause all the problems. They may cause lots of people big problems, but they are still in the minority.

    As this is a service provided by volunteers and donations, I really don’t see why anyone should take issue with it. Supermarkets often have a box for food bank donations – it’s voluntary & no one is forced to donate. I personally do not donate to food banks, I prefer to support animal charities. But I don’t have a problem with those who choose to donate their own time or money to food banks and schemes such as this.

    I wish there was an effective government programme that could bring about real change in behaviours and attitudes of parents (and others) whose behaviour falls short of what most people would consider appropriate (but behaviour which isn’t actually abusive), but I don’t think punishing their children is the way to do it. Some people genuinely fall on hard times through no fault of their own and surely we can’t begrudge them a helping hand – particularly when it’s charity.

    in reply to: Boris is our man…read it and weep bedwetters…! #171703

    bubble
    Participant

    I can acknowledge that I might cry a little over this, but I think it’s mostly tears of joy. In this depressing post-truth era I’ll take whatever laughs I can get. Watching working class Brexiteers thinking that shifty right wing middle class ex-public-school-boys are on their side amuses me greatly. Just looking at that “Lucas is a gonner” thread speaks volumes about the critical thinking abilities of Brexiteers.

    Boris has already promised that existing EU migrants can stay in the UK – it seems his first thought as PM is to help immigrants rather than the British people. But Brexiteers conveniently overlook that. Is it a benevolent gesture on his part or is it more likely his decision is motivated by trying to protect the cheaper unskilled labour costs that business “leaders” enjoy, keeping their profit margins higher and workers wages lower (that’s the kind of thing Brexiteers claim, isn’t it?). I doubt Boris cares about the little people who make up the actual workforce, but I can totally see him being on the side of “leaders” like himself.

    I believe that Boris will be as loyal to Brexiteers as Brexiteers were to UKIP when it came to the last general election.

    in reply to: Boris is our man…read it and weep bedwetters…! #171652

    bubble
    Participant

    I find it so odd how Brexiteers seem to think they’re winning. The bullshit spouted by people like Farage, Boris and Jacob RM doesn’t fool rational people; it only fools Brexiteers, who seem to think they’re in on the grift, when surely they’re the marks. Do Brexiteers seriously think that privileged middle class right-wingers like Farage, Boris & JRM care about working class Brexiteers? Remainers may end up being helplessly dragged into the same sewer by these politicians, but at least we realise it’s happening. The world of the Brexiteer appears to be a fact-free zone – one that Boris & co are exploiting. They must be laughing their tits off at how easily duped so many of my fellow working class plebs are. And for Lilly at least Brexit seems to be a reason to obsess over bedwetting – WTF is that about? Is the constant reference to bedwetting funny or clever to Brexiteers? I’m genuinely interested. Is Lilly and her juvenile brand of “humour” typical for a Brexiteer?

Content is user generated and is not moderated before posting. All content is viewed and used by you at your own risk and Wrexham.com does not warrant the accuracy or reliability of any of the information displayed. The views expressed on these Forums and social media are those of the individual contributors.
Complaint? Please use the report post tools or contact Wrexham.com .

More...

Level crossing safety plea to North Wales holidaymakers this Easter

News

Three ‘never events’ reported at health board during February

News

Clwyd South MS welcomes plans for baby loss certificates for bereaved parents

News

More detail on club accounts as owners will ‘continue to offer minority equity positions to strategic partners’

News

Turnover up 75% as Wrexham AFC say ‘losses shouldnt be repeated’ as payroll nears £7m

News

Lasit Spearheads a Clean Revolution: Laser Technology Redefines Industrial Cleaning

News