Susan Jefferies

Oh dear, the ship sails further towards disaster.

We have a comment from the Chief Executive that he is ‘waiting to be advised of developments’, should the man in this position not be insisting on answers ?

then from another senior Council Officer we hear

The cost consultant (Davis Langdon) and the constructor (Carillion) continue to work towards an agreed maximum price.  Regrettably there have been several setbacks since the County Council meeting with two of the lowest price sub-contractors going in to receivership and further tenders not being returned due the buoyant market for large construction projects

Several setbacks ?  I read minor setbacks as bad news, a few setbacks as very bad news financially, to admit to several setbacks in Officerese is total  standstill, disaster or moving backwards.  No this does not make good sense.

Many of you will have noticed that there is an almost permanent flood across the Waterloo Road just north of the Brookside Caravan Park.

In the past the County Council has regularly cleared the ditch alongside the road, which prevents the water from encroaching on the road. The County Council has apparently stopped doing this, if you look at the ditch it is now badly overgrown and blocked with silt. The policy is to insist that the landowner, in this case the owner of the field above the road, takes responsibility. The owner has been informed and he has made a valiant attempt to clear the drain under the road, however I would doubt that he has equipment suitable to clear the ditch properly.

The County Council has however managed to send a van out to erect two road signs stating ‘Flood’.

Back home after a break in the French Alps with my grandchildren.

My oldest son lives in a lovely village in the mountains which has many similarities to Corfe Mullen. An old established village, the Abbaye was established 1000 years ago, but recently the houses in the village have in many cases become second homes, half of the houses are now only occupied at holiday times. The population of the village has dropped to 2000 people (Corfe Mullen has 10,000) and schools are only surviving because young English families have come to live there.

We do not want Corfe Mullen to become like this.

I am back to work now, dealing with various residents problems and preparing our responses to the RSS and Hazel Blears.

The Higher Blandford Road (B3074), from Windgreen to St Huberts Church will be closed for resurfacing next week.

This bit of road was resurfaced this time last year, but as many of you have noticed the surface very quickly began to break up and was washed down into the A31 by the heavy rain we had at the turn of the year.

A whole raft of excuses were offered including the wrong sort of rain and the wrong sort of stones, this was occurring all over the County on roads resurfaced last summer, they obviously got a duff lot.

I am assured that this time they will do a good job and it will last, different supplier of stones this time.

Diversions will be in place and traffic will be directed through the village along the Wareham Road to the Limberlost traffic lights, up to the Henbury roundabout and back down the A31. Some local people may be tempted to find their own shorter diversion !

All over Dorset people are worried about losing their Post Offices and marching in protest. It has been said that since the Government has taken away many of the Post Office unique functions that they have effectively made them redundant. You can have your Pension paid into the bank, you can buy Car tax and a TV License on line, if you have a computer and an email address, and you can buy a book of stamps in the High Street.

I protested that the supermarket wouldn’t weigh your parcel for you. Today I discovered some other unique services. I can buy a book of 1st class stamps, and a book of 2nd class in the newsagent or the supermarket, (not single stamps) but I cannot buy a book of large stamps for a large letter. Nor can I buy airmail……………. only my Post Office can supply those !!

Keep using our Post Offices !!

Hi there Nick !! I am glad you have time to read this, I hope it keeps you amused !!! susan

Last week we had our quarterly meeting of the Beacon Hill Tip Liaison committee preceded as usual by a site visit.

If you go up onto the Tip, as we do, and see all the household waste from a community it is a horrifying sight. I defy anyone to see that and not return a dedicated recycler ! the less we can throw into holes in the ground the better and the longer we will retain our surroundings.

Saying that, it is interesting, it is a very technical business. Methane gas is produced by the rotting rubbish and collected, piped out and used to make electricity which is sold to the National grid. The methane plant produces 2megawatts of electricity, enough to light half the homes in Corfe Mullen.

The leachate, the liquid drawn off from the base of the rubbish, more in wet weather as the rain permeates the heap, is broken down and neutralised on the site, until the inert liquid is innocuous enough to be allowed into the sewage system.

The Tip attracts seagulls, the vermin of the skies, but they are kept at bay most effectively by trained birds of prey who are flown most days. A magnificent site to see.

The old brickworks building has been renovated and turned into a headquarters and training centre for Dorset Wild Life Trust.

Much as we didn’t want the Tip 15 years ago, it is not all bad !

The QE saga rumbles on, or does not, depends how you look at it.

We hoped to have resolution on July 9th but I don’t think work has restarted, still a quiet site. We hoped that the contractors could make great progress in the 6 weeks of the summer holidays, no students, good weather.

All that we do know is that the project is now hopelessly over budget, before even a brick has been laid. Increased by nearly a third since May ? and it was well over by then already. I cannot believe that it will stop there, I doubt we will see much change from £50m by the time students actually move in.

Did the Tories not have a legal contract ? a binding price ? Have they learned nothing from the fiasco of Lytchett Minster School ? At the moment they are trying to keep the whole thing under wraps, ‘Confidential business’ they say. On Thursday, at the Council Meeting, we LibDems will attempt to get the whole story aired in public, the tax payers need to know.

The project will go ahead, but other capital projects in the pipeline will suffer.

 Both the Post Offices in Corfe Mullen are to stay ! Neither has been named in the first round of closures. However the consultation is not complete until September and so we must continue to support them and do as much business as we can locally.

The competition has now closed to entries so we must await voting and a result.  In view of this I have taken all the comments off the website, and we must wait and see what the public decide !