Tuesday, October 30

Carbon Emissions - more than you think...

Video showing the graphic visualisation of the carbon emissions produced by New York City:

Wednesday, October 10

Big changes for First buses in November

Just been looking at the new bus service changes that First are planning for November.

The first obvious major change is that practically all the bus numbers are changing. Most of the Waterlooville services into Portsmouth are changing to No's 7, 8 and 9, including variations on those numbers. Numbers that remain will be X40 and X41.

A much bigger change is in the routes. Nearly all the Waterlooville services will now miss out North End and Northern Parade completely and instead take the route along the M275 into Portsmouth. This will mean that most bus journeys into the City Centre will be faster.

From what I can see on the new route map only one bus service from Waterlooville passes through North End. Not sure if that is a 50% cut in services to North End, depends on the frequency of the remaining service. To get to non-City Centre areas of Portsmouth it appears the best option might be to change at Cosham.

Another problem seems to be a lack of buses servicing the North East of Portsmouth. There are no buses at all servicing the Anchorage Park area.

There is one bus service numbered 0! Is that a first in the UK??
It seems to do a circular route around Portsmouth. Never in my life have I seen a bus numbered 0.
Maybe they will start using negative and imaginary numbers in the future?

Monday, October 8

PO7&PO8 spam

The postman delivered the first copy of 'PO7&P08' today (as if I don't get enough paper spam already).
At least I think it was the postman, although I guess it could have been delivered by an unpaid 'intern'.

The problem with any publication that basically pretends to represent 'the community' and is funded by business is that it is in reality communicating a fantasy. Most people I know in the community talk about the weather, their family, whats on TV, why politicians are idiots or why life today is so crap. Hence it doesn't represent local community at all. Where is the critique if the only articles are press releases by businesses promoting a product or service?

'PO7&PO8' isn't a typical 'free' local publication (you do of course pay for it through dealings you have with the businesses that support it, hence in some way it is funded via a tax on the price you pay for a product or service), it was started by the deputy leader of Havant Borough Council, David Guest. So as well as being a propaganda outlet for various businesses, it is also linked to a specific political/economic ideology.

What is intrtiguing is that South Downs College is down as a 'Corporate Supporter' and on the front page of issue one it states 'It is the Corporate Support and the advertising that funds this project' which implies a publically funded body (South Downs College) gives money to a project that has political party connections.

The first issue also mentions Waterlooville Community Forum, which allegedly represents the community of Waterlooville. It replaces two community boards. So whats new about the WCF?
Well what isn't new is the people that are on the new forum, they include Waterlooville Business Assocaition, Residents Associations, church groups and local councillors. Basically the same groups that allegedly represented the community in the previous community boards. A bit of shuffling and then apparently everything is better! A few people in these forums claim they represent thousands of people, the question is do you know who they are or what they look like? Did you ever ask them to represent you?

In this first issue Grainger and Barrett have a chance to blow their own trumpets. Grainger take the opportunity to announce that their 2000 home development will be called 'Berewood'. Yep, in memory of millions of trees that were once the Forest of Bere, Grainger has decided to commemorate the fact that all that carbon is probably now in our atmsophere and that the new development will add more on top of that!

From the environmental point of view, it has nothing to recomend it. The publication doesn't appear to have any standards regarding types of business promoted. That in turn puts a massive question mark over Havant Borough Councils environmental and economic credentials.