X9 bus route to be 'cut'

News on the grape vine is that the X9 bus service from Hambledon and Denmead to Portsmouth is to be cut, I believe the revised route will be between Denmead and Waterlooville (i'm not sure about Hambledon).

The route is currently financially supported by the one or more of the councils and they are no longer willing to support it beyond Waterlooville.

The service is currently the only one from Waterlooville to the entrances of Queen Alexander hospital and there is no information regarding any replacement service that stops at the hospital. Other services from Waterlooville require a long walk and some steps to the main entrances, not very good for the elderly, injured etc.

The change is scheduled on the 8th or 9th January 2017, so if you care about those that need public transport, get writing to your MP and your councillor.

Premiere of 'Faces' film on Friday

Faces film will be premiered at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard this Friday evening. Kye Wilson (a successful local video artist) and Helena Eflerová created the film, so go and check it out. It will also be on show at various other locations later, including on the Big Screen at Portsmouth Guildhall Square.



http://www.nmrn.org.uk/news-events/nmrn-blog/faces-portsmouth

http://www.visitportsmouth.co.uk/whats-on/faces-portsmouth-festivities-p1063481

The Star bus service

The new number 7 and 8 'Star' service between Waterlooville and Portsmouth has started and like the Eclipse service between Fareham and Gosport includes a bus stop announcement system and leather seats.

The display at the front of the bus shows the next stop once the current stop has been left and a 'ticker tape' feature at the bottom displays the latest news headlines.
I think the display is a bit under used. There is a large area that is used to display messages about the free WIFI and other onboard features.

Maybe First could do a 'deal' with The News and display local news in that space?

As well as the display, an audio voice announces the next bus stop. These systems are great for people with disabilities and also great for people new to buses or new to an area and don't know where to get off.

The seats are smart with leather coverings which should make them easier to clean. The padding in the seats is also good, giving comfortable support.

On some of the buses the display didn't seem to be working (one displayed the Windows command line and some error messages), but hopefully that is just initial teething trouble and on most of the buses I used it was working. The system certainly appears to be an improvement over the bus stop information systems installed years ago which took a long time to get working.

I have to say that despite some displays not working on some buses, the voice 'next stop' announcements were still working on those buses.

Whilst using the service, I did notice that some people were deliberately waiting for 'Star' buses and avoiding other bus numbers!

http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/star/index.php

HMS Victory - a place in history

Visited the Historic Dockyard Museum recently. Many don't realise that the Victory was active at the start of the industrial revolution. Don't be fooled by the fact that it is powered by sail, it was a sophisticated piece of kit, far ahead of the Mary Rose which sank 233 years before the Victory was completed:

1759 - Keel laid down
1775 - Jane Austen born, James Watts first advanced steam engine
1778 - Victory fitted out and completed
1786 - Albion cotton mill fitted with steam engine
1792 - First home with gas lighting
1794 - Whitney patents cotton gin
1802 - Trevithick demonstrates steam locomotive. Cruickshanks trough electric battery.
1805 - Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson dies
1807 - First successful steam boat
1815 - Battle of Waterloo, defeat of Napoleon
1817 - Jane Austen dies

Baffins Pond

Recently visited Copnor in Portsmouth and took some photos of Baffins pond. I was talking to a small shop owner in Copnor and she said they are struggling, a few want to sell up and they keep fighting Tescos to stop them opening a Tescos Express. So far they have succeeded in halting Tescos. If Tescos succeed, it will kill a lot of shops in the area.

Thankfully, Tescos doesn't threaten Baffins pond!
Use the scroll bar to view the whole panorama view of Baffins Pond or click on the image to view in 'widescreen'.

Looking for work?

Portsmouth Friends of the Earth are looking for an Area Project Officer to cover maternity leave on their Lottery funded Grow to Eat Well project in Portsmouth. If you have good horticultural skills, are a good recruiter and are happy driving an electric van or riding a cycle, you might be interested. Closing date 13/12/11. Contact the project for more details.

http://www.gtew.org.uk/

Portsmouth Summer Fair and Picnic

The fifth Portsmouth Summer (green) Fair takes place on the 25th June this year, with an added extra of a picnic. Last year they had a pedal powered hovercraft, not sure if that will be at this years, however as usual there will be food, crafts, solar powered stuff and music. A full list is available at the PCAN web page.

Highest Tide 2010

December last year I posted a photo article about sea levels and high tide down at Southsea. It wasn't the highest tide, but this year I managed to catch the highest tide.

I took this video near Southsea Castle and the aquarium:

You can see in the last clip of the video I had to stand on the wall to avoid getting wet. Later on whilst taking some photos at Old Portsmouth, I did get soaked by spray from a wave.
This is a nice photo showing just how high and rough it was on the day, I couldn't get to close to the fence because of the waves:

Two of the waves can be seen just reaching the top of the sea wall.
And here it is at low tide in the summer:

Why take these photos?

Well imagine adding 1 to 2 metres to that high tide, the path would have to be blocked from public use many times a year and the waves would be slopping over the higher sea walls.

1 to 2 metres is the sea level rise expected by the end of the century and into the first part of the next century.

Now instead add 6 metres - the amount sea levels would rise if the equivalent volume of ice as on  Greenland melted - then Portsmouth would be flooded in many areas.

A visit to Fort Nelson

Due to the excellent weather this month, I decided to cycle from Waterlooville to The Royal Armouries Museum on top of Portsdown Hill. The museum is in Fort Nelson one of a string of forts built in the 1860s to defend against a potential French invasion.

Interestingly the attack on Portsmouth was expected to come from inland so the main defences of all the forts was on the land side, in the case of Fort Nelson pointing towards the North. The weaker defences are on the South side of the forts and these are visible from Portsmouth.

The route I took wasn't exactly the most direct, but it was probably the easiest to do without much thinking. I simply took the London Road up to Widley then took the route along James Callaghan Drive and Portsdown Hill Road. Quite a lot of gentle uphill work there, but nearly all downhill back!
In fact on the way back from the Widley Junction to Purbrook you can pick up a lot of speed.

The cycle/bus lanes are great for cyclists, road traffic is kept well away from you. The round trip was about 12 miles.

Near the fort is the Nelson Monument. This was finished in 1808, three years after the battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson.

Of course the fort was named Fort Nelson because of proximity to the monument. Many people don't even know the monument exists and even if they had seen it, wouldn't know why it was there.

This is the view of the fort near the main entrance. Behind the redan wall would be the officers quarters. Note the lower floor has sash windows, whilst the upper floor has positions for guns.

Each gun would be flanked either side by riflemen who would fire at attackers whilst the main gun was being reloaded.

Also remember this is the weaker side of the defences and it wasn't expected that an attack would come from this direction.

This is one of the North facing defences, effectively the main defences. Attackers would have to come down the ramparts into the dry ditch and would be faced by a huge thick wall.

I took the photo standing on top of one of the caponiers, below would be gun positions ready to fire along the length of the wall. Every wall has similar guns trained along them so there would have been no where for an attacker to hide. Also the design was such that no defender could shoot their own men.

These are the defensive mortar positions They are well protected behind the walls under a lot of earthworks held up by the brickwork and arches seen here. The light in front of the mortars shows where the gap in the roof is and where they would fire out. Up on top brave officers would see where the enemy were and call out instructions to adjust the trajectories of the mortars.

The mortars would drop their balls or bombs onto the enemy in the fields beyond the fort ramparts.

This is above the mortars shown in the previous photo. The brick work in the grass is actually the gap out of which the mortars would fire out.

The position I took this photo is where officers would be monitoring the enemy positions and giving instructions to the mortar crews.

I like this photo because the mortar looks really tiny and the Nelson Monument can be seen in the distance. Because I took the photo near the ground and there are no people near by, the mortar looks quite close to the camera and about knee high.

The reality is the mortar is huge, each of the balls in that stack is waist high!  It's a bit like the Father Ted scene, 'These are very small, those are far away...'.

It is called Mallets Mortar and is located at the front of the museum.

There is a lot to see at the fort, if you are really interested in armaments then you'll need 3 to 5 hours to take it all in. I also recommend the guided tour, even if you do know your stuff.
I haven't shown here the galleries with every conceivable artillery piece you could imagine, I haven't shown the mock ups of the fort kitchen, and officers quarters, I haven't shown the tunnels and magazines and I haven't shown the 20th century weapons that are on display.

For more info visit the Museum site or the Palmerston Forts Society which also has a detailed photo tour of the fort.

Panorama of Portsmouth

I recently cycled to Fort Nelson on Portsdown Hill and will post about that later. Whilst on the hill I took a series of photos with my really cruddy digital camera with the idea of creating a panorama of Portsmouth. I came across some brilliant Open Source software called Hugin that managed to transform my cruddy photos into this amazing picture:

If you saw how bad the original series of photos were, you would realise how good Hugin is. I think I will be using it more in the future. It works on the basis of finding a number of control points in each picture, then manipulates the images to line up similar control points. It even compensates different exposures, colour etc.
There are also a lot of settings that can be changed to manipulate the type of view.
Click on the photo to see a bigger version.

Love Your Bike video

Video of the Love Your Bike event last Sunday. I think it was filmed after I had left, it's a lot busier in the video than when I was there. At the beginning the bike harp is being played. I missed the bike hockey!

Work on St Judes Southsea

I think I have broken my record for the number of posts in one month.
Some interesting changes are being made to St Judes in Southsea, A mixture of old and New...

I like this feature. In the new wall just outside the new entrance is a stone seat, for weary worshippers or shoppers to rest their feet:

A modern buttress, that merges the new on the right, with the old on the left:

One of the old buttresses:

I don't think this is actually a new feature, modern yes, but not a part of the new build. Here we have an original gargoyle from the old drainage system replaced with modern guttering. It looks like some water is still getting to the gargoyle, I think it is supposed to be blocked off.

Southsea then and now

Whilst visiting Southsea, I realised I had a photo of the sea wall near the war memorial and aquarium in my collection, so decided to take a similar photo today. This one was taken in the early 1980s or maybe the 1970s, the tide was out and there is no sign of the Spinnaker tower:

Today the tide was high at Noon. The Spinnaker tower is hiding behind the war memorial:

I'll try and get a better photo in future, try and match the exact spot I was standing in the 80s/70s.
The focal length probably also needs to be different.

Love Your Bike Day, Portsmouth 2010

Just got back from the Love Your Bike Day at the Southsea skate park. Here are a lot of photos of the event.

Someone relaxing on their recliner:

The Gocycle electric bike, but unfortunately the company didn't show up with some batteries and other units, I would have liked to have a go:

A custom chopper:

A customised paint job on this childs wooden bike, I think local schools had a go at painting these:

A bamboo bike. This is imported, the frame is made out of bamboo:

Close ups of the bamboo frame:

Actually this trike wasn't being exhibited, it was someone's everyday bike, I liked it because of the child's seat facing backwards at the rear:

Some action shots in the park:

And finally a bike harp. Yep it has strings on the frame with pick-ups that feed into an amp:

Love Your Bike

Recently visited Palmerston Road in Portsmouth for a meeting, the first time in a few years. Turned up a bit early, so had a look around.

First thing I noticed was an interesting display of cycles in a Debenhams window. It was for the Portsmouth Love Your Bike event later this month. They seem to have a lot of sponsors this year and the web site is professionally designed. Quite impressive. You can check out custom bikes and stalls on 30th May at various locations, including Southsea Skatepark, Ian Parmiters Antiques and Little Johnny Russell’s.

Actually the main thing that caught my attention in the Debenhams window was the Go Cycle electric bike. Wow! An electric bike that has been designed from scratch and looks the part. The battery is integrated into the frame, but is easily replaceable. The frame is a light magnesium moulded structure, with a built in kick stand. According to the company web site, a shop in Winchester allows test rides.

Whilst waiting for the meeting, I popped into 'Heidi's Swiss Patisserie'.  I thought I was going to experience some continental pastries etc. But was confronted with Chelsea buns, Cornish pasties, iced buns, jacket potatoes, steak pies and donuts. There is a section called Continental breads, but other than standard British tin loaves, the only continental bread I could see was 'Greek' and ciabatta bread. People seem to spend a lot of time thinking up names for their businesses these days,  it's a pity that they can't also put some effort into a business plan that actually matches the name!

If small businesses want to compete, then at least be honest and straight forward, don't pretend to be something your not. Or maybe that is what society is about today, being flash with no substance?

Hustings at Portsmouth University

Portsmouth Climate Action Network has organised a hustings for the 2010 elections at Portsmouth University on Weds 28th April. Eight candidates for Portsmouth North and Portsmouth South will be taking questions from the public about climate change and the environment.

Those attending are:

Portsmouth South
John Ferrett - Labour
Tim Dawes - Green Party
Flick Drummond - Conservative
Mike Hancock - Lib Dem

Portsmouth North
Iain Maclennan - Green
Sarah McCarthy-Fry - Labour
Penny Mordaunt - Conservative
Darren Sanders - Lib Dem

Time: 19:00 to 20:30
Date: Weds 28th April
Place: Park Building 2.01, University of Portsmouth

Facing up To Rising Sea Levels event

There will be a launch event for the 'Facing up To Rising Sea Levels' exhibition at Portsmouth Cathedral on Tues 16th Feb, at 2.30pm next week. Speakers include the Very Reverend David Brindley, Dean of Portsmouth Cathedral, Ewan Willars, Head of Policy, RIBA and John Slater, Head of Planning, Portsmouth City Council.

More info

New flooding study of Portsmouth

It looks like I'm not the only one who has an interest in the future flooding of Portsmouth. A new study called "Facing up to Rising Sea Levels" looks at the future of Portsmouth and Kingston-upon-Hull. The report has been created by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institute of British Architects. It looks at how Portsmouth might cope with sea level rises at the end of the century.

It will be uncomfortable reading for some people. The two organisations look at ways of dealing with sea level rises, pointing out that most of Portsmouth is no more than 3m above sea level.

The Institute of Civil Engineers has a press release about the study, where the report can be downloaded.

Added: An exhibition of the ICE and RIBA study will be held from 15th to 20th February at Portsmouth Cathedral (anglican). There will also be an exhibition of Portsmouth Councils North Solent shoreline management plan at the Central Library on 8th Feb.

Portsmouth Picture Story - high tides and sea levels

Decided to check out the high tide today down in Old Portsmouth, armed with a camera, I thought I would take some photos. Today wasn't the highest tide of the year, that was on August 22nd, when it was about 0.5m higher than today. High tides are caused by the positioning of the Moon and Sun, combined with the rotation of the earth and local phenomenon specific to a location.

Round Tower
Started at the Round Tower in Old Portsmouth at the newish concrete wall. This shot is looking in towards the harbour. The stones are relatively new, I think in the past there was just the wall that can be seen on the right, protecting the property behind it. The latest prediction for the end of this century is for a 1.4m sea level rise (probably greater by the time the century is out), so roughly 5ft. Add another 0.5m for the highest tide and you get about 2m or 6.5ft (added to the sea level in the photo). So the water will be lapping up against that wall and on a rough day, coming over the top




Walking along wall towards Clarence Pier
OK, for those not familiar with Portsmouth, In this photo (below) I am walking on top of the old defensive wall (partly military protection, partly protection from the sea/weather). The ground is a number of metres below, you need to walk up some stairs to go on the wall. In the photo, 'ground level' is a metre or two above the high tide sea level. Here you can sea a concrete platform with a fence around it, completely inundated by the sea. Only really of use to fishermen at lower tides. Note that the lower walkway on the left of the photo (behind the concrete pillars and below the upper walkway. The upper walkway in the photo is also well above ground level), would not be a nice place to be at the highest tide, with a low atmospheric pressure and a storm surge!




Inundated platform
Closer shot of the concrete platform. Note at the end of the century, it will be next to useless, even at mid tide. At the highest tide, the fence will be completely under water (assuming the fence remained).




The moat, Nelsons last walk and Spur Redoubt
Here is a shot of the low wall at the moat near where Nelson made his last walk to his fleet, before the Battle of Trafalgar. Note the water level on the sea side of the wall and the water level on the land side of the wall. I estimate that at maximum high tide, the sea would reach the bottom of the inclined plain of the wall. Another metre or so and it will pour in over the top and into the moat. Portsmouth City Council are probably going to have to raise the wall in about 4 to 6 decades from now.




Culvert allows water into moat
This shot shows the water flowing through a culvert (at high tide) into the moat on the other side of the wall (photo above). Not sure if the culvert door is water tight when closed, probably not.
Note the sea level on the other side would roughly be where the missing stone/brick is above the culvert.




Nelsons tunnel
This is the tunnel Nelson walked through on his way to HMS Victory before setting sail and the Battle of Trafalgar. Note that as well as the culvert for letting water in, there are drainage culverts dotted around the moat. These obviously work fine with current sea levels. On a low tide, the water can drain out if the moat gets to high. Note how close the tunnel entrance is to the water level in the moat. A 1 to 2 metre increase in sea levels, the tunnel and the land at the other end of the tunnel could be flooded. Another problem for Portsmouth City Council to ponder in the coming decades. For those unfamiliar with Portsmouth, the tunnel runs through a built up mound of earth (a rampart), 'ground level' is I believe at the same level as the tunnel (need to check that!).



This photo is an older shot of the tunnel, moat and bridge. It was taken about 10 years ago, or maybe earlier. The fact that the water appears to be at a lower level isn't really relevant. However it can be seen the older bridge was wood. The photo was taken from the ruins of the Spur Redoubt.




Close up at Tunnel entrance
Here's a close up of the water at the tunnels entrance. The Moat may have to be dry in the future, with the sea prevented from entering (the culverts sealed). This maybe the only way of protecting the tunnel and Southsea from being flooded.




Clarence Pier
Clarence pier is a metre or two above high tide. Another 0.5m needs to be added in this photo for the max tide. Basically the future of Clarence Pier this century is doubtful. I don't know how well the businesses do on it, but I suspect there won't be the money to do the required sea defence work. Unless of course it comes out of public funds.




Beach near the hovercraft terminal
Note, that a 1.4m sea level rise would roughly erode 14m or more of beach inland. Basically on a high tide the building in the shot here (I think it is the RNLI building, but can't remember) would be in the water.



Hope you enjoyed that! I think most of my comments are accurate, if you know the workings of the moat and it doesn't match mine, then do leave a comment. What should be remembered is that this area is relatively well protected. A few modifications and there aren't many problems. The biggest problem though is that sea levels won't stop rising at the end of the century. You can probably add another 2 to 4 metres next century and so on, century after century!

South coast sea levels rising

Researchers at Southampton University have used data from numerous sources and show that sea levels along the South coast of England have been rising over the last century. A serious flooding event that would have occurred once in 100 years in 1900 would now occur once in 10 to 25 years.
As sea levels continue to rise, the events are going to increase (once every year or so) and obviously eventually it won't be possible to defend Portsmouth against the rising waters.

I wrote a post a while ago suggesting that Portsmouth would have to be abandoned as the seas continue to rise.
One assumes that such news would eventually affect property, land prices and insurance cover, one wonders when this would happen?
Portsmouth City Council won't discuss it or even mention it. Southampton is planning a large barrier to fend off the sea, but as an island, Portsmouth is doomed to become a modern Atlantis with the Spinnaker tower poking above the waters.