Waterlooville photos

I have been doing this blog for a while now and have focused on stuff that interests me, which inevitably means most posts have an environmental bias. The other thing is that I get a few people visiting the blog from outside the area, including foreign locations.

So I thought I would show some photos of locations around Waterlooville that are sort of connected to the history.

First of all, we have two pubs, The Heroes and The Wellington, that are linked to the Battle of Waterloo (by name) and the soldiers that camped in the area on their way back from the battle.
The Wellington:

The Heroes (i think the sign has a picture of heavy cavalry of the period)
Actually, isn't the foot soldier French?? I'll have to have a closer look in future!
(Added: having looked at some uniforms, the soldier on foot by the horse is closest to the uniform of the Kings German Legion):

As well as the two pubs, a few years ago the local government spent some money re-paving the town centre and created a bus only route through the centre. When they did this they got some artists to create plaques that are embedded in the floor, including this one that commemorates the Waterloo heroes (the text says "The infantry from the Battle of Waterloo camped here on the way back to barracks in 1815"):

Another plaque celebrates the ancient forest of Bere. Which of course is almost non-existent now (well you knew the environment would creep in some where didn't you!). Actually it does still exist as remnants in Jubilee Park, Park Wood and The Queens Enclosure, all of which are within walking distance from the town centre:

The plaques are located along some mock tram tracks that the same artists thought were a good idea. Trams once travelled along tracks from Portsmouth up to Waterlooville and on to Horndean. The mock tracks look nice, but I think I would prefer to see some real trams:

Then there are the new obelisks. Oh dear, does anyone really like them?
On each face they have a picture that is supposed to be linked to Waterlooville, some make sense, others are a bit tenuous:

Waterloo Ward By-Election

The election on 4th September could possibly turn the tide of Tory domination in the Waterloo Ward with the prospect of Fred Dunford winning. Many people that actually live in the ward are fed up with Havant Borough Councils poor management of their council tax money, failing to invest in making the Civic Offices more efficient as a result of taking short term economic views. Compared with many places of work, HBC fails to meet modern green ethical standards and wastes energy. As a result the council also wastes public money. The council needs to put the environment as a higher priority.

Fred Dunford is leading a campaign to stop Jubilee Park being earmarked for development. There are some fantastic huge oak trees in Jubilee Park that are not protected and of course it is an important local green space, so he gets my support for that.

Some issues mentioned in Freds leaflets i don't agree with. The higher food and energy prices are due to over consumption of resources and no matter what you do with taxes, prices are still going to rise. The other point is that higher fuel prices have encouraged people to reduce consumption.

Considering that some 25% of food is wasted in the UK and that a lot of people don't need to make many of the journeys they do, then for many there is a lot of room to make cuts in consumption. If poor people can not afford the basics then reducing the tax burden would be a temporary reduction. People are poor because their gross income is low, not because oil, gas and food prices have gone up.