Cllr. Lloyd-Hayes and Cllr. Dawe have written the following letter to the Hereford Times:

Dear Sir/Madam

Following recent reports about the disagreements on committee places at Herefordshire Council, your readers may be interested to know that Cllr. Roger Phillips, Leader of Herefordshire Council, presented a new committee structure five minutes before the meeting of full council on Friday 22nd May 2009. This did not give the Alliance adequate time to consider it. In protest at this anti-democratic behaviour, Cllr. Marcelle Lloyd-Hayes and myself voted against. Because a unanimous vote is required, we forced the second council meeting.

It is not true that the new committee structures were unanimously agreed by all group leaders prior to the full council meeting. I, the Alliance leader was not present that this meeting and neither was Cllr. Chris Chappell the Labour leader.

After much discussion, the Alliance reluctantly decided to abstain from the vote on Friday 12th June. This reflected our unease with the Committee structures. Many people are unaware that ‘opposition’ councillors have an extra financial allowance as committee chair. A typical back-bench councillor earns around £6.9k and a committee chair an additional £6-7k. Because the Chairmanships are in the gift of the Council Leader, this might be seen to compromise their independence. The new (and old) committee structure had six ‘opposition’ Chairs. If we had voted against the structure it may have been reduced to five opposition chairs. It was our opinion that in terms of opposition to Council policy, the loss of one ‘opposition’ chair would have made little difference.

Under the current Cabinet structure and pay system for Councillors, there is little real opposition to anything which Herefordshire Council proposes. This is a system which the Alliance for Democracy and Accountability wishes to see changed. We believe that a large number of local people would agree with us.

Yours sincerely

Cllr. Gerald Dawe (Leader, Herefordshire Alliance for Accountability and Democracy, Hollington Ward) and Cllr. Marcelle Lloyd-Hayes (Herefordshire Alliance for Accountability and Democracy, Tupsley Ward)

The first edition of Gerald's Expose newsletter reveals that councillor's expenses will go unanalysed, bus services continue to be vulnerable and the RAR hasn't created any jobs. Now there's a real shock! Download Expose as a pdf here.

At the Full Council Meeting on Friday last Gerald and a member of the public as well asked Cllr Wilcox, cabinet member for the environment, about the bus cuts again, suggesting ways the £80k could be found. They got a written response that the £80k cuts would not now happen, though re-bidding for bus contracts may lead to cuts. I dont really see how this can be, in today's recession, surely bus companies would be only too pleased for the work. Anyway, good news

Gerald recently presented a report on his work as local councillor to Callow Parish Council. This includes a summary of his involvement with various controversial issues demonstrating that he is fighting hard against the inertia and complacency he has found on Herefordshire Council. To download a copy of the report in pdf format, click here.

Dear Councillor Wilcox

My constituents are very concerned about the proposed cut in bus services, I am writing to you on their behalf prior to the meeting on Monday to suggest some alternatives. The bus cuts are very unfair. Herefordshire Council's transport hierarchy, published in your Local Transport Plan, is:

(Top priority = 1)
1 Pedestrians & people with mobility difficulties
2 Cyclists & public transport users
3 Commercial/business users & powered two wheelers
4 Car borne shoppers & coach borne visitors
5 Car borne commuters & visitors

So: the second highest priority is 'cyclists and public transport users' which I think we would all agree with for obvious reasons. Like my constituents I was therefore quite shocked to see a potential proposal for cutting the already barely adequate bus services.

Looking in my budget books I see that in 2007/08 the amount allocated to 'Highways, roads and transport services' in that year was £15m. Therefore, the council's commitment to public transport, at £3m is approximately a fifth of the transport budget. At the same time, Herefordshire Council continues to spend substantial sums, in other areas of both its main budget and its transport budget, on the lower priorities (e.g. 3-5). For example, £500,000 was spent on the Rotherwas Access Road (RAR) during each of the following three years from within the Local Transport Plan: 2006-7, 2007-8, 2008-9. A further £1,602,000 is to be borrowed (via Prudential Borrowing) in 2008-9, and yet another £1,386,000 in 2009-10, all to pay for this little used road.

It seems to me and to others that the spending on roads which is meant to be your Priority number 5 is occurring at the expense of public transport (Priority 2). I urge you now to increase spending on Priority 2 and decrease it on Priority 5.

I believe the cuts are to save £170K, this surely can be found elsewhere, by cutting a less sensitive area that will not affect those who have no access to cars. A modest rise in car parking charges would raise the £170K needed to keep the buses. Or a slight shift in the transport budget from large schemes, such as planning the ODR (can it not be put back one year), or the Link Road. Perhaps these can be looked at during the Monday meeting.

To my lay person’s eyes I think there is also some rationalisation that can be done with the buses, such as reducing the town circular buses, as Jim Davies has already proposed in his letter to Parish Councils, and possibly replacing the once a week type of service with Dial a Ride.
It is so important to keep the bus services we have and indeed to improve on them. My constituents are particularly worried about bus service 37 through Little Dewchurch, which they feel is much needed. I have already spoken to Jim Davies about the inadequacy of the services 454, 456 and 457 through Holme Lacy, considering the college is there with all the young people, many of whom are forced to drive (and the implications this has for safety). There is also a large hotel there with many people working, the bus service desperately needs to be improved. Several people in Ballingham have contacted me because they have no bus at all, which is another major cause for concern.

I know in the past you have strongly supported bus services and will not relish cutting them. I hope we can find a way around the problem.

Yours sincerely



COUNCILLOR G. DAWE

A very rare mature Wych Elm or Wych Elm Hybrid tree has been felled in Hereford City Centre. A tree officer gave an account to Councillor Gerald Dawe1 of how detailed ‘X-Rays’ had been taken of the trunk before the decision was taken to chainsaw the tree.

On further enquiry by Cllr. Dawe, it turned out that a Resistograph not an ‘X-ray’ had been used to assess the health of the tree. The Resistograph is a drilling device which bores tiny holes through the trunk, assessing the ‘resistance’ of the wood at each stage. Many have advised against the use of such a machine, for it can readily introduce infection, and also the results, as in this case, are not easy to interpret.

The tree had stood in the quiet green corner of Venn’s Graveyard on Commercial Road for the last 120 years. This means it was a young seedling in c. 1890. It somehow avoided the deadly Dutch Elm disease in the two outbreaks of the 1930s and the 1970s to 1980s and continued to grow, right in the middle of Hereford, now as very rare tree indeed, as virtually all other elms had caught the disease and died.

Sadly, in 2009, it succumbed to the disease of Herefordshire Council bureaucracy, and was felled. Two ‘diseases’ were identified by council officers; first, a slow-acting fungus Rigidoporus ulmarius, and second, the dreaded Dutch Elm Disease (DED). DED can lead to branch drop, but would not have meant the Hereford tree had to be felled, at least not for many years. The rare fungus Rigidoporus can ultimately lead to structural problems. However, in the Hereford tree, decay to the centre of the trunk was small. Observations by Cllr Dawe and photographs show there was a small 3”-6” (8 cm to 15 cm) wide hole in the centre of the trunk, and the area where wood had softened amounted to no more than 10-12 inch (30 cm). This was in the centre of the trunk of 1.2 m. In other words, no more than a quarter (25%) of the tree width had rotted and this was in the centre. As trees are supported on the outside of the trunk not the centre, it would have stood for many years more. Recommendations are that when a tree has rotted up to two-thirds of its trunk width (66%) consideration should be given to felling it2. Other authors have been slightly more conservative, and say that the tree needs looking at when 35%-45% of the trunk width has decayed3. In the Hereford elm’s case, it was judged suitable for felling at only 25% decay.

Said Councillor Dawe: “This unimaginative approach has led to the loss of a valuable and rare tree in the middle of Hereford. Even if the decay were significant, which it wasn’t, elms –even dead ones- are so rare that other steps should have been taken. The tree could have been crown-thinned or pollarded, or supported by posts, and part of the dead wood left. All of this is very common practice in public parks elsewhere. The felling and removal of this tree is quite unacceptable. I am extremely disappointed in this unimaginative step taken by qualified and highly paid officers.” Cllr Dawe has formally asked the Council to put Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) on any remaining elms in Herefordshire and all the remaining standing trees in Venn’s Cemetery. “The Council have yet again failed to value what is good about Hereford.”

Cllr. Dawe has submitted the following questions to for full council, Friday 6th February 2009.

Scrutiny committees are supposed to be the major way in which the lead ruling group (in this case the Conservatives) are examined and challenged by opposition groups.

Says Cllr. Gerald Dawe: "Anyone who is sceptical about Herefordshire Council's operation should simply read my submission."

The letter and appendices can be found here as webpages or downloaded as a single pdf file.

Herefordshire Council have announced that they are not appealing against the High Court judgement against houses at Bullinghope.

The Council were about to remove mention of the Bullinghope housing in a Planning Meeting on Friday 15th August when news broke that Bloor Homes have applied for leave to appeal as an 'Interested Party'. So despite being in the published agenda the item was dropped from the planning meeting.

The Dinedor Hill Action Association is therefore still asking supporters for funds in case the Bloor appeal needs to be defended. This will be announced by the Appeal Courts in due course.