Hereford's favourite shit-stirring news-digger
Meet 9.00am at the Merton Meadow car park. Bring banners, whistles and horns
Come along and let the council know your true feelings
March to the Shire Hall for a mass lobby of Herefordshire Council’s meeting (9.30am)
The march will be stopping at ESG Herefordshire Limited’s offices on Blackfriars Street
An open letter to Herefordshire Council and ESG Herefordshire Limited
Herefordshire is a great county. We love its landscape and scenery and we love its history and culture.
But we recognise that there is also a lot that can be done to make this place better. We are in desperate need of cheap housing for the thousands of the people that are on the local waiting lists. The county needs more leisure facilities, especially the younger generation who in most towns and villages have no space of their own. And like almost everywhere else in the world there is still a divide between the haves and the have-nots; we are still governed by capitalist economics that create inequality and a divisive class system. Capitalism must be destroyed in Herefordshire, and throughout the world.
But what your council clearly believe we need to improve our lives and make us so much more fulfilled is more shops, more chain stores, more useless tat. If only we could afford to buy, buy, buy we would all be so much happier.
Because what the single mother, struggling to get by on benefits really needs is a John Lewis. What the old-age couple living on a pitiful state pension would really love is a Debenhams. What a truly great county Herefordshire would be if you gave us a big shopping centre of our own! And you could really put us on the map; perhaps we could be a proper tourist attraction if Waitrose could boast they have the largest biscuit department in the whole of England.
But what your Conservative-led council has given us is initiative after initiative designed to make more money for the bosses and big business and nothing but cuts in the essential public services that each of us ‘ordinary folk’ depend on to get by. Cuts in education, leisure, childcare services, drug prevention projects Ö the list seems never-ending.
Dearest Herefordshire Council and ESG Herefordshire, we really do have nothing but a deep loathing for your ‘bright new vision’ for the Edgar Street Grid and we will do whatever it takes to get the whole thing scrapped.
You see, because if you get your way and the existing businesses on the grid have to relocate, and many of the independent shops in town close down, it will mean job losses. Many of these businesses are the ones that have already been dealt a hard blow by the recession and the costs of relocating will put many jobs into further jeopardy. That could mean families losing a significant portion of their income, bills going unpaid, the threat of bailiffs knocking at the door, cutting back on the food shop and the struggle to find another job.
This is what it could be like for many of the people working on the Edgar Street Grid; it’s a situation we hope you’ll experience too. Although we know there won’t really be any bailiffs turning up on your doorstep because all those City firms and dodgy banking companies you’ve worked for have already set you up for life. Perhaps you’ll just have to slum it in Sainsbury’s for a bit.
ESG Herefordshire Ltd must be completely wound up. It has already wasted over £10 million presenting its ‘grand vision’, and this is before any work has even started. Maybe all of this money should’ve gone straight into paying for things we actually need, like housing.
You’ve come to Hereford like a gang of cowboy builders with plans that we know won’t stand the test of time. The evidence is there from countless other towns that your idea of ‘development’ doesn’t work but you carry on regardless. Maybe one day we’ll see you all on Rogue Traders.
We believe that your vision for the Edgar Street Grid will blight the city for years to come. It’s not what Herefordshire needs, nor wants. The campaign to stop your plans has the support of the majority of Herefordians. Remember, when we get together and stick together, we are powerful and we can achieve anything. We will win!
For many people the countryside at this time of year means misty mornings and falling leaves. But for a small violent, sadistic portion of the population it’s an opportunity to cause untold suffering and death to some of our most wild and beautiful animals. Yes it’s hunting season again.
You don’t have to be a vegetarian to see fox hunting as barbaric. Even before the official season begins, the most hardcore animal haters are out ‘cub-hunting’. This involves training young hunting hounds by setting them loose in woods that are home to young fox cubs. This is no sport, the cubs stand no chance. All the underground escape routes are blocked by terriermen, and hunt followers surround the wood. The inexperienced hounds often maul the cub for several minutes before they die. Aware of how distasteful this practice is, hunters now refers to it as ‘autumn hunting’.
The argument that hunting controls fox populations has been dropped by most hunters. Even they agree that foxes are territorial animals that control there own population, meaning that if one fox dies another will move in to replace it. The vast majority of fox hunters now claim the practice is “a recreational and social force embodying a traditional rural pastime”. Like it or not this so called ‘traditional rural pastime’ is hated for its class issues as well as its animal rights issues.
Many people in the hunting community claim there is no class issue here. Of course there are working class people involved, but hunting could carry on without them. Wealthy land owners and the upper classes are essential to the continued practice of hunting. A gang of dressed up working class people on horse back would soon be arrested for trespass if they tried it on.
So the fight against fox hunting is as much about reclaiming the land that should belong to those people who work it – the working class – as much as one to save animals from suffering. The 2004 Hunting Act that banned hunting is clearly a farce. These blood-thirsty low-lives continue to maim and kill foxes, hares, stags for no better reason than their own perverse pleasure.
We at the Heckler fully support the actions of the brave saboteurs that try and stop the hunts happening. You can get in touch with them at www.hsa.enviroweb.org
Cider giants Bulmers have announced plans to axe almost a quarter of its Hereford workforce.
Despite reporting a relatively stable market, the cider makers said that new working practices were essential for keeping the Hereford site ‘competitive’; business-speak for socially irresponsible.
Bulmers have said that as part of a consultation in September a ballot was carried out and the results were in favour of plant modernisation. Would they have voted yes if the threat of job losses had been clearly spelt out?
Elsewhere, postal workers are gearing up for the first national postal dispute in two years after threats to jobs, hours and pay. Actions so far in sorting offices, which have included sit-ins, have seen some 20 million letters being undelivered. Seventy-six percent of union members balloted voted in favour of national strike action, due to begin on 22nd October. “Royal Mail’s head-in-the-sand attitude to the problems in our industry is now severely damaging service for customers – with backlogs bigger than in the national strike of 2007,” said a spokesperson for the Communication Workers’ Union.
Elsewhere workers at a Black Country food-processing firm are hailing the success of an unofficial walkout, forcing management to sack a security guard accused of making racist comments and to come to the negotiating table. More than 100 staff at Smethwick-based Two Sisters Foods staged a wildcat strike and police were called as their protest threatened to get out of hand. There was a further demonstration outside the firm’s premises before bosses agreed to meet senior officials from trade union Unite.
Leeds City Council plans to cut the wages of refuse workers by one third – on average from £18,000 to just £13,000 a year. Not surprisingly workers have responded by taking strike action after the council refused to negotiate any alternative to these massive pay cuts. A spokesperson from Unison said: “If they were imposed on our members, hundreds of workers and their families would lose their homes.” In mid-September activists dumped bags of rubbish on the doorstep of the council leader. At the time of going to press, the strike has entered its fifth week with no signs of letting up any time soon.
Gas workers in Newcastle struck last month over the National Grid bosses’ decision to make mass redundancies and consider outsourcing. All of the 181 shared services staff at the city site, who risk joining the dole queue, voted in favour of industrial action. The strikes may be set to spread as staff at offices in Warwick and Northampton, who also face being effected, are among 2,500 other National Grid members who voted 40 to one in support of the action in a ballot.
