You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
Herefordshire Council will not be reopening the LEA pool for the foreseeable future, the Hereford Heckler can reveal.
Discussing the issue at a council cabinet meeting on 20th November 2008, councillors took the decision that the Leisure pool currently used by Herefordshire schools was adequate for local needs.
In a press release issued on the day of the meeting council leader Roger Phillips said he welcomed “ideas for how the pool could be repaired and run”. There’s something worrying about a leader of the council not knowing how to repair and run a swimming pool isn’t there?! Here’s an idea, Roger, we give you the boot and use your wages and expenses to reopen the pool immediately!
Leaks in the pool were first noted in 2001 and they have been an on-going problem over the years, but repairs were clearly not sufficient.
The Heckler believe that as the maintenance costs continued to rise on what was a loss operating LEA pool, Herefordshire Council stopped carrying out repair works to the required standard with a view to selling off the pool wholesale to an outside agency.
In 2005 Herefordshire Council entered into talks with Halo to effectively privatise the LEA pool but an agreement was never reached as Halo deemed the pool in such a poor state that they wouldn’t take on full management because of the high costs potentially needed for repair work.
Now under part-management with Halo, leaks to the pool continued to be reported in 2006 and 2007.
In a document prepared for a recent council meeting, cabinet members were told: “The Sydonia pool in Leominster was in a similar situation to the current LEA swimming pool. The pool had reached the stage of being beyond economical repair and in this instance was a health hazard.” A health hazard that was created by Herefordshire Council themselves! Could the council be guilty of negligence for failing meet safety standards? There’s certainly a case for it.
Members were also told the LEA pool was initially closed because the boiler had failed and that the emergency lights might not be working properly. A normal person would call a plumber and an electrician. But why bother fixing these problems when you’re trying to shut the pool down.
And so the move to the Leisure pool began.
The council failed to investigate the effects the closure of the LEA pool would have on schools, community groups and the general public. They have also failed provide changing facilities that are suitably separate from the general public to ensure adequate safety for the children using the Leisure pool.
The council’s press release concluded: “Currently, school swimming lessons are provided for the majority of primary schools in clean and well-maintained pools in the county run by the council’s partner Halo.” What a *!@$!#@ joke!
Give Roger a call on the LEA pool complaint hotline: 07792 880019 (lines may be busy)
‘Me We’ takes its title from what is said to be the shortest poem in the world, written by Mohammed Ali. This emotionally powerful film is a collaboration between local filmmaker Craig White and the Herefordshire Equality Partnership. It follows the impact that racism has on the people of Herefordshire, in particular the problems faced by mixed raced families and their children.
People from various backgrounds tell their stories in an open manner, which at times leaves you stunned.
This might be painful viewing to some, but it’s not as painful as the damage caused by racism. The film covers, what seems to be, the limited effort that the police have with dealing with these issues. But goes on to show the work that is being done in schools to teach our children to be tolerant and accepting of different people. A big Heckler pat on the back goes out to all those involved in making this film.
Watch ‘Me We’ at youtube.com/hecklertv
Twenty-seven members of the British National Party were revealed to be living in Herefordshire after the entire party membership lists were leaked online at the end of November.
The list revealed that paedophiles and convicted criminals were members of the fascist party as well as police officers and teachers.
Hereford BNP has yet again been distributing their racist leaflets around Herefordshire, promoting idiotic ideas like a whites-only NHS. But they really must think us Herefordians are stupid. Most people can see through the BNP’s carefully crafted promises of lower taxes, more houses and a supposedly better NHS to the real core of their politics: racism and hatred. They pick the standard promises from all political parties and we all know that no matter who gets elected they don’t really give a damn about us. But the politics of the BNP differs slightly from other wannabe leaders. Their nasty insidious plan is to divide society along racial lines by blaming all our problems on anyone who isn’t a ‘native Brit’, whatever that means. It seems these halfwits believe themselves to be whiter than white.
The BNP like all far-right racist politicians use all the tricks in the book to fool you into thinking they have the solutions to society’s problems.
They claim they’ll do something about violent crime but just a glance at their membership shows just the opposite: BNP member David Copeland set off a series of nail bombs in 1999 killing three people including a pregnant woman and injuring 129 others. Local BNP member Lambertus Nieuwhof who lives in Peterchurch was also convicted in South Africa on terrorism charges for attempting to blow up a primary school.
They want kick out all British citizens who they claim are non-indigenous. But what does non-indigenous mean? Does it mean all those descended from Normans, or Romans, or Vikings, or Saxons, or Indians, or Jamaicans, or Poles? This country is built on centuries of immigration. Diversity is something to celebrate not to use to divide us.
They claim to be the party of the ordinary working man and woman, yet one member recently sent a hate letter to anti-fascists; he signed it off with “smash the miners (oh, I forgot, that lovely Thatcher bird already did). Victory to the police!” Not just a kick in the teeth for miners and ex-miners but for all working class people who have struggled for better conditions in their lives.
So it’s clear to see that this bunch of thugs stand for hatred and violence not commonsense and justice as they’d have you believe. A vote for the BNP is a vote for a political party that looks to nazi Germany for inspiration. We should not forget that nearly 400,000 British citizens died in World War Two as a result of the same fascist politics that inspire the BNP.
