Category: Winchester

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Bus Cuts Eleanor Bell Hursley Michael Portillo Romsey Sandra Gidley Tuition Fees Winchester

Bus cuts, tuition fees and Michael Portillo

Martin Tod, Sandra Gidley MP and Cllr Eleanor Bell campaigning to save the Romsey-Winchester bus service

Up bright and early yesterday to join the campaign to save the Romsey-Winchester rail-link bus. This entailed getting the 7.04 a.m. bus to Romsey, putting on a Santa hat, and travelling back at 7.35 a.m. with Sandra Gidley and a bus full of protesters from the Save Our Bus campaign – before collecting signatures on the concourse from local travellers. Eleanor Bell joined us as the bus came back through Hursley.

It seems hard to believe that, so soon after all the County Council’s previous bus cuts, we’d be seeing another but cut – this time from South West Trains. As with all the bus cuts so far, it puts pressure on the environment, parking and congestion and severely impacts off-peak travel for people without cars (generally pensioners and the young). In this case, it will also cause major problems for people commuting to and from London before and after peak hours. It follows on from SWT’s off-peak fare hike at the beginning of the year and the upcoming closure of the travel centre and makes a mockery of the various promises from the County and the Government to have a joined-up travel system.

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Tower Arts Centre Winchester

Excellent evening at the Tower

Another excellent evening at the Tower on Friday night listening to Angela Brown and the Mighty 45s. The Tower was completely packed. The band was on fire. Angela Brown was awesome! A brilliant end to the week and start to the weekend.

There was just as much energy in the room (although much less on stage) at the public meeting on Thursday night about the future of the Tower Arts Centre. Alistair Marsden has written at some length about the evening (the public meeting that is, not Angela Brown) on the Save Tower Arts blog.

The continued incompetence and – more worryingly – obstinacy shown by the County Council on this remains breathtaking. As time goes on and the County makes no attempt to budge, more and more people are getting more and more angry at the situation. The original decision was embarrassingly half-baked. The combination of Thursday evening and the consultant’s report has confirmed what we knew all along (and which the County denied):

  • The Discovery Centre is not going to be any kind of replacement for the Tower
  • The current proposal to transfer Tower Arts to Kings School will effectively end the evening programme
  • There was a complete lack of consultation behind the original proposal
  • The County has made no serious effort to find partners – or even work with the City Council – to keep Tower Arts open
  • The County (or at least the Portfolio Holder on the County) has no apparent vision for arts provision in Winchester or in Hampshire – and no idea of the value it brings to the economy and quality of life to the city and the county

Ken Thornber was right to ask for a review – and the extra time should have been a chance to sit down round the table with possible partners and seriously try to find a way forward that preserves and builds on what’s so special about the Tower. But the clock is ticking and there is depressingly little sign that the County is going to move.

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Environment Video Winchester

Winchester’s Environmental Footprint – TV interviews

It’s been a bit of a hectic week for media with interviews on Sky, ITV and the BBC.

The BBC and Sky wanted to talk about the WWF report on Winchester’s Environmental Footprint.

The Sky interview (below) was live and straight into a camera with a small earpiece in my ear where I could listen to Eamonn Holmes.

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The BBC interview was prerecorded at home. The final shot with Tom Hepworth is shot in our living room. That’s my TV that gets switched off at the end (and, yes, it does get switched off at the wall when not in use).

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WWF’s analysis showed that Winchester uses the equivalent of 3.6 planets worth of resources – above the UK average of 3 planets – and way over the level we would need to be at to be sustainable.

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Bus Cuts Video Winchester

ITV Thames Valley report on 6a bus victory

We’ve finally had confirmation that we’ve stopped the County Council completely cutting the 6A. After a huge amount of pressure, the 10.10 and 12.10 services have been saved. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get the County Council to see some sense on this. The 6A is a service that was designed to support elderly and vulnerable people living in sheltered accomodation and it was a disgrace that the Conservatives on the County Council ever considered cutting it.

We will still be campaigning for more than two services a day, but this is already huge progress. You can get a sense of the indomitable spirit of the ‘veterans against the bus cuts group’, especially Ron Petty, who did the most to save the service, from the following Thames Valley TV report.

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Tower Arts Centre Video Winchester

Tower Arts – Bob Dylan speaks out!

Alistair Marsden of the Tower Arts Campaign and Bob Dylan have just produced the following awesome video about the Tower meeting at the Guildhall on November 1st: