Reporting graffiti on telecoms cabinets

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Martin

Like so many, I’m getting very irritated at current levels of graffiti – and there’s a lot going on at the City Council to get it under control.

Most graffiti in our area is removed by the Business Improvement District or by the City Council and both have significantly increased spending recently to get more removed. Strictly, neither can remove it from another organisation’s property without permission – and that includes the boxes owned by Openreach and Virgin Media – as well as substations owned by SSE – and equipment owned by Network Rail.

Each of these has places to report graffiti – currently as follows:

One tricky thing to handle is identifying which organisation a cabinet belongs to. Openreach has a guide to this (pdf) – but, if there isn’t an obvious logo or label (or even a barely visible faded one), the main trick is to look at the keyholes on the cabinet.

BT Openreach has triangular or star-shaped insert.

Close up photograph of a keyhole on an Openreach cabinet with a star-shaped insert
Close up photograph of a keyhole on an Openreach cabinet with a triangle-shaped insert

And Virgin has more conventional keyholes.

Close up photograph of a keyhole on an Virgin Media cabinet covered in graffiti paint that takes a conventional round key
Close up photograph of a keyhole on an Virgin Media cabinet that takes a conventional round key

It’s always helpful to take a photo. Also write down or photograph whatever numbers are on the box in case it’s a useful reference. Openreach also ask you to use the What3Words app or website to get a useful link or set of three words to give an exact location – and I’ve also used this successfully with other organisations! If you don’t like using a proprietary system and want to use a more open reference or app, then the Ordnance Survey’s OS Locate app gives you easy access to latitude, longitude and National Grid references.

Any other comments or suggestions on how to get graffiti removed? Please add a comment below.

Posted in Latest News, Winchester | Leave a comment

Fixing Bluetooth problem with TP-Link UB400

Posted on June 28, 2020 by Martin

I recently bought myself some Sony Bluetooth earbuds for my phone, but I was keen to see if I could connect them to my PC too – so that I could use them in conference calls, for example.

But my computer didn’t have Bluetooth. So I bought TP-Link UB400 Bluetooth Adaptor online, because I’ve used and liked their stuff before. But when I plugged it in it didn’t work! Windows 10 kept telling me I didn’t have Bluetooth installed.

I went to the TP-Link FAQ for the UB400 – but nothing they suggested worked.

After a bit of Googling, I went to the Windows Device Manager, looked at the Universal Serial Bus controllers, and disappeared down a rabbit hole trying to fix the “Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)” problem.

And only then did I go to the “CSR Bluecore Bluetooth” driver that also appeared on the list of Universal Serial Bus controllers when I plugged in the dongle. As an experiment:

  1. I right-clicked “CSR Bluecore Bluetooth and selected “Update driver”
  2. Clicked on “Browse my computer for driver software”
  3. Clicked on “Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer”
  4. Picked “Generic Bluetooth Adaptor” in place of “CSR Bluecore Bluetooth”
  5. Clicked “next”

and suddenly everything worked!

So that’s my solution! I hope it works for you too.

Posted in Audio, Technology | Tagged , , , | 67 Comments

COVID-19 and our local streets

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Martin

I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges and opportunities that COVID-19 offers to the way we use our streets and roads here in Winchester.

The lower level of traffic is causing some immediate problems, such as increased speeding; revealing other problems, particularly in places where our pavements are too narrow for the number of people who want to use them; and also showing great opportunities, with a big increase in walking and cycling, particularly on our rural roads.

As we move into the recovery phase, we also need to do more to make our centres “social distancing” friendly. This means wider pavements and, learning from other countries, more opportunities for businesses to have widely spaced outdoor seating areas. People need to feel confident and safe coming back to our towns and villages knowing that they can easily move around in a socially distanced way.

What sort of measures would this give us?

  • We need to tackle the heavily walked and queuing areas where the pavements are too narrow and the roads are too wide. An obvious place to start is the one-way system. I’d like to see if we could cone the whole one-way system down to a single lane with the rest reserved for walkers and cyclists – single lane in North Walls – single lane in St George’s St – narrowed single lane in Jewry St – narrowed single lane in the upper section of the High Street. If possible, we also need to do something for pedestrians on City Bridge and Romsey Road bridge too (although given both are heavily used by buses, this will be harder).
  • We need to cut cars and lock in the change on roads where we have seen a dramatic increase in leisure usage. In my own area the road where this is most visible is Sarum Road. I’m sure there are plenty more. As a minimum, we need signage which shows that this is a road where cars drivers are not the priority users and should expect heavy foot and cycle usage.
  • On speed, we need to finish the job in Winchester and extend the 20 mph zone to residential areas across the whole city. We also need to narrow roads and widen pavements or add cycle lanes where there is a particular risk of people driving too fast. I would love to see up an uphill cycle lane on Chilbolton Avenue, for example.
  • We need to create space for businesses to use the highway for widely spaced outdoor seating. The most obvious option to do this is to fully pedestrianise the Square. We may need a couple of blue badge parking spots for people who need parking near the centre, but we should definitely stop through traffic.
  • Finally, one minor irritant that I know concerns some people. We need to revisit our push button crossings. Can we make them sensor or timer driven – so we don’t all need to push the button?

Make sense? Any streets, roads or priorities I’ve missed?

One of my responsibilities at the council is the City of Winchester Movement Strategy, so I’m already talking a lot with council officers and engineers at the City Council and County Council about how we can improve our streets. I promise to pass on any ideas that people send through!

Posted in 20s plenty, City Council, County Council, COVID19, Cycling, Walking, Winchester | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Hampshire’s cuts to hit Winchester hard

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Martin

A press release I sent to the Chronicle – that colleagues liked so much that they asked me to post it online. So here it is:

Yesterday’s meeting of Hampshire’s Conservative cabinet confirmed that they will go ahead with their reckless £140 million cuts. These will only cost us more long-term.

In particular:

  • Their cuts to health and care will mean that the NHS is unable to hit the financial targets laid out in its ‘sustainability and transformation plan’ – and will put health and care services under even more stress.
  • Their cuts to Household Waste Recovery Centres are almost certain to lead to more fly-tipping.

In a surprise decision, the Cabinet also voted to recommend extra money to support parish and town councils in covering for services cut by Hampshire – such as community transport, school crossing patrols and subsidised bus services – however the Conservatives still have not put anything in place to support the many areas of Hampshire without parish and town councils – such as Winchester.

There’s also still no sign that they are taking any account of the impact of the cuts in less well-off areas of Hampshire.

Martin Tod, Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Winchester Westgate, commented:

We’re paying the price for the Conservatives’ incompetent and chaotic management of Brexit and the economy. This has led to collapsing investment, the lowest growth in both the EU and the G7 and rapidly growing inflation. Aside from the effect on people’s cost of living and the very real threat to businesses and jobs, this utter incompetence makes it even harder to tackle the crisis in funding for council services.

These cuts are a disaster of the Conservatives’ making – Conservative MPs, Conservative Ministers and Conservative Councillors have all contributed to this fiasco – and it will hit local people hard. The Conservatives are now compounding their failure by deciding not to have any kind of plan for the many areas of Hampshire without parish and town councils.

This is a real threat to Winchester – and, along with my colleagues, I will continue to push for the council to put in place a plan for unparished areas – and to stop the most damaging of their proposed cuts.

And nationally, the sooner we can find a way to ‘exit from Brexit’ and focus on a plan to turn round the economy, the better it will be for jobs, for businesses and for our local public services.

Posted in County Council, Latest News, Winchester | 1 Comment

A surprising campaign

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Martin

A 250-word article for the Petersfield Post, Clanfield Post, Horndean Post and Bordon Post:

Like many, I’ve been surprised at how shambolic the Conservative Party’s national campaign has been. We supposedly have a ‘strong and stable’ Prime Minister, but frankly she’s been all over the place.

First, we had the shambles of the ‘dementia tax’: poorly thought through and an embarrassing flip-flip when it came to light.

We’ve had ever more evidence at the damage that Conservative cuts are doing to vital public services like the police, health and education.

And we’ve had platitudes and no detail on what the Conservatives want to do with the Brexit negotiations – and what they intend to do to offset the massive risks that the Prime Minister herself admits exist.

We need a change.

As your MP, I won’t only vote for the party line, I’ll put Meon Valley first:

  • working to get proper funding for our health and social care services,
  • making sure none of our schools lose funding – and stopping any of them being downgraded to secondary modern status as the Conservatives propose
  • working to block any Brexit deal that doesn’t protect local jobs, local farmers and local businesses – doesn’t maintain full shared security cooperation – and doesn’t have full membership of the single market. I will also seek to make sure that the British people have a final say on any Brexit deal reached.

Even if the Conservatives win nationally, they still need a strong opposition. Please use your vote to back me and ensure that Meon Valley’s best interests are fully represented in Westminster.

Posted in Meon Valley | 2 Comments