Waffle about A46 closure, Agresso and more

After a Woodcraft meeting with lots of 7 year and 8 years olds identifying berries near Rodborough Common it was to Whiteshill and Ruscombe Parish meeting...

Photos: Den making at a previous Woodcraft session near Hawkwood college

...minutes will be out soon on their website so I wont cover here - in any case I only was able to stay for first tiny bit to feedback stuff like A46, Post Offices and possible impact of Huntsgrove call-in on Ruscombe - to be honest I can't see how Huntsgrove will not go-ahead but if it doesn't then it will mean massive pressure to build across the District - we will have to remain vigilant re the Ruscombe fields and indeed the rest of the area - David Drew and Parmjit Dhanda are wrong on this one...

...however it was good to hear David will be visiting Whiteshill to see the impact of the A46 for himself - he has of course already been active on this issue but it is good that he will meet Parish Council - all this sudden attention on Whiteshill from politicians is most interesting! As reported earlier two top Conservatives visited earlier in the week - however while an election might not now be happening I think we should use their offers of support. Work on the A46 has still not started and it will be 6 months work when it does - it would also be good to get their support for longer term hopes for Whiteshill. I've said before we want our village back not a transport corridor.

Anyway this week I heard again from the County in response to various queries - they are it seems at last going to advertise the County carshare scheme - better late than never - also they are going to review buses going through Whiteshill - as residents will know the ones being rerouted from A46 don't stop - hopefully after the review they will stop to pick up locals - plus there is an extra bus being put on. No more news yet re the reduced train tickets - but all this will hopefully encourage people out of cars. As I've said repeatedly this could have been a wonderful opportunity to high profile alternatives to the car....

Anyway after a brief stop at the Parish I got to the training session re financial matters - in particular one of the main items was re Agresso - computer software that is being used for finances at the District Council - about 10 councilors present had a tour of the software which by all accounts is an improvement on previous situation...it certainly made looking at accounts easy...and even a few laughs as - one councilor there who like me had been to Ebley Mill three nights on the trot said we were 'demob happy' - indeed tonight a DVD, a bottle of wine and I'm not answering the phone!