A little bit of fun

A link from Invisible Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth quite funny, but what stalled me was

The Earth was built to last.

Now you know me I don't like unqualified statements like that so I tracked down one of the contractors, here's what he had to say.

"Oh sure that was the original intention if you look at the initial plans, no you can't see them, I mean it was all intended to be this eternal paradise according to the big boss. So what goes and happens - budget cuts. I don't know some big thing amongst the big-wigs, no I don't know - executives floating by with their noses in the air don't even see us working guys let alone tell us what's happening. Anyway all the funding gets re-allocated to save their own asses; what happened? What do I care, you want to hear this or not? Okay then.

Ah it was a beautiful plan and then we had to cut-back on a few things. Well layers for starters, we'd start with the core then wrap different types of material around it, like a gobstopper, make it resilient in case anything happens everything will just bounce off and it'll spread the resources evenly around. Well that went by the board A couple of layers with liquid pumped between them, yeah like cavity wall insulation pathetic right.

Anyway it all depends on the core, you've got to start there and I've no idea where the jokers upstairs got the subbies who supplied it, I think their boss went to school with our boss, doesn't matter it was us who'd got to make this heap of crap work. Two magnetic poles the plans called for one on each axis. Would the bloody thing rotate properly, course not 'Wrap a couple of layers around it that'll work' they said, yeah right. You know those weebles you've got 'weebles wobble, but they don't fall down' yeah? I stuck something like that in and a good kick later it started to rotate without falling over. Don't look at me like that you've got to work with what's to had. Sure we guessed that every few millennia it would just topple over, but hey we'd be on a whole other job by then.

So we'd already slapped a couple of protective layers around the core and were preparing the big outer one. I swear it'd have been cheaper to stick with the multi-layers then to pay for all the scaffolding. I found out later some berk at head office was hiring it by the day, said his plans showed completion in seven so it was more economical then hiring it by the week. You got to wonder.

Anyway so finally the outer shell is complete and on time too. Yeah okay it was a bit thinner then we would have wanted, but H&S gave it the nod so all was fine. Up comes the tanker to fill the inside and would you credit it the dozy sods in the other hemisphere had thought we'd be building the valve when we knew they were supposed to be doing it. So now we've got to punch a hole, fill it up, and refill it with left-over material; and the stuff still oozes through.

Okay major bit done time for the icing, yeah the bit you live on. Nice and smooth with, you know, the odd concavity and slope nothing major. Damn I'm glad I wasn't on that work-crew, the mess they made of that not enough material and splodges all over the place with one great big one in the middle "Not our fault the outer shell's leaking" bloody whiners. Well the water crew took one look and said in a sarcy voice 'What do you think's going to happen to all this water?' I know what's going to happen it'll collect in those depressions and all that'll be left is the great big splodge sticking out. Well they had a whine, but there were only three options, take it off and start again - yeah right; get some more material in to smooth it down- no way; or pile in more water. Water's cheap so door number three it is.

I left it after that for the detail crew, apparently they'd just started when the whole land mass started to break-up, I knew that mix was dodgy, anyway with everything just floating around the detail crew got split up and started doing their own thing on each section; buncha weirdos the lot of them I tell you. Shame that some of the big projects like the chocolate fountains and gardens of sexual ecstasy got scrapped, but hey what you've never had you're not going to miss am I right?

Ah well after we'd finished the plans were all retrospectively altered to show that's what was planned in the first place and accounting fiddled with the time frame to show it had been done to schedule, should have seen the day-rate we were on ha! Ha ha oh yeah won some awards too for 'innovative use of style' or some such nonsense they're displayed in the lobby, makes me laugh when I see them. I mean it wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to live there or anything."

Kidnap, companies, and accident hotspot

Iran is still obviously in the news over the kidnap of British soldiers, barging into foreign territory and kidnapping foreign nationals who do they think they are America? Oh that's unfair at least Iran tried to offer the excuse that they were in their waters, took them back to their own country and notified the soldiers' country of what they'd done.


Ah companies can't live with them, can't dump their owners in deep water with concrete shoes. Water companies, in agreement with Ofwat, are increasing our water bills by 7% in order to fix leaks; this with a reported profit of over £2.5bn is making some people a touch annoyed. These naïve people obviously don't get it; if they pay for fixing the leaks of out of the profit they'd have less profit! If they announce less profit their share price will plummet, just look at poor Jessops after their profit warnings. The only way for this not to happen is to increase the price of water. Place your bets now on how much water companies profits will go up by for next year.

Anyway not to fear the BBC's business correspondent presented some ways of saving water, I could only laugh when he turned to someone with him and the first thing out of her mouth was "Well those measures only help people with water meters" well done m'lady.

It's funny when you consider there's a recent advert that states that "We're the wettest country in Europe" and yet all we hear from water companies is hose-pipe bans and low reservoir levels and now they want to increase the bills for what seems to be a more ineffective service.

Companies again and the Paddington Rail crash from 1999 blipped up on the radar. 31 people dead and the people responsible get fined, so that's how you get away with murder. I wonder if you could start a hitman company "You can't put me in jail for murder, it was a company action".


Yesterday evening I had a fun event driving home. I got to the end of York Street and indicated to turn left into Bridge Street at the mini-roundabout. I couldn't move forward though as the queue had backed-up to this point. It finally moved, but there were cars opposite me in New Street indicating right and nothing coming up Bridge Street; they had right-of-way. Car one indicating right, I wait for them; car two indicating right, I wait for them; car three no indication, so I pull out just as he tries to turn right. He cuts me up and I have to stop sharply, my hand found the horn; he stopped and got out of his car! "It's an island!" he shouts, I wind down my window "So where's your yellow light then?" His mouth closes with an almost audible snap and he scuttles back into his car. Of course I meant indicator, but you get the gist and I'd just had a nasty shock. Relating this to someone they said about him getting out of the car "You have to watch out there are some aggressive people on the road" there then followed a pause then I replied "Well yes I'm one of them" pause, "Yeah fair enough" he said.

It's a stupid mini-roundabout really it is, the right hand lane of York Street by-passes it to feed straight into High Street. The left-hand lane is really a left/ahead lane, but everyone treats it as a left only so don't bother to indicate so no-one coming up Bridge Street bothers to stop. New Street is left/right only so when people don't indicate you've no idea where they're going (assumption is right turn rather then going over the island). Bridge Street is a left/ahead, but due to the angle it's almost impossible to see if people are indicating to turn left. So people in New Street turning right can see that the High Street car is turning left so they've got right-of-way over the left-turn traffic in York Street, but the traffic in York Street can't see that so they see a car coming up Bridge Street and assume they've got right-of-way over New Street - crash.

Oh and the mini-roundabout is so badly positioned and sized that you tend to go over it rather then around it.


Oo just a mention they've narrowed down Gilgal rather then close it off, the result is cars driving like arthritic snails up the left-hand lane of Vale Road wondering at which of the gaps they're supposed to turn into to get to the right. Oh and it looks like the bus-stop that block that entire left-hand lane is still in operation - bravo!

Gilgal shenanigans, and skate-park design.

Yellow jackets at standing at the Vale Road exit into Gilgal this morning. Red marks on the pavement suggest they're continuing their footpath march around this corner. If they continue as they've done before then this road may be closed off. At first this might not seem so bad, after all there's another entrance into Gilgal from Minster Road. That's fine it's getting to it that's the problem. As mentioned before Stourport has a figure-eight road system, what hasn't been mentioned is that, unless you're intimate with the road network, once you're off that figure-eight you can't get back on it again.

I'll take the worst-case scenario that they don't inform drivers that the road is closed until they're on Vale Road (arrow). Where do they go? Onto the traffic lights you can turn right to the church, but then it's a U-turn in the road - I think not. Going straight on and following your nose the next island is in Kidderminster (red); turning left and doing the same and you're just outside Bewdley (blue) before you reach an island.


If they're intelligent they'll warn people as they come to the end of High Street, turn them down Lickhill Road, right at the lights down Bewdley Road and then right into Gilgal. Locals will of course turn down Vernon Road or Park Avenue and cut off that entire long corner, not good for the residents though.

I'm sure it's all been thought out and planned for in advance and that all the gesticulation being done by the yellow jackets was simply information dissemination. Hmm.


Things are hotting up with the skate-park, the WFA has alerted me to Councillor Campion posting what is presumably the initial design. The geek in me shows with my first thoughts being "I wondered what they rendered that with" Something about the light says Rhino to me over AutoCAD , not that it matters. The viewing angle cuts off sight of the paddling pool and the riverboat building. The main arch under the bridge isn't delineated clearly nor the path that goes through it. Some dimensions can be made out, but no overall size is shown; so how much of the area it'll cover is only guessable by the arch work. Though that's suspect take a look here, the arches are different heights.

So it appears to be called Martins Way Skate Park, as I've mentioned on a WFA comment shouldn't it be Car-Park opposite Shipley's Skate Park?

Skate-park in red, Martins Way at the top, car-park on the other side of the bridge with an path continuing under the arch. You're an emergency vehicle, how would you get to the skate-park? Down Martins Way, through the barrier to the lower car-park, then along the path between Playland and the playground; or down to the car-park before heading on foot through the arch? Almost sounds like I'm advocating the site next to the pool, I'm not. Into the lower car-park and down the path next to Playland and you're at the site I've suggested.

As for the builders Tav's asking questions on some skater sites so it's a wait and see. There have been some comments that some of their work looks like pre-fab stuff and that perhaps it's a spin-off side-line from the companies main playground business. Not good so far.

Oh very late, but this alternative pay and display car-park sign has gone. So presumably it was only for the Christmas period when Raven Street car-park was being used?

Season of Mists

Ah Britain in the Spring. Yesterday was warm enough for me to switch the fan to blue, today my breath hung in the air. Mist lay on the streets as I left this morning, I pulled out of my house and joined the queue for the town. I had seen a couple of cars before me using a nearby road as a turning point to whistle back past me in an effort to cheat the line. Two cars ahead a Land-Rover wannabe did a turn in the road, bumped up the opposite kerb onto the pavement and over the grass. I decided to stay put.

We moved forward surprisingly quickly given the behaviour of some drivers, a couple of times cars couldn't pull out of one of the junctions to join the queue as some of its members had decided to leave a gap of a couple of car lengths between themselves. A dearth of traffic in both directions made up for that though. I wanted to turn right so I pulled over to the left; odd you might think, but it was either that or shudder my way over a set of potholes that had strung themselves across the junction entrance. Then it was just sitting, waiting.

Movement in the side-mirror alerted me to the bicycle. I was out from the pavement, but I could spare another couple of inches and edged over. An attractive women in a tight pair of trousers headed past before being stopped a few cars up by someone who seemed to want to get intimate with a drain. She edged past carefully.

At a certain point the traffic picks up, I nipped forward and the car gave a jolt as I went through something next to Areley Lane. I looked back to see, but a cold 4x4 had pulled out sharply behind me it's engine making a noise like a strangled car-alarm on helium. I spotted the Land-Rover wannabe 4 cars behind, those are the chances you take around here he could just as well have been 4 cars ahead.

Then we were moving the queue jumping forward like a jack-rabbit, out of first into second into third. Reaching the lights on the bridge the queue before me stalled stuck on the wrong side of the road. I declined to join them and waited at the lights. For my reward they turned red and the queue started forward. I eased the car back a little; I was on the right side of the road, but close to the edge and I'd seen only the other day the effect that had on a Londis van trying to squeeze its bulk through the narrow passage.

A motorbike slipped past and pulled in before me the engine racing, angry at being halted for such petty reasons. The cars flowed towards me on and on, slowing as they approached for no good reason. The lights changed with three cars still to cross, they passed quickly and the lights stayed green as I raced the bike over the bridge.

I fixed my eyes on the crossing in Bridge Street, it'll change it's bound to. The green light mocked my thoughts as I reached High Street and was reunited with my compatriots from before.

Looking right York Street was choked; ahead High Street was snarled, a security van and a delivery van on the right both parked next to the "No Loading 8:30-9:00", another further up was parked on the left. The car in front started to signal left at the end of High Street. Are you pulling-in to get to the bank, turning left down the passage, or just informing the world that you're turning left down this left-turn only lane? I kept my distance and they pulled into the passage. The York Street shuffle had worked it's way down Lion Hill and round to the close the end of High Street and stretch back down Mitton Road. With two lanes in Vale Road closed we should be moving at a fair clip, instead cars dutifully stopped as always to see if they could pull in to the right-most lane.

Gilgal was clear as a bell and I chased the end of the Mitton Street queue down Worcester Road up to to and around the island and then down to the car-sales where it petered out. As always clear sailing from that point on.

SAC 2, and PS3; and Go Tesco

Kidderminster's nice early on there's barely anyone around at 9am, it's as if you have the town to yourself. I browsed Fopp and spotted S.A.C.:2.2 and 2.3 at £7 each, yee ha! After watching SAC:2.2 I'm getting into the story much more then I did with SAC:1. Oh and I'm still listening to the title song (running through my head now), it's interesting then when I first heard it I thought "She doesn't sound Japanese, she sounds Russian" Yep Origa is Russian-born.

Casino Royale was released last Monday (Monday, Monday always a bloody Monday; are games released on a Monday, was the PS3 released on a Monday? That's a whole other rant though) the RRP for the 2-discer is apparently £22.99, although most stores seem to be doing it for around £14.99 though I did spot one at £13.97. Sainsbury's had it at £8.99, at that price I'll pick it up. Why the mention? Well it was interesting to note that the RRP of the new Playstation 3 is £425 and that's the price that everyone is selling it at around here. Oh my mistake some are doing it at £424.99 or £424.95 big whoop.

Now with any other product you can spot some variance in price from store-to-store so why not with the PS3? If there are few consoles and high demand you'd expect the price to be higher, lots of consoles and low demand and the price should go down. As a new product I expect the price to be 'fixed' around a set figure, but from looking around there seemed to be a fair number of boxes around for sale; only one store had a "Limited stock" sign, but they seemed to have plenty. Hardly reminiscent of the time when only pre-orders got a PS2. So stock on the shelves not selling, in theory the price should come down with the biggest holder cutting their profit margins to get the stuff of the shelves and turning at least some profit. Place your bets, but don't hold your breath.


The WFA has announced the application for the Tesco Outline planning permission has finally arrived here. Tavis and his commentators have made a number of points, I'll add some more. Haphazard as I'll comment as I go and try to pull it all together at the end.

I'll come back to the site plans and applications later. I'll start with the air quality assessment report (the first supporting document), they're using meteorological data from the Birmingham Airport site as

This is the nearest meteorological station, located approximately 45km northeast of Stourport.

Firstly nearest isn't necessarily most relevant and secondly aren't there stations in Worcester and Great Malvern?

Oops almost missed this; the big date at the start is November 2006, but the first draft of the final draft was in August 2005 and that's on the footer of all the pages. Nothing sinister about it, but at first glance it appears to be much more recent then it really is.

Page 25 has the Proposed Construction Mitigation Measures, which are fair enough if adhered to. The outcome is that using the predicted traffic patterns there's no great change in air quality. Next task is to find the predicted traffic patterns, as the report neglects to mention the source of these.

Bat and Otter Surveys, necessary due to the proximity of the river. Oo page 5

a new link and two new river crossings

my emphasis. Outcome no appreciable impact, provided "insensitive" lighting was avoided, rubbish entering the river was dealt with and as much vegetation was retained along the banks of the river. I wonder if they said the same for the Kidderminster branch?

Consultation Statement. Ah the first phase of the "community involvement exercise"
Hmm more details on the site 5,015 square metre supermarket (matches the application document) and space for 324 cars. The petrol station, the road bridge from Discovery Road, and a footbridge across the Stour (just the two?). Page 8 has a list of people they should contact, how nice Stourport Town Council makes it at number 4, right after Disability Action Wyre Forest, Highways Partnership Unit, and Worcestershire County Council.

Public consultation held on 12th, 13th and 14th of October 2006, that's Thursday 10-5, Friday 10-5 and Saturday 10-1. Otherwise known as work, work, and shopping. To advertise they sent letters to over 120 local residents (I'm too far away), adverts in the local press plus editorial (missed it, my fault) and in the existing Tesco (don't shop there).

Of the 166 people who returned filled-in questionnaires 40% were deemed favourable and 60% unfavourable with traffic concerns making up the majority of the latter. Examine a quote on Page 11 though which wants a supermarket, but is worried about traffic. Put that in the favourable pile?

Oh and this is only phase 1 page 12 states that

residents in the immediate vicinity of the site will be invited to take part in further discussions

hmm no more public meetings? Oh and they've got the advert they put in the paper, how the hell did I miss that?

Design and Access Statement Page 4 has the nugget about the Local Plan and about conserving the character of the area. Yee ha page 8

Given that the previous buildings that occupied the site were of a different form and appearance then the buildings to the West of Severn Road there is no need to expect the development of the application site to copy their style or materials.

In other words the site didn't match up to begin with so why should we bother. Page 11 the number of car-spaces is 290, and a road-bridge from Discovery Road to Severn Road (later construction?), a footbridge and a link-road over the Stour.

Still on page 11 (what a busy page) we're told that the store will provide a range of food, non-food goods and services. Oh and the existing store is stated as 'smaller'

Page 15 it states that Severn Road "is likely" to be connected to Worcester Road via the previously mentioned link-road. Oh and the preferred route into town is along Mitton Street for various reasons including the fact it's "reasonably wide", sorry which Mitton Street are they looking at? Oh and a new bus-stop in Severn Road. Hmm okay the bus drives from Mitton Street to Severn Road and comes out... um Discovery Road?

Much as I want to pull everything apart, they've not done too bad here. The quip about the previous site rankles, but they're trying I'll give them that.

Ecological Surveys much of a muchness with the Bat and Otter survey.

Environmental Assessment followed by maps then check forms - medium-risk with respect to ground contamination. Up from the July issue which had a low to medium risk assessment. More maps, more check forms, photos. looks like we've got two environmental surveys here, one from July the other December.

Flood Risk Assessment parts 1 to 3. Low to medium risk. Car-park's back to 324. Road and bridge linking to Discovery Road and a footbridge and...? Nope no mention of the third here. Of interest is the 2nd part which has plans for the both road bridge and footbridge on pages 5 and 6

Noise Assessment. Assuming no evening work, the construction noise will be tolerable for the short term (clearing and prep estimated at six weeks). essentially although more traffic will be flowing in areas it doesn't already the report indicates no major difference in noise levels. One point was that to assess car-park noise they checked out the Tesco Winnal, Winchester, Hampshire. Um Kidderminster?

Planning Statement Ah confirms the two environmental studies. Page 4 makes much of planting along the edges of the supermarket, gee that sounds familiar. Hmm a lot of things that the local council are expected to take into consideration... oo page 8

5.12 Extension of the primary shopping area or town centre may be appropriate where a need for large developments has been identified which cannot be accommodated in the centre.

So has the need for a large development been identified? Page 13 a key aim of the Local Plan is the adequate provision of a range of shops. Ting Tesco is not a range of shops and the building of one may lead to the closure of a number of in-town stores. More joy the site is supposed to provide a mix of B1 and C3 although A1 and A3 may be acceptable. Tesco is an A1 proposal.

Page 19 5.64 states that they may try to make Mitton Street a more attractive pedestrian link from the site to the town centre, again are we talking about the same road here? Finally on page 21 it makes much that Tesco plans to use only 45% of the site, leaving the rest to residential or mixed-use development. Does anyone build a store next to a Tesco superstore, or in fact next to any major chain of superstore? Oh and it'll be good for the town centre increasing the town's status in the retail hierarchy, yeaaah right.

Retail Study Ah this'll be the 'need' for a new store. Wha.. woah hold on there fellow page 3

1.4 Stourport is currently underprovided for in terms of bulk food shopping floorspace[...]none of these is capable of providing an attractive bulk food-shopping environment.

You want to make statements like that be prepared to back them up with data. Yawn a rehash of the Planning Statement. Hmm page 15 "lacks a self-contained shopping centre"you mean other the market at the corner of Lombard Street/Lickhill Road and the one that used to be in Bridge Street. Hardly a rationale to build a superstore though. Page 23 mentions the Kidderminster Stores, retail area of 5,400 square metres compared to the proposed area of 2,403 it's more then twice the size, so from my previous estimates to size what's going on? As I said I'll look at the plans later. Spelling error page 24 "wherever" should be "whenever" I think.

Hmm I also note they point out the concessionary areas of the Kidderminster Sainsbury's and Stourport Co-op and don't mention those present in their store... oh wait they don't have any. Ah finally the need for a store - there are better ones outside Stourport so it needs one inside Stourport; brilliant.

Page 34 7.34 the previous store is likely to taken over by another food-retailer; with a large Tesco on the doorstep, yeah right I can see that happening. Hmm could be a cinema though.

Speculation that the drop in retention in town is based on the Kidderminster Tesco with no reference to either the entire Crossby Estate nor Weavers Wharf. Fiddle the reasoning and you could come to the conclusion that the site should be developed along the lines of Weaver Wharf, with a mix of large and smaller stores in an attractive setting. Though that could prove even more disastrous for the town centre.

I find it ironic that they echo my point that the Co-op will suffer some trade division but the greatest competition is their own Kidderminster Store, oh and lesser impacts on Lidl and 'Kwiksave' oops no more Kwiksave.

Basically it comes down to the fact that for bulk-purchase Stourport is under-provided for compared to areas surrounding it. Instead of people heading out of town let's keep them here instead. It's seductive, but flawed. They talk of bulk purchasing, anyone think that's not going to done by car? I don't see people popping into Tesco for bulk purchases then wandering into town, assuming Tesco allow you to use their car-park this way. Sure some may walk to Tesco from the non-town side, but why should they continue on?

Four part Traffic impact assessment Oh love page 3 that the report

should not be relied upon by any third-party

Neat. Ah page 13 Link road from Severn Road to the proposed Stourport Relief Road, and the link to Worcester Road via Discovery Way. Page 15 it's nice to get some accurate figures regarding the roads in Stourport - Mitton Street varies in width from 7.4m to 5.5m oh and a mention of how drivers treat the incoming junction with Worcester Road as a priority; gee could it be because it's a tight turn, the change in width, the corners, the cars parked in the left-hand lane? I don't know, it's a mystery to me.

Hah York Street has no road markings, but has sufficient width for merging. Yeah take out that first car-parking bay and theoretically you can. Oh and reconcile "Traffic is therefore restricted to one lane for the majority of York Street" with their first statement. Oh and the mini-roundabout is an accident cluster - tell me something I don't know.

High Street has lay-bys for buses and delivery vehicles... no it doesn't it has a bus-stop and car-parking bays. It has double yellow lines down both sides.. no it doesn't have these people actually visited this town? When?

Gilgal narrows from 5.5m to 4.35m, oh and they neglect to mention the same sort of queueing as per Mitton Street.

Heh Mitton Street pavements are 0.85m to 1.68m on the side the development is (Severn Road side) and 1.16m to 1.69m opposite. Is this is the wide-route alluded to by the Design and Access Statement for pedestrian access.

The nearest railway station is Hartlebury, it doesn't mention the limited service, but it does run hourly to Kidderminster and Worcester um during peak periods. Oh ans there's one at Kidderminster and Worcester too.

Uh-oh page 18 is missing, by the internal count that's pages 6,7, and 8. page 19 (9) starts in the middle of a sentence. Just to confirm I've downloaded it and tried it on a different computer with a different version of Reader, yep not there either.

Page 19 - you have to laugh they say that the introduction of the New Link Road will allow an alternate route to Worcester Road via Lichfield Street, in the same sentence they predict a maximum of 318 vehicles per hour down it. That's about 5 a minute on a single lane two-way street with a minimum width of 4.63m, note the maximum isn't given. A real traffic reliever that'll be.

Oh to keep a straight face, they've spotted the Mitton Street is narrow so the proposed pedestrian route is the northern side, which means... crossing Mitton Street and no you're not going to try and put a pedestrian crossing on a corner, bad doggy.

Although they correctly identify the High Street/Bridge Street/York Street/New Street junction as crucial their queue data's a joke. The assumption appears to be total information awareness on the part of drivers and zero parked cars. Count the number of times the left-hand side of Mitton Street is blocked opposite the Chinese or outside the Yard, count how many people turn left at the left/ahead York Street turn without indicating. Throw in a smorgasbord of pub and other delivery vans unloading and a bus stop that doesn't quite fit one bus, then run your pretty computer program for queue lengths.

Oh 320 cars now + 6 trolley bays. Page 26 - traffic lights on service road due to only having room for two trucks at a time. One by the "loading pay" the other in the service yard. Two trucks can wait on the service access road. So four trucks maximum at any one time. A fifth would block the customer entrance. I'm sure they'll arrange matters accordingly and won't e.g. park one on Severn Road for a bit.

The remaining documents are the queue analysis reports. As I suspected they deal specifically with the junctions in isolation, how much traffic can this junction sustain. The main report made the point that the traffic situation is a figure 8, so a hold up at a junction here, causes a feedback through the whole system.

Right finally the actual drawings and application form. First of all the application form kills off a rumour that Tesco already own the site, "Prospective Purchaser" is the box ticked. They're also unsure as to how to get rid of surface water "To be advised". The entire site will be 5,015 sq.m, but only 2,403 sq.m will be used. There are 5 spaces for this, the figure is next to the second space which is "office floor space" either they meant the third space "floor space for retail trading" or it's a total for all five types. Inquiring minds would like to know.

The site itself is listed at 4.5 hectares or 45,000 sq.m that leaves 39,985 unaccounted for. Also is that 4.5 hectares the 45% already mentioned of the whole site, or the entire area that Tesco want? I'm guessing the latter, which makes the 39k the car-park and surround.

Site plans now. So why does it look the same size as the Tesco in Kidderminster when it's half the size. Perhaps the overall size is the same, but more space for warehousing etc. This would jibe with a rumour that Tesco wanted to use the Stourport store as a central warehousing point. Or I'm only human and I've screwed up somewhere. Check the pictures and scale though.

The car-park appears, as usual, the standard f***-up. I've parked my car and want to get to the store, "No that's alright I don't need a footpath I'll walk along the car-park playing dodge the traffic with a trolley." I could say that the footpaths aren't visible except that a nice gap between two sets of bays is displayed filled with trees. Ah and trees at the entrances and exits "Why would I need a clear line of sight to pull out of a junction?"

The splitter triangle at the end of Severn Road is inspired, traffic already has difficulty getting out there let's make it harder. Oo they can build it nice and high and put some bushes on it too, make it look real purty.

I note some bright spark had put in a slip-way to turn right from Lichfield Street into the store. As I'm sure most people leaving will be turning right they now have three lanes to watch instead of two.

The building itself looks like your standard supermarket model, admittedly they've made it a two-tier affair to keep it low.

Summing up: We need a Tesco as apparently we'd currently undersupplied despite the predictions of the local plan that say we aren't or at least not as much as warrants a new superstore. We need an A1 building on this site despite the preference for B1 and C3 types, because it's the only place you can build one and we need one because as above. It doesn't matter that it's of the town centre as we need one see above and it's the only place to build one see above and you (the council) can't reject them for that reason Nah nah nah nah nah.

It'll provide good links to the town centre despite the pedestrian links being too narrow and it being unlikely anyone will drive back into town for some more shopping. It'll keep people shopping in Stourport and not Kidderminster despite the fact that might not be why people shop in Kidderminster and all the money will fly straight back to headquarters, and once we're done building we won't spend a penny more on this area.

Tesco will try and keep in character with the area, but won't really as a) they have their own design ethos towards maximising profit and b) you can't make them as the previous buildings weren't in character nah nah nah nah nah. Oh all right they'll keep the main building lower, and that's nothing to do with the cost of raising the entire area up to level.

The roads they provide will give some relief to the town though in specific only for Vale Road and Gilgal and that at the laughably high maximum 5 a minute rate down Lichfield Street. We do get part of the fabled Stourport Relief Road though, a small part, a cheap part, that also happens to benefit the store too. Damn that's some concession.

They'll be 324, 320, or 290 car-parking bays depending on which report you read, no discussion on whether they'll be trying the old barrier trick they attempted in Kidderminster.

Oh and more trees to be planted along the edge of the entire site, like they did in Kidderminster then. No mention of how they'll be keeping rubbish out of the river as requested in the ecological report, so a bit like the Kidderminster store again. Damn does this sound familiar?

Oh but you'll get two new bus stops, one right outside the store well actually you'll have to go through the car-park to get there, and one um pretty much right next to it on Severn Road opposite the new access road? Sorry who proposed a bus-stop opposite a junction? Hey they're both on the same sides of the road, where do you get off when you're coming back? Are they going to be just part of a giant loop?

So the reports are inconsistent, have been done over different time frames and make references to things that aren't there anymore. The TIA only deals with each junction in isolation when the system has to be viewed as an entirety and assume perfection on the part of driver and road. The store itself is an A1 which according to the Local Plan we don't need and the site itself is for B1 and C3 with A1 or A3 only as an if-we-must. No mention is made of how they'll deal with the findings of the ecological assessment or the environmental one. I know it's only a proposal for outline planning, but still all-in-all I'll sum it up as "C- needs more work, check your sources"

PS3, potholes, and drugs

Hmm for all the muttered shortages it's interesting to note that my boss who only pre-ordered his PS3 a couple of weeks ago has had it delivered this morning, ironic as he's away for the week skiing. Of course I could open it all up 'just to check' that everything's okay and I've no doubt that when he returns he'll express surprise that I haven't been playing with it. Sadly I've been burdened with a high moral conscience and the simple fact that it's not addressed to me prevents me from closer examination. I've gone as far as confirming what it is and that the main PS3 box is intact and that's it. Ah my conscience - annoying for me; a blessing for the world. Gods one of the directors has wandering in and said that as I'd be taking it home for safe keeping I should have a go with it and I'm still having a fight on my hands. Gah Sonic and Casino Royale have just turned up too.

Nice news for some gamers as the BBC reports that the first 100 UK buyers got a free 46-inch HD television, oops I should say the first 100 London buyers; ah London, UK it's all the same thing isn't it.


GMTV ran a tiny report on potholes, showing the sheared tyre of one family who'd driven over a cluster of some in Coventry. £58 million spent repairing potholes, not including London, with an eleven year backlog. Of course the point is they don't repair them they patch them. The tar then wears away; the fill, not being homogeneous to the rest of the road, washes out; and you're left with the same hole though occasionally larger.

Right assume all cars are Band D tax rated that's £140 per car (actually quite close to the mean). Assume a yearly drive of 20,000 miles (based on a 3 year/60,000 mile warranty), assume a standard 40mpg (based on me). Assume a fuel duty rate of 48.35p (from HMRC).

2,273 litres of fuel needed makes a total of £1,099 pounds per year, add the tax and that makes £1,239 per year per car (not even counting VAT). The DVLA give a figure of 26,208,000 for cars on the road. Multiply that up and you get £32,471,712,000. That's £32 billion a year from cars. I wonder how much of that is actually spent on things to do with vehicles?


A news story about drug classification might slip some by. A team of scientists suggests the outrageous notion that we classify drugs according to the 'harm' they do. Outrageous as it found tobacco and alcohol to be more harmful then some Class A drugs.

The article itself I can't find, I can only go by the summary presented by the MRC. It appears the definition of harm is comprised of three elements - Physical harm, dependence, and social harm. The first is pretty objective and should be easy to score - needle tracks, lower antibody counts etc. Dependence is not so easy as people differ in will-power, just compare those who try and succeed to stop smoking compared to those who don't; although you can examine how long it takes for the body to purge such drugs from its system. Social harm is a tad more difficult. By the nature of their definition illegal drugs may be deemed to promote more harm then legal ones. The only proper comparison would be to legalise or illegalise them all and then run the test. Though again, those drugs that increase violent tendencies, or cause hallucinations may be marked for this category.

Get a panel (of how many members?) to score for these then total them. The response to the report from the Government...

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "We have no intention of reviewing the drug classification system. Our priority is harm reduction and to achieve this we focus on enforcement, education and treatment."

or to put it another way, 'Every time we try to declassify some drug the tabloids start screaming at us, so we've given up. We much prefer to do the quiet things the media tend to ignore' <sigh>

Sony's PS3 backwards compatibility

Well I've mentioned that Sony have pulled out the PS2 hardware chip for the European PS3 and weren't releasing the new software backwards compatibility database until the launch tomorrow. Well either someone goofed or they've had a change of heart because here it is.

Better format then the American version where you have to type in the name of the game you want to check, you can at least browse this lot. It would have been nice though to have the option to search too, but hey if it has to be one or the other I'll stick with the browser.

So to start with two PS1 games to check, Soul Reaver and Silent Hill. Soul Reaver - one block, noticeable issues, US version lists slow down and some pauses; hmm okay liveable. Silent Hill - two blocks, minor issues, US version states a tone is emitted when you shoot something; again liveable.

On to the PS2 games then while I'm on the S's I'll look at Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4. SH2 - one block, or two if you've the Director's Cut (I've both). US has "No major problems for this title.". SH4 - one block; Oh dear. US again has "No major problems for this title." Wait a second - SH2, SH4; what happened to SH3? It's not there, it's on the US site with the familiar blah, but not for Europe. That's not on.

How about the Ratchet and Clank series, the US again has the familiar blah, Europe on the other hand has none of them listed. Sorry run that by me again. None of the series is listed suggesting none will play on your shiny new PS3.

How about the Jak series? US no problems except for Jak X. Europe... well you might be able to play Jak3, but it's a one block game.

Okay forget it, R&C and Jak were the best platforming/racing/whatever series on the PS2 and they might not work on the PS3; Silent Hill 3 is arguably the finest the series produced and that's not listed either.

Of course Sony are "looking to the future" why would you want to play your dull old PS1 and 2 games on the PS3? I don't know how about taking a look at the PS3's launch line-up. Okay "Resistance: Fall of Man" check, Enchanted Arms might have been a possibility except for this. 24 out of 100 no thanks. Oh but I'd definitely get um er no actually that'd be it. Okay that's just me, a driving nut would love what's on offer (that's my cousin sorted then). Where's the R&C equivalent, the Silent Hill, the RPG's (Enchanted Arms being ignored)? For me it's a limp line-up and people like me are soon going to popping in PS2 discs and finding they don't work.

Despite the forthcoming Oblivion and R&C I'm still not going to buy, still going to wait.