Closure of the seafront. Fine for now, but the council may make it permanent, which would push a thousand cars on to surrounding streets

Published on Friday, 15th May 2020

Today marked the first day of the temporary closure of parts of the seafront. The stretches between the D-Day car park and Clarence Parade and between St Helen’s Parade and St George’s Road are now closed to cars and other powered vehicles. The length of the closure is indeterminate; legally it could last for 18 months.

With traffic volumes reduced, commercial premises closed and leisure travel being discouraged, this is reasonable. It will also make social distancing easier and potentially it will be safer for cyclists.

However a permanent loss of parking would be a cause for concern, with the potential to displace huge numbers of cars on to residential streets and to make it very difficult for businesses to survive.

Two Labour councillors have written to the News on this, saying ‘Longer term, after this has been in effect for a year or so, the council can consult residents, local business and visitors to the city and ask whether they want this to continue’.

In an email, the councillor in charge of transport, Lynne Stagg, seems to agree, saying ‘The closure may not last 18 months or it may be made permanent depending on how successful it is.’

Both these imply that even if social distancing rules are removed, the parking will not be coming back and further that this restriction is not solely about COVID 19, but rather is about climate change and phasing out cars.

That’s all very well, but in reality few visitors are going to cycle to Portsmouth, even if all visitor parking is removed.

Tags: COVID

COVID cases in Portsmouth

Published on Friday, 15th May 2020

Some good news from the city’s council care homes: there have been no new COVID 19 cases for more than two weeks.

Serious outbreaks in two of the three council-run homes had cost the lives of some thirty elderly people. Now though through a combination of testing people before admission and through raised hygiene standards things seem to be under control.

The official government figures have identified a total of 311 cases in Portsmouth. The rate per hundred thousand of population is about a third below the national average, with infection hot spots seemingly randomly scattered across the country.

Tags: COVID

Traffic levels now back to half regular level

Published on Friday, 15th May 2020

The council monitors vehicle movements on three major routes out of the city: Eastern Road, Kingston Road/Fratton Road and the route through the city centre.

The COVID 19 crisis initially saw traffic volumes drop by about two thirds. Numbers have since crept upwards, but are still about half the original level.

There is little sign of things returning to normal – and with millions of people still furloughed and schools still closed, that’s unlikely to change in the near future.

Tags: COVID

Coronavirus: the local response

Published on Tuesday, 24th March 2020

The coronavirus lockdown has left a lot of people confused and worried what it all means – and of course the truth is no-one knows how the rest of this year will pan out.

A good set of links to information on the government’s website is at https://www.pennymordaunt.com/covid19helpandsupport

The council’s response to help vulnerable people will be through The Hive. This is the voluntary and charity sector umbrella organisation that we worked on when I was responsible for social care. It is made up of local charities and is seeking volunteers. Please see their website, hiveportsmouth.org.uk for information. 

Tags: Coronavirus

Leaflets

Published on Tuesday, 24th March 2020

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve stopped delivering leaflets as the coronavirus threat has grown. So just for completeness, here are links to the two latest publications.

lukestubbs.com/files/leaflet1.pdf

lukestubbs.com/files/leaflet2.pdf

Tags:

Water refill stations

Published on Friday, 18th October 2019

One of the last things Linda Symes and I did before losing the council in 2018 was to approve the installation of six water refill stations along the seafront. They were then installed in July that year, but have barely worked since.

The debate in council on a motion we put down on this was disgraceful, as was the reporting in the ‘News’. The fact is, there are 20,000 of these fountains across the country and they are standard products. Despite claims to the contrary, most of them are not working as of this morning and they have visibly had no maintenance for ages. The council leader admitted that he wasn’t even aware of them, before claiming to have been worried about the water loss for ages, while his deputy said they are awful, before saying he wants to install another one.

Water refill stations are a way of reducing the use of single use plastics. They are in widespread use across the country, but Portsmouth cannot get them to work and cannot signpost them. That failing should be addressed. I suppose the politics is par for the course, but that a once proud newspaper reported this rubbish as fact is sad.

Tags: Seafront

Painting the Spinnaker

Published on Friday, 18th October 2019

Securing £3.5m as a five year sponsorship deal for the Spinnaker Tower was a triumph for the previous Conservative administration. Getting the money was hard work and then council leader, Donna Jones, did a great deal of work to get it over the line. I was there throughout and know what a close run thing it all was.

That deal expires next June. We asked about what the council is going to do now. What sticks in the craw is that the same Cabinet member who now wants a painted tower said at the time that ‘The Tories know the price of everything and value of nothing’ and that the tower must stay white no matter what the cost. Still from a taxpayer point of view, this U-turn is welcome.

Tags: Spinnaker

Council set to benefit from government cash

Published on Friday, 18th October 2019

While we won’t know for sure until December just how much government money local authorities will receive next year, Whitehall’s consultation document gives the game away.

The proposal is for most grants to remain the same in real terms, but with a big increase in funding for social care, worth £5.4m for Portsmouth (or around 7% of spending in real terms). On top of that, councils will again be allowed to charge an extra 2% on council tax for social care, as well as a regular 2% increase.

This represents by far the most generous government settlement in a decade. In two of the four years when I did a lot of work on the council’s budget, we had to shrink total spending by over 10% in a single year.

The key thing now is that this money is not wasted and that taxes aren’t raised unnecessarily.

Tags: Budget

Kings Theatre-area residents’ parking scheme likely to be rubberstamped on Monday

Published on Wednesday, 26th June 2019

The council’s Cabinet is expected to push through a huge expansion of residents’ zones in Southsea, bringing the controlled zones as far as Waverley Road. 

The public consultation response has been quite negative, with concerns from people inside the planned zone about having only a two hour restriction and from those outside about the inevitable tidal wave of displacement. Meanwhile businesses are worried about how they will survive when the public no longer has access to any parking between 1630 and 1830 daily.

The Cabinet has repeatedly ignored calls for a joined up approach and has rolled out one scheme after another, many in response to displacement problems created by their previous schemes. The chances are Monday will see more of the same.

Both the Conservatives and Labour have been calling for an overall plan to be drawn up. I will be making that point again at the meeting.

The parking report is at here . For details of how to make a deputation, see here

Tags: Parking