Traffic

Central Road at 7am this morning.

As has been noted by any Worcester Park dweller who dares to set out in a car between the hours of 6am-10am or 3pm-8pm the traffic situation is not funny. In conversation with a Longfellow Road resident last night he mentioned that there was traffic queued from Central Road nearly up to his house in the mornings. As he lives in house with a number around the 3-digit mark that was pretty impressive and on checking at 7am this morning there was indeed a queue of about 30 cars in Longfellow Road waiting to get out on to Central Road.

Quite why Sutton council think that adding to this situation with traffic from the proposed Hamptons development won't be a problem is mysterious at best. I'm assuming they've never been in Worcester Park in the morning.......

As I don't commute by car, preferring to cast myself on the mercies of SW Trains, I'm not qualified to comment but I'm sure some of you are.....

Hamptons Haiku

St James please take heed
We don't want more houses there
Put them somewhere else

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If you want to register your disapproval of the new Hamptons development you can do so online here or the newsagents up the top of the hill opposite Rumours has a petition in the shop. To say he's not a St James fan would be putting it mildly. He's a lovely bloke so his ire is not part of his normal demeanour! You need to get your skates on if you want to make a difference as the last date for commenting is this weekend.

Slowing down

A lovely evening with friends for dinner down in the Hamptons last night. It's eerily quiet down there, but that won't last if the plans for the new bat-scarers wind turbines get approved. Sit there and say whoomp-whoomp-whoomp to yourself for five minutes if you want to get an idea......

Regular readers will have read my burblings on what I'd like to see in WP and while perusing the BBC News site today I came across a link to Cittaslow whose stated goal is:
"Cittaslow is a way of thinking. It is about caring for your town and the people who live and work in it or visit it. It is about protecting the environment, about promoting local goods and produce, and about avoiding the ‘sameness’ that afflicts too many towns in the modern world."

I'm not quite sure that joining the hallowed ranks of Ludlow, Aylsham, Diss, Mold and Berwick-Upon-Tweed is exactly what I have in mind but it makes a pleasant change from those places desperately grasping to attain City status by putting up swathes of shiny offices and shops (I think I'm channeling Bill Bryson here...).

Lastly, greetings to the number of people I see in the stats making their way here from the Worcester Park Appreciation Group on Facebook!

Huntsmans update

On the way back from the station yesterday I noticed that there were three men feverishly brushing a new coat of paint onto the Huntsmans.

Hopefully this means that Punch Taverns have found some new ideas and/or a new boss for it!

Friday mega-entry II

It's another Friday and the 6.27 from Worcester Park was fabulously empty. It's tempting to make it a habit seeing as the 7.12 is getting unpleasantly full.

Having railed about the ineffectiveness of CCTV in a previous post the Evening Standard took up the subject yesterday, coming to pretty much the same conclusion. Sutton's clear-up rate seems to one of the best of all even though the borough allegedly has less than 100 council CCTV cameras (though many more placed by other organsiations).

I was interested to see that there was activity yesterday in the former Choices Video shop with the gap between the two parts of the store being bricked up. I don't know whether this was a new tenant re-jigging the layout or the owners trying to make it seem more appealing but hopefully something will happen soon.

Activity was continuing at the Huntsmans yesterday with more painting and some work on the frontage. Anticipation mounts!

The Debra charity shop opened it's doors yesterday after its fit-out. It looks quite organised but I really shouldn't get excited about another charity shop.

Avast!

Seeing as it be Talk Like A Pirate day I challenge ye one and all to feats of derring-do in the name of our fair town of Worcester Park [more here].

That be all. Arrrrr

Melange du jour

A couple of articles have appeared relating to an assault in Worcester Park with links here and here. It does bear some similarities to the assault sign that's turned up outside the Huntsmans but has some differences too. The locations are a few yards apart while there's only half an hour between them, but on entirely different days. Any ideas on whether they're the same or different?

This leads me on to my pet subject of why security cameras don't reduce crime, so to quote the last link:

"The 178 video cameras that keep watch on San Francisco public housing developments have never helped police officers arrest a homicide suspect even though about a quarter of the city's homicides occur on or near public housing property, city officials say."

The story's similar in Surrey with CCTV cameras in Leatherhead and Ashtead unattended at the kind of time you might expect incidents could happen, and I doubt that the Police have obtained any decent pictures from the recent incidents even though they've occurred within yards of the CCTV cameras.

If they want to stop crime in Worcester Park then CCTV is really not the way to do it.

Friday mega-entry

SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to problems at 20six you may not be able to access this blog from any or all locations on the internet. Currently I can only access it from one of three of my regular locations but I'm at the mercy of 20six and their hosting provider If anyone can tell me how to export the entries and comments so I can put them on Blogger or Livejournal then I'd be grateful.

I know in my preview of the week I promised you some Welsh Ass but The Longster posted a story so good it deserves reproducing here before I say or do anything else:

I’d popped into Waitrose for a “top up in-between Tesco online delivery” type of shop and it was as walked out of the car park that the incident happened.

A small Fiesta sized car was waiting to turn let onto Central Road, and when a gap opened in the traffic it pulled out.

However, as it was turning left the driver decided to stop on the corner and stay there. This obviously caused a bit of an obstruction both for people coming down the hill and for other cars coming out of Waitrose.

But that’s not the odd thing – after all, she may have broken down or have been taken ill in which case she’d have had a good reason to stop.

But neither of these were the reason she had stopped.

In fact, she was causing traffic chaos in Worcester Park in order that she could shave her arm pits! Huh?

Bonkers! Surely someone that mad shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car?

I’m sure she annoyed a lot of drivers that day, but as a pedestrian it made my day! :-)

Back on yesterday's subject of yellow things another one had appeared by the time I'd got back from work yesterday, and here it is:



"On Sun 5th Aug 07 at about 1.30am a male was attacked opposite the Hunstman Hall public house sustaining serious injuries". Before they closed the Hunstmans they could probably have left one of those out permanently and just changed the date......

Knowing that it's probably not going to live up to the build-up that I've given it I fell that I need to explain the Welsh Ass story. I was flicking through the Sky programme guide the other night when BBC Parliament presented me with the listing shown below. I grabbed one picture of it but because it was blurry I was going for a second when the programme listing rolled over before I could get it. It's still legible though if you look carefully:

Yellow things

Locals will have noticed the appearance of two yellow Police signs on Central Road with "Can you help us?" across the top.

The text reads:

"CASH IN TRANSIT ROBBERY - On 8th Aug 07 at about 11.15pm a uniformed G4S guard was robbed by two males who fled towards the A3"

As I was away at the time it happened I have no idea what went on and the local papers seem equally uninformed, but if you do have any information then 020 7232 6530 is the number to call.

On the subject of yellow things I had a brush with a minor celebrity the other day in the form of Spongebob. Not, however, the large yellow children's cartoon character but the spider monkey who was stolen from Chessington last year. Marlon Brown was given 12 months for stealing him, reduced to 50 hours community service on appeal. Spongebob wasn't so lucky. Having been rejected by his original group at Chessington on his return he was moved to Battersea Park zoo where he was rejected by the females in the group there and has ended up in his own enclosure with another male. They seemed to be getting on well but none of this expense and hassle needed to have happened in the first place if it wasn't for some moron needing to get a life. I'm cross, you can tell can't you. Very nice monkey though.

Preview

A bit strapped for time so I thought I'd give you a quick preview of what I'm planning to blog about this week:

• The new development in the Hamptons and the chance to object,
  
• The yellow crime sign on Central Road (see gallery),


• Welsh Ass (also see gallery),


• A brush with celebrity,


• Ermm..... anything else

Over the weekend I made a couple of additions to the left hand column in the form of my new Google email address and a visitor map. Let me know if you have any suggestions (that don't involve moving to a different blog provider, much as I'd like to).

The Hamptons - the continuing saga

For Worcester Park residents this weekend saw a document drop onto the doormat with information about the proposed expansion of The Hamptons. I've found some information on the council website here although there should be a lot more to be found and links would be appreciated. For those too lazy to want to click on the link the short version is:

"Phase 4b & 5c to provide 184 new dwellings ... together with garages, surface and basement car parking, cycle and refuse facilities and erection of eight 14 metre high wind turbines." (A2007/58387/FUL and A2007/58388/FUL)

Eight 14 metre high wind turbines!?!? Ermmm........ The issue of traffic from 184 new dwellings is a big one but why is Worcester Park the best location for a wind farm!?!?

You can already tell which side of the fence I'm leaning towards (the wind farm will be aligned with Brinkley Road) but I'm sure all manner of arguments and counter-arguments will appear over the coming weeks. The Conservatives have already leafleted the area stating their opposition and quoting a traffic survey highlighting inadequate traffic provision in the local area and (somewhat inevitably) blaming the incumbent Lib-Dems for the issue (as is the trend in modern politics).

The Rose Spa

As previously mentioned much of my incoming traffic from Google recently has been related to The Rose Spa and I have been fairly flattering about how it looks (and it turns out the staff have very smart uniforms too!) so to satisfy the curiosity Worcester Park's healthy hordes here it is:

For those after real information rather than just a picture the phone number is 020 8337 5348. I'm sure that's more like what you were after.

I noticed on the way back from the station that the fence outside the Huntsmans Hall had taken another pounding, but didn't think I'd weary you with another photo just yet.

I'm in lust

I have a new gadget. My new N73 phone will let me upload photos straight into Flickr so I can blog things I see in no time at all! I rarely get excited by new gadgets but anything that will allow me to waste time faster is most welcome.

To get in the swing of it here's some unusual work going on in Barnard Marcus last night where they had the whole front of the building taped up and seemed to be putting a partition down the middle:

Most of you, however, will be wanting to see the destruction of Fort Huntsman (aka Huntsmans Hall for those who Googled their way here) so here's a picture of that too, though you'll want to click on it to see it full size:

I realise that some of you have web filters at work that block anything from Flickr so you have a couple of blank spaces above where photos should be but I can't help that I'm afraid and you'll have to view them from home, Worcester Park library, Starbucks/Costa/Coffee Republic wi-fi, etc.

Thieving whatnots

Google Blogsearch provided an interesting story about one new resident's initiation into Worcester Park:

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We have been staying in south london for a while, during the last few months we have been staying in a place called Elephant & Castle as our new home was getting built, the area is going through regeneration and we were concerned that our car (merc clk) will get broken into, damaged or stolen.

after a while we realised nothing will happen, in fact the people who we thought were quite dangerous folk, were actually really nice, its only when we arrived to worcester park suburbs of london in surrey, nice area, very clean and quiet, our merc badge got stolen..?!?!?

i can't believe it!, its so annoying...!! anyway lesson learnt - appearances can be deceiving! dont take anything at face value ..

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[Sigh] Welcome to the neighbourhood. It's not always like that, although I recall that on purchasing the latest Brinkster-mobile a few years back it had been keyed by the next morning, though not since then.