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