Sunday walk and the etiquette of walking

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

Todays walk.

We walked around the lake at Trentham again yesterday and today, my phone didn’t track yesterdays walk but here is todays, I had to edit it slightly because it seemed to think that we had swum that last mile up the lake.

Etiquette of walking.

We walk around the lake each weekend because we know it is a set distance, we know what we are going to do and we can measure our time to see how we are improving. I’ll quite happily walk pretty much anywhere but for the purpose of getting fitter this suits us.

When you are walking with a lot of other people, what is the etiquette when it comes to passing each other?

I generally walk on the left of a path, no real reasoning as to why I just do, if people are coming towards me on their right, so heading straight at me, who should move?

I have ‘rules of the road’ in my head, stay to the left hand side of the path where possible.

Thoughts?

Posted from England, United Kingdom.

Todays Walk.

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

We are getting back in to walking again after about 18 months off. We have annual passes for Trentham Gardens so we are starting our walks around the lake again.

About 3 1/2 miles today, not bad for a first walk I suppose.

I’m not convinced that the gps tracking is correct as I had to edit it a bit to match the actual route. I run the GPS on my phone and had one phone call half a dozen texts and stopped to take a picture so I would say that had an impact on the accuracy. I’ll see what tomorrows trace looks like.



Posted from England, United Kingdom.

HTC BlackBerry and Nokia Privacy Issues?

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

A while back I wrote about my iPhone tracking my location, not very accurately but tracking it non the less. There was uproar about why Apple collected this information and Steve Jobs had some tough questions to answer and had to send one of his Vice Presidents to the Senate to answer them. The whole thing was dubbed LocationGate.

At the time all the non Apple users laughed at the Apple fan boys and girls for using Apple products yada yada yada. Well now it seems the boot is on the other foot and if you use a BlackBerry, HTC or Nokia device there is an application called CarrierIQ that runs in the background which logs all kinds of details and sends it off to the servers of a private company that hardly anyone has heard of.

Have a look at the video below from Android developer Trevor Eckhart who shows just how invasive the CarrierIQ app appears to be on a HTC handset.

I could say ‘who’s laughing now?‘ but the bigger issue is the whole lack of privacy that is becoming acceptable.



Posted from Stoke-on-Trent, England, United Kingdom.

Dear Councillor Hussain

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

Dear Cllr Hussain,

I wonder if it is possible for you to help me with an issue relating to work being carried out at 55 Trentham Road, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent which is in your ward.

The homeowners of the above address applied for and were granted retrospective planning permission for a driveway and dropped kerb to allow access from the highway across the footway on on to the new drive. As you can see in this document http://www.planning.stoke.gov.uk/Documents/14992_4.pdf in point 9 it states that the work will be carried out by Stoke-on-Trent City Council Highways and Transportation.

In the past seven days the householders have, on 2 separate occasions used contractors who are not authorised buy the City Council.

The first instance was on Friday 25 November, the contractors arrived and started to dig up the footpath, they had little regard for the safety of road users or pedestrians. As you can see in this picture they completely blocked one side of the road with 2 JCB vehicles.

I am sure that you are aware that Trentham Road is the main road between Longton & areas such as Blurton, Trentham & Handford and is used by emergency vehicles based in Longton. Blocking the road in this way without adequate traffic management is not only illegal but could also have impeded the passage of emergency vehicles travelling south and to some lesser extent north.

I called the council Highways department and asked if the work was indeed authorised and they could find no record of authority for any work to be carried out on the highway at this location. A Highways officer was dispatched and stopped the work. The officer also had to make arrangements for barriers to be erected around the work site to make it safe for other road users and pedestrians.

Today, Thursday 1 December, the same contractors arrived on site again and removed all the paving stones from the footway. Again I contacted the Highways department, on this occasion I spoke to the officer who had visited the site on the previous Friday and he told me that no work was authorised and the householder had been informed that no further work was to be carried out. He then said he would send an officer out to stop the work again.

Two highways officers arrived and again stopped the work and made further arrangements for operatives from the highways department to come and make the site safe as there is now no continuous footpath for people to use, making it difficult for people with mobility problems or wheelchair users to use.

I have nothing but praise for the Highways department of Stoke-on-Trent City Council who have acted swiftly and decisively on both occasions but I would like your undertaking that you will liaise with them and support them in recouping any costs that they have incurred in dealing with this reoccurring problem from the householders. I’m sure as a member of the Planning Committee you will take a very dim view of the flagrant breach of the law. I have contacted Rob Flello MP and I’m sure he will be more than happy to support you as you look in to this matter.

I have no issue with the driveway or the dropped kerb as they are both legal having been granted planning permission, all be it retrospectively. I do have an issue with the way the work is being carried out with a blatant disregard for the City Council, the planning & traffic laws and respect for neighbours.

You can get further background information by viewing the following pages on my website:

http://michaelrawlins.co.uk/2011/11/25/comedy-contractors/ which relates to Friday 25 November

http://michaelrawlins.co.uk/2011/12/01/more-unauthorised-work-at-cllr-hussains-house/ which relates to Thursday 1 December

Yours sincerely

Michael Rawlins

Posted from Stoke-on-Trent, England, United Kingdom.

Dear Rob Flello MP

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

Dear Rob Flello MP,

I wonder if it is possible for you to help me with an issue relating to work being carried out at 55 Trentham Road, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent.

The homeowners of the above address applied for and were granted retrospective planning permission for a driveway and dropped kerb to allow access from the highway across the footway on on to the new drive. As you can see in this document http://www.planning.stoke.gov.uk/Documents/14992_4.pdf in point 9 it states that the work will be carried out by Stoke-on-Trent City Council Highways and Transportation.

In the past seven days the householders have, on 2 separate occasions used contractors who are not authorised but the City Council.

The first instance was on Friday 25 November, the contractors arrived and started to dig up the footpath, they had little regard for the safety of road users or pedestrians. As you can see in this picture they completely blocked one side of the road with 2 JCB vehicles.

I am sure that you are aware that Trentham Road is the main road between Longton & areas such as Blurton, Trentham & Handford and is used by emergency vehicles based in Longton. Blocking the road in this way without adequate traffic management is not only illegal but could also have impeded the passage of emergency vehicles travelling south and to some lesser extent north.

I called the council Highways department and asked if the work was indeed authorised and they could find no record of authority for any work to be carried out on the highway at this location. A Highways officer was dispatched and stopped the work. The officer also had to make arrangements for barriers to be erected around the work site to make it safe for other road users and pedestrians.

Today, Thursday 1 December, the same contractors arrived on site again and removed all the paving stones from the footway. Again I contacted the Highways department, on this occasion I spoke to the officer who had visited the site on the previous Friday and he told me that no work was authorised and the householder had been informed that no further work was to be carried out. He then said he would send an officer out to stop the work again.

Two highways officers arrived and again stopped the work and made further arrangements for operatives from the highways department to come and make the site safe as there is now no continuous footpath for people to use, making it difficult for people with mobility problems or wheelchair users to use.

I have nothing but praise for the Highways department of Stoke-on-Trent City Council who have acted swiftly and decisively on both occasions but I would like your undertaking that you will liaise with them and support them in recouping any costs that they have incurred in dealing with this reoccurring problem. I have contacted my Ward councillor who also sits on the planning committee and asked him to look in to this issue as a matter of some urgency, I’m sure you will be able to support him in this matter.

I have no issue with the driveway or the dropped kerb as they are both legal having been granted planning permission, all be it retrospectively. I do have an issue with the way the work is being carried out with a blatant disregard for the City Council, the planning & traffic laws and respect for neighbours.

You can get further background information by viewing the following pages on my website:

http://michaelrawlins.co.uk/2011/11/25/comedy-contractors/ which relates to Friday 25 November

http://michaelrawlins.co.uk/2011/12/01/more-unauthorised-work-at-cllr-hussains-house/ which relates to Thursday 1 December

Yours sincerly

Michael Rawlins

Posted from Stoke-on-Trent, England, United Kingdom.

More unauthorised work at Cllr Hussains house

Posted on by Mike Rawlins

After last weeks debacle with the unauthorised work on a dropped kerb outside Councillor Hussains house, the same contractors arrived again this morning and removed all the paving stones.

A quick call to Highways and again I find out that they are still not authorised to carry out any work and that the works were stopped on Friday as they did not have the correct paperwork, forms or authorisation to work on a public highway.

You probably can’t see from the video but they are just using a roller to flatten the soil and sand under where the paving stones used to be, no hardcore laid, no check on the services that run under the pavement, just rolling the soil flat.

Two more highways inspectors came out today, stopped the work again and have arranged for the council to come and make the site safe.

No sooner had the officers left when work started again.

If this is how my local councillor and his family treat the council what hope is there for the rest of us?

Again I have to say:

I have no problem with the drop kerb being put in, it is after all, legal and above board with full planning permission, even if when Shazad Hussain was canvassing for votes, he told us it wasn’t a drive.

I do however, have issue with the way that the work is done, the lack of respect for neighbours and the danger that it presents to other road users & pedestrians along with the fact that the work is being carried out other than in accordance with the planning permission IE by the council.



Posted from Stoke-on-Trent, England, United Kingdom.