If a creditor (someone you owe money to) starts winding up proceedings by issuing you with a Statutory Demand then presents a petition in court to have your company wound up, this is called Compulsory Liquidation.

 In the High Court of Justice

Newcastle Upon Tyne District Registry No 1182 of 2010

In the Matter of YPRES ROSE DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED

(Company Number 5192337)

and in the Matter of the Insolvency Act 1986

A Petition to wind-up the above-named Company whose registered

office is situate at New Lodge, Drift Road, Winkfield, Windsor,

Berkshire SL4 4RR presented on 16 April 2010 by Colourwash Limited

of 18 Weir Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 8UG, claiming to be a

Creditor of the Company, will be heard at the Newcastle Upon Tyne

District Registry, The Law Courts, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 3LA, on 19 May 2010, not before 1100 hours (or as soon

thereafter as the Petition can be heard).

Any person intending to appear on the hearing of the Petition (whether

to support or oppose it) must give notice of intention to do so to the

Petitioner or its Solicitors in accordance with Rule 4.16 by 16.00 hours

on 18 May 2010.

The Petitioner’s Solicitors are Simon Daly Solicitors, 2 Brunswick

Street, Stockton on Tees TS18 1DW, telephone (01642) 604074, fax

(01642) 604084, email sdalysol@btconnect.com . (Ref snd/21737.)

11 May 2010. (1118164)

Source: The London Gazette

I always thought that an overdraft was a facility that a bank customer paid for by interest charges on the debt. Well, for the first time? Lloyds TSB are now planning to introduce an additional charge of five pounds a month for having an overdraft. That's sixty pounds a year additional to interest charges on the debt for having an overdraft.

This bank had to be bailed out by the public, otherwise we might have lost our money because, some employees, apparently without the knowledge of the Chief Executive, were for all intents and purposes gambling with our money. Could the Government have just let the bank fail and safeguard our money? Probably not.

This bank and others, and credit card companies charge an exorbitant amount for their services. Well don't they compared to the current interest rates? If you are a Lloyds bank customer you could make sure that you do not use your overdraft facility and save yourself sixty pounds a year plus interest.  However, this will mean ensuring that there is enough money in your bank account to pay for all outgoings. Lloyds TSB will NOT charge its customers the proposed £5 charge if the overdraft is less than £10. Otherwise, customers with an overdraft will in September be paying considerably more for the convenience of an overdraft.

Why are Lloyds bank introducing this charge? Do they want to discourage their customers from using an overdraft facility? If so, is this because being partly state owned they have been advised to discourage customers using their overdraft facility? Is this because this bank is likely to fail if it exposes itself to potential losses or is it because the bank is just greedy? 

I don't believe it!  How on Earth could Bristol or any other town or city council require that a car, albeit a taxi, has to be resprayed to conform to what Bristol council deems to be the correct shade of blue?  Are the people of Bristol so stupid as to not be able to identify a taxi if it's a different colour? Worse, a different shade of blue! Of course NOT. What about at night, how does one identify the taxi's colour?

For the sake of Bristol council, one in ten of its male councillors will have defective colour vision anyway, or rather it's taxi drivers, let's have a new law- all NEW taxis should be black.  What is even more alarming is that these Councillors have no idea how much it costs to respray a vehicle. so what confidence can one place in their judgement on other matters that have financial implications? But then maybe Bristol IS a dangerous city whose residents and visitors would be well advised to avoid walking the streets and in particular, avoid using taxis and public transport both by day and night. Well, is it? To be safe let's stick to using our cars, or not going to Bristol unless we have to.

Swindon has decided to scrap its speed cameras, primarily due to lack of funding from the government.  I was driving along the A419, the Circencester road, last night in Swindon heading towards The District Centre.  At least three cars shot by me ignoring the 40 mph speed limit. I estimate that the speed of the cars was 60 mph or more. Exactly what one would expect after speed cameras have been switched off.  Whilst the majority of drivers will drive sensibly there are those that will not.

One could ask why do these speed cameras cost so much to install and operate? Apparently, the cheapest road sign costs about £500. Geoff Edwards (I'll add this news to the Speed Limits category on the forum for anyone who wants to comment)

The people of Bath and North East Somerset are having fewer children so this means that schools have spare places. Parents are able to choose the school for their child so there may be schools that are further disadvantaged.  read more 

Politicians promised parental choice. Giving parents a choice is a little difficult to achieve in Bath as there are seven secondary schools: two boys and two girls schools and three mixed schools. Two of the mixed schools are denominational, Catholic and Cof E. Geographically, the schools are sensibly placed or would be if they were all mixed schools.

Closing one school, apparently the school that has been identified for closure is Culverhay, a boys school, will mean that the geographical balance will be destroyed. Pupils from Culverhay would need to be bussed to other schools in a city where there is already severe congestion. Culverhay was last inspected by OFSTED in May 2009. the school gained a grade of 2 Good across all areas of inspection. The highest grade is 1 Outstanding. Here is a short extract from the inspectors report:

"Students enter the school with standards that are consistently below average. In relation to their starting points, students progress well and achievement is good. Students regularly exceed the challenging targets set by the school. The excellent progress made by students in Year 11 relative to their starting points placed the school in the top 6% of schools nationally in 2008 for achievement. Pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities and those who are vulnerable make progress at least as good as their peers because of good provision. The school's latest analysis of performance, coursework assessments and externally assessed tests for 2009 suggests that students are on track to achieve even better results by the end of this academic year."

A spokesman from the school said:  I think the main thing that concerns us is that Culverhay serves the most deprived area of Bath and it is going to cause considerable financial hardship for our parents to have to send their children elsewhere, not to mention the lack of coordination with the council's desire to get more pupils to walk to school.

Closing Culverhay Boys School is disruptive to both the boys their parents and the staff. It is short sighted as the population may increase, is bound to increase isn't it?.  There will be once again overcrowded classes occupying cramped school sites. In the case of Culverhay School it will have to reopen or be rebuilt.  This will be expensive. But a school is not just a building but it is a living entity, closing a school destroys what cannot be seen and disperses the energy that was put into the school.  

The existing provision is far from ideal; Hayesfield Girls School for example has a split site location with a parking problem for staff, who might have to commute twice or more a day between sites or move their cars to avoid a parking fine!

There is an alternative, keep all the schools open but change their status to mixed (co-educational for transatlantic readers). This is relatively easy and would be fairer for parents. Oldfield and Hayesfield? Girls School has a mixed sixth form that works well.

It all sounds to me to favour no one but the builders.  Bath has spent a vast fortune on rebuilding and on the daft project to recreate an inferior Roman Spa and place it on top of a building. For cheapness the architects chose paint rather than tiles, and then the paint turned out to be wrong. It's so idiotic it's not worth debating.  So I suppose, to close some schools presents a golden opportunity to save a few quid.

The city has new supermarkets planned and under construction for a population that is apparently not growing as the school population is shrinking (at present). maybe the desire for procreation is being replaced by an increased appetite for food and drink. Or maybe the supermarkets have become warring tribes that compete for customers. The supermarkets are mainly located centrally, attracting more cars into the city central area. Planners should be trying to reduce motor traffic not approving projects that will attract more traffic or force people to travel by motorised transport to get to school or work, or to shop.

Does Bath really care for those who work there and live there? Take the case of the Royal United Hospital. The hospital charges its staff over £300 a year to park their cars, which I gather is a sort of punishment for not being able to get to their workplace by public transport. A policy approach that ignores the fact that only the rich can afford to actually live in Bath. 

When frugal Wiltshire is having to consider closing swimming pools and raise rates, where is the national vision to apply proper control to these incompetent councils. It is not there! It wasn't there with the last Government and it is not here with the new Government, unless I am missing something.

Good luck to all the staff of all the schools involved, at least one can be sure of one thing in education that is the teachers and their schools care for all their pupils in spite of politicians short sighted decisions.

Introduction

Whilst not all existing leisure centres have swimming pools there are swimming pools in most of Wiltshire's towns. At present Wiltshire does have access to swimming pools that the town residents and locals may go to often just by walking. Trowbridge has its own pool and this is located in the grounds of Clarendon College. The pool can thus serve the needs of both the school and the local community.

 Schools teach children to swim and at present Wiltshire has a number of clubs whose members have difficulty getting enough swim training time. This includes young athletes that represent England as well as Wiltshire. 

The problem

The problem for Wiltshire is that there is a calculated cost of 93 million pounds to run these centres and pools for the next fifteen years, as reported in the Wiltshire Times 16 July 2010. The calculation is based on 13 locations. The average cost is thus £477 thousand pounds a year.  Is this a mistake? If not how much is that costing the rate payer a year? The population of Wiltshire one of the largest counties by area in England is 456 thousand. The cost per ratepayer, excluding any government contribution is then £1,046 a year. The figure is based on £93,000,000 so is the 93 million pound figure correct? Sounds wrong to me.

The Wiltshire plan

Wiltshire Council plans to either close or transfer the 13 leisure centres to local town control. The leisure centres that are closed will be sold off and the money saved used to offset the building of five new community "hubs" at Melksham, Warminster and Trowbridge. These new hubs will contain some leisure but there is no guarantee if this will include swimming pools. The hubs will also replace 95 properties that the council properties. This will mean the hubs will incorporate other council services.

Irrespective of the claimed cost of keeping the status quo there is still going to be an additional cost if these "hubs" are going to be built of over 117 million pounds. What about the users? Surely it is against the glossy new Wiltshire Plan.

What will happen is that people will need to get in their car and motor off to these "hubs" when at present they can use town based pools and leisure centres. Planning will have to rubber stamp the application to build the hubs even though they should be thrown out as being subject to planning policy in particular Wiltshire and Swindon Structure plan 2016. The proposed developments would breach policy DP1 on all points, except item 6 below:

 I think that the majority of Wiltshire people will be unable, if not unwilling, to bear the cost of that travel and find the time to use the leisure facilities.  I can't see how schools will be able to bus their children to these hubs so that they can learn to swim. DP1 3, 5

Obesity is a growing problem in the UK and Wiltshire has a growing problem, literally. Time spent on leisure activities, physical leisure activities, is important and has been written into Wiltshire's Overweight and Obesity Strategy It is worth reading a part of that document:

"The prevalence of obesity has trebled since the 1980s2. In 2006, 24% of adults were classified as obese, which represents an overall increase from 15% in 1993. Being overweight or obese is also increasing in children. In 2006, 16% of children aged 2-15 years were classified as obese, representing an increase from 11% in 1995. If the proportion of obese children continues to rise, a whole generation may have a shorter average life expectancy than their parents.

The Foresight Report suggests that by 2015, 36% of men and 28% of women aged 21-60 living in England will be obese. By 2025, this is forecast to rise to 47% for men and 36% for women. Overweight and obesity prevalence is predicted to double by 2025 among young people. By 2050 Britain could be a mainly obese society".

One of the important components of the strategy is to "build physical activity into our lives" what the HUB Plan will do is make access to essential physical activity more remote, except for those that live near a hub. DP1 1,2 also DP3 1,2

Questions and suggestions

First has someone made an error in their calculations 93 million pounds? Next why does it cost so much to provide these leisure services? Are they run properly? How much do other counties pay for their leisure services? If it's similar then that's the cost.

Whilst existing centres may be less energy efficient their planned replacement is not urgent. More provision should be made to supply leisure services in town and therefore accessible to local people who may walk to them.

The present plan is force people to travel to these hubs. Hub means a centre and that is exactly the right word for these places. Not only people seeking leisure activities but council employees will be displaced from the 95 properties that they work in at present to travel from where they live and converge on the hub. These hubs would be surrounded by car parks!

Trowbridge could have had a large leisure centre similar to Swindon's Link Centre with not only a swimming pool - a proper sized pool, but an ice rink as well.  Instead we have another supermarket. what need is there for another supermarket? Surely the people of Trowbridge don't need another supermarket? So where's the custom going to come from surrounding towns or poached from other supermarkets? And what concern was there for the unavoidable increase in traffic in the centre of Trowbridge. So much for planning!

Comments and suggestions are most welcome :)

What were the results of the SATs for 2009 for Freshford Primary school? what do they mean? Read more?

These results are taken from Guardian School League tables B&NES  the results may be sorted by selecting any heading from the Guardian's list:

1. 40th in maths
2. 35th in science
3. 19th in English ?
4. 17th value added score
5. 24th average point

The BBC publish figures for Freshford School  list performance in English as being better than the LA average and the National average. The problem is that Freshford's rank of 19th  in the Guardian list obscures the fact that ten schools obtained a score between 93 and 95 per cent. In terms of statistical significance these ten schools could be grouped joint 10th. But the layout of the guardian table will not allow that.  In fact it is misleading. The BBC's table is thus more reliable than the Guardian's School league table. Similarly, Science could be joint 36th and Maths  joint 38th.

The scores are in order of results English 93% Science 87% Maths 73%.  Although the BBC tables enable one to click on a school and go to the individual results for the school and see how it performs over time one cannot see any particular subject in the table showing all schools as one can with the Guardian's league tables but as mentioned above the Guardian table is misleading.

Total schools in BANES 48. Freshford's aggregate score is 253, this ranks Freshford as being 35th or joint 33rd.

It is a surprise that of  the 15 children eligible to take the SATs one third had special education needs.

 The SAT scores for Science and especially Maths are disappointing. One may query whether the teachers need to improve the management of children's learning, especially as so many teachers are working part time. How many full time teachers are there anyway? To do the job properly is easier for a full time teacher. There must be a lot more work  for two teachers, and possibly three as they will need to work together, and spend time together after school. Are they able to?

The recent OFSTED report rate the school as Grade 2 Good,  so for the new year beginning in September the school should aim for Outstanding.

Unfortunately, Freshford school was one of the 40 per cent of  schools in BANES that boycotted the SATs this year (2010) so we will not be able to evaluate recent progress.

As part of a review of Leisure services (ie cuts) Wiltshire Council is threatening to close our swimming pool. A petition has been started which can be accessed here: Save Bradford on Avon Swimming Pool