We can't sit on our hands and wait for the little buses to go

 I have spent time the past week creating three maps and collecting data. I have a love of buses which goes back to my childhood and is something I have written about a good many times throughout my adult life, some of it published. I've never collected bus numbers and could tell you little about bus makes and their names, but I can tell you where they go and how often they run. I have been travelling on my own on buses since I was 4 (a long time ago). What follows is for you to ponder. The issue of what happens to the the little LocalLink L10 and L11 buses which run past the end of my road is of great concern to me. They are a lifeline at times — it's as simple as that! 

Living with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis I manage well compared to many fellow sufferers but I am mindful of the fact that one slip on my part, when it comes to how and what I do, could kill me (in a couple of weeks if I'm lucky, as I don't fancy taking a year to die as my lungs give up on me). In other words I am someone who has been able to use the little buses which serve places I might not otherwise reach except by car, and, yes, we are lucky enough to have one of them, but  I've spent  a life preferring the bus to a car, so at 77 (in May) I'm not about to change the habit of a lifetime (lockdown has meant only one bus ride in a year, when last August my wife Susan and I caught the L10 to town and back (by 'town' I mean Nottingham city centre).

Go into Beeston or the Nottingham city centre by car and you have to make your way back to it. By bus or tram you can get off and get on where you want. Arguably, this has to be to the advantage of local shops and cafes etc. Get off an L10 or L11 on Wollaton Road at Denison Street, walk down the hill past shops, then onto Albion Street and along Villa Sreet to the High Road, ending up at the Interchange and bussing back up Wollaton Road and home. This an aspect of bus use I’ve yet to see any bus operator or bus authority exploit.

I don't believe the L10 and L11 LocalLink bus routes can be saved, so it is up to users like me to come up with a possible alternative and the maps and draft leaflets which follow are intended to argue for action and discussion without political point scoring, like the Liberal councillor for my ward has been indulging in. I want the Labour Party to say is that we need an open discussion about the future of local subsidised bus services in and around Beeston but, more immediately, we need the County Council to temporarily fund my version of the route and talk to CT4N to see if there is any mileage in the possibility of incorporating my suggestion into their existing route 18 hourly short working (see below for detail):

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:

The future of LocalLink bus routes L10 and L11 is up for discussion, so let's make sure we take advantage of the opportunity

 

Click on the map above to enlarge and to find out more, please enter 'buggy bus' in the 'Search' window in the right-hand column (about half-way down). This will link you to posts by me dating back over several years.

News posted by Borough and County Councillor Steve Carr on the Beeston Updated Facebook page that Nottingham City Council has launched a consultation into the future of LocalLink bus routes L10 and L11 will come as no surprise to those who take an interest in, and use, public transport in and around Beeston and Nottingham.

Beeston has long been a beneficiary of the City Council’s largess because it no obligations to Beeston, since we are outside the city’s boundary. I have suspected for some time that it would come to an end, given the ever deepening financial mire local government is in.

It will not be enough to argue for the status quo because, having read the consultation document and knowing the City Council wants to save £700,000 with good reason, saving the existing L10 and L11 bus routes is not an option.  What we have to do is take advantage of the consultation to look at how alternative community bus services can best be provided in and around Beeston — hence my idea for a Beeston Buggi Bus Network.

We all have to work together. This is not an issue for political point scoring!

UPDATE: Will add a link to the City Council consultation here. Click to see.

Let it snow let it snow...

 I do this post watching the snow fall onto the patio and our back garden whilst eating one of my homemade no added sugar penny buns, so called because they are small. I make them in batches enough to last 12-14 days, then freeze them. How I love snow and I see snow falling less frequently as one of the consequences of climate change. I can say this living close to the top of a hill, at no risk of flooding. 

Let me be clear, I know that as snow melts on higher ground it brings the risk of flooding to millions of people living in homes which have been built on floodplains without adequate defences in place, but I still love snow and will happily pay the taxes necessary to improve flood defences, even though I hold planners and developers responsible for the problem, with some historic exceptions. Preventing flooding up-river/stream often pushes the flooding down-river/stream. Climate change is likely to result in less snow in winter and more storms at other times of the year. It is a problem politicians, governments and business have known about since the late-1960s and chosen to ignore. I must type up and re-publish an article I wrote a long time ago whilst a Birmingham city councillor. I used two nom-de-plumes at the time (Orifice and Able Allchurch) because most of the time I was writing about the antics of the City Council's Labour Group at the behest of the then Council Leader, Stan Yapp. Here is the top of the back page of the Birmingham Trades Council Journal from December 1973:

Once I would have been out there in the snow and loving it, now, thanks my pulmonary fibrosis, I stay snug inside looking out, but my cup of tea and bun are good enough compensation. I also took a pic from our front door before the snow melts. I suspect what we are doing is being repeated all over Beeston. This really is life as it happens.

Click on pic to enlarge.

By way of a P.S. here is an earlier back page from the Trades Council Journal dated February 1972. This led to me being courted by the the then Eco Party. The Labour Party missed a trick at the time when it failed to embrace those who went on to form the Green Party.

Last night the Council, all in a good cause, launched a year long landlord tsunami on Beeston

Last night, Broxtowe Borough Council's Jobs and Economy Committee made the decision to work towards the introduction of a Article 4 (planning) Direction regulating the number of HMOs in all of Beeston Central ward and and parts of the other three Beeston wards (see my Beeston council tax exemptions map below). Click on map to enlarge). 

For Beeston Central ward's two Labour councillors, Lynda and Pat Lally, this was a moment they had been working towards for a good few years and Lynda's concern about the fact that it was going to take a year to do was understandable because she and her husband Pat were only too fully aware of the landlord tsunami they were about to unleash on Beeston. Assuming the Government grants the Article 4 Direction, as from 27 February 2021 ALL HMOs in the mapped area will be regulated and subject to planning permission and in some parts of Beeston no more will be allowed — hence the landlord tsunami as they rush to beat the deadline.

Lynda Lally thanked Beeston Civic Society for their support over the years and it is under their banner that I have done my mapping and report writing. The maps below are maps I have produced for the Civic Society although the opinions expressed are my own.

The Borough's Planning Officer made the point that even though the Jobs and Economy Committee was about to make a momentous decision, there was no guarantee that they would be successful — the Government could decide to reject the Article 4 Direction application because there was evidence which suggested there would be a surplus of student accommodation across Greater Nottingham in four years time as more student accommodation blocks are built. Anyone who lived through Lenton's takeover by private landlords will tell you that this was a story told more than once in Dunkirk and Lenton as the (Labour) City Council delayed and delayed the introduction of an Article 4 Direction. When they did it was too late! 

As another councillor pointed out, it is a pity that the focus is on students when there are a good many non-student HMOs in Beeston. As I have repeatedly said in this blog since February 2015, when I produced and posted my first maps and tables, the data for non-student households doesn't exist. The nearest you can get to tracking them is via the electoral roll. However many overseas nationals, despite having a vote in local elections, choose not to register now that voter registration is voluntary. 

The fact that my registered HMO maps are able to show non-student HMOs is because I cross-reference student council tax exemption postcodes with postcodes listed in Broxtowe's HMO Register against addresses. I know how the Lynda and Pat feel, given the former Conservative led Borough Council showed no interest in what was a problem and this was echoed by the Borough's Planning Office the last time I heard him speak. Last night he was whistling a slightly different tune but his words leave me suspecting his commitment to the task the Jobs and Economy Committee set him last night. We shall see. 

Two of the Conservatives on the Committee abstained, one voted against. I'm afraid I don't know their names but the one who spoke sounded like a spokesman for those landlords who will actively oppose the Article 4 Direction regulation HMOs in Beeston whilst buying up all the properties they can. I suspect the next 12 months will see a good few families leaving Beeston as they take advantage in the house price surge which is hitting Beeston already — my own house has, according to Zoopla, has added over £100,000 to its value since we bought it 5 years ago. Coincidence or what but we are about to get a 6 bed HMO at the entrance to the cut-de-sac on which we live. Once an Article 4 Direction is in place, house prices will fall dramatically, simply because the landlord feeding frenzy will be over. Family homeowners know this. 2020 is going to be the year to sell in Beeston if you want to get a (very) good price.

How do I know all this? Quite simply, I lived in Lenton for 35 years and sold after Nottingham City Council introduced, very belatedly, introduced its own Article 4 Direction regulating all HMOs — which is why I spent the past five years describing the private landlord take over of Beeston as 'Lentonisation' (read my note below).

For now, what happens will be in the capable hands of Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Hallam, the Jobs and Economy Committee Chair, who was, effectively, given delegated power to oversee the process of ensuring that an Article 4 (HMO) Direction order covering much of Beeston gets Government approval and is introduced a year from now. I am in no doubt that he has a tough fight on his hands. I wish him well.

He also made the point (which I have heard him make before) that Stapleford could well do with a few more students.

For now, here are the 4 pages which made up my note to the Jobs and Economy Committee last night with the support of Beeston & District Civic Society:

Beeston and Broxtowe HMOs – what was said for me.

Last there was a meeting about HMOs in Beeston and Broxtowe at the Pearson Centre which I didn't attend but my HMO maps was on display, so I was present, well sort of.  Judy Sleath asked me to write a few words about my maps in case anyone asked. She telephoned this morning to tell me that she had read them out and that I should perhaps share what I gave her on this blog, so vanity appealed to, here is what I wrote:

My apologies for not being able to attend this meeting but I hope the 2 maps I have compiled can speak on my behalf but, just in case, here are a few words I have written to help explain my interest in HMOs and council tax exemptions.

It was back in 2015 that I submitted my first Freedom of Information request to Broxtowe Borough Council for information about HMOs and council tax exemptions.

In 2014 I had attended a meeting at Nether Street School about the growing problem of HMOs on Lower Road. I was invited because I lived in Lenton at the time and well aware of what happens when landlords are allowed to turn family homes into HMOs without any monitoring. The result was the wholesale taking over of neighbouhoods, such as the New Lenton Conservation Area where I lived,

My wife and I moved to Lenton in 1979 and by the time we left for Beeston in November 2014 95% of the 105 houses in the Conservation Area were HMOs and there was an Article 4 Direction in place banning any more HMOs in Lenton.

From conversations with Beeston residents and activists it was clear that, whilst there was concern about what was happening, Broxtowe Borough Council did not see a problem — hence my Freedom of Information request and the subsequent publishing of the data I received.

I repeated the request in 2017, 2018 and quite recently for 2019. I missed 2016 because I was seriously ill. On each occasion Council staff have been attentive and very supportive, and they continue to be.

All the information I have received has been placed in the public domain via my Beeston Week blog and shared with the Civic Society.

I am in no doubt that what I have witnessed over the past five years can best be described as the beginning of 'the Lentonisation of Beeston’ — it begins with neighbours noticing what is happening on their street, then it becomes anecdotal as neighbourhoods share their experiences, then the newly arrived HMOs begin to cluster and extend, before what has become a stream turns into torrent and, apart from a few alert councillors like Lynda and Pat Lally, who try to warn their colleagues of what is happening, the Council wakes up one day to the realisation that a whole community has disappeared beneath a flood of HMOs.

By compiling the maps I hope to persuade Broxtowe Borough Council to collect and share data on all HMOs, not just the large ones, so they can compile maps and monitor what is happening in Beeston and across Broxtowe, with a view to encouraging public discussion about the creation of housing policies which include HMOs and controlling them by the introduction of Article 4 Directions where and when necessary.

For the record I spent 21 years working as a regional and national housing officer, managing and developing supported housing for vulnerable tenants, until I retired in 2006.

Good landlords welcome HMOs, as do their tenants. Housing is too important to be left to self-regulation and chance.

Finally, as you look at the 2 maps, please read the text panels as they explain in some detail how I compiled them.

Robert Howard, 6 November 2019.

JUDY: If asked, you can say I worked for Advance Housing and Support, a registered housing association.

Beeston's buggibus network goes public

Click in the map to enlarge. This is an exercise of the imagination. Much of the map is deliberately blank. The idea is that you imagine where the little buses go and if you don't live in Beeston, then you can create your own network of little buses to take you where you want to go!

Trentbartonland Days Out map gets a 3rd edition

Visit my History by Bus blog to learn more about Trent-Barton's updated days out map.

Should Broxtowe be considering further HMO licensing before an Article 4 Direction?

This is a copy of the response I am sending to Broxtowe Borough Council's Chief Executive. I hope it is self-explanatory!

Click on each page to enlarge.

Beeston’s forgotten Fields Estate

Click on the map to enlarge.

I am in no doubt that the Beeston Fields (Garden City) Council Estate is the poor relation of Beeston, almost forgotten between three main roads and the town's centre.

To to its east, on either side of Woodside Road is Nottingham City Council's Lenton Abbey Council Estate, also a 'garden city estate' dating from the 1920s. The two estates are barely distinguishable, the housing looks the same unless you look closely. Parts of the estate has a real 'arts and crafts' feel about it. At a first glance these house are the same as houses on the Lenton Abbey estate but there are differences. I will add a picture from the Lenton Abbey side in a couple of days and then you can look for the differences without any help from me.

For the records the boundary between the Nottingham and Broxtowe councils is Tottlebrook, long gone and now culverted beneath Woodside Road but once open for all going along Brook Road to see and evidence of this fact still exists for those who care to look close enough:

This is where Tottlebrook passes under Brook Road, which almost certainly takes its name from Tottlebrook. Not a trace of the brook remains, no signs mark that is a boundary point between two councils. I took the picture looking east towards Woodside Road. The houses in the background are on Woodside Road, part of the Lenton Abbey estate, in Nottingham.

I live on the Beeston Fields estate, albeit a detached corner built on infill land left isolated by the fact that Central Avenue should have originally been between the Derby and Wollaton roads, but the Wollaton Road Allotments were in the way and fought off the building of the road. This is a story, if already told has been lost. It is clearly part of local memory because I have heard variations of the same story several times.

I am a regular visitor to the parade of shops on Central Avenue, where its small sub-post office is open every day as it the relatively new DoughMother bakery. A good few of the shops have been in business for a very long time and all are occupied although not all open at the same time.

I also deliver for the Labour Party and, with elections coming up, there is more to do than usual and, somehow, I spot things which have previously gone unnoticed by me, such as the remains of the Brook Road / Tottlebrook bridge. Another thing was this pink littler bin at the junction of the Boundary and Brook roads.

Below is a view of the triangular open space which is part of Abbey Court. I suspect that 'Abbey' reference relates to Lenton Abbey, then probably the house and not the council estate which is separated from Beeston Fields by Tottlebrook. Something to research at sme point.

I chose the word 'forgotten' to describe the Beeston Fields estate because of this public noticeboard in front of the Central Avenue shops at the Dennis Avenue end. It is as good as empty and which I take as a measure of the interest shown by the estate's present councillors. Knowing the two Labour Party candidates for Beeston North ward (which includes Beeston Fields), Jennifer Birkett and Javed Iqbal, as I do this notice board won't be empty for long once they become our councillors.

Anyone who reads The Beestonian, the town's free alternative street magazine, may have read about DoughMother which I have got in the habit of visiting most weeks. Click here for link to Beestonian story.

Here is a picture from inside DoughMother with its owners, Alican (2nd left) and Houlia (3rd Left) and Labour's Jennifer Birkett and Javed Iqbal. The welcome is always warm and friendly and there are a number of tables where you can sit and eat.

The leek pasties I take home to eat on their own or with a small cous cous salad of small tomatos, peppers, peas and celery, with beetroot on the side (I usually eat a chocolate brownie in DoughMother with a lovely cup of black coffee. I hold a bite size piece of the brownie in my mouth and let it melt as the coffee washes over it — never have two things ever been so made from one another if exclude your true loves).

And whilst I'm talking about food I should mention Cob Central at the south end of the Central Avenue shopping parade, where the owner, Michelle, has been doing café fare since just before Christmas. I call in whenever we fancy a bacon cob. Michelle is always generous and at £1.50 for a large cob she offers the best value I know. She also does lunchtime meals like egg/sausage/beans/chips in a range of combinations. I took this pic of Michelle on my last visit and those are our bacon cobs she is holding!

I have written about Beeston Fields Recreation Ground before and make no apology for doing so again. I feel passionate about green spaces like this and pocket parks, and can trace my love of them back to my childhood. For 35 years we lived in a house overlooking Lenton Recreation Ground in Nottingham, also with a bowling green. It helped me lose 6 stone because it had a footpath all the way around it and that is the only thing missing from this lovely neighbourhood park — a path which goes all the way around. My Beeston Fields spider map at the beginning of this post marks the 'missing footpath'.

This is where we need to path, along the west, north and east edges of the park. At a distant it looks perfect...

..but close up you can see why we need a path. The grass has gone in places and if the ground is anything but dry it sticks to your shoes. Once the election is over and we have elected Jennifer and Javed as our new Beeston North ward councillors I plan to work with them to help establish a Beeston Fields Recreation Ground Friends / Support Group open to all park users.

Finally a reminder that at the south end of Central Avenue there is a modern health centre and a pharmacy. The house numbers at this end of Central Avenue provide tangible evidence that the avenue's southern end was not intended to be here.

I will return to Beeston Fields again before very long when my map has been incorporated into a postcard promoting the shops on Central Avenue.

Finally, an insight into how Broxtowe Borough Council regard Beeston Fields. They see its greens as a dumping ground for repair equipment and the like and we are all polite that we let them. A few weeks ago Wollaton Crescent was one of the Council's chosen dumping grounds. The company invloved did knock on our doors and told us what they were doing and full credit to them for that but as nice as they are the damage to the grass will take a long time to disappear...

...whilst on Dennis Avenue right now there is yet more equipment. I admit to not having an answer to the problem in the absence of residents being pro-active themselves and turning these garden city green spaces into mini-meadows or some other kind of communal space.

All this has prompted me to think about publishing my own Beeston Fields newsletter of sorts. Watch this space...

Council Tax exempt student housing in Beeston map now showing numbers

The earlier map just showed locations and not how many properties at that location as defined by the postcode. These are overwhelmingly in Beeston.

I have now entered a number in the postcode pin on the map and entered an explanation on the map itself. The map is a good guide and I make no other claim for it. Six months from now the number will have increased as private landlords buy up more houses in Beeston to let to students, given the continuing restrictions in Nottingham. My aim over the last few years has been to demonstrate that you can map what is happening. At 70 I stopped doing committees and at 75 in a few weeks time I will let others worry about Beeston as I move onto more personal interests. I will help if asked but my self-volunteering days are really coming to an end after 60 years!

I do not doubt for one moment that the Lentonisation of Beeston continues apace. 

I also believe Broxtowe Borough Council should work closely with students and other young people needing housing in the Borough to develop innovative housing schemes, which the young tenants would co-manage with others, ideally funding by a levy on landlords equal in value to any council tax exemptions they receive for existing properties. This money could be used to help secure funding to build housing in partnership with students and other young people. The way the present council tax exemption system works just means extra unearned income for landlords. Decent homes for all trump landlord profits.

Click on the map to enlarge:

Mapping Council Tax Exempt student property in the Broxtowe Borough Counccil area

The six maps below have been created using data listing 567 properties I received from Broxtowe Borough Council today. I will add comparative data in a few days.

If I can create these maps (and the earlier Beeston HMO Map below) with my very limited I.T. skills then it should be easy enough for others to do it better than me. For now I publish my maps without comment (click on a map to enlarge):

At best the data has to be taken as a guide and needs more attention than I can presently give it. Compare the map of Beeston council tax exemption properties above with the map of Beeston HMOs below. Broadgate (pin showing 10) and Low Road (pin showing 14) in particular. This may a case of where multiple entries for the same postcode do not show up on the council tax exempt map — in other words my council tax exempt property map for Beeston should have more 'pins' than it does.

Beeston Transport spider map updated

My Beeston public transport map has its own page and link in the right-hand column. I have just updated it and have plans to add a collection of inset maps to highlight other locations in more detail like the two inset maps already included for Beeston town centre and Nottingham city centre. The only question is how such an enlarge map can be published? 

Click on the map to enlarge:

What do Women have to say when it comes local bus services?

A really interesting interview in The Verge with Caroline Criade Perez, who has written a book called Invisible Women – Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.  I wonder how much attention bus planners give to the views of women when it come to planning local bus routes? With a tram or train you have no real choice — they go where they go but bus routes can be tweaked in so many ways, and what she says about women using buses at night really struck a chord. Even older folk like me disappear from buses at night.

I have copied the question and answer from the interview:

What type of change is necessary to get rid of this data bias on a large scale? Do you have any numbers on how expensive these types of changes would be? 

Essentially, what needs to be done as a first step is to collect the data because without the data, it’s impossible to know what is needed and how much it’s going to cost. For a lot of things, like subways, there’s no doubt that that would be expensive, but there are much cheaper forms of transport that you can deal with, like buses. Buses are much more likely to be used by women because they’re the low-cost option, and it would be very easy to collect the data on where women need the buses to be and what they need for safety.

One thing I find very interesting is that women form the majority of bus users in London during the day, but that switches over at night. We don’t have data on why that is, but I think it’s fairly easy to guess. So if women were using the bus at night, the bus companies would perhaps be making more money, and that could pay for anything they did to try and get more women on the bus, like making sure the stops are in well-lit areas.

I think Caroline Perez makes some good points and it may be that none of this is news to you, but it is an issue which has interested me for a while and I have mentioned before. See my blog from early 2017 at:

https://beestonweek.blogspot.com/2017/01/hail-beeston-bramcote-buggy-bus.html

(Click on the map to enlarge. Slightly different to my original map because of service changes since Jan 2017, but my argument for such a Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus network remains unchanged).

Maybe evening bus services would be more frequent and profitable if they looked at what women bus passengers want.

The Tram in Nottingham was aimed at men using cars. How true that is now I’m not so sure, but I have femail friends who use The Tram because they perceive it to be safer and more comfortable (the latter I dispute). I suspect the nature of tram stops contributes to the former view, simply because they are more substantial and better lit. Bus stops at night, despite the best efforts of councils like Nottingham, can be pretty grim.

Finally, here is a photograph I took of Beeston Interchange in 2015 (click to enlarge).

It hasn’t changed. I could have taken the same pic last week when I walked through it. Deserted and grim and not a year old at the time!  The land to the right has yet to be developed and Broxtowe Borough Council talks in hazy terms about ‘late-2020’. I feel as sorry for NCT and Trent-Barton as I do the poor sods who have to use it at night.