jurastores

How come a blog I posted on the above date has not been published?

Surely the people living on Jura have the same basic Human rights as people living on the Main Land. This being the right to move freely around the country, without restriction.

Whilst I fully expect to have the usual silly comments posted, this is, in my view, a very serious matter.

It seems that if you live on Jura, you only have the right to leave the Island when it fits in with ASP Ship Management's schedule (and I do not mean the published time table), if you wish to visit Jura, the same applies AND apparantly, if you are not resident on Jura, you cannot book a 21.30 ferry.

We used to have an excellent ferry service but all that is a thing of the past.

Why should that be? If you can be bothered to read the Transport Strategy published by Argyll and Bute Council, it makes statements about the way forward and how they are planning to make transportation in the years to come, more accessable and user friendly, HA!

There is a published time table, with set times for the ferry. It seems that this no longer applies, now, when the ferry is full of vehicles, it sets off. So if you go to the 10.30 ferry and arrive at 10.25 (on Islay) but the ferry is full of vehicles, it will leave before the scheduled time. You then have to wait until the next run(11.15) BUT if the ferry is full of vehicles by 11.05, it will depart, as you can imagine, the knock on effect is total chaos. If the new system (as far as I can work out, it has been unofficially introduced), is what the future is, then the whole economy of the Island will implode. An ASP staff member told me, that due to increased fuel costs, not only will double runs (used to clear the traffic due to the ferry being too small) no longer be available but they were also considering reducing the scheduled 14 runs a day, to cut costs. He told me this whilst we were stood at the side of the ferry, which was moored but had the engine revved up for 30 mins (what's that all about?). The ferry then crossed at half speed, to save fuel.

The powers that be, do not accept, that, because they have previously been doing an average of 28 runs a day, that there is a need for more runs OR that the present ferry is too small! DUH!

What I would like to know, who told the crew to stop doing double runs and for why? How do they think the Island can manage to survive if they are stopping access both for Islanders and tourists alike and is the millions of pounds paid into Government coffers from Jura important or not because the distillery will also be affected.

Are the present problems the result of some jumped up vindictive individual making decisions beyond their power's OR a policy by Argyll and Bute to de populate the Island OR a profit based decision by ASP.

We need some answers NOW. Before it is too late and the Island dies because believe me, it will, if the present actions of whoever, continue.

To outsiders this blog may seem muddled and not make much sense but I hope it does, to those who use the Jura ferry on a daily basis.

Well, it's Thursday and we have to wait until next Wednesday until the bin's are emptied and guess what? The village waste disposal point is overflowing and it is only April. Look at the pictures from my first post in September last year. I will post some more pictures over the weekend when the situation is really bad.

Looks like the rats are going to have a great year this year.

Amazing how many people appear with a bit of sunshine, I'm not moaning about that. Without visitors to Jura my business would not exist, as we are totally dependent on tourism. Funny how Argyll and Bute Council do not seem to appreciate the value of tourists because they will not provide waste facilities for them and in fact, would be very happy if the tourist's took their rubbish home with them. That was a quote from a senior manager at A&B Council to myself over the telephone.

I am already noticing the odd black bag of rubbish being dumped in ditches on the way to the ferry, the bin men will not stop and pick it up because it isn't in a wheelie bin and I'm not picking it up because I pay council tax for waste disposal and I'm not doing their job for them.

As the season has not really started yet GOD HELP US when it does.

I'd better charge up the camera because I feel that I'm going to be very busy this year taking pictures of all the waste that will be dumped due to A&B cutting back on collections. If the two weekly collections continue then the place is going to look like a landfill site and the tourists are going to stop coming because they will not want to look at a rubbish dump.

Pictures to follow.

Guess what I received in the post today? Oh you know because you got one too, yes that's right, our Council Tax bill's.

Normally, like most people (I suspect), I scan over the accompanying bumph, look at the size of the demand, pick myself up off the floor and then chuck the bumph in the bin (the recycling one of course, excluding the envelope, that goes in the other bin, waiting to be collected in two weeks time).

BUT today I was speaking to a chap who lives in central London and mentioned about the council tax and how high it was, he is in a higher banding than me but pays far less, so I thought I would actually have a read of the bumph.

It is very interesting, we all know that you can make figures say what you want but this is fudging taken beyond the norm. Here are a few questions I would like answered (if you know the answers PLEASE post a comment) and the increases in the coming years budget.

1. What is 'Cultural and related services' 15.81%
2. Ditto 'Trading services' 51.79%
3. Ditto 'Corporate and democratic core' 36.49%
4. Ditto 'Non Distributed costs' 8.92%
5. Ditto 'Other Operating costs' 61.92%

Funnily enough, I know what the following are but look at decreases.

1. 'Roads and Transport services' ( 32.10% )
2. 'Housing Services' ( 26.32% )
3. 'Social Work' ( 9.14% )
4. 'Planning and dev Services' ( 10.62% )
5. 'Central Services to the Public' - maybe not ( 8.37% )

Basically what this all boils down to, is mis management of our money causing pot holes in the roads, rat population increases and less help for the people of Argyll and Bute.

The other day I saw a headline for the Oban Times '141 Council Workers to lose their jobs', I was so down about it, I never read the article but I bet it was not referring to the people at the top.

Here is a good exercise for some geek out there.

Compare the figures of expenditure from 50 years ago against todays and come up with %'s of wages and salaries paid plus expenses to manual workers as against office workers compared to Council taxes received and I can bet that it would be a staggering shift from the people who provide us with the services at the sharp end to the people who sit on their backsides in offices and cars wearing blue or white collars.

Yes I am ranting once again but it will make no difference in the end because the people who we keep in their high paid and highly pensioned jobs have the say on how our money is spent and look down on the normal people as plebs, who are not fit to clean their shoes.

What these people forget, is that it is our money that pays them and they are classed as 'Public Employees'.

OH God, I've just realised what I typed...............................excuse me while I wipe my eyes................................pick myself up........and.........................wait 'till the stitch subsides from my side.

Sometimes, I can be so witty, without realising it!!!!!!!!

This will be interesting!

My view, is that Global Warming is a 100% natural occurance that happens every so many thousand years, yes we may be, in a very, very small way, be contributing to it but nothing we do will stop it.

All the fuss about it, is being fuelled (No pun intended) by Governments around the world, so they can tax everyone to the enth degree because if a Government were to tell us all, that they are taxing us extra, we would all complain and may not re elect them but if they create loads of fuss and back the theory that we all need to cut emissions and if we don't, the world will end by 20 something then one of the ways to do this is to create 'Green Taxes' then we will all be sympathetic to this sort of tax.

It is all twaddle and no matter what anyone say's to me it is all about creating new taxes and stupidly titled jobs.

Anyone like to comment on my theory?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pothole

The state of the road on Jura is a JOKE.

After much lobbying of Argyll & Bute Council, they provided a roadman on Jura, he is a really nice guy but when the only tools given to him are 1. A vehicle. 2. A spade and 3. A rake. How can he be expected to maintain the road, he goes to Islay and picks up a load of cold tar and then comes back to Jura, throws it in one of the many potholes, using his spade and then tamps it down with his rake.
Along comes the first vehicle, drives over it and pulls out a bit of the cold tarmac, the next vehicle pulls out a bit more and so on, until the pothole re appears and in fact grows bigger as the new tar pulls out some of the old stuff around the edges of the hole, so by the next day, the pothole is back, only bigger.

The road on Jura was never designed to carry the number of HGV's that now use it. Why so many HGV's? Because of SEPA!

SEPA is part of the Organisation that Argyll and Bute Council belongs to, which is also part of the Organisation that collects the millions of pounds per year from Jura in various taxes ( VAT, Road Tax, Income Tax etc., ), yet why can they not put some of it back into the Island and give us a decent road?

I know I seem to be always moaning but we are treated as a third world country, well that's wrong because they receive millions in aid, we receive NIL or next to.

Why cannot Government and those further down the tree of power, look at area's like Jura, see how much they contribute to the Economy, and put some of it back into the local area to maintain the flow of funds?

I could go on and on but I think I have made point, I hope, if you can follow my ravings.

Here's another one : A passenger ferry from Craighouse to Crinan.

How's this supposed to work then? Who is going to run it? Surely the operator and crew would need to live on Jura (all four of them) due to the weather conditions - if they were based on Islay or the Mainland how would they get to Craighouse in time for the first sailing, especially if the sea was rough early on but quitened down nearer the departure time.

12 passengers, 6 bikes and packages?

Summer months only, earning £60k per year? This equates (I cannot spell) to about £2500 per week, this in turn means approx 100 people a week using it at the proposed full adult return price, take into account concessionary and child fares, maybe even 120 to 150 people a week. 15 to 20 people per day, GET REAL.

No ferry crossing in the evening, stay at Crinan Hotel, nice as it is not many Jura people can afford to pay their prices.

Missed the bus because the ferry is late? Do what? Until you can get back to Jura!

The whole thing has not been thought out correctly. ONCE AGAIN!!!!

If something along these lines is ever going to work, it has to be thought out properly and with the wishes of Jura people.

I am all for attracting a few more tourists to Jura but IS THIS THE WAY?

Once again a badly thought out idea and another waste of our money!!

I am really disillusioned in the way that scheme's are thought up just to grab money that is there, using the phrase "well if we don't take it, someone else will"
Leave the money for proper, feasable and commercially viable idea's.

That DO NOT need a subsidy to survive.

We have two community owned buildings opposite each other. One is a fairly shoddy Village Hall, the other is a run down, out of business tea room and we suffer from a lack of parking in the village.

So the majority of people I speak to (and I agree), say knock down the Tea Room and make into a Village Hall come Tea Room come Bunk House come information centre, then knock down the Village Hall and make a car park with picnic area.

What happens? This is of course Jura!

We have three organisations (Community run), doing three seperate projects.

1. JDT propose to make the Tea Room into a bunk house come tea room come interpration centre. Cost £1 million.

2. Hall Commitee propose to extend and re clad the existing hall. Cost £500,000.

3. IATE propose to build a car park north of the Hall by infilling an area presently part of the shore and sea bed. Cost ? Maybe up to £500,000.

All the above should be done under one umbrella but all three organisations say there is only funding available for each scheme as proposed. What a waste of money, I bet all three could be done as one project for half the price.

But, as I have been told, my approach is too simplistic and things do not work like that. No wonder the country is in such a mess. Too much red tape, too many people involved and too many fancy ideas.

OH how I yearn for days gone by, when things were much simpler.

Well, that's the end of the season as far as Jura goes.

Apparantly, Pete Smoke and the Roaches were great, as were Duncan Keith's Band, playing in the Hotel field.

Croft No 5 were also really good and the 'do' in the hall did not finish until somewhere about 6.00 a.m.

Sunday must have seen much drinking and playing of music, going by the amount of Lucozade and Water sold this morning.

Will the Music Festival survive another year? It seem's that most of the existing commitee are wanting to retire, who will replace them? NOT ME, that's for sure.

I hope other's are willing to come forward and carry this on, it would be such a shame, if it were to end, after being so successful over the years it has been going.

I understand the main professional band is called "Croft number 5" OR "Number 5 Croft" OR something like that, what do I know? I never listen to the stuff.