War Memorial Hall developments

The flat roof section of the hall cannot be kept watertight and it was only by applying copious amounts of patching compound we kept the small hall dry for our Christmas Spectacular. Recognising that a) something must be done or the ceilings will likely collapse and b) the replacement hall is still some years away we are exploring the availability of grants to refurbish and insulate the problem roof areas. We envisage stripping off the old felt, repairing the deck where necessary then applying preinsulated decking on top followed by a fibreglass weather coat. You may be approached by one of our volunteers asking for you to complete a letter of support to be submitted with our grant application. Please help us by completing the required details. Thank you.

2012 - Steady as she goes

This year has seen some interesting developments The Gilberdyke War Memorial Hall held a most successful Gala Day and a Bonfire with fireworks display. Also during the year regular Bingo sessions and Quiz nights have been held which are intended to raise funds to keep the hall running. The original part of the hall was opened in 1924 and is feeling its age. The building was extended during the 1970s with a flat roofed part and the flat roof is decades past its design life with leakage developing. A new hall is planned but realistically this is many years off and the flat roof must be repaired in the short term. At the same time it will have insulation aapplied to control the ever increasing cost of heating the building. Elsewhere in the village the drainage improvement works saw the completion of phases 2 & 3 with the new pipe reaching Westbrook Crescent. A minor additional requirement has been identified and it is hoped this will be completed shortly. In any event the presence of the new pipes allowed water to drain out of the village during the recent heavy rain without the wholesale devastation seen in the 2007 floods. Plans are afoot to remove the ageing play area which the Parish Council own and is sited on land leased from the Memorial Hall. This will be replaced by a larger, updated play area extending along the side of the field as soon as an amended lease is in place. The nuisance caused by the Leatherdog Lane Landfill tip is drawing to a close. Much work is yet to be done but from the end of December only inert waste may be tipped. Quite what control the Environment Agency will demonstrate remains to be seen but the stench which has regularly drifted over the village should become a thing of the past. I hope everything progresses according to plan and look forward to a great 2013.

Environmentally UN-FRIENDLY

Ok so the title is plagiarised from the Ombudsmans report into the sadly lacking performance of the Environment Agency and Local Councils at the other side of the Pennines (I leave the reader to look this Ombudsmans report up). However the situation is remarkably similar to that we see in Gilberdyke and Newport where the EA studiously ignored the opening up of the completed parts of the height-compliant parts of the Leatherdog Lane landfill site, followed by the pouring in of a torrent of waste from far and wide until the height was approximately three times the consented limit (it reached 23 metres at one point before being reduced).
The East Riding Council ignored the situation until far too late and even now refuse to take enforcement action against the operators of the tip. It seems they want to "negotiate" which in reality means the officers continue to draw their salaries whilst the torrent of waste continues. The "Mountains of Gilberdyke" which should be hidden by the hedge/trees can be seen soaring above the tops of this screen and are absolutely out of place in the surrounding flat landscape.

No progress on the tip from the EA or ERYC but residents are starting litigation

As the Environment Agency and East Riding Council had done nothing to stop the nuisance, a meeting of affected residents was called. This was held in Newport village hall and the hall was crammed to overflowing. A true indication of the anger felt by the local community plain for all to see.

The meeting was vociferous but kept reasonably to order. The chief outcome of the meeting was that a poll of the residents present indicated strong support for taking legal action against those responsible for creating and sustaining the nuisance(s) suffered by the community. Candidates for consideration including:
The owner(s) of the tip both when the old tip was uncapped and the owners at the present date,
The operators of the tip in all their guises during the same period,
The East Riding Council for not stopping the nuisance and not enforcing the planning conditions,
The Environment Agency for not adequately monitoring the operation of the tip, allowing the height to be raised above permitted levels, allowing pollution of the local environment - the list goes on.

A legal firm Public Interest Lawyers are being consulted with a view to proceeding on a no win no fee basis but the majority of the residents polled indicated a willingness to contribute financially if this option is not available. An even more positive indication of residents anger at the situation which has developed.

It is of note that the same firm of lawyers were instrumental in having a tip being run by an associated waste disposal operator in Thomlinson Road, Seaton Carew closed down much earlier than planned. Again the local council and the Environment Agency were apparently unwilling to take action until the residents there resorted to legal process. A browse of the Hartlepool Mail makes interesting reading, especially regarding the local council.
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/legal_threat_over_seaton_landfill_neighbour_1_1507071
http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/landfill-site-is-to-be-capped-1-3811026
Also interesting reading is the directors of City Plant Limited and their other directorships which can be found via Google on various company registration websites including http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/city-plant. For a brief period City Plant Ltd was registered at a Hartlepool address associated with other waste operations but this was rapidly changed to the Leatherdog Lane site. Curiouser and curiouser!
http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/sws
http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/niramax-holdings

It is also of note that following the Newport meeting and its reporting in the local press, the tip operators are now talking about completion within a year! Can they be trusted? My own thoughts immediately jump to the old saying about trusting them as far as I could throw them - you may like to make your own minds up.

If the older and capped off parts of the Leatherdog Lane tip had been left undisturbed and any new waste restricted to only those areas not completed, then with the new areas piled up to the same height as the old there would have been a far shorter life for the tip and in all likelihood it would have been completed by now and be slowly fading into an unpleasant memory. The deliberate uncapping and piling on of new waste was nothing short of a crime against our community and the behaviour of the EA and ERYC utterly disgraceful.

Leatherdog Lane Tip

Further to the recent press coverage of the abuse of the local community by the new operators of the Leatherdog Lane tip. This situation has been an absolute disgrace since the original small operation sold out to big business based in Hartlepool. We now have a massive pile of decomposing waste which will prove in the long term to be a serious health hazard to the
local community.
The Environment agency has various standards which they are supposed to apply to ensure the
safety of the environment but it would appear that they have failed to stick to their own standards when monitoring the site, leaving the local people with a legacy of poisons being emitted in one form or another from this mountain of waste which has been sent to us from far and wide in the pursuit of profit by the absentee owners.
The stench from the tip is predominately as a result of the leakage of landfill gas. This contains predominately methane and carbon dioxide, neither of which smell, but also a proportion of Hydrogen Sulphide (the bad egg smell) and a proportion of organic compounds which both smell and are highly poisonous. Hydrogen Sulphide is considered a cumulative poison which
builds up in animal tissues. The organic compounds have similar properties plus they are linked to birth defects in animals. There is no way this can be acceptable or reasonable, and I believe most other local people will agree.
The operators are said to now be burning the major part of the landfill gas in an enclosed
flare in an attempt to reduce the complaints about the stench. This sounds helpful at first sight but ignores the problems this can cause. Incomplete or uncontrolled combustion of the organic compounds produces dioxins which are among the most poisonous compounds known to man. Only carefully controlled high temperature combustion can minimise (not eradicate) the production of these dioxins. I do not wish to see another Bonnybridge legacy in East Yorkshire. I would prefer our local descendants to have the accepted normal number of fingers and toes etc.
It has been suggested that the Methane is a long term asset as it can be used to generate electricity. While this is true in principle, the use of landfill gas to power an internal combustion engine to drive a generator is recognised as the dirtiest option of using the gas, as the engine has
a significantly worse performance in terms of discharging dioxins than combustion in a boiler where high temperature controlled conditions might be achieved or “cleaning” up the gas by removal of the sulphides and organic products to a standard where it could be injected into a natural gas distribution main and burnt in a dilute manner over a widely dispersed area. The last solution can of course be considered only if safe disposal of the organics and other undesirable content which are removed can be assured and that the gas network is willing to accept the methane/carbon dioxide mixture.

Solar Panels and Feed in Tariff. 12 months on

Following my foray into the world of Solar Generation a year ago I have calculated that over the 12 months since commissioning the electricity generated produced FIT payments worth £1522 This is plus an estimated reduction in my electricity bills over the same period of some £120.
I reckon that equates to a return on investment of 10.95 percent tax free. In these times of poor interest rates that is quite amazing.

The installation was carried out by Alexander Electrical of Goole and I registered my FIT generation with EDF. The registration administration was tedious but the payments started from the day of commissioning and every quarter I get an email asking for the current reading on the total generation meter.

I noticed a letter in the Goole Times today (19th Jan 2012) from someone who had had problems with an out of area installation company. This makes me glad that I chose to support a local business.

Parasite Alert

A friend of mine had an unfortunate experience yesterday. She had a call from a man who claimed to be investigating her computer running slow. Despite her being naturally wary he was very convincing and overcame her suspicions. Thus he ended up with remote access to her computer. Some malware was planted and it was only when the scammers claimed there were a number of viruses on the machine and asked for card details did the penny drop, the call was ended and the computer switched off.
After she called me I advised her if she had financial or shopping details on the machine she could have exposed her security and passwords to the scammers. Consequently she phoned her bank, stopped all her credit cards and changed passwords then we ran a system cleanup and restored the machine to a few days ago. Everyone needs to be on their guard against these parasites and if you get such a call refuse to give any details or allow them any way of getting into your machine. (although getting their details would be extremely useful to the police).

Christmas Greetings

A merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Parish Council By-election 15th December 2011

Following the resignation on health grounds of one of the Parish Councillors the Parish Council was contacted by Chris Newsome with an expression of interest to serve. This was the only contact received by the Parish Council and under normal circumstances would have resulted in an appointment by co-option or if more than one expression of interest had been received a selction would have been made by the council. This would have had no cost to the community.

However under electoral law if ten members of the public request an election one must be held. In this instance ten residents of Chestnut Drive, Gilberdyke, comprising Mike Whitleys family and close neighbours wrote to the East Riding Council calling for an election.

As a result the council taxpayers ended up paying for an election, which in ball park figures is £3000. This money was not budgeted for and will have to be borrowed from other funds then replaced by increasing the precept for next year.

Increasing the precept for next year is not something the Parish Council want to do in times of austerity, so will have to cut back on other expenditure. The £3000 would have gone a long way towards a skate park/BMX facility for the village kids.

Well done to the Chestnut Drive gang of ten - your actions simply jeapordise progress and to hear your hero state in the aftermath of the count (which showed almost three to one majority for Chris Newsome) that he did not expect to win anyway, makes the wasted time, effort, and money almost criminal!

Drainage project progress

I'm delighted to report that phase 2 of the drainage work is now underway. Completion of phases 2 and 3 will give confidence to those residents of Westbrook Road and Crescent who suffered so drastically during the 2007 flood. Its a great pity that so much delay was caused to the project but luckily no-one, that I am aware of, has had floodwater into their houses since the catastrophic event (although some came pretty close on at least one occasion).

This work in the village is another major step along the way but we must not forget the works still required to complete improvements to the outfall to the River Ouse at Blacktoft.

None of this improvement would have happened without the Parish Council and the Gilberdyke Flood Action Group who had to fight every inch of the way to complete the investigation and obtain the Mason-Clark report which was the instrument in compelling the relevant authorities to act.

Special thanks must go to our ward councillor Paul Robinson for his tireless work in pressing matters forward despite many personal attacks and attempts to obstruct progress.

Standards Board complaint against trusted local councillor

The East Riding Mail carried a report today regarding a complaint against our Gilberdyke Ward Councillor, Paul Robinson.In my personal opinion, the whole issue is a result of Mike Whitley, the complainant, conducting a long running, vexatious campaign against Paul Robinson in particular and Gilberdyke Parish Council in general as can readily be seen by study of the Parish Council minutes and reports in the local press. The saga started in the aftermath of the floods of 2007 when it was discovered that Mr Whitley, against drainage board advice, had installed two 12" pipes as an unofficial culvert into the critical water course carrying the majority of the surface water out of the village. Despite this action contravening more than one act of parliament the authorities tried hard but unsuccessfully to obtain a solution through agreement.Eventually as a last resort, the legal route was used and a legal notice was served on Mr Whitley by the Drainage Board. Subsequently the phase one works were completed, albeit approximately two years after an agreed, co-operative solution would have provided. The delays did result in a higher cost to the community insofar as the loan interest rate rose during the delays and the effects of rising contractor costs also came into play. Personally I would have used the legal notice immediately the obstructive behaviour started but that is now water under the bridge and the recently completed large culvert worked exactly as designed during the last heavy rains this year.


I am not medically qualified so can only give a laymans personal opinion but for Mike Whitley to conduct his ensuing aggressive campaign of misinformation and obstruction to hamper the flood defence work improvements plus personal unfounded attacks on members of the Parish Council I consider shows a considerable degree of paranoia. Readers will not be surprised to learn that the same individual made three failed complaints against me via the Standards Board but each of these was rejected. In addition he has made failed complaints against the chairman of the Parish Council and previous failed complaints against Councillor Robinson. It seems obvious to me that he used the procedure as a free (to him) vehicle to cause disruption and a pattern of vexatious behaviour is established

Leatherdog Lane Tip

This ugly blot on our local landscape grows ever higher. Despite a massive objection from residents, planning approval was granted to extend the life of the operation by East Riding of Yorkshire Council. The floodgates immediately opened and a torrent of waste now pours into the site to the gross inconvenience of residents. A supposed height limitation is completely ignored and all we see is the problem being referred to a consultation committee. A classic method of kicking the problem into the long grass used by politicians at every level!
At other landfill tips there is a system of financial contribution to provide some sort of social compensation to the area - for the massive amount of waste going into this tip are the residents of Gilberdyke and Newport going to see any benefit at all? - Answers on a postcard please.

Gilberdyke Drainage - phase 1 update

The first phase of the works is almost complete. The large bore pipe is installed between Scalby Lane/Chestnut Drive and only requires the junction chamber between 6 & 7 Scalby Lane completing. I understand the flap valve at the downstream end is awaiting delivery but there is a clear escape route now for a VERY large volume of water to flow from the village system into Bishopsoil Drain and onwards to the River Ouse.
When the junction chamber is complete the reinstatement of garden fences etc will be carried out then the contractors will move on to phase 2 & 3 which will provide means of drainage for Westbrook Road, Westbrook Crescent and Station Road. The filling in of the original dyke between Westbrook and Bellasize Park had closed off the only route for water to escape from Westbrook Road when the floods of 2007 ocurred.
The Parish Council have resolved to explore ways to take control of the strip of land above the new large bore pipe to prevent unauthorised interference with the system as happened when one resident, against advice, installed two 12" pipes as an amateur culvert in the original dyke

War Memorial Hall - Consultation

The consultation document is in printing and should be delivered to every household next week. I hope everyone takes a few minutes to complete their copy and returns it to the hall either by posting it into the hall letter box or returning it to a committee member no later than 30th June.

This is the way to let the trustees know what the community wants from the hall both for the building and for the associated playing field. the results of the consultation will enable the architect to prepare suitable designs for pricing up a replacement for the existing building. Along with the prospect of a modern building, improvements to the play facilities for children may be incorporated in the project (subject to sufficient appropriate grant funding being available).

The costs of the consultation and design works is being met by a Lottery grant from Awards for All.

A new term for the Parish Council

Following the recent election when the 11 people who voluntarily stood together and campaigned under the banner of Team Gilberdyke were elected, the Annual Parish Meeting, The Annual Parish Council Meeting, and the normal Parish Council monthly meeting were held last night (Tuesday 10th May).
In accordance with standing orders the Annual Parish meeting was chaired by the chair of the Parish Council and 3 minutes per person allowed for points to be raised by any resident of the Parish. The election was the subject of comment particularly from representatives of the Gilberdyke and District Leisure Association who criticised details of the campaign leaflet content and aspects of the support for the GDLA by the Parish Council. Also the failed twelfth candidate alleged that he had been bullied during the campaign apparently because in his mind it was unfair that eleven people had campaigned as a team (despite his own parallel campaign in the county council elections as a member of the labour party which, surely, is also a team).
The meeting concluded at 19.35 upon which the Annual Parish Council meeting was held. This saw the previous chair, Nick Norris re-elected as chair for the coming year and other parish councillors appointed to various duties in the normal manner. The elected councillors signed acceptance of office documents and completed register of interests to be placed on file with East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
On completion of this second meetiing the monthly meeting was held and agenda matters discussed. Notably the matter of safe means of crossing Clementhorpe Road for school children when ERYC reported that a traffic survey had been carried out and stated the results did not justify a crossing. The Parish Council reject this decision and it was resolved to continue press for a crossing and ask the ward councillors to do their utmost to ensure one is provided.
The flood works were discussed and it was reported that they were slow to restart following the legal enforcement notices being issued as the contractor was occupied on another job. However men and machines are now back on site and work is underway. A progress report and estimated completion date for phase 1 will be obtained from the Lower Ouse Internal Drainage Board for the next meeting. A number of wild claims and unsubstantiated opinions about the works are still circulating but the works are professionally designed and supervised by the LOIDB therefore the legal enforcement notice was issued and will be applied if necessary.
For further information the minutes of the meeting will be available after the next meeting and will be placed on the parish website at a future date www.gilberdyke.org.uk

Gilberdyke Parish Council Election TEAM GILBERDYKE

The forthcoming election of Parish Councillors has created an unreal situation in that the misguided individual who has spent the last two and a half years blocking the progress of the flood relief works and trying to discredit the council and its members now wishes to become a councillor. The council is comprised of eleven councillors who are of a variety of political persuasions, UKIP, Lib-Dem, Conservative, Labour etc. some being members of a party, some merely favouring the ideas, but each leaves these leanings at the door of the meetings and act as a body in the best interest of the community.
A total of twelve candidates including the obstructor are standing for election.
The earnest hope of the forward thinking candidates is that the electorate will hand out a resounding rejection of the obstructive individual and they have promoted the concept of TEAM GILBERDYKE. On the voting slip which is in alphabetical order TEAM GILBERDYKE form numbers 1 to 10 and number 12. Your crosses in these and only these boxes is a vote for common sense.

Tip conditions are a disgrace

At the April Gilberdyke Parish Council meeting the room was filled with members of the public who were suffering from the effects of rubbish being blown about from the Leatherdog Lane tip. This tip has permission to operate until November 2011 but has applied for planning permission to extend the life by 4 years. Not surprisingly the residents suffering from the windblown debris and the stink are determined that this cannot continue. Having heard the appalling conditions that these residents suffer and the massive number of heavy goods vehicles travelling past their homes I can only support their camapign to close the tip in November and allow peace to return.

Progress continues on Phase 1

The second open section of the critical drain after clearing and installation of retaining boards is shown below on the left , the picture on the right shows the same section prior to the work.

A sad first for Gilberdyke Parish Council

At tonights Parish Council meeting one of the subjects for discussion was a chain email being circulated by a resident of the village. Much of the email was inaccurate and consisted of serious personal attacks on our Ward Councillor who has devoted much time and effort on the needs of our area. The originator of the email was present during the proceedings and disrupted the meeting by his behaviour during the discussion.
Consequently I moved a motion that he be excluded under the standing orders of the council. The motion was unanimously supported by the other councillors present. At that point the chairman then asked him to leave which he did.
This is the first time such an exclusion has happened in a Giberdyke Parish Council meeting and I sincerely hope it will not require repeat.

Drainage improvement - an odd development

In connection with the drainage improvement project, apparently one resident is complaining that the footpath alongside the dyke at Coggins Bank has been churned up and fly tipping is going on. Having been to look, the alleged fly tipping is spoil excavated from the drainage works, which has been added to an existing earth bank of soil, well out of the line of the footpath which is along the bank top. The green lane is somewhat rutted and the recent rainfall has made things a bit muddy. Nothing more than the normal agricultural traffic would have made. Drainage Boards are in any case permitted to tip spoil from their drainage works on bank tops or within reach of an excavator boom (approx 30 feet) under the auspices of the 1991 Land Drainage Act.