I was at the North Somerset Cycle Forum yesterday.  There wasn't any feature presentation, but there were still several interesting topics.

We reviewed last year's work and were introduced to the 08/09 work programme. Lots of last year's work was completed, or is nearly done and the funding for the couple of failed projects was transferred elsewhere.

Among things that have been improved but not completed last year was Hewish rail bridge. That bridge on NCN 33 is single-track with "temporary" lights which are dangerous because they don't detect cyclists accurately. There is now a cycle bypass of the lights along a shared surface, but Network Rail do want to fix it before it collapses and they want a fairly large contribution from NSCouncil to make it take 40 tonnes instead of 7 tonnes. That's been put forward for 09/10 year funding, because it will remove lorries from a long diversion through residential areas in Ebdon, Ebdon Grounds and North Worle.

On the Strawberry Line (NCN 26), work on Winscombe to Shute Shelf and Congresbury station are about to go out to tender now. Sandford ramp should be built late spring. The River Yeo crossing at Tutshill (which will take 7 miles and Congresbury off Weston-Clevedon rides) will be investigated independently of the tidal trail walk.  The town end of the current Locking Road WsM cycle lanes are up for improvement, as is New Bristol Road Worle.

We looked at the latest draft of the North Somerset Cycle Map and suggested changes.  My contributions were to suggest remapping part of North Worle and marking Clevedon Road WsM as a suggested route, because I think that will have benefits when the Tropicana is rebuilt.

North Somerset are applying for Weston-super-Mare to be one of the new cycling demonstration towns.

Combining two of my hats, I agreed to take up the loss of (council?) cycle stands from the Cooperative Food store (ex-LocalPlus) in Long Ashton and see if we can behave better. 

Future meetings: Thu 24 Apr, Tue 24 June (both 6pm), Wed 10 Sep, Thu 13 Nov, Tue 6 Jan, all Locking Castle Campus Room 2 unless changed.

Any comments or questions?

A list of post offices under threat has been published on a LibDem web site.  I can't tell how accurate this list is - the official one will be published on the 26th (Update: the leaked list was correct) - but it includes my three nearest post offices (by travel time).  I'm amazed by this.  What idiot drew up this list?  Are they trying to create Post Office deserts?

How would these closures affect you?  If it's bad, sign the petition and get ready to answer the consultation and tell your local community.

I watched BBC's Panorama show about bottled water on Monday night. It was the first TV show in some time to really upset me.

Of course, I realise that life isn't fair (although I believe it should be free and try to make it fairer) but I was staggered just how unfair it is. It seems like bottled water should be considered as bad as coffee, cocoa and so on. Unlike those, this one is relatively easy to avoid - carry a flask.

Yesterday's Magnetic North on BBC4tv was more amusing viewing. The title of this post is a quote from it (or as near as I could remember). Jonathan Meades is a comic genius and I agree with him about the North. It's a fabulous and much underrated part of Europe.

He visits Sassnitz near the end of the show, which I enjoyed visiting a few years ago. If you missed it last night, I expect it will be repeated soon, like most things on BBC4tv.

Where would you shop ethically?  It's a simple question, but is there a simple answer? 

Tescos systematically dominate small traders, as might happen again in Mill Road Cambridge.  Sainsburys are currently trying to remove delivery time restrictions in Worle which is just going to disrupt and devalue neighbouring homes.

It's very hard to avoid supermarkets and the leaders in ethical supermarkets are probably the Cooperative Food stores and M+S (with their Plan A) but you probably can't get a full shop from them, at least in Weston.  Would you accept missing a few items (and maybe buying them elsewhere or online), or would you pick one of the others?

Or is all this ethical consumerism stuff nonsense for some reason anyway?

I just had a call from a foreign-sounding call center worker saying she was from "Home Energy Saver" and offering advice on getting grants for loft and cavity wall insulation.

At first, I thought she was from the Energy Saving Trust, but when she said they were "calling all home-owners in the county of Bristol" (we're not and surely the EST would know that) and said we hadn't had any grants in the last 10 years (we've had two in the last 18 months), then I smelt a rat.  I asked for their telephone number and their company registration number and she would give neither.  I pointed out that the number she'd called was listed on TPS and she said they're allowed to call TPS numbers.  Like hell.  I hung up.  1471 said "we do not have the caller's number" - typical for overseas call centres.

Anyone else had a call from these phone-spammers?  Who are they really?

Looks like the Bristol Airport-M5 Link Road is in the news again.  See the Mercury news story

Meeting at Wrington on 26 February.  One of the proposed routes is through Wrington Vale.  It's disappointing that the shuttle bus services from Weston-super-Mare and Nailsea (both possible connections to the M5 and rail services from the south-west) are still pretty terrible and there seems to be few improvements in the airport's masterplan.  As a result, there's this demand for road-building and it looks like The Powers That Be may build the road instead of managing the demand.  Ouch.

In more positive transport news, there's lots of new cycle route improvements (parking, signs, bugfixes, bypasses and blessedly few new-build cycle farcilities) listed in http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/cairo/docs/doc16354.htm