This is Bracknell

Andrew Mackay MP – £31,119

Steven — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:51:24 +0000

Andrew Mackay MP has been told he must pay back £31,119 of the expenses he has claimed. It’s been covered widely by a variety of sources:

getbracknell

bracknell blog

bbc

goodbye mackay

Mackay still remains tight-lipped over the whole affair. The people of Bracknell deserve better.

Lorry overturned

Steven — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:59:49 +0000

Amazing story from a Bracknell roundabout (by the Running Horse) of a lorry that had somehow managed to overturn itself and block an entrance to one of the town’s famous underpasses (famous for their quantity).

Why the need for red tape?! We know it's dangerous!

Get Bracknell article: http://www.getbracknell.co.uk/news/s/2062527_overturned_lorry_closes_bracknell_road

Picture source (BBC Berkshire): http://twitpic.com/t1zc6

#bck in the Twitterverse this week

Steven — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:35:09 +0000

Twitter is a social networking tool that’s becoming more and more popular. It’s technically a “micro-blogging” site and is quite a difficult thing to explain. Anyway I’ve compiled some tweets about Bracknell this week to show you all what’s been going on in our town in the past week or so.

Bah! Seems like a depressing review of Bracknell, however just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, we get a kiss! x

I think this is Ice Hockey, Bracknell Bees threw away a strong lead to lose to Manchester. Just like the football club the ice hockey team haven’t had the best of times recently.

Gah! Another person slating our sunny metropolis, there’s nowt wrong with the office being in Bracknell.

I suggest you bask in their reflected glory.

I am quite upset no one told me about the Cossack dancing.

You are unlikely to ever come across a more accurate description of Bracknell – unless you were to find one that mention the underpasses!

Ah, and this is me, bitching about our local MP Andrew Mackay. Dazmando covers some of his expenses claims in his blog today.

You can follow me on twitter here: http://twitter.com/stevegabb

Erosion of services at Heatherwood Hospital

Steven — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:36:53 +0000

Despite being a large town Bracknell does not have a hospital of its own. Instead it is serviced by Frimley, Slough, Reading and Ascot. Our nearest hospital is Ascot (by some distance)

Heatherwood Hospital (Ascot) – 3 miles
Frimley Park Hospital – 10 miles
Royal Berks (Reading) – 11 miles
Wexham Park (Slough) – 16 miles

Heatherwood Hospital, London Road, Ascot

This is why it’s extremely disappointing that the hospital continues to lose more and more of its acute services. The A&E went years ago and the Medical Admissions Unit disappeared a few months ago. As a Bracknell resident if you have a heart attack today you’re likely to be driven all the way to Wexham Park Hospital, this is on the north side of Slough and is only a couple of miles from the Buckinghamshire border.

Our son was born in Heatherwood only last year, I suspect he’ll be one of the last babies born in Ascot as the maternity ward looks like it could close in the next few years. There has been much talk from the PCT of making the footprint of the hospital site smaller by “consolidating” wards or moving services away from Ascot. Being the cynical chap I am I’m wondering if the high land values of the Ascot site have anything to do with this? Just across the road from Ascot race course within walking distance of a mainline train station into Waterloo? Sounds like a good earner to me.

It’s very good to see many people in Bracknell fighting against the closure and I’d recommend to any readers that they should sign the petition on the Downing Street website.

It’s interesting that the Conservative PPC for Bracknell Philip Lee, a man with a wealth of experience in healthcare as a GP, appears to have the same opinion as I regarding the location of Wexham, which in addition to the distance is also difficult to reach as you have to drive through the centre of Slough to get there. His idea of a hospital on junction 8/9 appears very promising but he appears to have already admitted the Herculean nature of the task by dampened the flames of that idea; he says:

“I am under no illusions about the difficulty of relocating it and the costs involved”

after all our current Tory MP Andrew Mackay hasn’t managed to prevent current services moving away from Heatherwood.

As reported on Bracknell Blog there is a public meeting on Thursday evening (26th) at Wexham Park Hospital. Ironically I cannot be there as I have to look after my child who was born under the care of the wonderful nurses and midwives of Heatherwood Hospital!

The Offence (1972) – Part Two

Steven — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:10:37 +0000

I thought it worthwhile to show some more screenshots from the Connery movie “The Offence” today. It gives some idea as to what parts of Bracknell were like in the early 70s.

Great Hollands from Wildridings

A view of Great Hollands from Wildridings. It all looks so new. What also strikes me is that it looks so quiet. There’s barely a car on the road.

Point Royal

Point Royal, built in 1964, is one of the tallest buildings in Bracknell (is it the tallest? does anyone know? I assume it’s not taller than the 3M building), it’s also Grade II listed! It’s also the home of Sean Connery in the picture.

Bracknell?

All of the outdoor scenes for The Offence were done in Bracknell but I don’t recognise this building. It may be that I am making a bit of a fool of myself here but I can’t work out where this is…

Hello Bracknell!

Steven — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:38:18 +0000

Tell anyone you live in Bracknell and the reaction is normally one of the two following phrases:

Where?
I’m sorry to hear that.

It appears that Bracknell does not have a particularly good reputation outside of the town, and I’m not too sure that many of the local residents have a high regard for the place either. This is a great shame as there are many things going for the town of Bracknell. This blog has been set up as an antidote to those people who deride the town.

That’s not to say that there aren’t bad points to the town, I’m sure we could all reel off a list of things we’d change about the place, however, I feel they should come under the title of potential improvements rather than criticisms.

I have lived in Bracknell for four years and now live in the Wildridings area of the town (by Easthampstead). I hope you enjoy reading this blog over the coming weeks, months, years..