Richmond park given a rebuke on parties

The park is a very special place indeed, but it seems not everyone is in agreement on what that means.

The Friends of Richmond Park like it quiet. Very quiet. This time, they were not ranting about cyclists but had a gripe about a party held by Range Rover at the Royal Lower Ballet school. I actually quite agree this was way over the top we should leave deers and runners alone in the dark...  Good that they got their way. Mind you, they hold late night weddings at Pembroke Lodge -the extension disfigured it it to increase the capacity, not something the Friends care about apparently?

Royal Ballet School Range Rover Launch - YouTube

On the LBRUT's catholic obsession

There's been much coverage about the London Borough of Richmond plan to open a catholic secondary school.  It would be all well IF there was not a shortage of secondary school places in the borough, IF the council was not spending £8m to buy the site and hand it free to the diocese and IF catholics did not make just 10% of the borough's population.

Why this plan then? See my comment on Twickerati: Lord disappointed by acolyte

The council spending £8m to create a faith-school that will provide endoctrinationquality education for catholic pupils, 70% coming OUT of the borough.

Where's the democracy in there?

By the way, why did Lord True not disclose his interests (see above, his wife is catholic and heads up the SIR HAROLD HOOD'S CHARITABLE TRUST, whose aim is quite vaguely "To benefit such Roman Catholic Charitable purposes as the Trustees shall in their absolute discretion from time to time think fit".
This trust has £30m in the bank...

See also:

• RISC web site
• RISC facebook group
  
• RTT: Catholic school debate will go to the High Court
• RTT: Clifden Road site cost Richmond Council £8.45m
• RTT:Campaigners push ahead with Catholic school challenge
• RTT:Catholic school consultation starts tomorrow
• RTT:Catholic school and sixth form plans get Richmond Council approval
• RTT:Peppercorn rate proposal for Catholic school

How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky?

The Beeb wakes up after under-reporting past cases with this article: BBC News - How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky? Interestingly enough, they don't answer the question.  I've done the maths though: it's one every four years. Just on Richmond borough.

List of reported stowaways reported on Heathrow-bound planes
Year	Provenance	Airline	Number	Condition	Impact/Retrival	Source
2010	Austria	Dubai royal family private jet	1	Alive	LHR	link
1996	India		2	Dead	Sainsbury's building site?	link
2012	South Africa	BA	1	Dead	LHR	link
2001	Bahrein	BA	1	Dead	Homebase car park, Richmond	link
2012			1	Dead	Portman avenue, East Sheen	link
2002	Ghana	Ghana Airways	2	Dead	LHR	link
2002	Ghana	BA		Dead		link
2000			1	Dead	Broadstone farm, Rudwick, Sussex?	link
2002	Uganda	DAS Air Cargo	1	Dead	LHR	link
2007					LHR

See my previous post on the subject:

• Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

A stowaway fell on a Sheen road on Sunday:
UPDATE: 'I heard a monstrous bang', says woman after body found in street (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

In 2001, a man fell from a British Airways Boeing 777 which was heading towards Heathrow and landed in a Homebase car park in Richmond.

Heathrow is in the wrong place, it's only a question of time before someone (or worse, a plane) falls on a house:
http://richmondtransits.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/heathrow-is-not-safe-chilling-crash-map.html

How to milk a captive market? Tap commuters

Rail commuters probably wonder what made them look so much like the golden eggs goose when reading pieces such as this one:
Rail fare rises: UK commuter train tickets 10 times the price of European equivalents | This is Money

Aren't they "carbon friendly" and part of the essential workforce of the nation after all?
The truth is that subsidy levels are decreasing, which means a commuter in the UK will pay about 70% of the costs -at least that's a stated government goal.

The problem though, is that years of under-investment and also deregulations have made this essential service costly to run.

If only the service was ten times better than on the continent...