Friends of Abbey Green

I found a small web presence here. It's not been updated since the inaugural meeting on 24 January. There is a link to a newsletter, but the main news in that is the meeting, too, though there is a contact Mary Smith - +44 7960 040 734.

http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/site/content.asp?area=IG11&story=122381

The road to nowhere

The "road to nowhere" (see blogs passim) has now been blocked of as part of a new develpment at Muirhead Quay - currently just a level site. Perhaps the little protuberance from the development site itself into the road that meant altermate working with give way in that bit of road will be removed.

Annoying block off in riverside path corrected

http://stibasa.blogspot.com/2008/04/annoying-block-off-in-riverside-path.html. I reported back in April about this "construction mis-alignment". It has been improved with ramps from the riverside path up onto the plinth (if that's what you call it).

Abbey Green

A new group 'Friends of Abbey Green' is advertising for members - I saw a poster in the Florist's at Barking Station, but I can't find anything on the web. They say that a "substantial number of mature existing trees and silver birches outside St Margaret's School could be cut down and may be replaced with saplings as part of the Town Centre Action Plan".

There's a meeting on Saturday 24 January at 10am at St Margaret's Church centre where you should be able to find out more.

When looking for it I did find this rather nice panorama of the Green (which is in Broadway / Abbey Road).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/content/panoramas/barking_abbey_green_360.shtml

Websites about recycling and waste minimisation

General recycling
http://www.recyclenow.com/
http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/
http://www.recycle-more.co.uk/
http://www.recycleforlondon.com/
http://www.zerowaste.co.uk/

Others

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

www.veoliaenvironmentalservices.co.uk/greenwich/veolia.html (virtual tour of Materials Recovery Facility)

Micro car hire

These schemes use technology to make it possible to hire cars for short periods of time. I'm aware of three schemes (yet again the disadvantages of competition kick in) of which streetcar seems to have the most vehicles, including some convenient for Barking. Transport for London figures indicate that one car club vehicle in London can replace the need for 10 privately owned vehicles.

http://www.whizzgo.co.uk

http://www.zipcar.com

Bike ride and afternoon tea?

The following Essex country churches are known to serve tea and cakes on summer Sunday afternoons:

• Blackmore, St Laurence. 2-4.30pm (first Sunday of month). Very popular with cyclists.
  
• High Beech, Holy Innocents. 2-4pm (2-5pm if this site is correct). Allegedly 20 types of cake. (I feel certain there should be a disclaimer here somewhere!)
• Stanford Rivers, St Margaret. 2 - 4.30 some say, but the church's website says 2.30-4.30. Tea also available by arrangement.

Anyone planning to lead a bike ride might like to cut their teeth with an afternoon trip to one of these.

Oyster Card Helpline

An alternative number to 0845 330 9876 the published number is 020 7227 7886. Thanks to www.saynoto0870.com for this information.

Train tickets

The recommended website for buying train tickets is www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/
It's really well designed and easy to use and copes well with railcards. In conjunction with the machines at Barking station that can print out the tickets you've bought, it makes for an excellent and quick ticket buying set up.

However, I tried to buy a return from Barking to/from Romford. The cheapest it offered me was £4. Then it let me go all the way through to typing in my credit card number and then said the minimum purchase was £5. Annoying, but I'm glad in a way because when I bough the ticket directly from a machine at Barking Station, the fare was £2.65

Recycling

Prompted by a questionnaire from GLA Member John Biggs, I've been checking up the latest recycling position in B and D. The council's website was out-of-date and therefore in some aspects wrong when I looked on Christmas Eve.

Yellow Pages

if you haven't got yourself off the distribution list for a printed YP (see http://stibasa.blogspot.com/2008/05/paper-yellow-pages-no-more.html) then you should recycle your copy. You can now put YP in the orange bags (the bags say "directories") or you can take them to Jenkins Lane / Frizlands Lane. The council website incorrectly said that YP cannot be recycled.

Fruit juice cartons (Tetra paks) and similar

John Biggs assistant told (wrongly) me that these cannot be put into B and D's recycling schemes. There is a eurobin for them in Axe St and also one in the Tesco car park not far from the Town Quay.

Plastic

John Biggs' questionnaire said that all plastic can be recycled. I'm told that's not true even in theory. It certainly isn't in practice in B and D. In an e-mail his assistant wrote:

"the orange bag collection can take hard plastics (eg plastic bottles), but not soft plastics (eg wrappings, yoghurt pots)". I'm not sure how you tell hard from soft plastic if yoghurt pots come under soft - also I'm not sure if plastic can be recycled through other routes; one of the bins near where I live is labelled 'cans and plastic' (or similar).

Carrier bags

Tesco's have a hopper for these at their Highbridge Road branch. The council's website doesn't mention this - perhaps because they only mention recycling that they provide. Bit silly.

Orange bags

The council's website has a page headed: Recycling, Orange bags, what can be recycled. This is misleading as it means "what can be put in the orange bags." They need to sort this page out. If we want to know whow we can recycle things that can't go in the orange bag, the same page should tell us how / where.