Dore to Door internet edition

News & Comment - Spring 2005

Killer Road - All change - Get rid of old batteries - Speeding on Dore Road - Fossil Find - Letters (Current issues)

Killer Road

There was yet another fatal car smash on Hathersage Road about 9pm on Wednesday 2nd February. A young couple died when two cars collided on a bend outside Fern Glen Farm.

Police sealed off part of the road near to the Dore Moor Inn while firefighters battled to free two seriously hurt casualties in the second car. They had to cut the roof of their car and it took paramedics more than an hour to stabilise the passengers before they could be lifted free. The engine of one of the vehicles had actually been flung to the other side of the road with the force of the impact.

The stretch of road between Whirlow and the Fox House continues to claim lives and cause numerous serious injuries. Yet despite requests from the Dore Village Society to the Council for a traffic safety review, nothing is apparently being done.

Perhaps the time has come for Traffic Blackspot signs to be erected showing the number of a deaths and injuries over the last 5 years. That might make some drivers think!

Meanwhile the Society and local councillors are keeping up the pressure. There is now a petition organised by Councillor Anne Smith, asking the Council to take action to stop these accidents. WE need as many people as possible to support this. You will find copies for signature in all the Dore shops and pubs.

All change

As we go to press Green's shop is due to close shortly, although Nick and Sally are moving round the corner to continue in the mower and bicycle servicing business, along with a new venture into picture framing. Meanwhile the business lease to Colin Thomson's butchers shop is for sale. Finally a planning application has been submitted for alterations to the shop front of 34-36 High Street.

Get rid of old batteries

Residents in Sheffield can now take household batteries to the city's five Household Waste Recycling Centres, which will then be sent on for recycling. The scheme was been launched by waste collection and disposal company Onyx in partnership with the city council to coincide with the festive period when a lot of batteries were likely to be used. Sheffield is one of few city's in the UK to introduce the facility. Call 228 3630 or www.onyxsheffield.co.uk.

Speeding on Dore Road

A petition from local residents requesting traffic calming measures on Dore Road was rejected by the Council on the grounds that there are other streets in Sheffield experiencing speed related injury accidents and these locations will be given priority. The Highways report makes interesting reading however.

Dore Road is classified as a bronze route in the Sheffield Speed Management Plan, whatever that implies. A 48 hr speed survey was carried out in November, but conveniently just above Victor Road, which meant traffic entering or leaving that road could only register as slow thus distorting the averages. Never-the-less the average speed uphill was 33 mph and downhill 35mph. More significantly 35% of divers exceeded 35mph uphill and 15% exceeded 39mph. While downhill 52% exceeded 35mph and 15% exceeded 42mph. No evidence was provided on the highest speeds recorded.

It seems we must wait for a serious accident before action might be taken. In the meantime it is worth remembering that independent research shows that half of pedestrians hit at 30mph will survive, but nine out of ten hit at 40 mph will die! It takes 75ft to stop at 30mph and 120ft at 40mph. Sadly it is also those 4x4s, which instill a feeling of safety in their drivers, which are most lethal due to their higher weight and momentum.

Fossil Find

An unusual fossil was unearthed by contractors working on Totley's sewers in January.

Initially they where baffled when their spades struck something solid and cylindrical in the soil beneath Aldam Road. Further investigation revealed a number of giant "tentacles" in the site where a new detention tank is being installed to reduce the risk of flooding in the area. A section of what the crew christened Ollie The Octopus was subsequently removed and the British Geological Survey consulted.

Once experts had examined the evidence, it was established that, rather than a sea-going mollusc, Ollie was a section of root from a plant which grew in the prehistoric equivalent of the mangrove swamps found today around the Amazon or Northern Australia. The plant may have been as high as 150ft as the root still extends 60m underground - and probably remains in the same shape in which it grew millions of years ago before the plant died and was covered by mud.

The fossilised evidence suggests that during the Carboniferous period around 280 to 300 million years ago, Totley was at the heart of a tropical, swampy delta with soft ground ideal for giant ferns - one of the earliest forms of tree to evolve on the planet. Most will have been crushed and carbonised over the millennia to become the coal so important to Yorkshire's heritage. However, examples are found occasionally where the land was once much sandier - such as on the banks of a fast-flowing river or on a beach - and are therefore less likely to alter their composition under the pressure of overlying rock strata.

The contractors team have won a coveted Five-Star Award for the work in Totley and made many friends among the community while improving the local sewerage network. It was a bonus for each of them to be left with a section of Ollie, a unique example of Yorkshire's natural history.

Letters (Current issues)

Dear Sir,

Recently there have been many complaints from local residents about heavy earth carrying vehicles from the new King Ecgbert School site taking illegal short cuts through Dore Village in breach of the 7.5 tonne weight restriction. The roads affected have been the upper part of Furniss Avenue, Church Lane, Drury Lane and Townhead Road.

Along with the Dore Village Society I have been in contact with the Highways Department enforcement officer and he has been quick to take action and warn the developer and the site manager. Many different sub contractors provide lorries for this work. All have been warned, but the problem seems to start again as soon as a new sub contractor appears. These lorries are not permitted to use the Village roads.

The Highways enforcement officer will take action as soon as he receives a complaint. Any local residents who notice this happening again in future can telephone Dennis Wyatt on 273 6677, preferably with the vehicle registration number, so that he can identify the culprit and take immediate action.

Councillor Michael Waters

Dear Sir,

Cod - The Real Story

Cod is still very much on UK menus; while fishermen help cod stocks recover in the North Sea, over 95% of the cod we eat comes from further afield.

Claims that cod is an endangered species are misinformed. Cod as a species lives right across the North Atlantic Ocean. Separate cod stocks are fished in the waters of north-east America, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, to the west of Scotland, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, and in the Barents Sea, the Skagerrak, and the Baltic Sea.

With a total world cod quota of 890,000 tonnes, less than 5% comes from the North Sea, the majority coming from the Barents Sea and Norwegian waters.

In the meantime, UK fishermen have been taking steps for a number of years to ensure that North Sea stocks recover, including changes to net design, closed fishing areas, restrictions on time at sea, and a major reduction in the size of the fishing fleet. Locally caught cod is landed within this strict management regime, agreed by Government, fishermen, and scientists.

You can continue to enjoy cod in your fish supper, from your fishmonger, or while eating out. Nearly all of the cod we eat is traded on an international market, and UK suppliers import fresh fish daily from seas which are fished responsibly to agreed international guidelines.

All the above facts are taken from "The Sea Fish Industry Authority", 18 Logie Mill, Logie Green Road, Edinburgh, EU7 4HG. Tel: 0131 558 8331; e-mail: seafish@seafish.co.uk.

Mike Claxton,

The Tasty Plaice

Dear Sir,

I was wondering if you could help me please. I work for Sheffield Mencap on a scheme called the out and about be-friending scheme. The aim of our scheme is to increase the independence, choice, quality of life and community participation of people with a learning disability in Sheffield, through one-to-one or group support to take part in leisure and social activities.

We are currently trying to find more volunteers to come and help us on our scheme. I was hoping that it maybe a possibility to try and recruit more volunteers through your magazine to.

Ruth Parrott

Ed. To find out more please call Ruth on 276 7757, or write to her at Mencap c/o Norfolk Lodge, Park Grange Road, Sheffield, S2 3QF. Email -john.outandabout@btconnect.com.

Dear Sir,

We tend to subconsciously accept that we must have a certain number of "eyesores" in the modern world, simply to make it work; eg. clumps of ugly tv aerials on the top of beautiful houses.

I have drawn the attention of the local authority to many rotting lamp posts and badly repaired holes which blight our roads. I have also pointed out that other authorities do not have similar problems because they have found some simple ways to ameliorate these difficulties.

With regard to lamp posts, we in Sheffield all know the problems caused by water on metal, etc. (Tinsley Viaduct, Sheaf Baths etc)? Once the paint covering is even slightly broken, water quickly rots the poor quality metal beneath it. An extra coat of paint 'red lead' on the thicker part at the base of the posts, and on the cast iron covers which protect the internal connections would delay the rot. And if traffic signs etc. could be clamped to posts without breaking the paint, the replacement of these expensive posts could be delayed considerably.

With regard to holes in the road it seems that when repairs are made they remain black eyesores because the tarmac does not have the grey gritstone which used to eventually lighten the patches to almost match the rest of the road surface. Holes also were first treated with liquid tar which seemed to key in the new tarmac fillings to help to prevent it coming out.

I realise that these are just a layman's idea, and of course the answer I received from the local authority was they couldn't afford it anyway! At least I know we can be assured that the designers of the Winter Gardens knew that warm, damp air, rises!

Another Grumpy Old Man

Name and address provided

Dear Sir,

I opposed the proposed expensive Supertram scheme running between Dore railway station and the city centre for a whole host of reasons, most of which I outlined in Dore to Door. But what next after the demise of this inappropriate scheme?

We do know that traffic is indeed bad on Abbeydale Road and that there is a weekday car parking problem at Dore railway station. I read in the Sheffield Telegraph that the Liberal Democrats are now campaigning for a bigger car park at Dore, bigger platforms and more carriages. I'm not sure where this proposed car park would go? Perhaps on top of our garden centre? Would it be floodlit for security? I feel these proposals are still not the best way of really tackling these problems and providing a solution that will provide us with greater services but with minimum urbanisation.

Firstly what we need is for more people to be able to access trains as locally as possible. Dore station is a long way from a centre of population and being the only station between Dore and Sheffield, it is no wonder that people need to drive to it.

We know there is support from residents in Heeley for the old railway station here to be reopened. Land was also earmarked in the Unitary Development Plan for another station at Millhouses, sensibly placed, in between Sainsbury and Tesco, where there is already extensive car parking due to the existing bus park and ride. Another small platform was earmarked at Totley Brook.

Despite our objections to the density, we are to have as many as ten new households on the site of the old caretakers bungalow on Totley Brook Road. Who knows how many more after the development of the King Ecgbert School site. All this means more cars on our roads. Additional stations would give more people living along this south-west corridor the opportunity to walk/cycle to the trains, leaving their cars behind. But for those still living too far away and needing to take a car, it would allow them to use the existing car parking provision at Millhouses and board the train here.

It is absolutely essential in order to be able to run more frequent trains, for more track to be laid on the railbed between Dore and Sheffield. This would be the only way to enable fast trains and slow local trains to travel reliably and very frequently together. Space for more rail lines must be available, because one of the Supertram proposals was to lay its tracks on the railbed and some years ago their used to be four train lines. There is currently only two. This would still cost less than Supertram would have done but is less urbanising, has far more advantages and is a real step towards cutting car use and tackling climate change. In short, I would prefer to see money spent on opening a new platform at Millhouses and an additional rail track from Dore into Sheffield than on a bigger car park and bigger platforms at Dore.

Dawn Biram