Boom industry

In Britain rubbish is booming - the amount we produce is doubling every 20 years and we currently landfill more waste than any other European Union country. Britain will be forced by an EU directive  to eventually reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites, but it is going to be hard-pressed to meet this target.

In some parts of the country the situation is particularly critical with all the holes in the ground, quarries, sand & gravel pits etc soon to be filled up. Burning more of our rubbish may be one answer but it is notoriously difficult to get planning permission for new incinerators. After all, would you really want one in your back garden? And then, to make an incinerator economically viable you have to have a guaranteed input bringing in waste from a wide area leading to increased pollution, more traffic and more fumes.

The Government has now decided to get tough on waste. It has come up with a strategy that sets targets for recycling. Every year we produce 28 million tonnes of household waste - that's half a tonne per person. Currently 82% of our household waste goes to landfill sites but by 2010 at least a third of all rubbish must be recycled or turned into compost. The amount of biodegradable waste put into landfill sites must also be halved by 2020.

Incinerators can be used to produce energy which saves burning fossil fuels but they also stifle innovation. By  simply burning rubbish we avoid having to find other ways to tackle the problem. In the long run, waste reduction and recycling will prove to be the only acceptable solutions. We need to see more effort being put into waste reduction rather than disposal but not enough resources are going into finding ways to do this. We need to took at ways of making things out of materials that can be re-used and reducing the amount of packaging. People should be encouraged to recycle and throw less of their rubbish in the bin.

We could all do more Consumers have the choice of buying goods which use  recycled materials and many products come in concentrated form to save on packaging. Businesses could also design products that can he recycled more easily and inform consumers about the recycled content of their products. Supermarkets could offer loyalty points if shoppers recycle glass, paper and cans and if they re-use plastic carrier bags. Local councils could run doorstep collections of recyclable domestic waste. Essex county council is keen to increase recycling and has supported pilot schemes aimed at recycling up to 60% of household waste.

In some other countries householders are charged according to the weight of rubbish collected or by the size of rubbish bin that is used. Even fines for not recycling are commonplace elsewhere in Europe. If we don't want the countryside filled up with rubbish and incineration plants, then we need to jump on the recycling bandwagon fast.

Ed. Council is keen to encourage recycling of green waste - grass cuttings and soft green garden waste, green kitchen waste including vegetable and fruit peel, tea bags and pets like rabbitgs, guineapig droppings. To this end composting bins are available for purchase at a discounted price.  A 220 litre capacity bin is available for £11.75 (including VAT) if collected from the Bernard Road Depot (open Monday to Friday, 9.00 am to 5.00 pm), or for home delivery for an additional £3.75. Further information from the Recycling Office on 2735506 or 2735916.

Transport and Traffic Update

Progress has been made recently on schemes affecting the village.

School Crossings - It's good to hear that the school crossing patrol is being re-instated on Furniss Avenue. On behalf of the children and parents, thanks are expressed to the new crossing warden for volunteering. The task can be tricky at times, especially in the heat of the morning rush hour. So, drivers, please be on your very best behaviour at this time. To help children cross Bushey Wood Road safely into the school grounds, a short stretch of the road near the top bend is to have zig-zag lines indicating a school crossing zone. The police are to be present initially to advise drivers that the zone is to be kept completely clear of cars at the operational times. The space is not to be used as a drop-off area but is intended to provide drivers and pedestrians with a stretch of road with completely clear visibility. A further appeal to drivers, please respect the lines and their purpose. It only takes one second for a child to be hurt!

Parking Restrictions - The three schemes introducing further parking restrictions in the village were discussed at a public meeting. As a result of this and written comments from the Dore Village Society, a number of changes have been made to the original proposals. Near the Old School, there will be a minimum of restriction near the junction of Vicarage Lane and Savage Lane. Previously, the Council was proposing to extend this along Vicarage Lane almost as far as the vicarage. On Devonshire Terrace Road, the restriction has also been reduced near the bus stop to allow more parking space for shoppers. The main element of this scheme, restriction of parking opposite the bus stop, is retained and will extend round the bend almost to the Co-op.

The proposal from the Co-op to introduce and part fund a lay-by in front of the store has been put aside for the time being. The Traffic Orders for all three schemes will be prepared in November with the work being done early next year.

Causeway Head Road - The Council has drawn up its initial ideas in response to people reporting their fears when crossing Causeway Head Road to reach the shops. Consultations will shortly be taking place with local residents, the Area Panel and the Dore Village Society where views on the Council's ideas and suggestions for others will be invited.

The ideas being put forward for consultation include a build out of the pavement near the HSBC Bank to lessen the width of road that pedestrians have to cross and to improve visibility past parked cars. There is also scope to provide a pedestrian refuge island near to the junction with High Street. Views will also be sought regarding having limited waiting restrictions in the parking bays near to the shops.

Funding has been set aside for safety improvements here and it is hoped to have a scheme completed on site before April 2001.

Roger Millican

The Wildlife Garden

The snow had been falling thick and fast all night long. By the wan, early morning light, theflakes had grown to the size of old half-crowns, muffling the everyday sounds of a waking town,smothering everything in an unnatural silence. Through the frosty patterns etched on the kitchenwindow, I could see a blackbird had come down onto the windowsill looking for food - a placewhere I usually left a few scraps of bread. The covering of snow on the sill made it impossible for the bird to find any remaining crumbs, so I went outside, cleared away the snow and put outsome fresh food.

As I trudged back through the accumulating snow, blackbirds, starlings and thrushes started arriving from all directions; it was just as though someone had emptied a cage full of birds into the blizzard. It was a terrible sight. Starving birds descended onto the windowsill until it became thick with dark bodies pressed against the window, each one trying to snatch a piece of bread before it had all disappeared. Almost immediately the food was gone and I went to put some more out; the desperate birds scarcely moving.

All day I kept repeating the process of clearing the sill and replenishing the food; whilst more and more birds kept arriving. It was only as night fell that the feeding frenzy stopped. That winter, countless birds died nation-wide and it took almost a decade for the numbers of some species to recover. Did I, or for that matter, any of the other bird lovers who braved the awful weather that day to feed them, actually make a real difference to their survival? I sometimes wonder.

Back in the 1960's, feeding wild birds seemed a simple proposition. You strung together some peanuts and hung them off a convenient tree branch for the blue tits and put a bowl of water, together with any kitchen scraps, on the lawn for the blackbirds, robins and thrushes. But today things have changed. Supplying food for birds is such a big business that gardeners are now faced with a barrage of feeders which come in all colours, shapes and sizes and there is such a wide variety of foods available, they could easily fill the shelves in a small supermarket. But what has prompted this shift in ideas?

Over the last few years, there has been a sea change in attitudes of ecologists. It was really only quite recently they started looking seriously at the role the garden plays as a habitat for birds. Part of this research has been directed towards supplementary feeding - the food gardeners put out for birds, and much of their latest work has focused on small birds, such as the great tit,  greenfinch and house sparrow. Scientists have found that these birds need to eat an extraordinary amount of food daily - up to a third of their body weight. Not only that, their foods have to be energy-rich and high in fats, oils and protein for them to survive.

In the past, small birds like these would have relied on the countryside to provide their food - mainly insects and weed seeds. However, due to current farming practices such as the removal of hedges and the widespread use of pesticides, there has been a huge decline in the availability of these natural foods. One ornithologist I spoke to, who regularly drives long distances across Britain, told me that this summer he noticed his car windscreen remained strangely clean. All the insect  splats' which he would have normally expected to mark his windscreen just didn't appear.

Although the improved screen visibility was welcome, the lack of dead insects serves as a crude estimate of their declining numbers. This fall in the rural insect population has meant that birds such as blackbirds, starlings and even sparrows, which for part of the year rely on these invertebrates for their food, have also been effected.

As a result of their natural foods disappearing, birds have become more and more dependent on gardens to fill this gap. Even birds such as great spotted woodpeckers and nuthatches are now visiting our gardens more frequently, perhaps also as a consequence of changes in the availability of their natural foods. All this means that there is a far greater onus on gardeners, not only to feed the birds, but to provide them with high energy foods, such as peanuts, sunflower hearts and black sunflower seeds.

What small birds should not do is fill up on cereal grains, which give them only relatively small amounts of energy, but perversely can often be found dominating the contents of certain bird seed mixes. Sadly, that is not all you can find in these products. Some of the seed mixtures I have purchased in the past have contained just about everything bar the kitchen sink - floor sweepings, luridly dyed hamster-food, squashed peas, rabbit pellets and even the occasional dried chilli. I suppose it can be argued that apart from desiccated coconut and salted products, such as peanuts and bacon, - all of which should never be fed to birds, very few foods will actually harm them. But with seed mixes like these, all you are encouraging into your garden are wood pigeons and mice, and then a visit from the environmental health officer.

If you do feed birds, there are a number of essential rules to follow. Only buy certified food from suppliers approved by organisations such as the British Trust for Ornithology, so that you know it won't be contaminated and your money will have been spent on food which is actually beneficial to the birds. Regularly clean your bird-tables, feeders and water-baths and remove any old or mouldy food. If you put food on the lawn, regularly change the patch you use to avoid the spread of disease and prevent any contamination with droppings. Also, make sure you wash your hands after cleaning bird-tables and feeders. Try to only put out the amount of food the birds are likely to consume in a day, so that food isn't left lying around overnight to attract less welcome visitors. Lastly, and most importantly, put food out on a daily basis throughout the year, especially during spring and early summer when the birds are breeding, as this period is as stressful for them as the coldest days of winter.

What I do find sad is that nowadays birds should have to rely so heavily on food provided forthem in gardens. It graphically shows the problems more and more of our native wildlife is facing in this over-crowded and intensively-used island of ours. But I suppose one positive thing has come out of all this: scientists have finally realised that Britain's patchwork of gardens are important havens for our native wildlife, something most wildlife gardeners have known for years.

Jack Daw

Street Scene

Street scene is a new initiative to improve the appearance of residential areas and the quality of life for people who live there.

A consistent issue of concern amongst residents in the City has been the deteriorating physical condition of the roads, footways, verges, and street furniture. The effect of this deterioration has been to give the impression of decline and neglect which reduces local confidence and pride. It impacts on both public space and residential areas.

• Street Scene has been specifically developed to concentrate on the following areas:
• Replacing broken and damaged street signs;
• Improving road markings;
• Improving the maintenance of grassed and decorative areas;
• Removing accumulated litter and rubbish.

The Council is committed to ongoing consultation with its customers on how the Street Scene can he improved. Residents and local community groups play a vital role in helping the Council maintain the upkeep of an area and everyone can play their part.

Help us to care for the Street Scene by contacting us at: street.scene@sheffieldworks.demon.co.uk or call Sheffield Direct Services on

273 4567 (lines open: 8.00 am - 6.00 pm, Monday - Friday)

Farming Notes

Anyone reading the property pages of the local papers will notice that there is a reversal of the Enclosure Acts going on. The City Council are selling Barberfields Farm up Long Line, but not as a farm. It's 96 acres are broken up into 6 lots. At the same time, land that was part of Fisher's farm up Whitelow is being offered for sale in small lots. This is because although the returns from farming are at an all time low, against all logic the value of farmland is still high.

As a result it is passing out of the ownership of people who want to farm the land and becoming a commodity for people who fancy owning a few acres of English countryside and at the same time hope they'll make a quid or two when they sell it again. Although looking at the ridiculous prices being asked for some of this land some people are very optimistic. Of course land sales around Dore are different from sales deeper in the country. Traditionally when farms are broken up, surrounding farmers buy parcels of land and add it on to their farms, so one farm disappears and the neighbours' get bigger, but here we've got odd parcels owned by all and sundry. So many milk producers have gone out of business over the last 18 months that at last it may be having an effect on the milk price. We are being offered an extra 1.2 pence per litre for milk in October, which will bring it up to a princely 17 p/litre. When times are hard, farmers tighten their belts and work on the principle that when every one else's gone bust things will get better, and that's just what happens. This is when the stick in the mud's come to the fore because they've not gone out and borrowed money for expansion. If you've got a big overdraft you've got to get the bank to tighten its belt as well. Tricky!

The recent petrol scare showed up the folly of allowing our High Street shops to go. Supermarkets are OK as long as you've got transport to get to them and they've got fuel to get their supplies in. If the government was serious in its claim to get traffic down, they'd do something about the obstacles piled up in front of small shops in the form of business rates and regulations. An 18 month investigation has just concluded that supermarkets aren't ripping us off. Surprise, surprise. But it did say they shouldn't try to maximise profits by squeezing suppliers. So that's alright then.

The last edition of Dore to Door carried a complaint about lorry traffic on Dore road carrying material to Ryecroft Farm. Doremouse should note that all this soil came from large building sites at Totley and Whirlow, and if a suitable site had not been available close by it would have had to travel much farther. If it's the environment you're concerned about the closer the destination the better. It is the same every time a grand old house in large grounds is  demolished to make way for an estate of executive houses, a lot of lorry movements are created.

Richard Farnsworth

A full stop

In September 1998, Betty Young saw a lorry knock over the "stop" sign at the bottom of Rushley Road, leaving exposed wiring. She rang Direct Services immediately and before long a large wobbly orange cover was put over - wobbly because tangled metal still obtruded. Nothing else was done despite frequent phone calls. The Mr Blobby cone was so large that only a handspan of pavement has been free for road crossing on a very busy bend. Walkers with dogs, sticks, prams, children and pushchairs have had to walk in the road and negotiate the very uneven tarmac and metal debris. Many complaints have been sent to the Town Hall. (It was admitted this November that the database includes entries dating from Autumn 98.)  

In the middle of October an extra obstacle arrived - a "men at work" triangle, large enough to completely block the corner. No men and no work done! So now you had to walk on Dore Road itself.

By chance on the 1st November 2000 Mr Hague of Direct Works (road signs and pavements) was in Dore supervising a project. When I took him to Rushley Road and gave him "a piece of my mind" he promised action. Within a day the workmen and YEB men had come, the site tidied and tarmaced. Moreover, Mr Hague is hoping to deal with the missing and damaged road signs, which we were told could not be resolved because of lack of money. Is this the new "street scene initiative" we keep reading about?

Gillian Farnsworth

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