Made In Preston – the blog

November 30th an evening kick-off for Sky.  Blackpool need 3 points to get them back into the top 6 and PNE need them to make up lost ground.  This is an international break month so not many games have been played. North End have a habit of a bad home score and then making it up in the next away game. The forwards havent’ been scoring much lately and the defence has been a bit squeaky so time they made up.  Blackpool have moved off their peak in the last few weeks.

Forecast: Blackpool 1 PNE 2.

The International Space Station with Space Shuttle Atlantis was visible from Preston yesterday morning (24th Nov) at 4.46 and it was very bright (if no clouds), I was in bed and it was probably raining.

Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station (ISS)  last night just before midnight, GMT.   Their separation sets the stage for  double flybys of many towns and cities, but not Preston, today, Nov. 25th, when Atlantis and the ISS will soar through the night sky side by side–a fantastic sight.

Atlantis scheduled to land Friday morning, Nov. 27th, so the double apparitions will continue on Thursday, Nov. 26th, Thanksgiving in the United States.

No sightings of bright satellites are forecast for the next 10 days from Preston although the ISS is visible from London, low in the sky, early Friday morning.

Reported by www.SpaceWeather.com, Simple Satellite Tracker.  Tuesday 24th Nov 2009 from Preston:   Time of rising: 04:46:33 pm,   Direction to look:  W,     Time of transition:  04:48:46,      Max elevation:  37°,    Magnitude: -2.7 (very bright).

Amazing away win for Wigan. I’m not a Wigan fan but I don’t like to see teams being thrashed. I thought the defence was very poor and made the opposition attackers look much better than they are. Today people are saying their attackers are obvious choices for England where I don’t see that at all. Against a normal defence at that level they don’t get much of a look in and are near miss experts, so lets get real.

Tonight PNE take on Newcastle at Deepdale. After having a bit of a lean spell PNE should be out to show they’re still in there. On paper Newcastle have a Premier League side but you can’t guarantee they’ll play.  No doubt there’ll be a good following from their long suffering fans, but then again you could say PNE fans are long suffering but don’t have the same expectation, except tonight.  Then onto Blackpool next week, their ground is looking better now and they’ve maybe gone over a peak which PNE might catch at the right time.

Wednesday 2nd December the freeview digital changeover will be complete in the Granada region. Also the power at the transmitter becomes 10 times stronger. Wow does that make our aerial glow? Probably not, I’ll add just in case someone thinks it does.

On that day all you’ll get is a crackly screen if you switch on without a digital tuner. All channels will only be watchable in digital format.

As if that wasn’t enough it was announced this week that Winter Hill transmitter will go to HD standard for Manchester in December 2009 and in March 2010 the rest of the Granada region will go HD.  In addition to the non-HD that is.

Does that mean that if you bought a new set top box for the changeover you’ll need another? Also does that mean you will need an HD TV?  You’ll need to check your box but it will need an HD compatible box and TV if you want to watch HD. Although you can buy TV’s with freeview or satellite tuners inside that don’t need a box.

What about my video recorder? Yes, it will only video at the standard it’s able to be tuned to. Digital standard or HD 920P etc.

I’ve never been sure exactly what HD TV is. You read 920P and 1080P TV’s are HD. I also read that Sky HD and FreeSat HD have better HD which is 1920P, that’s over twice as good definition as 920.  Then there is framerate or the number of times the picture is refreshed. Also MPEG4 and DVD-T2.  MPEG4 is a video format like MP3 is a sound format,  and DVD-T2 is a new transmission format for HD.

The flat screen TV’s have plasma, lcd or led screens. LED are the latest. They have light emitting diodes, led, behind the lcd screen that give a smoother light coverage and can be switched off in sections to give total black. Apparently total black is difficult on TV’s. Just to make life a bit more complicated each manufacturer does it a bit differently.

3D is on its way. Will that need red and green spectacles? I don’t know although it’s hard to imagine how it can be done without some kind of eye vision adjuster.

If you look too deep it’s hellish.  We have a cathode ray tube TV which seems pretty good to me and is too heavy to move.

I could go on about radio as well. The government wants us to throw away our FM radios and go DAB by 2015 even though DAB is an inferior sound quality.

The National Football Museum trustees announced on their website that the museum will move to the Urbis in central Manchester opening in 2011 with some items remaining in Preston if funding can be found. Newspaper reports say Manchester is paying an £8m transfer fee plus £2m a year subsidy for the museum.  Cheap by Cristiano Ronaldo standards but quite a lot if you’re looking for a job in what was said to be Britains poorest area when the casino was located there (from Blackpool).

If longer term funding can be found a display will remain at Preston. Although my own opinion is that it won’t be viable. Some other use of the facility will need to be found. It is easily accessible by road with plenty of free parking and is a modern building.

Disappointing news for Preston, once more fuelling the opinion that Manchester gets priority in the North West from both the government and regional bodies.  Although it can be seen as a difficult call as I’d rather the museum and any other facility was in Manchester than in London or Birmingham in our centralised state.  Even so, it isn’t clear that this museum has any natural home as football is built on loyalty, to the supporters at least. Yet it seems difficult to factor the pride and loyalty into the displays.

Also the choice of the Urbis isn’t an obvious one. I’m a keen art gallery and museum attender and havn’t been as there are too many better things in the area and I doubt the NFM will change that. The appeal of the NFM is to those interested in football so it isn’t a particularly female or family outing.  The Urbis is close to Victoria Station, recently named the worst station in Britain, car parking in central Manchester costs a fortune and in general people who go there are more interested in the shops.  The Science Museum and the revamped Peoples History Museums aren’t too far away. The Science Museum being one of the best museums of its type in the country and of educational value. The other well known museums and galleries being quite a distance away.  On the other hand it is another item to the list of Manchester attractions that as a minimum add to its appeal as a destination worth more than a day and a good option if you’re looking to fill an hour in the centre. 

It isn’t known if the funding offered by Lancashire and Preston councils will still be there for a reduced football museum or for a different type of museum. I’d guess not as times are hard and nationally we’ve yet to start repaying. How much councils should fund a museum for a sport with such riches is questionable.

If an alternative in Preston was to be founded I’d prefer a museum and a futurama. Perhaps with a broader theme using football as focus to take advantage of the location. The Football Museum’s view over the Deepdale pitch making it come alive.  Maybe it could be an office and  / or cafe as it would be an attractive working environment.

Overall it’s a loss to Preston as the museum has a national and international awareness and advertising like that can’t be replaced.

Preston station was named as the 6th worst station in the UK with platform access via the steps as one of the worst features. The government announced that the worst stations would get a total of £50m spent on them to improve car parking, platform access, refreshments and toilets etc. The top ten includes: Manchester Victoria, Preston, Wigan, Warrington, Stockport, Crewe, Liverpool Central in the north west.

I didn’t think Preston station was that bad although maybe my expectations aren’t very high.  I always expect to stand in a cold wind with some water dripping off the roof on any station.  I expect to only be able to get coffee in a cardboard cup and not be sure if its tea or coffee and a choice of Club biscuits or Penguins. A dark subway. To pay a fortune to park your car so you would only do it if on expenses.  The toilets to be somewhere distant, cleanish in a 19th century way but cold and suspicious with the feeling someone is in a cubicle doing something you don’t want to know about. 

Railway staff tend to look cleaner nowadays especially the Virgin Rail ones. I recall not too long ago a gent with what looked like an oilskin walking down the platform, he turned out to be a porter, wouldn’t be keen for him to brush against my bags.

Preston has some of these features, especially the outer platforms.  It has TV displays which give it a more modern feel, although I made the mistake of reading the arrivals and stood on the wrong platform, my wife wasn’t impressed with me.

Preston station is an impressive building in total and it should be preserved, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be modernised. Some enclosing to protect more from the elements, a few escalators, an update of the amenities and covered walkway into the Fishergate Centre. Perhaps diversion of buses into the forecourt.

Some people think this announcement which seems to effect mainly the north-west is a pre-election vote buyer. It might be, but never look a gift horse in the mouth.

The Land Registry figures for the end of September show the North West having one of the lowest average house prices in the UK. The North West being Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire, Manchester and Merseyside.

Overall in the North West the house price average is £116k down 8% over a year but up 0.8% in September alone.

In Lancashire the picture isn’t as good with an average of £113k down 12.7% over a year and down by 0.3% in September. The peak being December 2007 at £137k.

Preston is in the Lancashire figures but Blackpool and Blackburn having unitary authorities are shown with an average of £94k and £82k respectively.  Others shown separately are Warrington £137k, Stoke £76k. Hull is the lowest English figure at £75k.  House prices in Oldham and Rochdale have fallen around 18% in a year.  The lowest London borough, Barking and Dagenham is £196k a fall of around 19%.

The number of houses sold is rising as well.

In September the average house price in Lancashire continued to fall at a rate of around three hundred pounds a month which is a lot better than year earlier. Also the number of houses sold has recovered from its trough early this year but is still well below its peak.  You can feel that as 2 houses have sold near us after being on the market for a while.

We last moved house in a late January after making an offer in late November. We thought January wasn’t a bad month to move as we settled in and had time to plan for a spring redecoration.

 The Evening Post alerted me to the Competition Commission announcement released today that Stagecoach must sell Preston Bus to a bidder able to provide a competitive service. It seems a bit late for this as the deal was done months ago, buses have been re-branded and staff laid off or moved. 

The sale was never a good thing from the perspective of local pride and autonomy but in the bus wars Stagecoach attracted enough passengers to make Preston Bus unable to carry on. This probably wasn’t too difficult against a big organisation.

Although I don’t use the bus I have been reading comments, that might be biased, that fares are increasing and the services less frequent since the takeover.  Also that Stagecoach will move the good buses to other depots where they are seeking more customers.  Whether this is true I don’t know but in my rare experience of travelling on Stagecoach I thought the buses were of a high standard.  Also it’s a British company and is expanding overseas and into other areas like rail. Companies like this are needed to provide ‘British jobs for British workers’ and companies that contribute to the taxpayer in the long term rather than take subsidies.

I’m not clear on how the Competition Commission normally works but it seems a strange arrangement that a buy-out occurs, people and infrastructure are disrupted then months later it’s decided to put the clock back.  Who pays for putting the clock back? At the time of the purchase the Competition Commission (CC) reported that no-one else had been willing to buy Preston Bus who was able to compete with Stagecoach. So who is going to do it now noting that the CC say the buyer must be strong enough to compete?

The announcement says “The sale will include a bus depot, other assets and a network of routes, including services formerly run by Preston Bus but since transferred to Stagecoach following the acquisition.”  Does this mean all routes, just some and include non-former PB routes, and which ones?  The full report is on the CC website and perhaps that explains more.

Today the government announced 5 new nuclear power stations on the shore of the Irish Sea. Three in Cumbria, 1 at Heysham, 1 in Anglesey. There are currently 3 that have limited life remaining.

The government has also announced a ‘quick’ planning process which some people say will over-rule peoples rights. In general the location of the sites in this area are in places where nuclear stations exist and the jobs they bring are welcomed. So planning is not likely to be a major obstacle anyway.

The Irish Sea already has banks of wind turbines and more are planned. The hills of the Lake District and Lancashire have groups of wind turbines and more of those are planned.

It is forecast that electrical demand will increase by 10% in the next 10 years although this could be reduced as easily as building a new power station.

Overall nuclear is a necessary part of the energy supply system to ensure capacity is sufficient.

Yesterday BBC2 went digital in the Granada region. The person managing the changeover said they’d only had 10,000 calls yesterday so it went well.  At the time I thought it sounds a lot as BBC2 doesn’t get a big audience. Later I found that those who already have a digital box need to retune both BBC1 and BBC2 so it isn’t just a switch off.  I thought I was clued up on this but now know I’m not. Just found that BBC1,2 and Sky News isn’t working on the box attached to my PC so need to do the retune.

There was a retune only a few weeks ago so don’t know why there is another. Sounds too complicated to me why don’t these boxes retune themselves automatically.

December 2nd for the full change-over. Can’t wait, I have an elderly relative who doesn’t understand the new remote and keeps using their old one and says they won’t watch BBC2 for now.

Three weeks after the 2012 Olympic Games is the 2012 Preston Guild.

The Royal Lancashire Show suggested last week it could be in Preston in the 2012 Guild Year and yesterday the Corporate Games said they’d hold a Games in Preston in that year.  

It’s not long since the Royal Lancashire said it wouldn’t go to Preston for it’s annual show for reasons un-said,  but now the show has no home.  It sounds a good idea to have it in Preston and Moor Park has been suggested.  The show organisers say the show takes 150 acres of land – about 100 football pitches.  Moor Park has been suggested before but I once read it was 100 acres. Another 50 acres is needed, how much of this is car parking?  Deepdale is across the road and there are a couple of small parks nearby and maybe a park and ride can be set up. If the show is looking for a home it could scale down a bit. The show is normally in July which is well before the Guild which starts in early September and the Olympic Games which start on 27th July 2012.

The Corporate Games announced yesterday that an event could be held in Preston in 2012 and this is supported by Preston Council and the North West Development Agency. This is for company teams to compete and is held all over the world organised from a base in Peterborough.  I’d imagine that large local employers like BAE SYSTEMS and Leyland Trucks could have teams although the impression given is that teams from outside the area will be expected. Liverpool is hosting a games in 2010 and it will be interesting to see who is there.

Noticed that Preston Council website has dates for civic events in the Guild as shown below, the Guild Court starting the main festivities. The Council are consulting with local people about their own contributions.

http://www.preston.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/guild-2012/