Noisy announcements from Marylebone Station
Since our rather hopeful April Newsletter, the noise from Marylebone Station seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Leaving aside the noise from the actual trains, local residents complain that some announcements – including simple Platform announcements - are now being broadcast across the entire area in several languages. We think it’s great that Chiltern Railways have recruited speakers of Mandarin and Arabic to their workforce.
However we think it’s unacceptable that they can’t sort out their loud-speakers, so as to play their announcements to passengers on the concourse, and not to residential homes up to half-a-mile away. Chiltern Railways could learn from many international airports which rely on visible signage, and don’t do audible announcements at all! These complaints were raised, but not resolved, at the quarterly meeting between the Chiltern Managers and the Marylebone Station Environment Action Group (MSEAGroup) on 27 July, at which Councillor Julia Alexander was also present.
If you are affected by the new loudspeakers at Marylebone Station, please write to mseagroup@gmail.com, saying where you are, and when (time / day / date) you can hear the announcements.
Please comment only on Noise from the PA system! There are other concerns about the station’s effects on our environment, but to make our case for a reduction in noisy announcements, we must stick to the point.
Impressive awards celebration at The Feathers Youth Club, Rossmore Road
Since its founding in 1974, The Feathers Youth Club and Community Centre on Rossmore Road has provided a safe and well-equipped out-of-school-environment for some of the area’s most disadvantaged children. Given current funding-constraints, your Bryandston and Dorset Square Councillors were pleased to obtain £2,946 grant-funding for a Summer-Holiday programme, designed and run from 24th July to 25th August by the Feathers’ inspirational youth-leader, Mr. Andrew Mederick.
On Friday 18th August, parents and children were invited to an Awards Ceremony, attended by some 80 children from age seven to seventeen, at which we recognised their achievements in a wide range of age-appropriate activities: including Long/High-Jump, Swimming, non-contact Boxing, Cooking & Food Safety, Dance,
Air-brushing, Clothing Design and Decoration, to name just a few. The young people received their awards with confidence and dignity.
The high spots of the event were the ambitious dance-performances by both boys and girls. The audience demanded a double-encore from both dance-troupes, but we were especially impressed by a trio - one boy, two girls - who combined some daring acrobatic moves with a touching grace and sincerity in their shared performance. It was great to see how the children enjoyed such diverse achievements across all age groups, all of them apparently pleased to be there and mutually supportive.
Your Bryanston and Dorset Square Councillors salute Andrew Mederick for his unique leadership, and we thank all those who worked so hard to provide this special Summer programme.
Alarming rise in potentially-deadly tick-borne diseases
Your Bryanston and Dorset Square Councillors are grateful to a local vet, who wrote to warn us about the increased incidence of tick-borne diseases, arising from failings in the PETS (Pet Passport) travel scheme.
Animals travelling to and from Europe with a Pet Passport were exempted from tick-preventative-treatment in 2012. Since then, there has been a steady rise in this country in the incidence of tick-borne diseases that pass readily from pets to humans. Some of these can be deadly.
Consider Babesiosis, a particularly-horrible malaria-like illness, which is feared to have become endemic in Essex; and Erlichiosis (Lyme disease), which came close to killing a father of three who had been bitten when walking in Regent’s Park. The ticks are tiny, scarcely bigger than a printed full-stop.
Tick-borne diseases cause serious illness in both animals and humans. We in Britain are generally ignorant about them, because they were rare here before 2012; but this is changing. The change is directly due to dogs that have picked up a tick-borne illness abroad, or are carrying infected ticks back home to the UK, with no requirement to use the effective, safe, cost-effective tick-repellent-and-killing treatments readily available. If you have taken your pet abroad this summer, please see your vet for the appropriate treatment as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, your Councillors are campaigning for the reintroduction of compulsory tick-preventatives for all pets travelling under the PETS scheme.