Last week, 'Wyenot News' reported that Councillor Brian Wilcox, Herefordshire Council's Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation visited Ross to see for himself how work on the £7million Flood Alleviation Scheme is progressing. Whilst in Ross, Councillor Wilcox met engineers from Owen Williams who are managing the project, contractors Edmund Nuttall and tunnel contractors Morgan Est.

Ken Henderson from Morgan Est is bringing considerable expertise to the Ross-on-Wye project, having previously spent three years working on the Channel Tunnel. He will be in charge of creating a 350-metre long tunnel. This tunnel, termed an inverted siphon, will be dug at a depth of 10 metres and will be linked to shafts at either end.

The tunnelling will start from a rising shaft in the Homs Road car park and finish at a falling shaft in King's Acre car park. Ken said, 'This will be one of the shortest mechanized tunnels that I have been involved with but it is still a major feat of engineering. The topography of the site means the tunnel cannot be built in a completely straight line but instead there will have to be two swan-neck shaped bends. 'To bore out the tunnel, we will using a two-metre diameter machine which weighs 60 tonnes. As the earth comes out, concrete segments will be slotted in to create the actual tunnel'.

Earth dug out from the tunnel will be used to create a 1.7 metre high earth bund to the east of the A40. This bund will create a water storage area during times of high flow. Work to create the rising shaft, which will be used as access for tunnelling, started on Tuesday 2nd October. Tunnelling work is to start in December and the tunnel should be complete by April 2008. It is aimed to complete the whole scheme by July 2008.

Once the project is completed, the falling shaft will divert excess water into the tunnel while the rising shaft will divert the excess water from the tunnel back into the Rudhall Brook.

Funded by DEFRA, the Ross Flood Alleviation Scheme has been designed to national standards and will protect areas around Greytree Road, Brook End Street, Millpond Street and the Broadmeadows Industrial Estate from flooding by the Rudhall and Chatterley Brooks.

While prepping this week's news on Tuesday, I looked out of the office window and noticed a pretty cloud formation, with the setting sun lighting it to a nice gold colour. It was actually much nicer when I first spotted it but, still feeling quite low with the cold I picked up last week and an 'acking cough, which sounds like a dog barking, it took a few moments to register that it might make a nice photo - and the cameras were in the house. By the time I had gone to get one, fitted the polarizing filter for the rainbow and returned to the garden, the cloud was not quite as spectacular. All the same, the photos did not come out too bad.

Actually, they have saved me something of a problem this week as a space filler. On Thursday, I photographed the JKHS Open Evening with the intention of running the photos exactly here, in this week's news. Having prepped the pictures and laid the pages out though, I received an email from the school informing me that some of the text from the Headmaster's speech, which they wanted included was running late. I have now delayed that article until next week and the clouds are acting as a kind of filler.

Whilst I am rabbiting on about general stuff, the boat is proving to be brilliant for filming wildlife on the river. I am still 'just testing' at the moment but I managed to capture some more kingfisher footage on Sunday. I made a couple of anchors yesterday, using a couple of 5 pint milk cartons and a bag of concrete, so this should help keep the boat still whilst filming.

No Tina Dancing again this week. We were both still feeling rough on Saturday evening, so stayed home and made some mulled cider instead, drank two pints of it each and went to bed. Using cider from Broome Farm, as well as tasting nice and Christmasy, it's great for making a cold go away, temporarily! This coming Saturday, will definitely find us at the Prince of Wales to see our friend, Will Killeen. Not the easiest music for Tina to dance to but she managed last time. Hopefully, we will both be feeling better by then as we always enjoy seeing Will Killeen.

Sorry about announcing 'Underwired' at the Prince last week. It was cancelled but we were not informed. Tina booked 'Jagged Hand' right at the last minute to save the evening.

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Schools in Ross and other Herefordshire towns are taking part in a road safety campaign this month as part of the International Walk to School effort.

This year, Herefordshire Council's road safety officers have teamed up with school travel advisers to target primary schools in Hereford and the market towns, where lots of children already walk to school. The aim is to not only promote walking and cycling to school but also to stress the importance of road safety to children.

Latest figures show that about 38 per cent of children in Herefordshire currently walk to school and 39 per cent come by car. Children who are taken to school by car every day get little chance of any practical experience of crossing busy roads and negotiating obstacles. It is hoped that this campaign will encourage more children and parents to leave the car behind and walk at least some of the way to school.

Any school taking part can designate a week in October for targeted activities and Herefordshire Council will provide resources to reward the children who walk to school; a diary for the week, a sticker and a road safety activity book. The theme of the resources for the older primary children aged between 8 and 11 is 'Be a Street Ranger'; find nicer, quieter routes to school, cross roads safely, don't drop litter and protect the environment.

Schools will receive posters as well as wall charts and stickers for each classroom to record numbers walking to school. All schools taking part can enter a competition for the highest number of children as a percentage of the whole school, walking or cycling to school.

There are two prizes, one for the city school and one for the market town school with the highest proportion. The winning schools will receive a road safety kit worth £600 and every child in the school will get a hi-viz bag. To get the campaign underway, the road safety and school travel teams have been holding assemblies in participating schools to launch the campaign and get children involved. Spike the hedgehog, the road safety mascot, has attended some of these assemblies.

Ross Phoenix Majorettes returned home from Slovenia during the early hours of last Wednesday morning, having represented England in the European championships.

The party travelled to and from Slovenia by coach, stopping near to Stuttgart in Germany on the way there and back. They stayed in Ljubljana, which was about an hour away from Rivnica, where the championships were held.

Although the girls performed magnificently, unlike the previous three years, they did not win any trophies this year as the competition was tough. The girls did come fourth in the Junior Parade Corps. Well done girls! Just getting to the European Championships is something to be proud of!

Bernice took a 'Wyenot News' camera with her to Slovenia and some of the photos of our Ross-on-Wye England Champions in Ljubljana can be seen below.

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