I had been away for a couple of weeks, but when I got home on Sunday evening I noticed my BT broadband has become much more erratic. It is very variable, with download speed varying from 0.1 Mb/s to 7 Mb/s, and surprisingly upload varying too (this week I have recorded speeds between 0.4 and 4 Mb/s).

In part this must relate to the number of households on line as it is slower in the evening. So far, Tuesday afternoon and evening have been the worst, when it was at its slowest with repeated breaks in connection. It was for a while on Tuesday unusable. However, since starting with BT in April, I had previously had a very consistent service.

BT had increased the capacity in the Parwich exchange in April, and attempted to upgrade the service in June, though this failed and left at least one household without any broadband. Is this current blip just effecting BT customers?

I have no wish to go back to my experiences with AOL TalkTalk when I was getting a daily fluctuations in download between 7 Mb/s and 0.001 Mb/s. Was I wrong not to have gone with W3Z?

Peter T

Other Blog Team members report their broadband has slowed recently too. What has been your experience on the Parwich exchange recently? Do we need to contact the BT Press Office to ask for an explaination? Is this effecting only BT customers or are other suppliers involved too? Please let us know about your recent experiences.

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DDDC have reminded us that due to the Bank Holiday on Monday, next week’s bin collection will take place one day later than usual.

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As can be seen from Ian Sneap’s comment on a previous post here, W3Z are extending their wireless broadband service to Parwich village. They are installing an additional relay on a private house in Creamery Lane which means over 85% of Parwich will be able to utilise their service. Click here to visit the W3Z website.

(With BT having resolved the capacity issues in the Parwich exchange, their plans to provide later this year a super fast fibre optic connection, and with the W3Z super fast wireless option open to more in the next week, hopefully things can only get better.)

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We have had a reminder from DDDC that the next week’s bin collection will be one day late as a result of the bank holiday

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BT have resolved the capacity issues at the Parwich exchange and are now connecting new customers to broadband. (I was connected this lunch time.) Also for those not wanting to rely on phone lines W3Z are currently extending their coverage of our area so more people will be able to get a signal.

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We have received the following information from Buxton and High Peak Samaritans:

Volunteers sought for Buxton branch of Samaritans

Could you support people who are struggling to cope and need someone to turn to?  If so, Samaritans of Buxton and High Peak are looking for volunteers.“If you’d like to know more about learning the skills needed to support people in distress or despair, we would love to hear from you.” says Director Maria Kenyon. (more…)

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The following has been provided by Peter T as a local resident, rather than in his capacity as a Blog Team member

Apologies for hijacking the blog for a personal rant about BT’s appalling customer service. Foolishly I allowed the allure of faster download speeds to outweigh others’ warnings of BT’s bad customer service. I made my arrangements for my recent move on the basis of BT’s advice and commitments on ensuring no gap in my broadband provision. Some 15+ hours of phone calls later, after some eight assured connection dates between the 30th of March and the 17th of April, some five agents and managers failing to ring back when they promised, never speaking to the same person twice, conflicting and inconsistent explanations of what the problem is, repeatedly being cut off when placed on hold and over two weeks of no broadband, I was told yesterday that because of capacity problems in the exchange BT are unable to connect any new Broadband customers in the Parwich exchange before 31st of July 2015.

(more…)

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Derbyshire Dales want to remind people that information regarding services can be found from following their Facebook and Twitter feeds and through their e-newsletter.

Also, here’s the latest weather situation regarding services, including updates about bin collections and the four leisure centres.

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Waste & recycling plan for Saturday 24 January

Our crews will once again be working on Saturday this week to catch up on missed waste and recycling collections caused by this week’s adverse weather.

Snow meant we missed the vast majority of Wednesday’s scheduled collections (around 6,000 homes in total), so we need the extra day to catch up having tried also to keep on top of regular rounds.

If we haven’t yet collected your domestic (black sack/grey bin) waste, or your recycling (blue bags/blue bin) please leave out your containers and we will aim to be back tomorrow, subject to road conditions.

Please note also:

* Today’s usual Friday domestic (black sack/grey bin) collections have been completed to schedule.

* Tomorrow our domestic collection crews will focus on missed Wednesday rounds.

* Missed recycling collections are a mixture of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday scheduled rounds, and our aim is to complete the recycling catchup tomorrow, so please leave out bins/bags

As always, your patience and understanding is appreciated.

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Leave your Grey bin and food caddy out as they should be collected tomorrow or Saturday:

Waste & recycling plan for Friday 23 January

Some headlines regarding this week’s snow-affected waste and recycling collections:

* Today’s usual Thursday domestic collections have been completed to schedule.

* Most of Wednesday’s domestic collections remain outstanding. Please leave out bins/bags – the aim is to complete these collections tomorrow and Saturday.

* Tomorrow our domestic collection crews will focus on scheduled Friday rounds.

* This week’s scheduled recycling collections continue to be late in some areas. A mix of Wednesday catch-ups and scheduled Thursday recycling collections happened today, but some collections are still outstanding from both days. Again, the aim will be to catch up tomorrow and Saturday, while also factoring in scheduled Friday recycling rounds.

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The snow overnight on Tuesday into Wednesday meant that many rounds were unsafe and inaccessible for our waste and recycling crews today.

The only scheduled Wednesday domestic waste collections made were on the main road at Fenny Bentley, which meant other scheduled collections in and around this area, including Parwich, Tissington and Hartington, and other Dales villages in and near Winster, Youlgrave, Elton, Birchover and the Carsington, Hognaston and Kniveton area were not attempted.

The Met Office Yellow Warning for ice overnight means we are unlikely to be able to revisit these areas tomorrow (Thursday), as side roads could be even more treacherous, but please leave out bins and bags. Our domestic waste crews will instead concentrate on regular Thursday rounds in the south of the district and return to Wednesday’s scheduled collections when it is fit to do so.

We managed around a quarter of our usual Wednesday recycling collections in and around Matlock today, but high areas were difficult to access. The plan is to return to these areas tomorrow, but to move on to regular Thursday recycling rounds if they remain inaccessible.

Once again, the message to all this week’s scheduled Wednesday and Thursday recycling collection properties is to please leave out your bins and bags for collection.

If necessary, our crews will once again work on Saturday to enable a catch up of all this week’s scheduled collections.

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Can anyone recommend a local solicitor for house conveyancing please?

Tel. 132
Sue C

Sue has now found a solicitor

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Thank you to Jean W for providing the following information:

The Mobile Library is now only calling every four weeks. The next 2 visits to Parwich will be Friday 13 February and Friday 13 March. The library will only stop at the Green and will be there from 2.50 pm to 3.30 pm.

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14th January situation

The good news is the vast majority of this week’s scheduled waste and recycling collections are happening as planned

Some properties are being visited the following day, mainly because ‘double’ recycling collections mean our trucks are reaching capacity and can’t complete a particular round.

Thanks, as always, for your patience.

• Check your 2015 waste and recycling collections timetable via our postcode search.
• Information about recycling Christmas trees can be found here.

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7th January situation

Our bin teams have now completed the catch up both of domestic waste and recycling collections missed because of snow and ice over the festive period.

We are aware that in some northern areas of the district – including small parts of Tideswell and Litton –  a few properties expecting the recycling catch-up have been missed as we reached capacity on the collection truck.

A double recycling collection will now happen in these areas on Monday and our advice, with high winds forecast, is to take your recycling bags/bins inside or take measures to protect them from the elements.  For Monday’s collection, you can leave extra recycling in untied plastic bags (not black bin bags please) or suitable plastic containers (please separate paper and cardboard from other recycling materials, ideally bundled up or in boxes).

Our apologies again for any inconvenience.

We explained in yesterday’s email update that excessive amounts of domestic waste are slowing down scheduled collections and this was the case again today. If we missed your usual Wednesday collection, we’ll be back tomorrow.

We’ve had plenty of messages from residents about the catch-up – both complimentary and not-so-complimentary – but we do want to thank you for your patience and understanding.

A common complaint is that we should have gritted roads better to enable bin collections to take place after the snowfall. Please note however that the District Council isn’t responsible for gritting roads. That’s the difficult task of Derbyshire County Council – we are two separate organisations.

Thanks again – and please check your 2015 waste and recycling collections timetable via our postcode search.

* If you still have a lot of post-Christmas waste to dispose of, please use local household waste recycling centres if you can.

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Hi, I remember there was a survey of interest in the Vodaphone Rural Open Sure Signal. Was there enough interest to follow it through, and who is doing so? Is it something the Parish Council is involved in?
How do,we find out more? We are hoping to “go smart” after Christmas, and are wondering which network will be best.
Many thanks, David C

added 9pm same day:Our poll here at parwich.org indicated support for this Vodafone scheme. Although we had passed the deadline, Vodafone indicated they would still consider our participation in this scheme, and a possible location for the equipment was identified. However no local champion was identified at that point. This information was passed to the Parish Council (unfortunately only a short time before their November meeting); so far we have not had any response.

Peter T

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Can anyone recommend a good reliable local professional removal firm, used to narrow lanes and local conditions? We are hoping to move soon after New Year – about 400 yards to another Parwich address… so no long distance involved but plenty of manoeuvring delicate and or heavy stuff round awkward corners and up and down stairs!

We have heard one or two horror stories so are anxious to avoid another!

Thank you. Please leave a message on the blog, or ring us on 519

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Do you have a great idea for helping to reduce waste in your community or business?

If so, Derbyshire County Council want to hear from you.

We want to help local groups and businesses bid for a share of £800,000 from Government to help set up innovative projects to prevent materials going to waste.

Grants of up to £25,000 could be made available through the Waste Prevention Fund for projects which help reduce wastes such as food, textiles, paper and board, plastics, electronic and electrical equipment, furniture, building and demolition waste and healthcare and chemical waste.

To qualify for funding, projects will need to be new and not yet tried elsewhere. This could involve developing new services, or new products to deliver existing services in a different way.

We would decide which bids to take forward and would work in partnership with the relevant groups or businesses to bid for funding and − if successful − help to deliver the projects.

Councillor Dean Collins, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Infrastructure, said:

“Derbyshire is a hive of business innovation and we want to focus some of that original thinking to look for new ways of helping residents and businesses to reduce waste.

“We are facing difficult financial times and need to cut our budget by £157 million by 2018. Sending waste to landfill costs the us £19 million a year which could be better spent on other services.

“Cash is available for projects which can help reduce waste, working in partnership with us. So if you’ve got an idea, call us on 01629 539776 or 01629 539787, email wastemanagement@derbyshire.gov.uk or find out more at derbyshire.gov.uk/dwpf.”

Proposals would need to be agreed with us by 16 January 2015 and bids submitted to Government by 6 February 2015. Grants need to be spent by 31 December 2015.

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With people having options other than BT as a call provider it can sometimes be quite difficult to find the number of the person you want to contact in the village. I have been thinking for sometime about creating a Parwich Telephone Directory, not to be shared on parwich.org but for individuals to have as a hard copy. Does anyone else think this would be useful? I am looking for a winter project…………………………..!!

Fiona H

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