MEND THE GAP
BRIDGE TO BE RAISED TO STOP STUCK TRUCKS Notorious crossing is most bashed in Scotland
THE most frequently hit bridge in Scotland is to be raised to prevent it being damaged by high-sided vehicles.
Bellside Bridge in Cleland, near Motherwell, is regularly struck by lorries, causing traffic chaos and train cancellations.
North Lanarkshire Council and Network Rail are to set replace the bridge deck to raise the height and prevent collisions caused by drivers.
The railway crossing, on the A73, is also the seventh most struck bridge in the UK.
When a vehicle strikes the bridge, the road and rail line closes for inspection and traffic is diverted through the village.
Nicole Paterson, NLC’s head of environmental assets, said: “We have been working with
Network Rail for some time to identify how to remove the height restriction at Bellside Bridge, so it is excellent news that a solution has been found.”
Work is to be carried out to replace the existing bridge deck with a thinner one, which will provide more headroom under the bridge. This will remove its classification as a low bridge and the need for a signed diversion route through Cleland for high-side vehicles.
Network Rail structures asset manager Stewart Lothian said: “This bridge has been struck 56 times in the last decade, causing 3000 minutes of delay to trains.
“We are pleased to have been able to work with North Lanarkshire Council to find a long-term solution.” The work is planned for October and will be funded by the council and Network Rail but the A73 will have to be closed for it. Cleland councillor Louise Roarty said: “I am delighted the railway bridge is finally being raised.”
IF THE Meghan and Harry interview has shaken the House of Windsor to the core, then they have done the nation a service.
For republicans, it is satisfying to see this scorned blue blood exorcising his rage by admitting the ugly truth of the royal sham.
Let’s be honest, Harry is primarily angry about being cut off financially, and losing the titles and medals he did nothing to earn.
The couple want the privileged but unfettered lives enjoyed by other fatuous junior royals but Daddy cut them off, leaving them to scrape by on a mere £20million pot of Harry’s inheritance and Meghan’s Hollywood earnings.
Heaven forfend, the palace suggested his poor wife continue to act because there wasn’t enough public money to keep her.
Pleading “poverty” as they sat in a sun-soaked billionaire’s paradise, felt nauseating given the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed an additional 115million people into extreme deprivation across the world.
You can strip the boy of his titles but you can’t take the entitlement out of the boy.
The allegations of racism are appalling but are far from shocking, given this monarchy’s power and wealth are the ill-gotten gains of colonialism, slavery, sectarianism, thuggery and theft.
Harry said his wife could have been an invaluable asset to the Queen in the Commonwealth given the vast majority of its population is black.
The Commonwealth was built on a legacy of white supremacism, so far from wanting to be its ambassadors, Meghan and Harry should be demanding that it is dismantled.
Throughout her reign, the Queen railed against nations’ fight for independence from an empire which beat its subjects into submission in colonial dictatorships.
In 1952, the Queen stood in Nairobi and made a speech calling it a once “savage place” until the colonists arrived and turned it to a “vibrant city”.
This racism, endemic in the elite circles of the aristocracy and royalty, hasn’t disappeared, it’s now just camouflaged and whispered in the corners of palatial drawing rooms.
That’s why it took until 2018 for a black person to feature in a Royal Family portrait.
Meghan has been subjected to a racist bias in the media but the tabloids are not exclusively guilty.
The BBC and the broadsheets have been whitewashing “slitty eyed”, racist “gaffes” from Prince Philip for decades, as well as the family’s Nazi connections and institutionalised anti-Semitism.
The royals have an inglorious ancestry of monarchs guilty of murder, ethnic cleansing, warmongering and fascism.
Today’s royals are like descendents of mobsters. Their net assets of £1billion might be clean now but they come from a flow of dirty money.
Harry was livid when the palace said it would no longer offer up security from the public purse, because, after all, he didn’t ask to be born a prince.
Yet he was keen to exploit his heritage – which is the only reason the couple now are raking in millions of pounds worth of contracts from Netflix.
As it was refreshing to hear Harry admit, the royal institution survives on perception and, hands down, it is the greatest con trick going.
The institution is a repository of the same corrupt and outmoded class system, which inhibits meritocracy and keeps the public schoolboys in charge.
And without the secrecy and mystique, how else could the taxpayer could be duped into handing them millions in sovereign grants in return for some ribbon-cutting and a line in tourist tack?
Harry has helped pull back the curtain, and although there will always be fundamentalist devotees, perhaps others across the world will start to see the monarchy for the illusion it is.
At this time, when a nation of businesses have been pushed to their knees, it has never been more obvious that we need to pull down the shutters on the shame which is the royal firm.
LOOSE Women star Stacey Solomon has been poached by the BBC to front her own lifestyle and home improvement series.
The mum of three will help inspire viewers to spring clean when she takes six families on a week-long mission to declutter their homes on new programme Sort Your Life Out.
Stacey, 31, has four million social media followers largely thanks to the household tips and upcycling hacks she posts on Instagram.
Stacey, whose ideas are featured in the book Tap to Tidy, is on a onewoman mission to dejunk the nation one unkempt drawer and cupboard at a time.
Here we take a look at 10 of Stacey’s top tips on how to put your home and your life back in order…
1 Cake stand on a lazy Susan in cupboard for tins
Stacey came up with this homemade stacking
ALL CLEAR Boxes prevent cooler chaos
JAR WARS contraption so she could see all the tins in her corner cupboard. Being able to spin the tins round makes refilling and restocking easier.
2 Attaching packs of crisps and snacks using clips on rails
Stacey installed a tension rail in a cupboard and added the hooks and clips so her children could choose a snack without having to rummage in a drawer. Sales of hooks and clips at John Lewis went through the roof after she released this tip on Instagram.
3 Sponges and flannels on clips on a rail under the sink
Nobody likes having to dig through the airing cupboard for a flannel so having them neatly strung up under the sink means they are always at arms’ reach especially at kids’ bathtimes. Stacey’s motto is if you can hang it, get it hung.
4 Rolled-up jeans in a drawer
Stacey was sick of fiancé Joe Swash stuffing his jeans in the drawer in a tangled mess. By
rolling each pair up, you can see what is there and pull them on instead of rummaging through a creased pile.
5 Magnets inside cupboard doors for metal utensils
Utensils lying about or stuck in jars on work surfaces can give the kitchen an unkempt look so by gluing magnets to the inside of a cupboard door and attaching metal knives, fish slices and mashers, order is restored.
6 Peg board in cupboard to store video game controllers
Stacey hates seeing gaming paraphernalia tossed in a drawer so she attached a peg board to the inside of a cupboard, added hooks and hung up the controllers in neat rows. With three boys and a game-loving partner, Stacey was determined to make over the messy games room.
7 Glueing clips inside drawers to tidy plugs and wires
Unruly wires, cables, adapters and phone chargers were the bane of Stacey’s life until she glued a set of plastic clips into a drawer and arranged the accessories into rows.
8 Labelled clear jars for everything
From dog food and bin bags to tea and coffee, Stacey stores everything in her pantry and fridge in labelled glass jars. She even chops up her food for each day of the week and puts it in labelled storage boxes to save time while cooking during the week.
9 Hanging shoes
Repulsed by shoes gathering dust in a heap at the bottom of her wardrobe, Stacey installed tension rails and attached all her footwear with hooks and clips, making choosing a pair to match one of her many outfits an easy task.
10 Jewellery organised in plastic dividers
All the drawers in Stacey’s house have plastic organisers inside, so she can group her jewellery, stationery and other bits and pieces together in an orderly fashion.