Great Western Coffee Shop

Closures, Cancellations, Delays ... all make the headlines.   Services that operate as normal or near-normal miss out from the news.  And the net result is a media picture being painted that's suggesting that a great wedge of the UK westwards from London is closed.    That's far from the case ...

From Melksham in Wiltshire, I bring you the news we are open for business!

And I'm posting this "Across the West" because I suspect the same story would be told to you in Salisbury, in Bath, in Gloucester, in Newport, in Swindon, in Basinstoke, in Avonmouth, in Weston-super-Mare and in Bristol. Advise that blankets the message "Don't travel unless you have to" from national organisations may well reduce the pressure on them to get people around in difficult circumstances and may make their lives easier, but it can also put people off and have a serious impact on businesses and towns that are NOT flooded out, are NOT cut off, and could really do without official advise that's overdramatic for their particular case.

So - what do I suggest?    A more measured approach that says allow extra time / don't travel at the height of the peak / accept that your journey may take longer / perhaps stay overnight rather than commuting ... but, please, don't cancel your plans to visit Wiltshire because of pictures you see of a village further west on the Somerset levels.

Here's what I've put up on Facebook - a local reminder that, windy though it is outside, we're not a disaster zone!

https://www.facebook.com/TransWilts/posts/475698312530216

"Keep calm and carry on" should be the message!  :)

I'm afraid you'll need to remove Gloucester from your list, Graham. As of half an hour ago, police are advising not to travel

http://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/11013800.Gloucestershire_Police_warn_drivers_not_to_travel_unless_necessary/

The Wilts & Glos Standard may have published it this morning, but the text of the statement clearly refers to last night's winds.  The winds here in N Wiltshire are nothing like as severe today so I guess its the same in nearby Gloucestershire.

Blimey ellendune, rather you than me having the temerity to suggest anything a published by a Gloucestershire journal should be anything less than 101% fact!

I'm afraid I'm going to include the police in my suggestion of a measured response, Phil.   They may not be quite so prone to over-react and shut things down as others (and they do have instant decisions to make which much be hard), but they still do over-react.

The Melksham Carnival crosses the main road between our business and the town centre as it wends its way through the smaller streets.   Outside 'our place' the road remains open - or it should.  However, an hour prior to last summer's carnival an extra section of the road was shut on 'police authority', cutting off several businesses ... and it took major standing of ground and the combined effort of a number of us to get the road re-opened. Businesses were again trading as normal even before the parade came by and the whole closure of our road section was shown to have been utterly pointless.  Alas, neither an isolated case, nor something that couldn't have been worked out ahead of time.

Factually correct, just out of date!

And yesterday evening I would have agreed with the police!