Review of the Year 2022 December: The World Cup, cold weather, a persistent bug and skyscrapers in Portsmouth

In the context of sky-high home energy bills, many people had feared the onset of the cold weather. November had been relatively mild, but the Arctic blast that set in halfway through this month left us all shivering. It led to beautiful sunrises and sunsets, as the skies stayed clear, but the cold was unrelenting, often not rising above 1C all day outside towns and cities.

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It made the sun-dappled World Cup in Qatar seem even more distant. Unlike other World Cups, there was no obvious outbreak of support – flags on cars, for example, were conspicuous by their absence, and Christmas decorations took precedence over the flag of St George. But pubs saw decent crowds, especially for the knock-out games against Senegal and France.

Away from that the other main topic of conversation all month wasn’t the news agenda – it was the flu-cold bug that ripped through the population. By Christmas it seemed that everyone was either ill or getting over it, and that hardly anyone had been spared.

This bug, sadly, was the everyday manifestation of the pressures on the health service. A critical incident was declared at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham on Tuesday, December 20, and then later that day the alert was extended to many health services in Hampshire, including South Central Ambulance Service. A ‘critical incident’ in health terms means that an organisation cannot safely cope with the number of patients and pressure it is under – QA has declared quite a few of these over the last 18 months and sadly had to declare another on Thursday, December 29, asking friends and relatives to take patients home from hospital as soon as possible after they were declared safe to discharge in a bid to free up beds.

We also saw some perennial issues hit the headlines. Southern Water was mocked at the beginning of the month after announcing that 13 of the beaches in Hampshire had been rated as ‘excellent’ for bathing water quality – news to those who had dodged sewage and risked brown sludge while swimming or paddleboarding. The water company’s boast was given short shrift by those The News spoke to.

A more heartwarming tale came from Tangier Road Butchers. Having previously made the front page for the disappointment of having to close because fuel bills were becoming just too expensive the meet, Paul Cripps found that he made a splash for a second time with much better news – Portsmouth-born television star Ant Middleton said he would find the cash to keep the butcher’s shop afloat, having read the original story in The News.

Ant told The News: ‘There’s a great sense of community in Portsmouth – it’s one of the last cities with a real sense of community. ‘I am a Portsmouth boy through and through, and it’s good to give back.’

Politically, an announcement made in the early part of the month raised some interested in Portsmouth and surrounding areas. Levelling Up Secretary Michel Gove said that housing targets would be a ‘starting point’ for development rather than a hard and fast threshold to meet. Portsmouth councillors have regularly said that the current figure of building 17,700 homes over the next 15 years is next to impossible. While welcoming the principle, council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson said more detail was needed.

‘This could give us some extra flexibility but whenever I hear an announcement from Michael Gove I am a bit sceptical because from past experience there’s often a difference between what is said and what comes through in legislation,’ he said.

December 7 saw shocking pictures after a house collapsed in Langford Road in Portsmouth. Neighbours reported hearing ‘cracking noises’ before an enormous crash, and most of the street was evacuated for the day. A gas explosion was ruled out as the cause.

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December also saw the unveiling of plans to build a ‘skyscraper’ in Portsmouth on the site of the former city centre Debenhams. The 38-storey building would be the tallest in the city. Later in the month more high-rise plans were revealed for the old Royal Mail sorting office round the corner in Slindon Street, this one for a 19-storey development.

And on a lighter note, a guide dog made King Charles III laugh when she ‘kissed’ his hand during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle. Stamp was with her owner Ben Good, who was made an MBE for supporting visually impaired people.