Friday, April 17, 2015

Sainsbury's give up, but developers don't

DON’T uncork the champagne or hang out the bunting just yet.
Yes, it is very good news that Sainsbury’s have pulled out of the scheme to build a supermarket-on-stilts on an unspoilt water meadow alongside Southampton Road.
But their change of heart wasn’t prompted by concern about our environment or the hundreds of public objections.
It was because of “significant changes in customer shopping habits”, i.e. profits have plummeted.
The would-be developers, Salisbury Gateway – don’t let the grandiose title fool you into thinking this is anything but a money-making exercise – are far from admitting defeat, however, and say they are already talking to other potential partners.
The site is not zoned for development under our core strategy. There are good reasons for that. They involve flooding, landscape value, wildlife, and traffic congestion.
Now the core strategy is being revisited.
Even before the wretched document was formally adopted in January – and it was sold to us on the basis that it would meet all our housing needs until 2026 – council planners had launched a search for more land for new estates. Coming soon, to a green field near you.
It’s no wonder developers push their luck all the time when officialdom keeps moving the goalposts.
Once a site has been ruled out for development, our diminishing band of public servants - whose salaries are paid by your taxes and mine - shouldn’t be required to spend their time in ‘pre-application talks’ with people who want to build on it.
All they should have to say is: “Look mate, read the strategy. This land is not up for development. Go somewhere else.”
But I’m told they have to follow “due process”, which dictates that they should also waste the time of all the highly-trained staff who are required to submit reports on planning applications – landscape officers, ecologists, traffic officers, the fire service, you name it ……
The would-be developers, meanwhile, who stand to make zillions, pay less than £34,000 by way of an application fee for a project of this size.
By the way, nobody much in this general election campaign seems to be talking about the environment.
It was a big issue last time round, but now it’s as if our political classes mostly concur with David Cameron’s view of “all this green crap” as just a passing fad.
Of course there are matters of more apparent urgency commanding public attention, such as the NHS, immigration and what Harold Wilson called “the pound in your pocket”.
But many people do care about wider issues, and if they don’t, they jolly soon will when the natural resources that we treat so wastefully start to run out.



This campaign calls for a Human Shrub

HE calls himself the Human Shrub, and the camouflaged campaigner wants his local council to turn over a new leaf.
In recent years his guerrilla gardening tactics have turned neglected municipal plots in Colchester, Essex, into wildlife-friendly green oases.
I reckon a visit from this eccentric eco-hero could be just what’s needed in Harnham.
Otherwise the lovely meadows on the corner of Britford Lane with their unspoilt views of our cathedral may soon be just a memory, an archive photo in the reference library, uprooted to make way for 100 ‘high quality’ homes.
The vast majority of people I’ve spoken to, and those who’ve commented on the Journal website, share my sadness at the prospect of this wanton destruction.
The land is what’s known as a ‘windfall site’ in council jargon, since it hadn’t previously been publicly earmarked for large-scale housing by the planners but just kind of fell into their hands like an overripe apple.
Well, development would certainly mean a massive windfall for the owners - the Longford Estate and St Nicholas Hospital - and for the builders, if not for the neighbours whose environment would be ruined.
Their new Facebook campaign, Save The Meadows, has sprouted 660-plus supporters, and a petition has been launched on change.org.
Many have pointed out that these fields are extremely boggy in the winter and the water has to go somewhere.
The developers argue that they are not officially part of our flood plain. But officialdom’s definition of flood plain so often seems at variance with the reality experienced by local people.
The proposed hotel and drive-thru next to Tesco spring to mind.
The meadows are not quite in the heart of Salisbury, if you choose to define our city purely in terms of historic buildings.
But they are a vital part of its green lung – the network of undeveloped sites which gives the place its character, its sense of space and scale, and its wild creatures a refuge.
While I’m on the subject, keen as the building industry is to persuade us otherwise, it needs to understand that you can’t just designate the odd acre of land here and there as a nature park and expect birds, bees and butterflies to thrive.
They need safe corridors through our urban jungle.
A couple of weeks ago I found a dead otter in Harnham. It had been run over.
We’ll be a lot less likely to see otters, dead or alive, if we lose the meadows.
Save them, don’t pave them.







Voters have the power to axe Wiltshire's crony cabinet

WELL, now we know what Wiltshire leader Jane Scott thinks of her minions in the south of the county.
They’re good enough as lobby fodder. They can be relied upon to vote the right way to force through her pet policies.
But cabinet responsibility? No way, they’re just not up to it.
Tribalism being what it is, none of our Conservative councillors has erupted in fury publicly following Mrs Scott’s less than diplomatic comment that promotion is based on “a number of factors” including “skills, experience and capacity”.
She doesn’t think they’ve got enough of those crucial qualities, or she’d have done the electorally popular thing and picked one of them when she chose to expand her inner circle in a mini-reshuffle.
But she knows they’ll stay schtum, however humiliated they feel, for the sake of the party and to keep any faint hope of future promotion alive.
Did you know, folks, it doesn’t have to be this way? Legally, I mean.
We don’t have to tolerate the absence of representation for the south of the county on the only decision- making body that counts.
Since the Localism Act of 2011 there has been no compulsion for local authorities to be run by a leader and cabinet.
Indeed, not far away in Bridport, Dorset, some people are campaigning for a referendum to do away with what they call “government by contempt” and to have a cross-party committee running the show instead.
If the Public First group can collect signatures from five per cent of the West Dorset district electorate, voters will have to be offered that choice.
There are several structural options that are possible if enough people want them, and I recommend the Local Government Association’s publication, Rethinking Governance, which you can find online, to anyone interested in finding out more.
In West Dorset, the district’s Conservative leaders failed to attend a public meeting called by the campaigners, though the local Tory MP, Oliver Letwin, did turn up and dutifully defended the status quo as “more efficient”.
It will be fascinating to see how this develops.
Some residents down there are so disillusioned that they’re starting to call for a unitary authority. Poor, deluded souls. They need saving from themselves.
Don’t do it, chaps! Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Learn from our experience and just don’t go there!

Parking limit puts paid to a lunch in the city centre

RECENTLY some people dropped in to visit my mother in her new home in Salisbury.
The three of them – one was a sprightly 87-year-old – intended to have lunch in the city centre beforehand, with a gentle stroll in the Close to stretch their legs.
They were breaking a long journey by coming here, and a park and ride bus didn’t figure on their list of options.
So, they told us, they looked up Mum’s address and headed for what seemed to be the most handily located car park. It was Salt Lane.
When they read the signs there, however, they realised that parking was limited to three hours. And given that most 87-year-old ladies’ sprinting days are well and truly behind them, they wouldn’t have time to do everything they wanted.
They decided not to have lunch in Salisbury after all.
They got back into their car, drove out into the countryside, and came across the Wheatsheaf at Woodford, where they had a lovely meal.
Then they drove back to Salt Lane and paid for three hours so that they had time for a nice catch-up with us without rushing.
Who was the loser in all this? You might think it was Wiltshire Council, because if these visitors had been offered the facility to pay for four or five hours instead of three, they would have done.
Indeed, if they’d asked me before setting out, I’d have directed them to the privately-run New Street multi-storey, where they could have stayed as long as they liked, with no risk of encountering a ticket-wielding warden.
But they didn’t know it would be necessary.
More to the point was what our visitors didn't buy - a meal for three in the city centre.
There’s nothing wrong with the Wheatsheaf - as it happens, it's one of Mum's favourites - so we agreed that next time they were passing through we'd meet them there, which would make things easier for them.
That's another meal - this time for five people - that won't be bought from a business in the city centre.
I remember from my reporting days hoteliers complaining about the damaging effect of the short-stay limit on their trade, particularly when guests were coming here for business meetings, maybe over a meal. It’s simply too short.
This is the result of what passes for a parking strategy under Wiltshire Council.
If I ran a restaurant in Salisbury I'd be joining forces with all my competitors to campaign for common sense on this issue, and asking my customers to sign a petition in support.
I’d ask all our local councillors to sign up too. Unless they think the city can afford to simply throw away custom?


No escape from reality, but it needn't all be grim



WHEN I read that someone wanted to open an escape room in Salisbury I thought “What an inspired idea.”
Naturally, I’d got the wrong end of the stick.
I imagined it would be like a retreat – a place where middle-aged women like me who have perfectly comfortable lives but are prone to grumpy fits and get easily stressed for no good reason could escape for a few hours’ luxurious R&R.
A world full of loveliness and yoga and floaty white costumes where everybody’s nice to everybody else and the sun’s always be shining and we lounge around elegantly in the shade of a cool fountained courtyard surrounded by exotic blooms and sip Earl Grey from bone china cups and just smile beatifically. You know the kind of thing. You see it in adverts. Dreamland, I believe it’s called.
As opposed to same-old Salisbury on a very grey  afternoon, which is when I’m writing this.
That’s the trouble with escaping, of course. When you’ve finished, the real world’s still there and it’s got to be dealt with.
Not that reality is without its lighter moments.
The turf war that appears to have erupted within the Church of England provided one of those recently.
With an honorary assistant bishop from Winchester reported to have crossed the border into our Diocese to commission a new church, and a miffed Bishop of Salisbury “seeking clarification” of the breach of protocol, it all sounds tremendously exciting.
The establishment in Salisbury seem to think we’ve got quite enough Anglican churches already, thank you very much, while at the upstart Christ Church, the Rector begs to disagree, telling the Church Times there’s “lots of room for Christ’s Kingdom to grow” and he hopes there’ll be more new churches to come.
Hee hee! Unholy joy! This one could run and run.
But anyway, back where I started, I’d completely misunderstood what escape rooms are about. Apparently they’re a big hit worldwide, and what we’re going to have is four ex-detectives running a venue where teams of adults immerse themselves in solving clues and riddles, working against the clock to free themselves from a locked room.
Sounds like fun – I’d certainly give it a go - and it could be a great new attraction for the city. Maybe some of our guest houses and hotels could join forces with the organisers to offer package deals, encouraging visitors to spend more time and money here. Good luck, guys.












'Mission creep' makes it hard to keep costs down

BY the time you read this, Wiltshire Council will have set its budget for the coming year.
Among what it calls ‘strategic savings’ are cuts in grants to the arts and to charities such as the Burnbake Trust, and a review of bus subsidies - which we’ve always been told are funded out of parking charges, so where will that money go instead?
Then there’s the closure of the school music service which, the council blithely assures us, “won’t affect children”. Tell that to the teachers.
Plus, of course, we’re going to be charged for garden waste collections – though I suspect a lot of people will not pay, and will either fly-tip, light bonfires, or drive to the dump (reduced opening hours!) more often, so that eventually the collection service will become uneconomic to run and will then be axed due to ‘lack of demand’.
There’s no denying that the government is making life tough for local authorities, even tame Tory ones, and that difficult decisions have to be made. Compared with some places, we’re getting off comparatively lightly.
But rather than getting rid of, or making life impossible for, people who are actually doing useful things, why don’t our leaders start by examining whether their increased public health promotion role actually achieves anything?
A few weeks ago I highlighted the utter pointlessness of Wiltshire’s deputy leader John Thomson issuing a press release urging drivers to slow down in bad weather. I’m not sure whether any newspaper bothered to print it.
Now we’re being consulted (didn’t you know?) about a countywide Alcohol Strategy which, among other things, aims to “promote a sensible drinking culture”.
Praiseworthy, but is it likely to put even one bunch of lads off their Friday night Jagerbombs or deter a single middle-class couple from polishing off that bottle of Merlot in the comfort of their own living room? I sincerely think not.
The council has an important role to play as the licensing authority, but this public health stuff strikes me as a kind of ‘mission creep’ where there’s always scope and justification for another well-intentioned initiative, however costly and however futile.

Monday, March 9, 2015

On St Valentine's Day I lost my heart ... to a tree

THERE was a children’s book I treasured for years after it was outgrown.
I can’t remember its name. But I can still see in my mind’s eye its wonderful pictures of trees with knotty, gnarly old faces, a bit like the Ents in Tolkien, or those magical forests in a 1950s Rupert Bear annual.
The tree in this picture conjures them all up so vividly.
It looks as though it belongs in a fairy tale, in an enchanted wood, where it might suddenly start waving its branches about and dispensing sage advice to lost children.
It came in a job lot from Netherhampton auction room. I’d actually taken a fancy to a print of the Pyramids, but on closer inspection this one grew on me.
On the back was an inscription by “landscape artist in watercolour Eric Jennings” and a label revealing that he lived at St Gregory’s Avenue, Salisbury.
He called the picture “Chestnut & Pine”, dated it November, 1981, and added a helpful note: “These two trees are on the East bank of the woodland walk which proceeds South from the end of Mallard Road, Bournemouth.”
“Oooh,” I thought, as one might, “I must go and see if they’re still there.” That was six or seven years ago.
And this weekend, on St Valentine’s Day, my beloved and I finally set out on this romantic mini-quest.
“Don’t bother with flowers or chocolates or cards,” I told him, at which he looked mildly surprised but also pleased, because I know that although he faithfully produces these goodies every year he thinks it’s all become a meaningless marketing opportunity.
“Just let’s spend some time together, maybe have lunch out, go for a walk. I know, why don’t we see if we can find that tree?”
And he agreed. Not even a long-suffering sigh.
I didn’t really think it would still be there. But reader, it was. In a narrow strip of old woodland that had miraculously survived between a playing field, a graveyard and a rather scruffy housing estate, close to the twin monstrosities of the Castlepoint Shopping Park and the Mallard Road Retail Park.
It was easy – and surprisingly emotional – to spot it there, leaning on its companion as if with a protective arm around it.

I’d always imagined that it would be in a leafy walk down to the sea through one of the swisher parts of town. I wonder what attracted Mr Jennings to that undistinguished spot?
Anyway, there we were, photographing away when a woman walking her dog stopped to say: “D’you know, I’ve always meant to sketch that tree? Isn’t it lovely?” Now I’m definitely going to do it.”
I’ve since discovered online that there is a series of pictures by an Eric Jennings, known as the Francis Asbury Watercolours, belonging to Salisbury Methodist Church.
I guess it must be the same man. If you know anything else about him, I’d love to hear it.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Is it me , or is life really getting more difficult

MY husband’s car is silver. Allegedly.
In fact, the people who draw up those Dulux paint charts would probably describe it more accurately as silver with a hint of brown – a large hint of brown, due to the mud it seems to amass everywhere we go.
Now I don’t object to silver – well you couldn’t really, could you? What’s not to like? Its inoffensiveness may be what makes it so popular. It’s certainly the predominant colour on the roads these days, but that does present a problem.
When I drove to the flea market at Shepton Mallet a couple of weeks ago the whole car park - and there were thousands of cars on that featureless field - was basically a sea of silver.
And trying to find one silver Skoda among row after row of same-coloured vehicles is not easy.
Now I know what some people will say, as if stating the bleeding obvious: Why don’t you locate a landmark? Well, the fact that we were by a bend in the track wasn’t entirely satisfactory because that still left dozens of silver cars to work through with a brain reeling from post-shopping-spree syndrome.
You can’t even think to yourself ‘I know, I’m near the third yellow car on the left’ – which is what I did, stupidly – because by the time I came back laden with purchases the yellow car had been driven off.
I think I’m just out of kilter with the world these days. And here’s another example.
I prided myself on how cool I was, spotting the potential of the now massively trendy singer Hozier months ago and booking tickets to go and see him in Shepherd’s Bush. He was absolutely brilliant, too.
We were up in the gods in the cheap seats but they were so uncomfortable – just hard terraced steps really, covered with chewing gum and ominous, unidentifiable stains – that I’ve had backache for days.
(It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that the M3 and M4 were both closed on the way back and we had a marathon drive via Guildford.)
Plus, I couldn’t believe how many people simply sat and stared at their mobile phones the whole time the two support acts were on.
Close by me were two women who spent that couple of hours chattering loudly, or shrieking with laughter, and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the poor people trying to entertain them.
They only shut up when the star turn came on, and then they started waving their arms about in some weird dance that was embarrassing to be near.
I was quite cross with them for their lack of courtesy, but being British, sat and seethed quietly.
And I realised that modern manners ain’t the same as what I think of as good manners.
So I’m not, in fact, as cool and young-for-my-age as I thought. But at least I’m polite.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Amid the winter snow, a foretaste of summer fun for Salisbury

DON’T you love that silence that descends along with snow?
I’m reluctant to step outside my front door right now, not just because it’s cold, but because it seems such a shame to sully that pristine whiteness with footprints.
It’s Tuesday morning, rush hour has come and gone, and cars remain parked in their driveways in our little suburban road. They look like someone has gently laid a blanket over them and tucked them up for the night.
If only someone had told the puppy to stay tucked up, too, I wouldn’t feel quite as dozy as I do.
But she poked me with her cold little nose at 4am to wake me up, wanting to pop outside, only to stand transfixed in the doorway at the transformed scene before her.
Although it was still dark, the cathedral and the fields seemed bathed in an uncanny, almost yellow reflected light.
Then she rushed into the garden to tear round madly in circles just for the joy of it, pushing her nose into the snow and tossing it up into the air.
I didn’t have the heart to be grumpy, standing there yawning in the freezing cold in my dressing gown and bare feet.
She was doing what we should all be doing if we weren’t too busy half the time - looking for the fun in life and making the most of it. Especially when it’s free!
Summer might seem a long way off right now, but there’ll be fun aplenty come the May Bank Holiday weekend, when Salisbury will be getting into the Notting Hill carnival spirit with the first Fisherton Festival.
Reggae and samba bands, street entertainers, stand-up comedy, a Chinese dragon, and stalls manned by traders in national dress celebrating all the cultures that make up city life – it should be a great addition to Salisbury’s social calendar and give all the independent shopkeepers in Fisherton Street a welcome boost.
I’m glad to see that even in these straitened times our councillors and the BID can see the sense in stumping up relatively modest sums to get the project off the ground, and I hope local businesses will follow their lead by offering sponsorship.


My suggestion last week that Salisbury might benefit from having a Sunday flea market seems to have hit the spot.
Several readers emailed me to say they love the idea, and one sent a link with information about a venture that is already proving a huge success not far away, in Frome.
For those of you who are interested, here it is: www.thefromeindependent.org.uk. Here’s hoping this is read by someone with the power to make it happen.





















Thursday, January 29, 2015

Wouldn't it be fun to have a flea market in Salisbury?

ON Sunday I took the puppy to a flea market. Luckily she didn’t come back with any.
Go on, groan if you feel like it, I know it’s a terrible joke but I couldn’t help myself.
My future daughter-in-law and I are in search of retro wedding decorations, and the tremendous array of stalls on the Bath & West showground at Shepton Mallet proved to be a very happy hunting ground.
I wouldn’t normally take a dog into the middle of such an enormous gathering – there were thousands and thousands of browsers, and just watching them carting their weird and wonderful purchases around was entertaining enough – but no-one was free to look after her at home all morning.
Apart from nearly pulling my arms out of their sockets as she tried to make friends with anyone and everyone, she coped very well.
As did my husband when he got home just after us, reacting with commendable calm to the delivery of two French barn doors, in a state of romantic decay, in the back of a large van half an hour later.
I hadn’t told him what I’d bought (I thought they could be a decorative garden feature, like the ones you see in all those impossibly perfect lifestyle magazine photo-shoots), but made him wait for the surprise.
The surprise being that they had nothing to do with what we’d gone out looking for, I just fell in love with them.
With a slightly world-weary air, but no audible grumbling, he stacked them in the garage to await further attention.
The guy who sold me them was a fascinating character. He lives in France and buys his stock there, but has a business unit in Kent.
He has a collection of 22 cars and more than 800 teddy bears.
He also has a home in Goa, and cooks authentic curries on a little burner in the back of his van when he’s at markets and fairs. What a great life.
Anyway, I hear you ask, what’s the point of this story?
Well, I was wondering whether we could have a flea market in Salisbury.
The city council wants, quite rightly, to make greater use of our expensively revamped Market Place, and has been advertising for extra staff to help make it possible.
The occasional vintage markets are pretty and popular, but I’m visualising something on a larger scale, maybe every couple of months, occupying the whole of the Guildhall and market squares, with dealers offering furniture, kitchenalia, vintage clothing, architectural antiques, old books, you name it ….
More upmarket than a car boot, but still a place where you never know what treasures you’ll find.
It could even have an indoor section for delicate stuff, in the Guildhall.
Judging by the crowds I saw at the weekend it would be a massive attraction.
Just the thing to fill that wide, empty space on an otherwise quiet Sunday.



Friday, January 23, 2015

Let's go to the drive-thru on the park and ride bus!

MAYBE I should take up a new career as the patron saint of lost causes.
During the lifetime of my Salisbury Journal column I’ve championed quite a few of them.
I fear that the next addition to the list will be the battle to save Old Sarum airfield from being reduced to a ‘heritage attraction’ marooned amid a sea of new housing estates.
But coming up fast on the outside is the plan for a drive-through McDonald’s and 65-bedroom Premier Inn on the little plot of wild land between Tesco and Southampton Road.
This scheme has resurfaced (apt phrase, given that the land floods every year!) and I love it that McDonald’s has submitted a Travel Plan which begins: “If we can all modify our travel habits, even slightly, we can start to make a difference.” This for a drive-through (sorry, ‘drive-thru’, I tend to forget we’re all part of the American empire now) restaurant!!
But of course the plan is only intended to show how staff will be encouraged to car-share, cycle, walk or use buses.
What about the stream of extra traffic this development is likely to attract to the most clogged-up pinch point of the city’s overloaded road system?
In fact, at one point the supporting paperwork suggests that the development will “reinforce the park and ride location and will support its use” thereby “reducing congestion on the A36”. Oh yes, let’s go to the ‘drive-thru’ on the bus!
Sadly, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that this type of development on the site is unacceptable in principle to our planners. Eventually, I am sure, it will happen – or something like it will.
So while it may sound dull, it’s great news in fact, that the Wiltshire Core Strategy was finally approved and adopted on Tuesday.
It means that after much horse-trading, Wiltshire Council has convinced Whitehall it has allocated enough space for all the new homes and businesses it is required by officialdom to accommodate.
Whilst it’s a very far from perfect document which dictates that in a decade’s time our city will have doubled in size whether we like it or not (maybe it will be big enough to merit a unitary authority of its own?) it will make it much easier for council planners to turn down speculative planning applications on unsuitable sites.
In the meantime, what a ‘gateway’ to southern Salisbury we are likely to have. Golden arches and – who knows? - a supermarket on stilts. Very classy!

P.S. Irritating things. Why do comedians, at the end of their routine, say things like “I’ve been Dara O’Briain, thanks for listening”?
Do they imagine the audience don't know who they've come to see?









Thursday, January 15, 2015

Airfield protesters need an old-fashioned hero like Biggles

SOME of my old Biggles books turned up in the attic while I was searching for the Christmas decorations.
How I thrilled to the adventures of the World War One flying ace, passed down by my father’s cousin, when I was a child. The illustrations looked dated even then.
Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter was one I loved. Biggles of the Camel Squadron was another. Whilst checking online that I recalled the titles correctly, I was amazed to see you can still buy a box set.
Well, if the fictional hero’s creator, Captain WE Johns, could see what’s been happening at Old Sarum, at the very time we’ve been paying national tribute to the heroics of his generation, he wouldn’t just be turning in his grave, he’d be looping the loop.
In the next few weeks an application will land on a planner’s desk to build 470 homes around the edges of our historic airfield, which is a conservation area because it is a unique relic of those glory days.
Opposition has been growing, not only to the principle of development on parts of this site, but to the sheer scale of it.
There’s a Facebook group, called Save Old Sarum, with almost 800 members, and an online petition is taking off at change.org. with nearly 700 signatures.
Laverstock and Ford parish council says a conservation area management plan should be in place before any application is approved.
The Wiltshire core strategy says that, too. It talks about development only being allowed if it ‘enhances the historic environment’, ‘protects the amenity of existing residents’ and ‘retains and safeguards flying’.
Residents of Ford certainly don’t feel their amenity is being protected. They are extremely unhappy about the threat to the rural character of their settlement.
The operators argue that development money is needed to sustain the future of flying at the airfield. I haven’t seen a figure put on it.
But the volume of building they are talking about will do far more than keep a dwindling band of weekend pilots (facing stricter controls to minimise noise) airborne. It will make some people exceedingly rich.
And what if Wiltshire Council, in accordance with its own policy, insists that 40 per cent of the new homes are affordable?
If the occupants of social housing have no choice about where they live, how long before they complain about aircraft nuisance?
All three of the main parties’ general election candidates are now taking an active interest in this proposal at the behest of the residents.
My fear is that if this becomes seen as a party political issue it will go to the strategic rather than the southern planning committee, where councillors will divide along tribal lines, a Tory majority from outside the area will nod it through, and the rights and wrongs of this highly contentious issue will never be properly considered.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

What would be worth paying more council tax for?


WE’RE being softened up for a rise in council tax along with more service cuts.
Wiltshire’s cabinet member for finance, Dick Tonge, warned in last week’s Journal that even if Trowbridge imposes compulsory redundancies, we’re likely to have to cough up more.
I’ll be watching with unholy glee as the council’s hapless communications staff try to put a positive spin on this one.
They are usually required to adopt a ‘first, the good news, then the bad news’ approach, burying details of cuts or failed inspections and other disasters in the tenth paragraph of a press release in the hope that we won’t notice.
They are a great bunch, but the endless stream of inanity that they are ordered to spew forth is one aspect of the council’s spending programme that’s well overdue for a review.
Here’s one recent prime example from my inbox:
“Drivers are being urged to keep safe on the roads this winter by slowing down and following precautions for the cold weather conditions.
“John Thomson, cabinet member for highways, said: “While it is tempting for us to try and get to our destinations as quickly as possible, when conditions are bad there is nothing that cannot wait a few more minutes.”
Ask yourself: Do we really need to be paying for the production of this patronising drivel? Does anyone honestly believe that it will have saved even one life? Has Mr Thomson nothing better to do?
It reminds me of the spendthrift days when some authorities, in particular inner-city ones, employed ‘five a day officers’, on salaries well above the national average, to exhort us to eat more fruit and veg.
Interestingly, there’s one thing that people wouldn’t mind paying a bit more council tax for, and that’s free car parks. Well, free at the point of use, at least, like our health service.
There was strong support for the idea at the recent public meeting about parking charges organised by our area board.
And just think of the administrative savings…



ON a completely unrelated subject, I take my hat off to our cathedral’s clerk of works, Gary Price, after seeing the frankly terrifying photos of him dangling from the top of the spire in last week’s papers.
Heights don’t worry me unduly, but I’d need a substantial platform under my feet before I’d be able to enjoy the breathtaking views from up there.
I chatted with Gary a couple of times in the summer, when he was keeping a protective eye on the peregrine falcons’ nest at the top of the tower, and I was struck by his enthusiasm.
His job is clearly a lot more fun than its title might suggest.

















Sunday, January 4, 2015

An open and shut case for our police and crime commissioner


WELL, I never! If only successive governments over the years had realised there’s a way to cut crime figures at a stroke.
How? Simples! Just shut the police station.
How proud we should be that the Wiltshire force is leading by example, with 40 per cent fewer arrests in the Salisbury area between July and October.
I understand Inspector Dave Minty’s explanation that three-quarters of this fall is accounted for by the loss of the local nick where most arrests used to take place.
So presumably there’s a corresponding increase in arrests at Melksham, or wherever our ne’er-do-wells are taken to be interviewed nowadays, and where they answer bail? Do we have any statistics for that?
And what about the other quarter? Arrests are down in the Bemerton Heath, Harnham, city centre, Friary and Southampton Road, Castle Road and Bishopdown beat areas, we’re told.
Pretty much everywhere, in fact.
Have we experienced a sudden outbreak of good behaviour and model citizenship, or could there be some other explanation?
Inspector Minty says it’s “a normal variation” and “not statistically significant”.
And in case you harbour any doubts, the Crime Commissioner himself has stepped in to reassure us that the lack of custody facilities is having “no effect” on policing in the city.
In fact, Angus Macpherson says, there has been “no diminution” of arrests in Salisbury. “No change,” as he stresses.
How can this be? Has he not seen the same figures as Inspector Minty?
Well, I suppose it’s easy to make fun.
But Mr Macpherson doesn’t help his own cause when he expresses disappointment that our local judge, MP and solicitors have all revealed how fed up they are with the way plans for a new custody unit have been put on hold.
Does he think they don’t know what they’re talking about?
Then he patronisingly tells us that turning the police station into a University Technical College is a Good Thing because “good employment and education is a good way of reducing crime”.
Oh, so that’s why they did it. If they hadn’t shut the police station they couldn’t have built the college and of course, once young people are properly educated and gainfully employed they won’t do anything wrong any more and then – hey presto – we really won’t need a police station.
Of course, I see it now.