The lockdown shambles and the state of my feet

MY feet could do with a bit of TLC.

I don’t buy cosmetics or indulge in ‘pampering’ spa days, but in normal times, every six weeks I like to get my hair cut and have a pedicure (an arthritic knee makes it a bit painful to twiddle with my own toes too much).

That’s it. Both extremities dealt with, I feel reasonably smart, and the bit in the middle won’t really matter. Or that’s what I tell myself!

Except that due to what I can only call the government’s continued cackhanded management off the Covid crisis, a pedicure is not allowed. A haircut, on the other hand, now is.

Can anyone tell me how it’s safer to have a hairdresser in a visor hovering around my face at a distance of six inches than to lie outstretched while a beautician in mask and gloves tends my toenails from a distance of more than 5ft?

Apparently, meanwhile, it’s perfectly acceptable to give the gasping hordes permission to head for the beach where they can ‘cool off’ and hobnob at a social distance no longer than a tube of suncream.

And oh! Surprise, surprise! There are no toilets, no cafes, the rubbish bins are overflowing … and even more surprise, I’m sure, when a second wave of infection sweeps the nation in a few weeks’ time.

I have to say, my anger is not helped by the behaviour of an ignorant local minority.

Walking in Harnham cricket field over the past fortnight I’ve twice been dragged by the curious dog towards piles of human faeces ‘covered up’ by a single sheet of toilet roll. Because, of course, the pub loos are shut and kids are being ‘caught short’ when their parents take them to play in the river.

Dog owners have to ‘bag it and bin it’. Why can’t other people? Or even better, pick up their offspring’s excrement in one of their empty picnic carrier bags, take it home and flush it?

There’s no excuse for this selfish, antisocial behaviour.

But there’s even less excuse for the government making such a hash of the precautions we need to ‘squash the sombrero’ of disease.

All the people (like beauticians) who are prevented from earning a living must be feeling sick as a case of sunstroke when they watch this debacle unfold with the compliance of an elite, very few of whom have ever done a self-employed day’s work.

 

 

 

 

City needs safe bike storage to foil thieves

A FEW days ago I opined on social media that I wouldn’t take my bike into Salisbury unless there was safe, supervised parking for it.

I didn’t necessarily mean it had to be manned, but certainly it would need to be monitored by cameras.

I said cycle theft was rife, and had been for years. (Quite apart from the fact that I’m a very wobbly rider and I don’t want to get ticked off for hogging the pavement!)

I was responding to campaigners who are understandably keen, as I am, to see more cycle paths created to encourage residents to leave their cars at home.

Their response online was that my concerns were exaggerated and unjustified and I should just invest in a lock and all would be well.

Yet days later on the Salisbury Journal website there’s a warning from the police about a spate of thefts involving bolt croppers being used to cut through cable locks.

They say we should be buying ‘D’ locks instead, because they’re a safer bet. Obviously they’re tougher, and opportunist crooks will opt for easier targets. But they won’t deter the determined.

I’m very glad officers are working with our CCTV volunteers to trace the parasites involved, but even if they catch them I don’t believe the courts will impose truly deterrent sentences.

I happen to have a sentimental attachment to my old bike.

So for the time being, it’s not going out.

 

Novichok drama trolls highlight the ugly side of British life today

WHY on earth would anyone presume that they know another person well enough to pick their character to pieces when all they’ve seen of them is a televised re-creation of a sensational interlude that tore their life apart in a way no-one could have foreseen?

I speak, of course, of the lowlife who’ve criticised Nick Bailey’s wife, Sarah, on the basis of having watched the BBC’s The Salisbury Poisonings and assuming they now know everything about the real people at the heart of the tragedy.

They are so stupid they cannot tell a drama series – a very gripping one, I have to say - from reality.

Det Sgt Bailey has had to take to social media to hit back at these ‘armchair experts’ and their negativity.

But it should have come as no surprise. We see this kind of gratuitous nastiness online all the time.

This is why, as I’ve said before, website and social media commentators should not be allowed to post anonymously. It emboldens the cowards who’d never dare put their names to the cruel rubbish that they spout.

When the BBC announced the project last year, I warned that it might be too soon for the people most closely affected by these events, and for our tourist trade, given the difficulty we were experiencing in persuading people to come here again.

Now, of course, every town and city in the country is experiencing financial difficulty, for another reason entirely, so perhaps this show couldn’t really do much more damage to our economy. Look on the bright side!

The programme provides an excuse for conspiracy theorists to spread their fake news all over again, although I do not believe, by any means, that we have been told the whole truth about this terrifying episode. There are still many questions hanging in the air.

One fact there’s no doubt about. The air ambulance charity still hasn’t been compensated by the government for the £100,000 costs it incurred, which is shameful.

 

 

The Maltings Mystery explained ... after a fashion

MYSTIFIED by the lack of progress on the new Travelodge/temporary library where the British Heart Foundation used to be?

Me too, especially since a ‘To Let’ sign appeared on the hoarding round the silent building site a few days ago. 

So I did a bit of asking around.

Apparently - and understandably, due to the Covid pandemic - Travelodge is reviewing all its sites and plans across the country.

Wiltshire Council, meanwhile, has a duty to get a firm valuation for the proposed library area downstairs in the new building before it can commit to a lease.

But the crisis has also made it almost impossible to get a realistic valuation for a site such as this, since no-one is sure what the future holds for town centres and high streets.

So investment company Nuveen, which owns the freehold of the land, is testing the water by seeing if anyone else might take it on. If someone does, it would put the kibosh on the council’s plan to move the library there until a more permanent home can be found.

I do sympathise to some extent with Wiltshire in all this. Every time they get their act together and come up with a plan to regenerate the Maltings/Central Car Park, someone or something comes along and moves the goalposts.

Events, dear boy, as Macmillan did or didn’t say, depending on where you look it up on the internet.

Not helping at all – although of course it will help the city as a whole – is the revised flood modelling carried out by the Environment Agency.

Flood alleviation work must – repeat, must – be done before the council’s planners can finalise their ideas for the whole regeneration project.

And that includes the library. Which to my mind, therefore, looks likely to stay exactly where it is for the time being.

No-one, as it was pointed out to me, is making investment decisions right now.

Add to that the fact that virtually every local authority in the country, Wiltshire included, is facing bankruptcy come August if – and it’s a big IF – the government allows that to happen.

And what have you got? A big headache, that’s the only thing for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Wiltshire Council, stop the chop!

WE’VE all been taking more notice of nature during the lockdown, as we’ve wandered the lanes and fields close to home.

And we can see how daft it is for Wiltshire Council to be spending OUR money on chopping down lovely, bee-and-bug-friendly roadside flowers in the name of tidiness.

Walking the dog today I came across a very pleasant council contractor in Middle Street, Harnham, strimming all the flowering heads off the plants on the verge and reducing the grass to the equivalent of a military No.1 haircut.

He told me they have to do this every single month.

This is on a minor suburban lane, a through route to nowhere, with no visibility problems whatsoever. It runs alongside a meadow managed particularly well, I think, by the city council and a team of volunteers for the benefit of wild creatures, especially butterflies, as well as junior footballers.

What a pointless and destructive exercise at a time when we’re all being exhorted to encourage wildlife and in particular, bees and other rapidly declining insect populations, by planting wildflower seeds and leaving wild areas unmown in our gardens.

Tomorrow (this Tuesday) Wiltshire Council’s cabinet is due to receive a report warning of a £50million impact on its finances from the coronavirus pandemic. In a worst case scenario, its reserves could be exhausted by next April.

Capital spending on projects such as the Maltings regeneration is having to be deferred. Radical rethinking is required.

Unless something turns up in the way of extra help, the forecast is “a threat to the current form and function of the council”.

Maybe the Guildhall Gang could get on to Trowbridge and ask them to show some sense, environmentally and financially. Goodness knows what this mowing contract costs. Much of it completely unnecessary. Who gave it the OK in the first place?

For all I know, there may be legal constraints that prevent Wiltshire renegotiating it straight away. And I'm darned sure they've got more pressing problems on their minds right now. But they should certainly announce that they will do so at the earliest opportunity.

Save money and save the planet! It's a no-brainer.

'City's poor housing stock deters big spenders'

AN interesting analysis by Jonathan Meades, a provocative but authoritative writer on, among other things, architecture, culture and food.

Our High Street is not as opulent as those of Winchester, Taunton, Chichester or other towns of similar size, because our housing stock is “rather poor”, he says.

People with money who might support more upmarket shops choose to live in the villages of the Woodford Valley or the New Forest.

The number of desirable houses “from a yuppy point of view” is slight, he declares.

So we need to ‘think demographics” when we think about how to restore our city’s fortunes.

Turning the spaces above shops into housing is one answer, he says. “The best customer is the one who is just around the corner.”

He’s also pretty scathing about Salisbury’s restaurants, declaring that they’ve been “disastrous" for years.

Meades, who grew up in East Harnham, was one of the panel in Wiltshire Creative's online debate about how to rescue our High Street.

He recalls a feeling of "snugness and cosiness" about the city in his childhood and bemoans the municipal "vandalism" that destroyed historic buildings to create the Old George Mall.

He now lives in France, and says restaurants there will recover better from the current crisis than ours will, because they are family businesses, and the rules in France and Spain are biased towards small shops.

“In Britain, all governments take notice of is big business. There isn’t the will to help small businesses.”

Of course, the Covid crisis may force a reappraisal of national priorities. Let’s hope so.

 

 

'Celebrate the city's charity shops'

SALISBURY needs to reinvent its city centre.

That’s the message that came across loud and clear from Saturday’s online debate staged by Wiltshire Creative.

Local traders need to sell online and on social media, and offer click and collect. Relying on walk-in custom won’t be enough.

Their big selling point needs to be their ethical, sustainable ethos, their role at the heart of a community, because, as Casa Fina’s Susi Mason put it: “People want to feel they belong.”

That means putting on tastings, workshops and demos. It means providing more central housing to encourage young people.

We need to celebrate our charity shops, said architect and regeneration expert George Ferguson. Hear, hear! They’re about recycling and reusing. Their presence shouldn’t be regarded as a sign of commercial failure. Customers should be proud of using them.

“A sharing economy has a great future. There should be libraries for sharing things, not just books,” he added.

We should be promoting regional food, not just in some posh Sunday market but every day. And back that up with stuff like street theatre.

“Be anarchic,” he advised, “and be prepared to experiment.”

Anywhere less anarchic than Salisbury I find hard to imagine. But you never know.

And customers? They need to stop spending their money online, and help support local jobs, declared teenage market stalwart Becca.

“What would Salisbury be without the shops?”

You can’t argue with that.

Thoughts on how to revitalise our High Street

THESE lockdown webinars are great. You don’t even have to get off your sofa to learn new stuff.

On Saturday I logged in to a panel talking about the future of our High Street and city centre shops.

There was independent retailer Susi Mason from Casa Fina, a teenage market trader called Becca, former architect and mayor of Bristol George Ferguson – an authority on  urban regeneration - and Jonathan Meades, who writes and makes films about all sorts of stuff including architecture and strikes me as an all-round stirrer.

They gave us so much to think about, but pedestrianisation was one thing I’d like to focus on, since more of it is proposed by the city council.

It isn’t necessarily the best answer for Salisbury, they suggested. The city centre is a tight fit. Where would people park? The park and ride sites are “way out”, and this is “a place where people are very car-dependent”.

To expect everyone to walk and cycle shows “a degree of Utopianism”,  especially with so many old people living here.

A better answer would be to “tame the streets”, lowering the speed limit to 10mph, and having a car-free day every Sunday.

The problem about that, everyone agreed, was the frustrating bureaucracy involved in making traffic orders, etc. It made it so hard to experiment and try out new ideas to liven the place up.

Other suggestions: Let talented local makers sell their wares in the High Street; have more street food; turn the Odeon (if we get a new multiplex at the Maltings) into an artisan market with food stalls; let shops spill out onto the pavements to sell their wares.

Can you imagine the fun Health & Safety will have with that one?

Wiltshire Creative organised this event as part of the Salisbury 2020 Big Weekend. Congratulations. I’ll try to cover more of it another day.