Judge backs inspector who rejected Old Sarum airfield plan

COMPLAINTS by the would-be developers of Old Sarum airfield about the way a planning inspector rejected their scheme have been shot down by a judge.

Old Sarum Airfield Ltd. launched a High Court challenge after losing an appeal against Wiltshire Council, the planning authority.

They claimed the appeal inspector didn’t take sufficient account of the “significant public benefits” of their proposal for mixed-use development including 462 homes and a flying hub.

These, they said, included landscape, ecological, highways and road safety benefits.

They said her decision-making was “irrational and unfair”, and that she did not give good enough reasons for her conclusions.

The inspector ruled that the historic importance of the First World War airfield and its long-term future as a flying hub, along with the need to enhance its historic character, “must be in the forefront”  in agreeing a masterplan for the site.

Whilst acknowledging some benefits the scheme would deliver, such as noise controls on flying, she said the overall public benefits did not outweigh the harm the development would cause to the sensitive historic environment in the conservation area.

And she urged both sides to work together to come up with a compromise.

Mr Justice Robin Knowles CBE said the council and the airfield operators had “engaged in a way that was highly adversarial” and they should heed the inspector’s advice to reach a statement of common ground.

“The current position with the Airfield has some negative consequences for all,” the judge concluded.

“With care, rigour, respect for the - quite remarkable - heritage involved, a commitment to quality and a constructive approach I cannot see that an outcome involving appropriate development need elude the parties.”

We shall see ….

 

We need to talk about tech as GPs dump unreliable app

OUR doctors’ surgery has abandoned its trial of the askmyGP app.

Apparently this computerised triage system wasn’t reliable enough to be safe, because of “constant intermittent service and downtime”.

It’s a shame, in a way, because Salisbury Medical Practice is always trying to improve its patient experience, and I can see that in theory an app like this should have helped it prioritise and respond to people's needs and generally be more efficient.

It certainly did away with the sometimes embarrassing requirement to discuss your symptoms with a call handler before waiting for a GP to call back.

And hooray, it did mean no more recorded messages and Vivaldi!

I had reason, unfortunately, to use the app several times (don’t ask), and apart from one initial blip, I found it excellent. I guess I was lucky in that respect.

And of course people who aren’t tech-savvy still had to stick with the old routine.

So now there’ll be more work for those long-suffering souls on the other end of the phone.

But at least that means jobs, for real people. And goodness knows we need more of those.

It’s why I always refuse to ‘Pay@Pump’ for my fuel, or use an automated checkout at a supermarket.

‘Just because we can’ is not actually a good reason to do anything.

Automation has benefits. But not always for society as a whole.

Instead of tamely accepting every new invention that’s thrown at us to make someone else a profit, we desperately need to work out collectively how everyone can earn enough to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads in the future. The option, I fear, is increasing social unrest.

I read with horror this week that Amazon, not content with its decimation of so much traditional retail and the massive fortune of its founder, is now muscling in on the grocery market.

I’m no apologist for the likes of Tesco or Aldi, but for goodness sake, how much money does Jeff Bezos need? And how many wage slaves clocking on for a pittance like those zombie workers in that Fritz Lang film Metropolis?

Machines need to serve mankind, not vice versa. And we need to think long and hard about which ‘technological breakthroughs’ really benefit all of us.

Can’t see the current crew at No.10 losing a moment’s sleep over moral conundrums like that, though.

 

Fantastic free food sharing in Harnham

FREE fruit and veg? What’s not to like?

Unless you’re an eccentric mate of mine from years ago who refused to eat anything green, calling it “twig food”. He was definitely a one-off.

Most of us, though, would love fresh produce that we don’t have to pay for.

And what a splendid array was to be found on a trestle table in the grounds of Harnham Church Hall in Lower Street on Saturday.

Courgettes aplenty (well, it is that time of year!) both green and yellow, apples, rhubarb, cabbage, herbs, berries, salad leaves …. all prettily laid out alongside bunches of lavender.

Poppy and I took shelter under the awning there during a sudden downpour on our way home from Middle Street Meadow to catch up with the lovely people who’ve launched the Harnham Harvest Table project.

They were delighted by the response from donors who simply had too much stuff growing in their gardens and allotments and were happy to share it with others.

They hope the donations might appeal in particular to anyone who’s found it had to source this kind of thing during the Covid crisis.

Started by Harnham Neighbourhood Association, this community-minded scheme will be running every Saturday throughout the growing season. It’s a perfect example of the way the virus has encouraged folk to get together for the greater good.

You simply drop stuff off with the volunteers there in the morning and anyone can come and stock up in the afternoon till about three o’clock.

Recipes are being compiled to provide inspiration, too.

What a fantastic idea.

If you want to get involved you’d be welcome. Just ring 07900 815605 or email harnhamcommunity@gmail.com.

 

Playing the numbers game. Wiltshire Council finds the old ways are the best

TWO heads are better than one, they say.

But not if those two heads are at County Hall in Trowbridge.

Talk about reinventing the wheel!

Wiltshire Council starts life as a unitary authority with one chief executive.

All of a sudden in 2011 its political leader gets rid, not just of the astonished incumbent Andrew Kerr, but of the chief exec role. 

Call Me Jane says there’s no need for one any longer because “the buck stops” with her.

A new system is instituted under her overall control. Three big cheeses, each with their own area of responsibility.

At the start of this year, now a Baroness, Jane Scott becomes a Whip in the Lords and under her successor, Philip Whitehead, the three are reduced to two, Terence Herbert and Alistair Cunningham.

Now we’re back to a single chief again, because that, apparently, is the system that works best after all. Cllr Whitehead said so. Keep up at the back there!

Apparently if the joint head honchos (budgeted cost £0.45million) didn’t agree about something, no-one was quite sure whose opinion should prevail. What everyone could agree on was that one of them had to be top dog after all.

And Mr Cunningham, who was awarded an OBE for his work on Salisbury’s recovery from the Novichok disaster, volunteered for redundancy.

It’s reassuring to know that his expertise and experience will not be entirely lost to the authority.

Having chaired the boards of the Stone Circle companies, which were set up by the council to buy and build housing cost-effectively, he is now being nominated by the councillors as an independent director to “maintain continuity and momentum”.

Turned out well, then, hasn’t it?

Double yellow peril for unwary parkers

NOT a lot of people know this.

But if you live alongside a road with double yellow lines, and you have a driveway that crosses the verge or the pavement to your front gate, you are not allowed to stop on the driveway. Not even for ten minutes.

If you do, you are likely to get not one, but THREE traffic wardens arriving at once to issue you a ticket.

It happened to a friend of mine just recently on the Downton road.

With another vehicle already parked in the front garden when she arrived, she’d pulled in temporarily, facing her gate, in the gap where her drive crossed the verge, taking care not to block the pavement. The chief thing on her mind was keeping her three-year-old granddaughter safe because it's a busy road.

She had no idea, and I didn’t either, that double yellow ‘no parking’ rules applied to driveways and pavements right up to the front boundary of a house.

She found out the hard way, with a fine that Wiltshire Council has refused to reconsider and if she doesn’t pay up now, it’ll double.

Why three wardens, by the way?

Safety in numbers, apparently. Because some people have spat at them.

And of course people shouldn’t spit at them. But neither is there any need for them to go around targeting well-meaning, otherwise law-abiding citizens like my mate who aren’t really causing any problems.

I know the council’s short of cash, to put it mildly. But alienating harmless members of the taxpaying public isn’t going to win it any sympathy.

 

An otter in the High Street. What a great summer for wildlife!

THE old jokes are definitely the best. Here’s one of my favourites:

In the curry house. “I’ll have a chicken tarka.” “What’s that?” “It’s like a chicken tikka only otter!”

Yes, it’s a groan a minute in the Riddle household!

Brought to mind, of course, by the adorable CCTV footage of an otter making its late-night way along the High Street, and apparently doing a bit of window-shopping en route.

Well done to the sharp-eyed volunteer camera operator who spotted that!

Presumably it’s the peace of lockdown in the city centre that’s emboldened the otter to venture so far into the built-up area.

I’ve only seen one live otter before, in the river in Harnham. A very brief glimpse, before it disappeared underwater.

Journal readers may remember I found one run over on the side of the Netherhampton Road a few years ago, probably after it had gone prospecting for fish in someone’s garden pond.

I’ve also seen another dead one, in the Winterbourne Valley.

 I’m very jealous of a neighbour who’s spotted an adult swimming with cubs in our area.

But I do have to report a marked decrease in the number of ducks and moorhens, and a complete absence of coot along our stretch of the Nadder these days.

Foxes can’t be helping in that respect. It’s not always easy for to sit back and watch Nature Red in Tooth and Claw playing out before our eyes without wanting to interfere.

But we must. Particularly since all these creatures are simply trying to make a living in a man-made landscape.

The wildlife in our garden has been a joy as we’ve hunkered down here during the pandemic. 

With two feeding stations on the go, we’ve had the privilege of watching great spotted woodpeckers feeding their baby on our shed roof. 

Starlings, absent for a number of years, have made a comeback, breeding in a hole at the front of the house whether the fascia board fell off, and I love to hear their twittering. We've been spying from afar on the spire's thriving peregrine family.

As I speak, a squadron of sparrows are flying back and forth between the ivy and the shed, trying to hurry up the squirrel that’s attached itself to the nut feeder and is performing the most extraordinary contortions trying not to fall off!

We’ve even spotted a grass snake slithering into a flower bed, and that’s because we’ve let the lawn run wild this year and just mown a path around the edge.

This enforced period of idleness has done me a big favour, as I’ve discovered the benefit of spending some time just sitting and watching the world go by. Note to self: Never get too busy again!

Pedestrianising Salisbury? Nice idea, but won't it make the ring road worse?

THERE is a reason why motorists use the city centre as a through route. It’s called the ring road.

Wiltshire Council acknowledges this on its website.

Churchill Way can get so clogged up that for me, for example, to take rubbish to the tip from Harnham, it’s far easier to go via Exeter Street, New Street and Mill Road than to queue at the gyratory and then at four successive roundabouts.

It doesn’t work wonders for the air quality in town, but then neither do those queues all around the outskirts.

Easier, too, to head down Netherhampton Road and rat-run past the beleagured inhabitants of Quidhampton.

That’s the truth. Unpalatable, but it’s what happens.

Likewise, if I’m heading for Waitrose and I see motionless cars all the way from the Exeter Street roundabout to the College, I turn off into town and cut through the central car park. Who wouldn’t?

So whilst the benefits for public health of pedestrianising large chunks of the city centre on an experimental basis are obvious, and whilst traders seem OK with giving it a try, I’m sure that every resident has a perfectly good excuse for doing their level best to avoid the jams on the Seventh Circle of Hell which will only get worse as a result.

Having said which, I wish this trial scheme all the best, and there are plenty of opportunities promised for the public and businesses to feed in their early reactions so that it can be ‘tweaked’ if necessary.

Given that we appear to be stuck forever without a bypass and with an industrial estate that’s in the wrong place, the council’s got to do something. And this seems to be the only thing within its control.

Well, aside from relocating the tip. If it had any money. Which it did have, once, back in the day when the previous administration wasn’t in any mood to listen to the taxpayers of Salisbury.