Putting Salisbury's pigeons on the pill is our least worst option

IF there’s ever a good time to be a pigeon, it certainly isn’t now.
For weeks they’ve suffered the unwanted attentions of the Cathedral’s breeding peregrine falcons.
The excited racket the young family make as the parents come screaming back to the spire with their latest kill carries loud and clear across the meadows to Harnham.
Natural pest control, I’d call it, and I don’t mind it at all.
Far preferable to the arsenal of toxic chemicals mankind has cooked up to wipe out unwanted neighbours on this planet, be they bugs or persecuted ethnic minorities.
The hot summer weather has taken a toll, too, and apparently the city’s pigeon population is already plummeting faster than a peregrine diving on its prey. (They can reach 200mph, according to the RSPB.)
Now the beleaguered birds face all-out war from Salisbury City Council.
I know they poo on people’s heads at Fisherton railway bridge – the pigeons, that is, not the council - and pedestrians can feel they are running the gauntlet. That’s Network Rail’s fault, for failing to install sufficient deterrents.
I know their droppings are said to carry disease. But the expert consensus is that the risk to humans is slight. The Department of Health said last year that it was “not aware of any cases of human infections” arising in this way.
On the other hand it is indisputable that these droppings, because they are acidic, damage our ancient buildings, so people who encourage pigeons to hang about the city centre by feeding them are ill-advised, however good their intentions.
What to do, though?
Since we can hardly have hunting parties stomping round the shops, picking them off one by one, it does sound to me as if the cunning plan of building nice, welcoming pigeon lofts is a good one.
There, the unsuspecting guests can be fed contraceptive seed mix, or their eggs can be taken away or unobtrusively spiked to prevent them hatching.
Labour-intensive, possibly, but undoubtedly humane.
Which pleases me, because I rather like pigeons, and their lovely soft cooing is one of the sounds that say ‘summer’ to me.
Whether this measure alone will be enough, I have no idea. But it has to be worth a try.
Now then, about those deer at the crematorium ………….

Salisbury's cemetery and crematorium shouldn't be killing fields for deer

MANY moons ago, we lived briefly in an isolated moorland cottage in the Peak District.
I remember the day we absent-mindedly left our five-bar gate open.
We came home to a garden denuded of flowering plants, including the white lacecap hydrangea I’d nurtured from one home to another, ever since my husband bought it for me on our first anniversary because it reminded me of the tiny beads on my wedding dress.
You have my permission to sigh sentimentally.
Sheep, you see, are sadly lacking in understanding when it comes to the concept of private property.
I wasn’t happy, believe me. But I didn’t actually need that plant to conjure up fond memories of our big day. They were still there – still are.
All of which brings me neatly to the vexed question of the deer nibbling their delicate way through the city’s crematorium grounds and the adjoining cemetery.
In the past I’ve had to report on vandals damaging families’ precious memorial trees in our parks, and I’ve felt the same mixture of anger and sadness as any right-thinking person would.
If the oiks responsible for this wanton destruction were ever caught, I’d like to see them paraded through the streets to face the court of public opinion. People ought to know better. There’s no excuse.
But culling - one of the options under consideration to deal with the deer - is killing, under a slightly more palatable name.
We can’t say it’s achieved its aim where the nation’s badger population is concerned.
Do we now want our places of quiet remembrance sullied with the corpses of gentle creatures, slaughtered because they eat to stay alive?
Nature poses constant challenges to our human desire to impose orderliness and the rule of law on every last corner of the wonderful wilderness that is this world. And it always will.
Despite my disappointing early experience I remain a keen (fair weather) gardener, and I’d be as upset as the next rose lover if I found Bambi and his pals chewing on my William Shakespeare or my Gertrude Jekyll, or, heaven forbid, my Great Maiden’s Blush.
But at the same time I’m enough of an urbanite to still feel thrilled and privileged when I catch a fleeting glimpse of one of these shy animals in a field alongside some roaring hell of a motorway.
Admit defeat graciously, city councillors, if you can’t afford to fork out for fences. You know it makes sense.

Nobody asked Salisbury folk where they'd like to shop

WILL it be Asda? Will it be Sainsbury’s? Will it be Aldi? Could it even be Morrisons? (Or have they gone off the boil?)
Does it actually have to be any of the above? Who asked us?
Some people, it turns out, are no more chuffed about Asda’s proposal for a London Road store than they are about Sainsbury’s Southampton Road eyesore.
Asda does seem to have considerably more support than its rival (well, it couldn’t really have less, could it?).
Then again, Aldi’s notion of transforming the derelict Autecnique site has attracted far less criticism than either of its gigantic competitors.
I confess that my first unworthy thought, when I heard of Asda’s plan, was “Whoopee, that’ll scupper Sainsbury’s!”
But there are legitimate concerns about the London Road neighbourhood’s ability to cope with the extra traffic.
They may not be game-changers but they ought to be addressed by our planners in handling this application.
After all, the objectors have to live with the inadequacies of their local infrastructure.
And here’s one problem with our local government system.
The unitary authority, i.e. the one with all the power, is run by people from the other parts of the county.
Salisbury and South Wiltshire still don’t boast a single cabinet member between them to lobby for our interests. And there is a strategic planning committee, with a huge majority of members from outside this area, to take decisions that may upset the natives.
Our city council has got much better organised in its response to planning applications over the last year or two, but it only has the power to advise Wiltshire, which doesn’t have to listen if it doesn’t want to.
So while the Salisbury Journal is deluged with protests about controversial planning applications, how do we know who’s listening Up There where it counts?
What we really should have had by now is a city-wide debate to reach a properly thought-through consensus about what facilities we need, including whether we need another supermarket at all, and if so, where it should be.
Instead, we’re playing chase-the-chain-store along our A roads, firing off responses to one application after another, forced to weigh up the relative merits of sites chosen by the big players to suit themselves.
If localism (and I suspect David Cameron is by now wishing he'd never heard that word) is to have any meaning at all, it surely means that genuine local community planning, of a kind that we have not yet been invited to take part in, should be the first priority.
P.S. I remember Amesbury people wanted an Asda on Solstice Park a few years ago. They got a Tesco on their London Road instead. And now the Co-op’s closing because everyone goes to Tesco. Be warned.

It's time to fight for Wiltshire's frontline fire services

IT’S a brave man who suggests reforms that might cost him his own job.
My instinctive reaction is to respect the integrity of someone who does that.
Take, for example, Wiltshire’s fire chief, Simon Routh-Jones, and his Dorset counterpart, Darran Gunter.
Clearly these are blokes who know what they’re doing. Lives depend on it.
And one thing they agree on is that without drastic action, their respective services will collapse in a couple of years under the weight of deficits that our government will not permit them to address by raising money through council tax.
They’ve been doing their best to economise. Under the present setup they will have little left to cut except firefighters, fire engines and fire stations.
So they’ve undertaken a great deal of work and produced a detailed consultative document that fully justifies what they see as the best possible solution – a merger producing economies of scale.
I’ve read it, and you might have done, too, if only the plug hadn’t been pulled on the public consultation.
Trouble is, there’s nothing much in the plan for Wiltshire Council, which is desperately seeking new roles for itself as the government keeps trying to slash through the layers of bureaucracy hampering our economic recovery.
Wiltshire’s already taken over some of the police force’s back office functions, and there are some who are not altogether delighted about the way that’s been working.
Now it wants the fire service’s backroom boys and girls, too.
The fire chiefs aren’t saying there’s no room for co-operation with local councils. Quite the opposite.
But first, in their combined view, there must be a merger because that’s where the big savings lie, and time is short.
Until very recently, Graham Payne was chairman of the county’s fire authority.
He said the fire chiefs were quite right, and he stuck to his guns. So he’s been got rid of by his Tory colleagues who are busy examining ‘other options’. Because of course, they know best.
They promise they will resurrect the consultation when they’ve had time to poke their noses in a bit more. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with, and whether they show any sense of urgency about it.

Wiltshire's right to build council houses but tenants' right to buy is wrong

IT pains me to admit it, but Wiltshire Council is doing something right for once.
Investing £70million (OK, some of the funding isn’t confirmed yet, but the intention is there) in much-needed houses for hard-up young families to rent and in flats to enable the elderly to downsize is exactly what’s needed.
If it encourages the construction industry to get on and develop all that land it’s sitting on, so much the better.
A building boom on designated sites, preferably brownfield, will give the council ammunition to fight off speculative applications elsewhere and protect our countryside.
So far, then, so unusually positive.
It’s a particularly remarkable turn of events when you realise that the only council housing in the county right now is what used to belong to the old Salisbury District.
The other parts of Wiltshire handed theirs over to housing associations long ago, and as I recall from the mutterings at the time, the Trowbridge generals weren’t over-keen on becoming social landlords when they first staged their bloodless coup.
So I’d say well done, and particularly to housing portfolio holder, cllr Richard Clewer.
He’s not a cabinet member because he’s from the wrong side of the tracks, i.e. south of the Plain, but he’s doing a good job.
And as Groucho Marx more or less said, who’d want to be a member of that club anyway?
However (and there always is a however, isn’t there?) something lurking just outside the spotlight bothers me, and that’s the right to buy.
Once a family have lived in one of these new homes for five years they’ll have the right to acquire it at a discount. Then it won’t be a council house any more.
So what will be available for equally deserving young couples who come along later?
Or are we committing as a county to repeating the whole exercise, and to a long-term strategy of subsidising cheap property purchases for the lucky few?
Meanwhile those who are just as hard-up but can’t get a council house in the first place and have to rent privately won’t have a hope in hell of being able to afford to buy their home on the private market.
Or am I missing something?
We all know what Mrs Thatcher’s political reasons were for wanting to create a society of home owners, but in today’s economic climate that’s about as likely to happen as me being appointed special adviser on public relations to Jane Scott.
The right to buy isn’t Wiltshire’s fault, of course. The only people who can overturn it are our elected representatives at Westminster.

Cuts, and the Orwellian world of Wiltshire Council jargon

NOW, children, does anyone know the meaning of these commonly-used words or phrases?
‘Targeted support’, ‘building stronger and more resilient communities’, ‘efficiencies’, ‘shaping services’, ‘harmonisation’, ‘synchronisation’, ‘encouraging volunteering’, ‘restructuring’.
Yes, little Johnny, you’re right. Have a house point. The answer is ‘cuts’.
They’re all prime examples, taken from recent reports and press releases, of the jargon with which Wiltshire Council (and it’s far from alone in this) seeks to control our perception of what it’s doing.
Even though it’s fooling no-one, it persists with its cynical manipulation of language. And despite having next to no money, it pays people to do it.
We’ll soon have ‘community led’ youth services, proposals for which have been ‘robustly scrutinised’ after ‘stakeholders’ (‘key’ or otherwise) have been ‘engaged with’ in an ‘open and transparent’ fashion.
The ‘drivers for change’, are, of course, cuts again – ultimately you can blame the government or the bankers, depending on your politics.
But rest assured – after all the meat has been picked from the bones, the resulting ‘community led’ skeleton services down at the shiny new ‘community campus’ will be ‘sustainable,’ ‘fit for purpose’ and in line with the council’s ‘vision for stronger and more resilient communities’ and there’ll be a whole lot of ‘safeguarding’ going on to make sure our young people experience ‘healthy and safe life outcomes’.
Phew, and to think they had me worried there for a minute!
Now I yield to no-one in my admiration for Wiltshire’s corporate communications department. Not least for their patience when I’m constantly pestering them for answers.
They are an endlessly polite, helpful, professional bunch and I like every one of them I’ve dealt with over the years.
But one has to ask: When the council says it can’t afford to keep vulnerable people with autism, physical disabilities or learning difficulties in the places they’ve come to regard as safe havens over the years, how on earth can it justify the continuing cost of churning out propaganda like this?
I certainly wouldn’t wish any of the communications team to be ‘reconfigured’ out of a job. But maybe their talents could be redirected towards teaching other staff how to write plain English?
Last autumn at the Playhouse I was spellbound by the touring production of 1984 that is currently wowing London audiences.
I read Orwell’s novel as a teenager, in that obligatory rite-of-passage way that kids do.
But I think I got more out of the play several decades further on, because I was able to draw parallels with real-life experience.
Newspeak, here we come.

Local people must have a vote on Sainsbury plan

IT’S as clear as can be that a large number of people in Salisbury don’t want to see a Sainsbury’s superstore disfiguring the green fields that have miraculously remained undeveloped alongside Southampton Road.
How can I justify that opinion?
From reading the Journal’s postbag over the last few months, from seeing the comments on its Facebook page, and from the numbers who have sent in objections to the planners, signed teenager Hamish Mundell’s petition, or taken part in cllr Richard Clewer’s survey.
And now from the Salisbury Vision’s strongly-worded letter to planners.
But what if the decision on this planning application isn’t made by local people?
What if, instead of being considered by councillors who know and love the area and understand the sensitivity of the site, the future of this unspoilt window on the city is left to the mercy of the county’s strategic planning committee, as I understand it may well be?
There are only three councillors from South Wiltshire on this body, and only one elected by residents of the city – that’s Bill Moss, who represents St Mark’s and Bishopdown.
He’s hugely experienced and widely respected, but as I say, there’s only one of him.
Some may argue that the reason we have a strategic planning committee is precisely so that large and potentially unpopular developments aren’t held up by Nimbys, softies, hippies, tree-huggers or whatever label you choose to disparage principled objectors.
One might understand, if not necessarily accept, that argument if we were talking about a new motorway, or a hospital, or some other vital facility deemed to be for the greater good of the community.
But a supermarket? No way.
Even if it does get turned down, I’m pretty sure that this will go to appeal and end up being settled by a planning inspector, because a) Sainsbury’s has invested so heavily in it and b) that’s what big business does.
I recently asked the firm whether it had made any approaches about building at Fugglestone Red, instead, since many people have suggested it as a better site.
A spokesman would not give me a ‘yes or no’ answer, but said: “Sainsbury’s chose to become part of the Salisbury Gateway project as this area of the city was previously identified by Salisbury Vision as appropriate for a gateway development.”
What rubbish. The Vision’s objections are now in print for all to see, and just to make it crystal clear, I’m told: “The Vision does not envisage improvements to this area would require or include a new large foodstore.”
This is a local issue, and it needs to be resolved locally.