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Saturday 3rd November 2007
The prospect of an end to pay-as-you-throw proposals for
our rubbish collections which we discussed last week has proven to be premature
and despite warnings of the consequences, the government is determined to give
local authorities the power to introduce pilot schemes charging households
according to the amount of rubbish generated. That could mean you because South
Kesteven District Council which is responsible for your refuse collections has
already lodged an interest and the wheelie bins now standing in your backyard
have been fitted with micro-chips that will record just how much you dump which
in turn determines how much you will have to pay.
No matter what colour the wrapping paper for this particular idea, it is one
thing and one thing only and that is a stealth tax to help the local authorities
impose the new European Union directive on reducing the amount of biodegradable
waste going into landfill sites. Yet no one has yet explained how recycling more
and paying for it are related when it is quite obvious that the reverse is true.
Until now, all rubbish has been sent to landfill but under the council’s dual
wheelie bin system we are separating it into that which can be recycled and that
which cannot. Yet it is the same amount of rubbish and how it is
divided or where it ends up has no bearing on the cost to the householder who is
already being charged through the council tax. To impose further costs is a
blatant attempt to raise more income for the black hole of staff salaries and
pensions and instead of being an incentive to recycling, paying to have our bins
emptied will be anathema to many who will dispose of their waste by fly tipping
and backyard bonfires.
In addition, the imposition of such charges, vigorously denied by SKDC in the
past, will usher in a new phase of hostility to local government unknown since
the introduction of the poll tax.
What the local newspapers are saying: South Kesteven District Council
however, appears to be holding fire on the issue because the Stamford Mercury
reports the leader, Councillor Linda Neal (Bourne West), as saying that “we are
not currently looking at charging for refuse” and that the authority will
continue to focus on promoting recycling and educating residents (November 2nd).
This is the good news but what most people fear is that the situation may well change
by next year when the budget for 2008-09 is being considered and the council is
empowered to enforce pay-as-you-throw. This source of additional income when
trying to balance the books may be too attractive to ignore and in any case, why
on earth were those chips fitted in the first place?.
Bonfire Night is upon us again this weekend, an event that has in the
past had a special significance here in Bourne because for many years it was
believed that the Gunpowder Plot which inspired the event was hatched at the Red
Hall, but that was not the case.
The hall was not built until 1605, the year the dastardly plan was discovered
and the perpetrators sentenced. Sir Everard Digby, who was one of the main
conspirators, never lived there as has been assumed since, but at Stoke Dry,
near Uppingham, Rutland, and was one of the great landowners in the East
Midlands. The Digby family who eventually owned the hall did not arrive until a
century later and were not related.
This story has persisted until recently and I have even been stopped in the
street by a long-time Bourne resident who insisted that it was true because it
had been told to him by his mother who in turn had been taught it at school. The
origins emanated from early historians and country directories which repeated it
without any documentary evidence, mainly through the mistaken belief that Sir
Everard Digby had been born here in 1578, which was repeated by J J Davies in
his book Historic Bourne, published in 1909, even though the house had not then
been built. Indeed, the belief has taken such a hold in Bourne, as with the
derring-do of Hereward the Wake, that it still appears in some official guides
today because the authors take little or no trouble to research their work and
merely copy from old accounts.
Nevertheless, Bonfire Night has always been celebrated with great enthusiasm in
Bourne and there were times in years past, particularly during the 19th century,
when extra police were drafted in because of possible trouble. Riotous behaviour
and vandalism became an annual event on every Fifth of November and special
sittings of the magistrates were held the next morning to deal with offenders.
The worst riot of this kind was in 1877 when 40 men and youths were arraigned on
charges relating to disturbances in the town and the surrounding villages, their
main enjoyment being the rolling of lighted tar barrels down the street, a
popular although illegal method of celebration at that time, and of starting
bonfires on the highway. Other offences included assaulting the police, firing
guns, discharging fireworks in a public place and causing a general commotion to
the annoyance of the public.
Disturbances have been less violent in recent years and there is now a
continuing public debate over the sale of fireworks and their indiscriminate
use, especially in the run up to November 5th when the night sky is regularly
illuminated by rockets while the use of bangers and other explosives in
residential areas frightens old people and dogs. The current situation is that
most people deplore their universal sale and use because of the dangers involved
but would accept some form of regulation that would prohibit all firework events
except those which are organised and supervised and this would seem to be the
perfect solution.
There has been a discussion in the Bourne Forum about whether this town
is a good place to be and although we have some 15,000 satisfied souls, one
contributor has had enough and is planning to move out even though he is retired
and what we regard as a senior citizen. This strikes me as quite odd because
most old people have put down roots by now and found somewhere that suits them
and so with anyone who seems to be so discontented with their situation we may
ask whether they would in fact be happy anywhere or whether this is a symptom of
geriatric ennui or a general dissatisfaction with their lot.
The happiest people are those who share their lives with others, whether this is
good neighbourliness or voluntary work, and when retired and with time on their
hands, some form of activity outside the home is essential, playing bowls,
joining a club or, for instance, driving the meals on wheels van because it is
the involvement with others that adds a richness to our lives and prevents us
from vegetating in a vacuum of our own making. In other words, we must all
contribute to realise our full potential. It is of little use moving into a new
community and then sitting back waiting for life’s expectations to materialise
because that is the route to total isolation.
Some do prefer their own company but in this case, the contributor complained
that they were looking for something different to what was on offer in Bourne
and this is perhaps the nub of the problem because the answer surely is not what
the town will give you but what you can give the town. For some, perhaps a
gated community might suit, a group of houses surrounded by walls and barriers
with a smart card to gain entrance, a system of living prevalent in the United
States and South Africa, designed to exclude undesirables but in fact insulating
those who chose to live there from the real world and most certainly they will
find themselves among their own kind.
Those who run things in Bourne, the clubs and activities, and there are many of
them, enough to suit all but the most pernickety, include a large number of
retired people who were not born here but have chosen this place to live,
becoming fully integrated in the process and would not now wish to live
elsewhere. Whenever things are happening, it is they who are in the front line
with a horde of willing hands following close behind. They have found what it is
that makes life successful by helping to improve the community and this is the
secret of their success. To trail from town to town trying to find a place that
offers acceptable amenities and conditions is unsettling and time wasting and
unlikely to bring lasting rewards, like the proverbial rolling stone. Home is
where the heart is and that can be any place but you do need to make an effort
to make things happen for life will not come knocking on your door.
Queuing has become a way of life, largely because people accept it
without question although we all secretly wish that it did not need to happen.
It is a primitive form of waiting when those serving have less regard for their
customers than they should, otherwise a more innovative system would be
implemented coupled with the employment of more staff to avoid such delays.
Monday mornings are particularly fraught when the populace tries to catch up
with its affairs after a dormant weekend, the waiting spaces of our banks, post
offices, garages, supermarkets and other public institutions becoming a mass of
anxious people jostling to complete their business.
Many regard queuing with a combination of hope and anticipation and therefore
waiting in line becomes an acceptable adjunct to modern life but others find it
both irritating and time consuming and a situation that highlights the
inadequacy and inefficiency of the service being offered. Too often we find half
the checkouts closed at supermarkets at their busiest times while queues of
customers with overflowing trolleys wait patiently at the others, the act of
paying frequently taking twice as long as the actual shopping and I have yet to
see all of the service windows at the Post Office or my bank open at the same
time, no matter the size of the queue. It is also a frequent experience to see
one of the few that are in business to close suddenly as the assistant departs
for lunch or starts to cash up before going home, with total disregard of how
many are still waiting to be served.
We ought to vote with our feet and go elsewhere but the fact is that there is
nowhere else to go because this neglect of the customer has become ubiquitous
and all institutions appear to adopt an attitude of take it or leave it despite
their glossy consumer relations literature telling us otherwise. I do not
discount the possibility that my annoyance with having to wait is related to my
advancing years and perhaps longevity does incur an inbuilt impatience but then
I also have far more experience than most of queuing which was elevated to an
art form during the years of the Second World War when austerity and the
subsequent shortages were the cause of daily columns of customers outside shops,
always waiting optimistically for a sausage or two, a bag of sugar or perhaps a
bit of haddock, while the hours I have spent outside the cinema to see the
latest Bogart or Cagney movie must be worthy of an entry in the Guinness Book of
Records.
I therefore know all about queuing but half a century on, it should be a thing
of the past. Modern technology has ended shortages, brought the movies into the
home and given everyone the chance to run their financial affairs over the
Internet, but if you want to draw a few pounds from the bank to see you through
next week or buy a stamp, then my goodness you will have to stand in line and
wait for it.
Thought for the week: Not taking anything on trust, weighing the evidence
and assuming that there’s a rational explanation for even apparently
inexplicable phenomena has stood me in good stead, helping me to get through
life’s inevitable tragedies and disappointments without being hoodwinked by
religion, reflexology, herbal medicine, astrology or whatever other fairy tales
have come my way. Just pass the Chablis and paracetamol and let me get on. -
Jane Asher, aged 61, actress, author and cake-baker, writing in The Times
Magazine, Saturday 27th October 2007.
Saturday 10th November 2007
The Abbey Primary School
in Bourne which is currently
celebrating 130 years of its history is likely to become a Church of England
School in the near future. The governors have begun a six week consultation with
parents and other stakeholders on a proposal to seek a change of status from a
foundation primary school to one with a Church of England character. If, after
this and one further consultation, the change is approved by the governors, the
school will in future be known as the Bourne Abbey Church of England Primary
School.
The involvement of the Church of England in education dates back two centuries,
the present school system in this country being largely a product of the lead
taken in the early years of the 19th century. Until 1870, education was a
voluntary initiative with the churches as main providers and when the Church of
England’s National Society was formed in 1811, educational opportunity for the
majority was limited to schools for the wealthy, i e public schools, or for the
poor on a charitable and local basis. The society’s aim was to provide a school
in every parish and the land to build them was given mainly by local benefactors
with the vicar and churchwardens as trustees although the education they
provided was for the poor of the parish.
The Education Act of 1870 was designed to make good the gaps in the church
system by providing Board schools where church schools did not already exist and
by the time of the 1902 Education Act, the dual system of educational provision
was firmly established and the local education authorities they created became
financially responsible for both voluntary and board schools.
The two main church providers of schools were the Church of England and the
Roman Catholic Church but in the 19th century, the Free Churches decided to
support the development of board schools and apart from a small number of
Methodist primary schools, this policy has continued. The 1944 Education Act
enabled church schools to opt into the maintained system by choosing between
aided and controlled status and some elected to become independent. In an aided
school, church involvement was very significant with a majority representation
on the governing body. Aided school governors, unlike those in county and
controlled schools, were employers of their staff, responsible for building
extensions and external repairs, for which they received a percentage
reimbursement from the LEA, and for admissions to their schools with
responsibility for any appeals. Controlled status was designed to enable
many of the older church schools to undergo major renovations with state funding
and LEAs became totally responsible for their finance although the school sites
continued to be owned by the trustees and the church retained a minority
representation on the governing body.
This was the situation when the statistics for a recent study of primary schools
were collected. The Church of England’s contribution to education within the
state sector is largely primary because at the time of the 1944 Act, many of the
church elementary schools became primary and it did not have the resources, nor
in many cases the will either, to build new secondary schools. Thus the Church
of England’s provision of secondary schools is 6% (220) compared with 25%
primary schools (4,470). Nevertheless, church schools today make up a third of
all those in the maintained sector in England and continue to play a highly
significant role in the country’s educational system.
The Abbey Primary School opened as a board school in 1877 and there has been a
continuous programme of expansion ever since, notably in recent years and in
June 1991 it was named as the first primary in Britain to obtain grant
maintained status but has since become a foundation school. In a statement this week on
the latest developments, the chairman of the governors, John Kirkman, said that
they had been debating the matter for some considerable time and added: “We are
unanimous and confident in our belief that this is an excellent proposal for the
school, our pupils and parents and indeed for Bourne itself. It will give
parents of Bourne greater choice and parents from other faiths may wish to send
their children to a school where all faiths are respected, protected and
encouraged.”
Mr Kirkman cited the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury [Robert Runcie] in
1988 when he stressed the importance of church schools: “It is about forming
people who have the moral strength and spiritual depth to hold to a course and
weather the ups and downs. It is about forming people who know that economic
competition is not more important than family life and love of neighbour, and
that technical innovation is not more important than the reverence for the
beauty of creation. It is about forming people who, however academically and
technically skilful, are not reduced to inarticulate embarrassment by the great
questions of life and death, meaning and truth”.
“These words”, said Mr Kirkman, “probably convey our inspiration and cement the
existing ethos of our school.”
What the local newspapers are saying: The future of another Bourne school
appears to be secure on its present site, according to the Stamford Mercury
which reports that plans to move Westfield Primary have been scrapped (November
9th). It was exactly a year ago that the newspaper reported that the school was
to be relocated to new premises at Elsea Park, the massive 2,000-home
residential estate now under construction on the southern outskirts of the town,
and although discussions were at an early stage, there were favourable signs
from Lincolnshire County Council that such a move might well be realised within
a few years and had been welcomed by both parents and staff at the 600-pupil
school.
It would certainly bring a sigh of relief to those living around the school
where streets are crammed with vehicles twice a day during term time as parents
ferry their children to and from school, jamming roads and driveways and
creating such congestion that an accident is likely on any day. But there were
fears that the existing school premises might be demolished and the land snapped
up by developers and used for housing whereas it is largely a greenfield site
and would be far more beneficial to the surrounding estate if it were retained
as such.
However, the newspaper now says that the school is to stay where it is because
of problems over negotiations with Allison Homes, developers of Elsea Park,
although a new school may still be built elsewhere as part of a comprehensive
review of primary places being undertaken in Lincolnshire by the county council.
The decision has been welcomed by the head teacher, Tim Bright, who says he was
never keen on the move in the first place. “The current site has a good
tradition”, he said. “We were never jumping for joy at the prospect of moving
although a new school is an exciting prospect.”
Remembering our war dead is an act of faith that will be observed
throughout the land this weekend which is as it should be for although wars are
anathema to most, they are inevitable and in today’s international climate there
appears to be no sign that conflict between nations is ending.
Those who fight the battles are not those responsible for starting them yet it
is they who are prepared to lay down their lives for home and country as man has
done since the beginning of time. The war memorials which can be found in towns
and villages across England therefore have a special significance in our lives,
especially to those who have served with the armed forces who have first hand
knowledge of such tragic loss.
War memorials began to appear on our village greens and elsewhere after the
Great War of 1914-18, often financed by the lord of the manor whose son most
probably died in the trenches while commanding a unit consisting of country
lads, many of whom may have worked on his own family estate. After the
Armistice, when the conflict officially ended at the 11th minute of the 11th
hour on November 11th in 1918, there was optimism that this had been the war to
end all wars, a forecast sadly found to be wanting, and so these memorials have
become the place for added inscriptions that reflect further loss of life in
causes that have been long forgotten.
Our own War Memorial in South Street is of recent origin, just half a century
old, erected in 1956 on land bequeathed to the town by Alderman Thomas Atkinson
(1874-1954), a farmer, alderman and magistrate, the design being based on the
cenotaph in Whitehall, London, and is the work of the architects W E Norman
Webster and Son. It is not recorded how many men left the town to join the armed
forces during the Great War of 1914-18 but it is known that 97 men lost their
lives and their names are inscribed on the stone cenotaph although there have
been suggestions that the figure is nearer 140 and that 40 names are therefore
missing.
The memorial also includes the names of 32 men who did not return from the
conflict of 1939-45 and a further three who died on active service before the
century ended. There is still space for more and unfortunately, as unrest
continues in an increasingly dangerous world, there is every indication that it
may be filled at some time in the future.
Thought for the week: If I should die, think only this of me: that
there’s some corner of a foreign field, that is forever England.
- from the
poem The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), soldier and poet, who became a
national hero after writing this and other war poems in 1914.
Saturday 17th November 2007
Walk through the town centre in Bourne and look upwards
and you will see dozens of vacant spaces on the top of shops and offices because
many of the properties in the main streets have empty rooms on the upper floors.
It is either uneconomical to bring them up to modern living standards or the
tenants below cannot be bothered to let them out.
Thirty years ago, an initiative was launched at Stamford by South Kesteven District
Council called Living over the Shop, a worthy scheme to persuade owners to
utilise this space with the added incentive of grants in the hope of increasing
available housing units and revitalising the town centre which was dead after 6
pm. One or two took up the challenge and several new flats appeared as a result,
their completion being given suitable publicity on radio and television but
after that, the scheme foundered on the rocks of apathy and disappeared into the
vaults along with so many other failed endeavours.
The council is again looking at empty properties with yet another scheme, this
time the Empty Houses Fund which will provide grants of £3,000 towards the cost
of materials and labour to bring them back into the market provided they have
been unoccupied and unfurnished for at least six months. Spokesman Kevin Martin,
told The Local that this was a real opportunity for anyone with an empty
house to get a significant boost towards returning them into use (November 2nd).
“The government is keen to maximise use of the country’s housing stock and
minimise the number of new homes to be built each year”, he said.
Having reported extensively on the previous initiative, I can see the failings
in this one which is unlikely to get off the ground. It therefore begs the
question as to whether an authority which is dedicated to delivering services should be associated with the disbursement of public money for private
profit. SKDC wants to bring empty properties back into use and the obvious way
to do that without handing out more cash is to require the owners to pay council
tax after they have been empty for a set period because it is the financial
penalties that focus the mind and not altruistic schemes from an authority which
should be concentrating its energies elsewhere.
The provision of housing for the less well off was one of the main roles
for which councils were intended when they were formed under the 1894 Local
Government Act championed in Parliament by the Prime Minister, William Ewart
Gladstone. Fifty years later, housing construction was dominated by local
authorities which built street after street for deserving families. Bourne may
be seen as a microcosm of the period with the building of council houses a major
factor in our expansion since 1900 and nowhere is this activity better
illustrated than on the eastern side of town. Between the wars, a considerable
number of these properties were erected, both houses and bungalows.
The eastern part of the old Meadowgate Road, now called Manning Road, was
developed in 1914 and 1919 and the Alexandra Terraces were created between 1924
and 1925. Recreation Road received 42 council houses in a single year, 1928, and
between then and 1930, a further 48 properties were erected in George Street. By
1938, BUDC had built a total of 204 houses, mostly situated around the
recreation ground in Recreation Road although there were others in Dyke village.
Harrington Street, one of the biggest estates, was named after Robert
Harrington, the town's 17th century benefactor, and developed between 1936 and
1937 with a total of 44 houses and ten bungalows, all of which are in use today.
This new residential area was officially opened in 1937 by Sir Edward Campbell,
MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health. Then soon after the end
of the Second World War in 1945, building started again with the creation of
additional streets and roads. Harrington Street was further extended between
1947 and 1950 with a different style of housing while 70 more homes appeared in
Ancaster Road. Queen's Road was established in 1953 with Edinburgh Crescent
adjoining and by 1960, 118 council houses, bungalows and flats were built in
these two roads while Kingsway appeared a few years later.
New building activity during the first half of the 20th century altered the
appearance of the town more rapidly than at any other time in its history. For
example, in the years between 1914 and 1970, the former Bourne Urban District
Council erected 546 houses, bungalows and flats while during the same period,
there was extensive private residential development on the west side of the
town, stretching out towards Bourne Wood. By 1969, there were 2,048 domestic
properties in Bourne and 597 were owned by the urban district council and
included houses, bungalows and flats, some built on the sites of old demolished
buildings scattered around the town. The council boasted in its official town
guide for that year: "Much private development is also in progress which
suggests that people wish to live in Bourne. The housing, private and council,
makes an attractive whole in which anyone may be encouraged to reside."
The council houses of past years were originally designed as accommodation for
the working classes and have been built by local authorities for more than a
hundred years. Intensive building programmes during that period, especially in
the years following the two world wars, have left most localities with a row of
these distinctive houses, constructed to a simple and similar design, but
providing rented homes and gardens for families of modest means.
The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher changed the perception of
the council house when the Housing Act of 1985 included a statutory Right to Buy
entitlement, introduced to encourage home ownership, and this enabled thousands
of sitting tenants purchase the properties in which they lived at discount
prices. As owner occupiers, they could then change the appearance of their homes
to suit their own tastes and these modifications invariably started with a new
front door, a feature that distinguishes the house that is now privately owned
from that which is still rented and is much in evidence today in the council
house streets.
But the building of new council houses has all but ended and SKDC has even
tried, unsuccessfully, to get rid of the 6,300 properties it still owns, 535 of
them in Bourne, although tenants were allowed a final say and they voted last
year by a 76% majority against the idea of their properties being sold to a
housing association. Local authorities give the reasons for not embarking on
further council house development as changing tastes and that people prefer to
buy their own homes but if this were true there would be no waiting list yet
3,779 people in South Kesteven currently have their names down for one. The real
reason is that staff salaries and pensions now have such a large claim on the
budget that the provision of public services has declined with new housing
taking a back seat and our communities are the poorer for it.
What the local newspapers are saying: The redevelopment of Bourne town
centre is still a long way off, according to the Stamford Mercury which
reports that yet another survey is underway, this time to decide whether the
additional £1.5 million funding demanded by the developers, Wilson-Bowden and
Dencora, is necessary before work can begin (November 16th). This will be
carried out by consultants at a cost of £6,500 although why outside assistance
should be needed when South Kesteven District Council employs some 750 people is
anyone’s guess.
The newspaper also indicates that there has been little movement in acquiring
the necessary properties to enable the £27 million development go ahead, an
ambitious scheme originally mooted in 2003 to rejuvenate that triangle of land
between North Street, West Street and Burghley Street, yet not a brick has yet
been laid although it is obvious that something should be done as a matter of
urgency to bring this town into the 21st century. Many people, especially
traders who will be directly affected, believe that there is no will to take the
project forward and although South Kesteven District Council keeps saying that
the scheme cannot go ahead without public support, it is difficult to know what
more the people can do except to say: "For goodness sake get on with it."
We battled with British Telecom for several days last week after losing
our broadband connection and it has been a traumatic experience to get it back
with many unsatisfactory calls to the sub-continent marred by misunderstandings
and language difficulties. The days of the high street showrooms have long gone
and like so many public organisations, BT is largely anonymous, with no postal
or email address to contact and accessible only through their web site or a
series of fixed rate telephone lines answered by recorded messages and
repetitive instructions to press this button or that, according to your query
and usually ending up in India.
Throughout the connection procedures, until we heard a real person on the line,
recorded messages assaulted the ear assuring us how BT cares and that customer
service is their prime concern but experience gives such assurances a hollow
ring. Most people have their own disaster story, whether it be the telephone
companies, water, gas and electricity authorities, the banks or some other
public organisation that deny us access to its offices and staff, yet customers
prefer the old way of dealing with a person rather than a machine while the
current system makes those ridiculous slogans sound like outright lies and even
a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
Reporting a fault or poor service has become daunting for the young and
distressing for the old but increasingly frequent as customers become victims of
corporate greed and a ruthless pursuit of profit. While the advertisements
trumpet the advantages and benefits on offer, reality is a very different story
and one of aggressive marketing, lengthy and binding contracts, now 18 months
for broadband from BT and a requirement that you pay by standing order, a
complex and often inaccessible after sales service and the threat of the
bailiffs if you fail to settle.
Those with monopoly status have become leaders in this field, their customers
having little choice but to comply and so the rules and regulations become more
severe with the years, adding more impositions that are way outside the
standards of fair practice and as the regulatory bodies are totally ineffective,
we assume that the government is complicit with what is happening.
Other authorities, particularly local councils, have been quick to follow suit
and now spend an inordinate amount of time with newly appointed officers to
dream up additional ways of extracting money from their customers, often through
fines or other financial penalties that would not bear scrutiny if anyone had
the temerity, time or money, to test them in the courts. Banks have also reached
a new low in the shifty extraction of cash from their clients and the money
pages of the national newspapers are crammed with horror stories of their
conduct in pursuance of accruing more by any means while underlying the whole
process is an aura of inefficiency that precludes a satisfactory settlement of
any grievance.
Wherever you turn, someone is there demanding money. We are assaulted in the
home by telephone, through the post by junk mail, on the doorstep by canvassers
and in the street by charity collectors. It has become the new preoccupation
with the service industry and instead of paying on delivery, we are now being
forced to settle up front through monthly standing orders with a financial
penalty for those who refuse to comply, a fee of £4.50 a quarter, for instance,
being recently imposed by British Telecom.
Two factors indicate that the current situation will get worse and they are
government compliance and public subservience. Whitehall will do nothing unless
pressed and most people want an easy life without making waves. We currently
live in a climate of universal affluence and unlimited credit, with filling
stations suddenly pushing up the price of petrol to £1 a litre and supermarkets
imposing similar swingeing increases for bread, butter and other foodstuffs with
hardly a whimper of protest, thus sending a signal to others that they may
squeeze us as they will. As with governments, we get the public services we
deserve.
Thought for the week: I believe that all government is evil, and that
trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. - Henry Louis Mencken
(1880-1956), better known as H L Mencken, journalist, satirist, social critic,
cynic, and freethinker, often regarded as one of the most influential American
writers of the early 20th century.
Saturday 24th November 2007
Tombstone of the Rev Thomas Parker - see "Anyone who uses
. . . "
Over seventy local authorities across Britain are
lobbying the government for the right to ban plastic bags issued by supermarkets
in an attempt to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill sites and
although this sounds an acceptable way forward it does not actually stand up to
close scrutiny. Firstly, local authorities should not be allowed to increase the
legal powers they already have and secondly the evidence is that most people use
the carrier bags that are given away by their millions at the checkouts for
other purposes which is the very essence of the recycling initiative.
The problem is that disposable plastic bags are an easy target because they are
often seen blowing around the countryside whenever there is a high wind, dumped
on roadside verges or littering the streets but then this is inevitable when
thirteen billion of them are distributed across the country each year but pro
rata, the misuse is minute compared with the value they have for other purposes
in the home. This, of course, is not the intention of handing them out at the
checkouts but as a convenience to customers who either forget or cannot be
bothered to take their own reusable containers with them when they shop and the
alternative would be to charge them for one.
Shopping is not to everyone’s delight and to impose restrictions and regulations
such as this would not be a popular move which is why the supermarkets are
resisting charging for plastic bags, preferring instead a policy of
encouragement rather than coercion for customers to use alternatives. Also, it
is not a good idea to allow our local councils to regulate any activity which is
outside their orbit for it will only add to their staffing levels at the expense
of the council tax payer, perhaps even the creation of a new department, and at
the same time give them added authority to poke their noses into our private
lives instead of concentrating on what they should be doing, that is providing
public services.
What the local newspapers are saying: The initiative to cut the use of
plastic bags from shops and supermarkets has been taken by Bourne Chamber of
Trade and Commerce although a reduced use rather than an ambitious outright ban
is envisaged. A front page report in The Local says that members plan to
start selling re-usable cloth bags in their shops for around £1.50 but need to
place an order for at least 1,000 before the scheme can go ahead (November
23rd). The pitfalls are already evident, mainly apathy, for although some
traders have given the idea their wholehearted support, others have misgivings,
mainly because of the cost and because they realise that old habits die hard.
Many shoppers have already made their own decision to switch but these are in
the minority and certainly persuasion is a far better method than the pressure
envisaged by some local authorities who latch on to anything to improve their
green credentials without giving a thought to whether it has a realistic chance
of being achieved.
Certainly, we must beware of government, either at national or local level,
imposing more controls over our lives, whether through the influence of
terrorism or environmentalism, or whatever happens to be the flavour of the
month, because you can be sure that whatever new laws are introduced, there will
be more taxes in their wake to fill the black holes that appear annually in
their budgets and will have no actual bearing on our lives.
Whitehall is full of small back rooms filled with jobsworth accountants and
economists beavering away at the coal face of direct taxation but the fiasco of
the window tax introduced in England in 1696, is ever present. This ridiculous
imposition meant that the larger the house the bigger the tax bill, and it was
not repealed until 1851 to be replaced by a tax akin to the council tax we know
today. Although that means of taxation is long gone, the thought behind it, that
anything popular or ubiquitous can produce an income, still lurks in the
corridors of power while the descriptive phrase it may have inspired, daylight
robbery, still has resonance each time a buff envelope drops through the letter
box.
The skateboarding lobby is demanding yet more money from the public purse
to set up a permanent site in the town for a pursuit which does not win the
approval of the majority. The town council has already agreed to contribute
£10,000 to develop a site on the playing field in Recreation Road and the owners
of the land, South Kesteven District Council, has agreed in principle to the
idea which will cost an estimated £130,000 but grant aid will still be required
before work can begin.
Organisers of the project known as Dimension Park are now seeking a further
£10,000 from the town council which, if agreed, would constitute 20% of the
authority’s annual budget. No decision has yet been taken by councillors and as
the suggestion is quite unthinkable, we wonder why they are dithering because
the answer must be a definite no. Apart from the location, which is in the middle
of a densely populated area and therefore quite unsuitable, skateboard parks
have proven to be magnets for anti-social conduct and a target for vandals. The
one at Stamford, for instance, also built on the town recreation ground, was
closed down this summer because of serious wilful damage which rendered it unfit
for use and the Lincolnshire Free Press has recently reported a similar
case at Sutton Bridge where facilities installed three years ago at the park in
Prince's Street have been shut for repairs because of vandalism (November 13th).
The fact is that skateboarding is a minority pursuit that attracts the unruly
element in our society, wayward and trouble making, and if sited near domestic
premises can be a grave annoyance to residents, especially late at night when
young people tend to congregate. Those responsible for the proposed Dimension
Park may think they are fulfilling a community need but they should not be given
large amounts of public money to pursue a marginal pastime that may currently be
in vogue but is most likely to become passé among the younger generation in a
very short space of time and so much money and effort will have been expended
for nought.
One would have thought that the banks were in quite enough trouble with
the adverse publicity over sub-prime mortgages but here they are courting the
possibility of yet more bad debts with circulars sent indiscriminately to
customers offering them money. The latest from Lloyds TSB, addressed to my wife,
announces that there is £11,250 waiting for her between now and the end of
December if she wishes to take advantage of a personal loan, details to be
finalised over the telephone in less than thirty minutes, but at a guaranteed
fixed interest rate, nothing to pay for three months.
Although we are regular customers and have been for many years, the bank does
not seem to realise that we are old age pensioners living on a fixed income and
in the unlikely event of needing such a large sum, how on earth would we repay
what they are asking, namely £270.46 a month for the next four years and a
whopping 7.4% interest payment of £1,732.22, that is if we live that long?
Sending these money lending offers to people who obviously cannot afford them is
quite unacceptable and to compound the offence, the form arrived in an envelope
with a logo on the front announcing Personal Loans in large letters, thus
sending out a message to the neighbours if they saw it, and mail is frequently
delivered to the wrong addresses in our street, that we are on our
uppers and not the prudent managers of our household finances they have hitherto
been led to believe.
This is one of several such communications from Lloyds TSB in the past year and
although the others have been consigned to the wpb, the bank has continued to
send us fresh offers and so this time I have sent it back with a request that
our names be deleted from their mailing list and if another does arrive, then I
will lodge a formal protest with our Member of Parliament requesting him to ask
a question in Parliament as to why the banks are pestering those who cannot
afford it to borrow large amounts of money.
Although we have refused, others may not be so prudent when such amounts are
being thrown at them with relatively little scrutiny. Banks never learn their
lesson. They always want more by any means, hence the demise of Northern Rock
and others may well follow suit. Lloyds TSB should be warned.
Anyone who uses a camera regularly will know that taking good pictures is
largely a hit and miss affair and you never really know what you have until the
film is developed, or as is mostly the case these days, the images are
downloaded on to your computer, when the results can often be surprising.
A few weeks ago, after a day of dark skies and continual rain, the clouds
eventually cleared and the weather brightened up and so shortly before 5 pm we
went to the town cemetery to do some research into those who have gone before,
looking particularly for the grave of the Rev Thomas Parker who was pastor at
the Congregational Church in Eastgate, now the United Reformed Church, from
1905-08. He subsequently retired to live in Nottinghamshire where he died in
1946, aged 82, but both he and his wife Ethel, who died in 1959, aged 83, chose
to be buried here.
By all accounts he was a deeply religious and pious man and my photograph of
their grave, which resembles an evangelical scene from Victorian times, could be
construed by many believers as a sign of his faith, the biblical texts on the
tombstone reading "Life is eternal" and "In his keeping", whereas my camera
merely captured a freak shot showing the rays of the late afternoon sun.
From the archives: On Sunday morning last, the new Vicar, the Rev G E
Massey, went through the ceremony of what is termed "reading himself in", the
Thirty-nine Articles being read instead of the sermon. In the evening, the Vicar
took his text from the 41st verse of the 19th chapter of Luke: "And when he was
come near he beheld the city, and wept over it." The reverend gentleman, in a
short discourse, kept close to his text, in no way alluding to the circumstances
of this being his initiatory sermon, but having finished the sermon and closed
the book, he, in a few brief and appropriate remarks, referred to the
commencement of his ministry amongst his parishioners, to whom he earnestly
appealed for their co-operation, and affectionately asking their prayers for
divine blessing to rest upon him in his humble efforts to promote their welfare.
- news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 2nd November 1877.
Thought for the week: The market in Bourne is on a Saturday but it is not
well attended. - William Marrat, from his History of Lincolnshire, published
in 1814.
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