brennon

No, not an advert for an insurance company, it's how I feel about this country's attitude to wind power.  'They're the best thing since sliced bread' ....'The companies only do it because the government gives massive subsidies'....'We must have them because of global warming'.............'They're completely useless because the wind doesn't blow all the time'...........'The Danes have stopped building them'...........'The Danes love them to death and are building even more'.  Get my point?

However, my confusion is not important, what is important is the attitude of those in power and who have influence.  I received a propaganda document from some of these people today and the inside cover was covered in all sorts of logos, many of them from energy companies.  the cover letter was badged by the TCPA and here's the rub, TCPA stands for Town and COUNTRY (my emphasis) Planning Association.

The document itself is called Community Energy: URBAN (my emphasis again) planning for a low carbon future.  Section 5.7 of the document is called Rural Hinterland and page 57 contains the extraordinary statement .."it is likely that the best onshore sites for wind turbines will be in the rural hinterland between towns and cities."  Just in case you're still wondering what my point is, delete rural hinterland from the above quote and enter South Holland, or just about any other part of Lincolnshire come to that!

So, an organisation with COUNTRY in its title is promoting a document about URBAN planning that promotes the targetting of rural areas for future wind farms.  If the case for wind turbines was made and unchallengeable, dumping all these turbines in the countryside would be bad enough, but given the mixed messages, spin and outright BS that still continues to be churned out of this subject, such outright support for this attitude to our rural areas is a disgrace!

There's been a newspaper debate going on recently about a local issue and the ‘reaction' to it by certain parties has struck a chord - with me anyway!

The issue I'm talking about doesn't really matter and I won't tell you anyway because then you'd know who I was talking about and I might get in to trouble with you know who!  Actually you probably don't know who, but you might work it out eventually - so I'm still not going to tell you!

Anyway, as I was saying, this issue was raised at a council meeting by one member and completely dismissed by the one being questioned - big mistake!  Whoever raises an issue, even if they're total plonkers (not that I'm saying the questioner in this is) you should always be careful not to dismiss them out of hand, even if the issue sounds trivial to you.  Incidentally, I actually agree with what he was saying, so he can't possibly be a total plonker can he?

On the face of it, in the great scheme of things this might seem like a trivial issue, but it was obviously important enough for somebody to raise it with the member and for him to ask the question at the council meeting.  Worse still, for the dimisser, once the story and his response hit the local newspapers, more members of the public decided to put their hands up and write in, saying that they had also clocked the issue and thought that it should be sorted out.  This also gave them the chance to take a swipe at a couple of other longstanding gripes, but that's another story (or two).

So, having taken some stick in the letters pages, the dismisser, as I have now christened him, decided to tack another "don't bother me with trivia" response on to the end of his newspaper comments about another ongoing issue - bigger mistake!!

Now I've finally gotten to the point of this entry - about time to! I hear you cry (if you've got this far).  Telling people that an issue is too trivial to bother you with and that you have far more important strategic things to deal with, is both short-sighted and more than a little arrogant (in my humble opinion!). 

The dimisser has actually used something that all elected members are told from time to time, as a reason for his attitude.  Problem is, in my humble opinion (see you can't accuse me of being arrogant can you) he's used it in completely the wrong way.  Members are always being told that it is dangerous to get involved in the operational activities of the council and to stick to the strategic bits.  However, this does not mean that we're supposed to keep our noses out of things that go wrong and that effect the public, far from it, that's the bread and butter of being an elected member, so using it as an excuse for doing nothing is dangerous to say the least! 

Operational means internal staffing issues; how the staff are managed, how the staff are disciplined, how the staff are recompensed, etc, etc, not how the council deals with the public or responds to public concerns over what seem to be ‘trivial' issues.

The dismisser seems to have started to believe his own publicity and to think that his grand title and extensive portfolio somehow allows him to ignore what the little people think - very dangerous indeed!  However, given his ‘standing in the community' and I use that term very loosely, he'll probably be safe at the ballot box.  This seems to be the way things work around here when you're a local local (local, local I said, not local yokel!) it seems only us incomers are vulnerable to being punished at the ballot box if we speak out of turn - politics!

The debate over the best way to update our leisure facilities is rumbling on, with some people making a fuss about things still yet to be decided.  This is okay because people do need to be involved and they do need to let the politicians know what they think.  Unfortunately, some of the comments made are not really dealing with the facts as they exist on the ground. 

One letter in the local newspaper berated us for considering building over the green space that is a 'jewel' in Spalding!  for a start it's not a very shiny jewel and worse still, the writer completely ignores the fact that the current facilities are actually paid for by all South Holland taxpayers, not just those living in Spalding, so easier access for all those who live in South Holland should be seen as of great importantance.

As it stands, the only thing that has really been decided, is to look at the issue in detail.  You could argue that as politicians, having made a public commitment (as part of our election manifesto no less!)  to update the leisure facilities, we'll find it almost impossible to then say, oops, sorry, can't be done!

Unfortunately, no matter how committed (pigheaded) we are, a reality check will be needed about affordability as well as availability, before we can proceed much further.  Can we as a council afford to build a new facility?  Will the place we end up looking to build it actually be available?  If the answer to either of these questions is no, then any election manifesto promises are as about as much use as......Gordon Brown's promise to look after the poorest paid people in our country, by introducing a 10p income tax band!

If anybody wants to discuss the affordability issue, then send me a comment on this blog and I'll go in to it in more detail.  However, one point I do want to deal with here, is the claim that Spalding would be loosing a ‘jewel' of some kind.

Yes, if the area of the Castle Sports field was a wide open expanse of grass, freely available to all, for playing on, walking on and doing all the other things that people do in parks (some of them more legal than others!) then I might agree that this is an area to be preserved and improved.  As it stands, the major open area is marked out as a sports pitch, contains no form of landscaping and certainly doesn't fit the role of a public park.

If you look at the images below, you'll see the size of the Castle Sports field and the size of the Halley Stewart.  So, if you accept that the green bit of Castle Sports won't get any bigger, were we to retain the area and just refurbish it, what would the people calling for it to be retained have gained for the people of Spalding?  I think you know the answer to this one - nowt!  That's nothing to us Southerners!  The existing sports pitch will still need to be a sports pitch, or things would actually be worse than when we started and the vast majority of the free space will still be tarmac.

So, if Spalding is to ever have a real public park, in the town centre, where people can roam free and do what they want (legally!) then we have to figure out how to free up the Halley Stewart, as this would a lot cheaper than digging up the bus station!. 

We could of course evict the football club, knock down the walls and the grand stand and all the other stuff that makes it look smaller than it is and then lay it out with paths, flower beds, benches etc.  Unfortunately, there's probably little or no money available for such a major project in the foreseeable future and I don' think the football club would be too impressed either!  Give them the chance to move to a new pitch, as part of a new facility, seems to be a better idea.

Some boring but noteworthy figures for the land areas involved are:

Overall usable area of the Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field is approx 1.75ha or 17,500m².
Overall usable area of the Castle sports field is approx 3.14ha or 31,400m².
The area of the Castle Sports field that is currently available for the public to walk on when the pitch is not in use is approx 2.14ha or 21,400m².
When the pitch is in use, the public useable area of the Castle Sports field is approx 1.4ha or 14,000m².

The debait about gramer skhols is otin up agin!  Sorry, just proving I'm not biased - I went to a comprehensive school and the new Labour (new in both senses) push by some 50 MPs to try to kill them off is yet another demonstration of reverse snobbery.  The reason I think I must be so thick and uneducated is because I simply don't understand why they hate grammar schools so much.  Yes, they only take pupils who have passed a test and then go on to a certain type of school because of that, so what? 

Why can't the kids who don't pass the test get the same quality of education at the comprehensive or secondary school they end up at, as those kids who go to the grammar school?  Surely not just because the grammar school exists?  That can't be true can it? 

Why can't these Labour MP's stop fighting the old class war and concentrate on pushing up the standards in the non-grammar schools, thereby ensuring that the kids who go to grammar schools gain nothing but a fancy uniform? 

Perhaps these MPs are fed up with being shown up by the performance of the grammar schools and they want to drag every kid down to the same level of mediocrity we are now seeing amongst the children leaving many of our non-grammar schools.  Perhaps they're embarrassed by the never ending stories of bad behaviour, exclusion orders, PC governing bodies that over-rule their own headmasters and reinstate the yobs and equally yobbish parents that are more ready to attack the teachers than discipline their precious little Wayne or Stacey.

This new attack is nothing but pseudo 'working class' envy of the worst kind and the worst example of the old Labour political dogma infecting the new.  Hopefully those running New Labour will realise that this issue is a miserable attempt by the outdated old guard of their party to step back in time.

Then again, maybe I am just fick! - so please somebody educate me.  Both ex-comprehensive and grammar school kids are welcome!

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) seem to think we are all idiots and that making positive comments about migrant workers will make the government like them more! 

Their latest statement that, according to the figures, the increase in migrant workers has not lead to an increase in crime is frankly ridiculous.  I'm no mathematician, but here's how I see it:

I start with a population of 1000 people and 100 of them commit crimes, then I have 10% of my population who are criminals.

Add 1000 migrant workers to my population and have 100 of them commit crimes, then I have another 10% of that population who are criminals.

We have lies, damned lies and statistics.  So the figures can be published in a way that shows no increase. 

10% of 1000 is 100 and 10% of 2000 is 200.  So if I tell you that only 10% of the population are criminals and this hasn't changed even though the population has doubled, I'm not ‘lying' about the percentage, but I am lying about the actual numbers of criminals that now exist in my population.

The fact that this refers to migrant workers is irrelevant.  However, it is a fact that our local newspapers carry stories every week about foreign workers being involved in drink related incidents.  Some of these involve fighting with each other , but other reports involve driving whilst drunk and/or driving without road tax or even worse, without insurance.

So please ACPO, don't insult my intelligence by telling me that adding tens of thousands of people to the existing population (whether they are from Poland or Pluto, Romania or Rigel 3, Latvia or Liechtenstein) doesn't result in an increase in actual crimes!   

Once again, Caroline Spelman MP is trying to stop the garden grabbing blight that is infesting our country thanks to Mr John (two Jags - how many houses?) Prescott and his now deceased Office of The Deputy Prime Minister, by introducing a bill in the house.

As usual, the government claim the've got it covered (they never like anybody to have a good idea before them):

A spokesperson for Communities and Local Government said: "Local authorities have always had the power to turn down applications for inappropriate housing development in back gardens and new planning rules that came into force in April have strengthened those powers further.

"In particular, councils have now been given the ability to set local policies that specifically protect gardens and to separate gardens out from their wider Brownfield development targets."

My only question is; has anybody told the Planning Inspectorate?  Good luck Caroline, you'll need it!

See the full story at: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/1115315770844.html

As usual, you can't please all of the people all of the time and I'm sure all those people with big houses and big gardens will be reaching for the phone book so that they can get an agent on the case, before the rules change yet again! 

Gordon Brown is promoting yet another one of his hollow promises, via a Lib Dem MP led review of rural housing provision.  Most of what is being proposed ia already in place, or is a ridiculous simplification of the current situation:

The policy is already available - they're called rural exception sites.

Are parish council's going to identify sites by riding rough shod over existing local plan policies?

Where will parish councils get the planning advice they need to identify these sites in an unbiased and consistent manner?

All those districts councils with a proven affordable housing need already have affordable housing policies in place.

How are parish councils going to force landowners to release the land they identify?  Are they going to use compulsory purchase orders?  Where will they get the up front cash for that? 

The details are:

The key proposal is to give powers to England's 8,000 parish councils to identify sites for homes where demand for affordable housing is so high that they justify "exceptional" planning approval.

This procedure ........... can currently be used only by local authorities and is more commonly used to force developers to include social housing in bigger plots. It is seen as ineffective in small villages, where as few as 1,500 affordable houses are built a year under the process.

Because permission to build in such villages would normally be refused under planning restrictions, Mr Taylor suggests that sites could be bought for about £100,000 an acre, a fraction of the full market value of land for housing development. Homes built under the process, typically in plots of between four and a dozen, must be for local workers and must be sold at a price set by affordability criteria - such as three times joint average local earnings for couples - which he estimates would mean a three-bedroom house for £120,000 in many areas.

The full story, compliments of the Times is at:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3649184.ece

The title refers to my previous whinging about the local newspaper ignoring my letters!  Well today, following an article in last week's paper, complete with photo of when I had hair (shows how old that one is!) I have not one, not two, not three ......okay you get the picture, an avalanche (four letters) taking a swipe at me!  As I said in my earlier entry, as chairman of DC I expect to take some stick for the decision to go ahead with the enforcement action against the Fleet Hargate development.  The officer's advice was not to, the barrister's advice was against, but the committee felt duty bound to try - and that is that!

One of the letters tells me that, as chairman of the development control committee, I must pay careful attention to the concerns expressed by the people of Pinchbeck and the public, in respect of the workers accommodation proposal that will be considered at DC on Weds night - I agree.  I also need to pay heed to the bigger issues involved, to the advice of our professional planning officers, to the fact that we have a lack of accommodation for people in this area - wherever they are from.  I also need to pay careful attention to the fact that this situation is only likely to get worse, as the housing market slows and the developers find it more difficult to deliver the developments that delivers the affordable housing.  Ultimately, this will be a committee decision not mine alone - so watch this space!