Peter Kent-Baguley

I am on leave until 22nd August.

Travelling at not more than 4 M.P.H. I'm hoping to relax and enjoy the countryside and urban landscapes north of Stoke-on-Trent. 

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At the end of a frantic day of working through a backlog of admin, imagine my delight on sighting a splendid K6!

When one of our City Council conservation officers told me yesterday that he had spotted a K6 in the City, albeit the rural fringe, within 3 miles of where I live, well frankly, I thought he must have a strong imagination. How sheepish I feel! I have driven along Bemersley Road countless times so it's a mystery how I had never noticed the red kiosk opposite TONGUE LANE, set a few yards back from the road along a wide track.

Structurally it's in good condition and though not flaking as badly as the doomed kiosk at Light Oaks, it does need a careful repaint. I have written again to the area BT Payphone Manager seeking a discussion so that we can establish a clear liaison process and stressing the importance of retaining these increasingly rare examples of excellent design.

Of course, with the rise and rise of the mobile 'phone we need public kiosks less and less. However, as a contribution towards minimising its unprofitability (BT indicate that fewer than half of all public kiosks are profitable) I encouraged my wife to call a friend while I photographed the kiosk.  

Congratulations to our eagle-eyed conservation officer.

If you read my Sunday entry you will have gathered that I think the red telephone kiosk, the K6, is one of the most brilliant pieces of design ever produced. It is truly iconic. To the profit obsessed and bureaucratic mentality of a large coporation like the privatised BT it is merely a public call-box which is not used enough and which they can't be bothered to maintain properly.

The K6 at Light Oaks, rather than standing out glowing with pride it looks more like a piece of scrap iron that fell off a lorry and happened to land there. And all because BT failed to maintain it properly.

I tried to speak to the BT Payphones area manager. JULIE, the person handling my call on the BT Freephone number clearly didn't want to be bothered by callers like me. The order has been given for it to be disconnected and removed. That's it, no further discussion. I felt the raid at dawn was on, but Julie wouldn't tell or didn't know, which dawn would see the attack on the K6 carried out. 

I was told that the BT area manager didn't have a telephone number! Can you believe it? A BT area manager does not have a telephone!

Julie eventually conceded the area manager's name and address: Jeff Beckett, BT Payphones, PO Box 1105, FREEPOST LV7117, Liverpool. L73 4BT

I dashed off a quick appeal and just caught the last postal collection from Packmoor. Why am I not surprised he hasn't yet  accepted my invitation to 'phone me?

If we lose sight of the detail that contributes to well designed environments then we can expect nothing but bland and ugly towns and cities in which fewer and fewer of us will want to work and live and play. 

Descions made by the EXECUTIVE (that's the ELECTED MAYOR & UNELECTED COUNCIL MANAGER/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER) can be "CALLED-IN" by Councillors for further investigation and discussion.

As Leader of the PEOPLE'S PARTY, with the support of the Leader of the INDEPENDENT GROUP (Cllr Ann James), the Leader of the LIBERAL DEMOCRAT GROUP (Cllr Jean Bowers),and the Leader of the CITY FIRST ALLIANCE GROUP (Cllr Roger Ibbs) I submitted the CALL-IN paper for the decision to:

"dispose of 0.82 acres of Council land a Regent Road, Hanley, on the basis of a long lease at a peppercorn rent (ie £1) for the development of a Community Centre and Mosque."

The temporary Council Manager stated that he thought the Report was "a good report which was well written and balanced and presented the issues appropriately"

I think it is one of the poorest Chief Officer's Reports I have ever read at the Council. It fails to include vital information, contains inaccuracies and fails to make clear what PRECISELY is to be built. So far, I have 31 major questions to be answered. 

This is one of the more serious examples of the abuse of the democratic process. Hopefully, the meetings which will be convened in response to the CALL-IN will remedy the present democratic deficit. 

So, how much does it cost to paint a flagpole? The metal one at the BRINDLEY FORD War Memorial is in need of a repaint. The problem is, the pole is fixed into the ground, not hinged or bolted for lowering, so an early estimate is £350! Any lower offers?

What has the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool got in common with the red cast-iron telephone kiosk? Answer: their architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. He was only 22 years old when he won the competition to design the largest cathedral in Britain. Its foundation stone was laid in 1904.

20 years later, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott won the competition to produce a standard telephone kiosk design. Until then, the style of kiosks varied from place to place. Called the K2, because it was the 2nd generation of kiosks, it was the familar red cast-iron design but taller and wider than the K6, the one we are most used to seeing. Most of the surviving K2s are in London.

To mark King George V's 1935 Silver Jubilee, the GPO desided it wanted to place a kiosk in every village with a Post office and Scott was asked to design a smaller and cheaper version of his large K2. The result was the K6, in my view, an absolute model of excellent design.

When the GPO was privatised in 1984, BT embarked on a mass cull of the of the 80,000 K6s, leaving only 15,000 on our urban streets and squares and country lanes and village greens. Fortunately, ENGLISH HERITAGE has Listed some 2,000 of them, but mainly in rural areas. The K6 survive in the villages around Stoke-on-Trent. Brown Edge, Endon and Horton for example but in the City itself they are all but extinct. 

Today I was delighted to discover what is probably the only K6 in Stoke-onTrent. It stands, sadly rather damaged and neglected, at Light Oaks, along Jack Haye Lane near the corner with Bagnall Road. As the picture above shows, even some of the cast iron glazing bars have been cut away and I can't recall seeing a K6 in service in such poor paint condition.

That stretch of Jack Haye Lane is just inside the City boundary, thank goodness. I shall ask our Conservation Officers to contact BT urgently and request that they repair and repaint it. I shall also ask them to seek Listed status for it via English Heritage.

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   in: NEWS

I was going to say that one of the most pleasant tasks I have in the Ward is to attend the fortnightly PACKMOOR METHODIST CHURCH coffee morning but in fact I would support it whether or not I were a councillor. A score or so are regular attenders and the church hall quickly develops a happy hubbub of catching up on local events and sharing personal news. Most are not members of the church but happy to support this absolutely crucial fortnightly fund-raising event. Without it the Church would be bankrupt.

We are fortified and well-served by the core kitchen staff, Jean and Harry Tilstone, their daughter Belinda and fellow church member Janice Barley. They supply a seemingly endless round of buttered toast and cups of tea and coffee. And if one forgets to pay for the toast, which come to think of it, I did this morning, no one chases after you!

I am sure that many more local residents would spend an enjoyable hour or so there, if only they popped a long for a sample visit. It's worth it just for the toast! 

Not only is the Labour ELECTED MAYOR, Mark Meredith, seen by the vast majority of City residents to be an expensive waste of money, the City Council's LABOUR GROUP are at last expressing dismay.

In yesterday's FULL COUNCIL meeting, Labour Group Leader, Cllr Terry Doughty, said that the ELECTED MAYOR'S ADVISORY PANEL (EMAP) set up only a month ago was already giving much needed political direction to the Council Executive Officers. What a public admission of no confidence in the Labour Elected Mayor!

The Elected Mayor, at nearly £80,000 a year, is supposed to be the one who gives political direction to the unelected COUNCIL MANAGER & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER and his fellow Chief Executive Officers. Since Mayor Meredith clearly can't do the job without 8 Labour Councillors helping him with advice, I said in the debate that he should resign and save us all a lot of money.

Why on earth should 8 Labour Councillors be paid £9,500 a year EXTRA because they have been asked to give Meredith advice? There are 60 Councillors all ready and willing to give him advice but of course the TRUTH is, he doesn't want that.

What Meredith wants to do is to subvert the Council's constitution by the backdoor. What he really wants is a Cabinet by any other name. Then, come the Referendum next May, when the City residents have the chance to get rid of this expensive and pointless Elected Mayor system he will try to convince people that an Elected Mayor and Cabinet system actually works well!

And like his boss at No 10, is quite prepared to use whatever system of patronage he can get his hands on. Thus, he is alleged to have promised one of the Opposition Group Leaders 2 extra Chairs (each worth £7,000 a year) if his Group would support the report to pay the advisors £9,500 a year!

Labour Leader Cllr Doughty had the cheek to blame the so-called INDEPENDENT REMUNERATION PANEL for a poor Report! I say, so-called, because strangely enough their recommendations to Full Council were the same as the suggestions they received in the Report by the Head of Law & Probity. His Report would have been given the okay by the Council Manager who would in turn have surely received the green light from the Elected Mayor! Hadn't the Elevcted Mayor told the Labour Group Leader? Hadn't the Labour Group Leader asked?

So with no data with which to back up the claim for £9,500 for these so-called Advisors, the Independent Remuneration Panel surprise, surprise, AGREED! I say, each of that three-member Panel should resign.

Cllr Doughty was EITHER struggling to wriggle out of supporting an appalling Report because he realised it would be voted out OR he genuinely believed it to be a bad report and so presumably had not been included in the Elected Mayor's plot to pay his Advisors. Either way, it looks pretty murky.

Illness and holidays prevented a number of Labour Councillors from attending so the Report was easilly defeated. Former Council Leader Barry Stockley voted against the Report too, thus voting against the Labour Group. Will he be the next to be suspended from the group?

So EMAP may well turn out to be a road to nowhere. No £9,500 may mean little or no advice for the bunkered Elected Mayor! 

The first meeting of the MEMBERS' DEVELOPMENT GROUP since the May elections saw only 3 of the possible 12 Leaders and Deputy Leaders of the six different political Groups on the Council present at this morning's meeting. This cross-party Group pioneered some excellent work last year. Supported by senior Council officers, training or briefing sessions on a wide range of issues were held throughout the last Council year. A third of the 60 Councillors attended at least 3 sessions in the year.

I hope this poor start doesn't indicate indifference to the Member Development Programme. (MDP) During the last Council year, the City Council, in common with every other council in the West Midlands signed up to the West Midlands Local Government Association MDP. Although it's difficult to find a politician who doesn't know everything, of course the reality is, we all have much to gain from well organised briefing sessions and the discussion which follows.

As the City Council's HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT & DESIGN CHAMPION, during the last Council year I pioneered the promotion of a series of half day seminars on the theme, DESIGN FOR CHANGE. Particularly, but not exclusively, aimed at Members AND officers concerned with the DEVELOPMENT CONTROL COMMITTEE (ie planning) with similar Members and Officers from neighbouring Councils. Keynote presentations by national experts in planning and design, combined with site visits at the various venues fopr the seminars, Burslem, Stafford, Leek and Newcastle-under-Lyme, provided an excellent framework for increasing one's knowledge and understanding through the exchange of ideas and experiences.

The coloured bricks, roughly edged with concrete at the base of the City Council sign are absolutely incompatible with the stone base of the 1914-1919 War Memorial at the entrance to the City's only Grade 1 Listed building, the MAUSOLEUM at Trentham. Is the sign necessary? If so, does it have to be where it is? If so is it appropriately designed and made of the best materials for the situation? What is the overall design impression of that area? These are very basic issues addressed throughout the DESIGN FOR CHANGE course in countless situations.

The appalling incompatibility of materials makes me think no one asked any of the design questions that should be basic for all environmental situations. I shall be pressing for a redesign!

The Sentinel booked me for a photoshoot in Hanley at 3pm. By the time we did the business at 4pm the sky had darkened and the rain was pelting down in marked contrast to the weeks of hot, dry weather! The subject matter took second place I think to which tree we could each shelter beneath so goodness knows what the pictures will be like. So far nothing has appeared in print so perhaps I shall be spared the embarrassment of a drenched image.

Last year, ENGLISH HERITAGE launched free 8 regional versions of their excellent publication, STREETS FOR ALL. All cover the same issues but each version is illustrated with specific examples from their individual region. The West Midlands version includes two photographs of the landscaped area around Burslem Town Hall and the modern Ceramica extension.

The essence of STREETS FOR ALL is simple enough: to reduce "official litter", ie eliminate all those unnecessary signs, railings, bollards etc. Necessary facilties should be WELL DESIGNED, made of HIGH QUALITY MATERIALS and located in positions which fit well with an OVERALL DESIGN for the environment.

Underlining this simple REDUCE and IMPROVE approach is the radical idea that streets ARE for all NOT just motorists! So where pedstrianisation is not an option, urban streets, especially town/city centre streets SHOULD be designed so that they are friendly for all ALL USERS.

As the City Council's HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT & DESIGN CHAMPION, this is one of my important messages to Council officers, business people and crucially, all of us who live and work in the City.

It is always a pleasure and learning experience in conversation with DORIS BROWN. After various meetings and numerous 'phone calls seeking funding support for the recently formed local arts group: SHARE IN ETRURIA, now a registered charity, I slipped out of the City to the Newcastle-under-Lyme Congregational Church basement. It was the final day of the Newcastle Watercolour Society's annual exhibition.

Doris is certainly one of the most accomplished watercolour artists to emerge from Stoke-on-Trent. Her pupil-colleague relationship with REGINALD HAGGAR spanned several decades. As she went round the impressive Haggar exhibition earlier this year at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Doris told me: "I recalled quite clearly the occasions when many of them were painted. We would paint together and he would always offer some helpful critical thought. Once, he said I would have been better not including the washing on the line; he left it out of his painting. Mine was the one that sold at the following exhibition though!" 

Doris is the resident artist-tutor at the Newcastle Society's weekly classes. She has been tutoring classes for over 40 years and still runs four classes a week. "I thoroughly enjoy doing them. If I didn't I wouldn't do them." Doris said. Dozens and dozens of apsiring watercolourists have gained insights and improved their brush work as a result of Doris' acute eye and kindly manner. Not surprisingly, the national Society of Watercolour Artists invited her to be a Member of their august body. As seen above, one of her abiding subjects is the pot bank with their inimitable bottle kilns.