Category Archives: Everyday life

South Holland a dangerous place for young drivers

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Lincolnshire roads are some of the most dangerous for young drivers, with the roads in South Holland apparently the most dangerous of them all.

I’ve no doubt people of a certain age – mine – will be making the same comments about this story as they always do, it’s not the roads, it’s the drivers! That is of course true for the most part. I have yet to hear of a road actively injuring, or killing a driver, passively yes, but actively no, that requires the intervention of a bad, but not necessarily young, driver.

Watching a news item on Look North tonight on the subject of our dangerous roads, I saw them teaching some young people to control a car on a skid pan, with the kids involved very much enjoying the experience. I don’t wish to be a killjoy, but the purpose of the exercise was supposedly education not enjoyment. Given the basis for the news story, slipping and sliding around the relatively safe environment of a skid pan, doesn’t wasn’t even educating the kids in the right way.

I won’t be the first to point out that it isn’t the mechanics of driving the car that’s the problem for young drivers, many pass their test first time and with a minimum of professional lessons – the biggest problem with young drivers is their attitude. This could be described as over-confidence, arrogance, bravado, showing-off in fact, all of these and more. Bad attitude from young drivers is on display nearly everyday of the year and also on many summer nights, in Sainsbury’s car park, let alone out on our public roads. Until we tackle this aspect of young driver training, we will continue to see hundreds of young lives damaged and wasted on the roads of the UK.

Supermarkets everywhere, all of the time – the future?

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Following on from the previous entry about Justin King of Sainsbury and his, ‘don’t blame us’ statement, let’s not forget that he and his cohort are working tirelessly behind the scenes, lobbying government ministers, to gain even wider opening hours for all large retail outlets. Not only are they demanding the scrapping of our Sunday trading laws, they also want to see the last two non-shopping days of the year, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, become business as usual.

Just as with all the other boundaries that have been broken down by the heavyweights in the supermarket world, the reason they give for pushing for these changes, is not because they want to screw the last penny out of the buying public, but because we, the British public, want them.

Of course we, the British public, probably don’t yet know we want them, that explanation will come when people realise what has happened and start protesting about yet another step towards a 24/7 society. The supermarkets will then leap on to their high horses, telling us that it’s what we want and that they are just responding to public demand!

Sainsbury’s Justin King – It’s not fair, it’s not our fault!

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The top dog at Sainsbury claims that high street shops have brought about their own demise and that it is nothing to do with the supermarkets he and his mates in the business have infested our towns and cities with. Is he just been funny or bullish, or does he really believe what he’s saying?

It might of been just possible to see the supermarkets as mounting fair competition to other food stuff providers when they were of a town centre scale and location. However, as soon as they decided to seek green field sites, away from centres of population, followed by selling an ever increasing range of non-food goods, it was no longer the case. The purchasing muscle deployed by supermarkets, combined with a ruthless and cut throat approach to pricing from their suppliers, means that the small independent retailer, of the standard fare, has no hope of competing.

If Mr King really believes that town centre shops are not falling victim to his brand of business, then he, along with all the other supermarket bosses, should be doing something to support and
encourage them, instead of trampling them under foot. Nor should he suggest that they can afford to run loyalty schemes, ala Nectar points, that will cut even further in to already threadbare profit margins.

Why don’t the supermarkets set up an investment fund that buys up blocks of town centre shops in areas that are struggling. They could then offer these premises to startup businesses that were either non-existent, or poorly represented in that high street, at a peppercorn rent. Only when the numbers started to add up, would the rent begin to increase and then at a very modest rate. Taxpayers would also do their bit by giving business rates relief for the same period. Even if the shop never became particularly profitable, as long it was providing a valuable service and adding colour and variety to its town centre, it would be supported. A pipe dream I know and something the voracious share holders of the big 4 would probably never wear, but one
Iives in hope.

Spalding Primary School expansion plan problems

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Up to now I, along with my fellow ward councillor, have attempted to be as helpful as possible in respect of the county council’s attempts to increase primary education provision in Spalding. A s106 that gave LCC 1.5 hectares of land and £1.3m towards the provision of a brand new school, was due to terminate in 2013, meaning that the county would of been left with no means of increasing the education provision, other than by raiding its own rapidly diminishing coffers. Loss of these funds and the associated land would leave the county council with an ever increasing number of children to accommodate, but no money to do it with – hence our very qualifed support.

The county council have moved very quickly from the provision of a new school on the s106 land, to using the associated money to expand Spalding Primary School. The school already suffers from significant issues regarding traffic congestion and parking. My attempts to offer a radical solution to both the existing and the inevitable future parking and traffic problems have apparently not found favour with the county council. Also, having now seen the architect’s plans for the so called extension, my support for this plan is melting away faster than the latest fall of snow. Not only has the extension become a totally separate building, of virtually equal size to the main body of the existing school, the traffic and parking solutions being suggested are, in my opinion, nothing of the sort and will not offer any relief from the daily misery visited on residents.

Unfortunately, the county council is able to give itself planning permission for such schemes and given their remote and too often high-handed attitude to local issues, I am fearful that the residents concerns will be over-shadowed by ‘the greater needed’, or worse still, ‘the bigger picture’.

Lincolnshire County Council education department have gotten themselves in to this mess by failing to forward plan and build on the opportunity presented by having a large area of land available and a £1.3m pot of money. Had they started budgetting from the moment the planning application was approved, I am sure they would of had a significant pot of money to add to the index linked sum now about to become available to them. Instead, they have chosen to use only the s106 money to squeeze what is effectively a 210 place infant’s school, on to the same site as an already full to capacity junior school.

in an urban location, where many of the children would be taken to and from school by either public transport, or Shanks’s Pony, this type of over-development might be acceptable, because whilst the school might be very busy, the roads and streets around it would be little affected by the comings and goings of parents and children. Unfortunately for LCC, this situation does not apply at Spalding Primary School and a large number of children are transported there by private car, all of which must find space to manoeuvre and park in the streets around the school.

The combination of an enlarged school and inadequate traffic and parking solutions, means that residents will very likely have to endure even greater problems should these plans go ahead.
We have organised a public meeting at the school on 5th March at 7pm, so that the public can come along, hear more about the plans and most importantly have their say.

Solar panel subsidy cut again

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Whilst I fully support reducing the use of non-renewable fuels, throwing money at the lucky few, taken from the pockets of every other consumers’ energy bills is unacceptable, as is the bellyaching from the industry. If the only way to make a business out of solar panels, is to receive a huge wedge of cash from hard pressed domestic energy consumers, then something is very wrong.

Apparently, the scheme is already 70% over budget, with only 620,000 households consuming the original £1billion, plus another £700m.

Police will be forced to act if neighbours complain

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RESIDENTS are to be given the power to force police to tackle anti-social behaviour and end the “horror stories” of communities blighted by nuisance neighbours, the Home Secretary will say today.
Theresa May will say that if five households complain about a repeated nuisance, the police and local authorities will be under a duty to investigate and devise a plan of action within a fortnight.

By Tom Whitehead Daily Telegraph 30 Jan 12

Whilst I applaud any proposal to require police and councils to take more seriously the issue of anti-social behaviour, there is a glaring loophole in these proposals. Not for the first time, a well meaning, but urban centric policy has completely ignored the rural dimension. Whilst it might be a no-brainer that a bunch of persistent yobs, will upset at least five separate households in a residential area, the same cannot be said for thousands of rural households. Drive around anywhere outside of our main towns and villages and you will see isolated homes, remote from any neighbour, let alone four others.

This new policy is very welcome, but like so many government policies in recent years, needs to be given far more thought and go through the apparently now forgotten process called ‘rural proofing’. The alternative, is numerous rural houses and hamlets of less that five houses, left to the mercies of the yobs driven out of urban areas by this new policy.

Who uses the word diddling these days??

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‘Paying cash in hand is ‘diddling the country’, says HMRC’s Dave Hartnett’. I had to read this headline twice to make sure I hadn’t miss read the word diddling.

Diddling is the sort of word I would expect some cutesy 40 something female journalist to use when writing about the book keeper for the local WI being caught fiddling the petty cash. Mr Hartnett might be really good at counting beans, but his use of words indicates somebody seriously out of touch with the real world.

Trying to convince us that tackling the black economy (apologies to the PC Brigade for using a time honoured term), in the same week the boss of HSBC is given a £963,000 bonus for not being as crap as his predecessors and the Daily Telegraph prints a table of how HMG spends (squanders) our money, is a perfect piece of convergence. As such, it is certain to make Mr Dave ‘diddling’ Hartnett look like an even bigger plonker than he already does.

The Lords are clearly out of touch

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I personally resent the efforts being made by certain parties in the House of Lords, to derail the proposal to cap the maximum level of benefits that can be claimed. Not because I resent people getting the money they need to live a descent life, but because of the suggestion that those who claim benefits somehow deserve a better standard of living than those who get their money by working. How can anybody argue the opposite, even a well-heeled, out of touch member of the House of Lords?

What is bad news and really does cause me concern, is that people will be required to give up their homes because they can no longer afford the rent. How have we got into a position whereby people are forced to chose between living and working in a city centre and only working in that city centre? Pricing the working classes out of city centres is called gentrification – a nice sounding name for such an uncivilised process.

Myth that Britain cannot ban EU doctors, says commisioner

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From an item in today’s Daily Telegraph, it would appear that somebody has, at last, called the bluff of those who love to trot out EU rules as being to blame for their own failings. The EU is big enough pain in the backside to us, without making things up.

“Britain is free to ban foreign doctors from working in this country if they do not speak adequate English or there are concerns over their medical ability, an EU Commissioner insists today.
It is a myth, he says, that Brussels rules are putting Britons at risk and the authorities in this country should be scrutinising potential employees to ensure they are suitable to work in the NHS.”

160,000 Brits lose jobs to migrants

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A study by the Migration Advisory Committee has revealed that more than 160,000 British people have lost out on a job to an immigrant in the past five years. Figures also revealed that a total of £2,216 is spent per head on education for immigrants and their families every year, whilst only £1,662 is spent on British children. At least 112,000 new homes will need to be built for immigrants over the next five years.

I doubt this will come as much of a surprise to those at the sharp end. No doubt the politicians are already sharpening their pencils in preparation for trotting out the same lame excuses for failing to control immigration into our already overcrowded country. The one about migrants only taking jobs the locals don’t want is a standard one along with the unconvincing one that nobody believes anymore about them making a net contribution to the economy. I wonder if these figures also include all the money wasted on the translation services virtually every public service provider needs to use in order to communicate with many of these immigrants?