Pulling a fast-one on takeaways

It seems that Mr Heenan has taken the political silly season to heart. It difficult to see any other explanation for his apparent sudden disliking for takeaways.

Mr Heenan has been involved in development control , having been on Swindon Borough Council’s Planning Committee — more recently as committee chairman — since he was in his political nappies. He would be aware, one would hope, of the contents of his council’s Core Strategy, which requires local retail centres in all new developments to be in close proximity to other community facilities. In particular, if you look at any of the maps for new developments around Swindon in Part 4 of the strategy, you will see that each one has the ‘local centre’ and primary school located together. Any retail development outside of the the local centre is strongly discouraged by the strategy.

Yet now, Mr Heenan has proposed that fast-food takeaways be banned within ¼ mile of any school, as a ‘contribution’ to reducing child obesity. So you wouldn’t be able to open a takeaway anywhere outside of a local centre, nor within ¼ mile of a school, yet all new local centres would be within ¼ mile of a school.

Now komadori is only a very occasional eater of takeaways — about once per month — but they are an essential part of of any local community centre, along with a small general store, a pub and, quite often, a hairdressers. If there was evidence to support Mr Heenan’s ideas, perhaps it would be reasonable, but there is no hint of evidence in the agenda for the meeting at which Mr Heenan proposed this idea. And if takeaways should be banned, then what about general stores that sell sweets to children? And what about all those parents that drive their children to school — why not ban petrol station shops from selling junk food as well, in case the parents stop-off on the way and buy their kids something unhealthy? If Mr Heenan’s really concerned about children’s health, why not ban parking and waiting near schools, so that all children have to walk to school? All of these suggestions would be regarded by some as ridiculous, yet all could have just as big an effect on children’s health.

Mr Heenan’s proposal is bereft of logic. To me this looks no more than a quick-fried policy, cooked-up in a hurry and quickly served to grab some summer headlines.

Blowing in the wrong direction

’Tis amazing sometimes just how tenuous are the causes for complaint put forward by nimbies. For those living near a large car assembly plant, you’d think that distractions from a couple of wind turbines would be the least of their concerns. Apparently not. South Marston parish council are worried about strobed sunsets.

We’re concerned because it’ll be situated to the west of the village which means when the sun sets there may be a sort of strobe effect as the turbines go round.

Perhaps if the sun always set at the same point on the horizon, regardless of the season, it might be a legitimate concern. If clear sunsets on a windy day were a common occurrence, perhaps I’d have a little more sympathy for the potential mind-blowing effects of a dazzling stroboscopic display. Perhaps.

Mr McEwen, the chair of South Marston parish council, is also worried about noise from the turbines.

Also, we understand that there are noise issues which are currently being checked out and I’ll be very interested to see the reports on how those issues are going to affect people.

Perhaps he’d also considering campaigning against leaves on trees that rustle in the breeze.

Look up please

Whilst attending yesterday the New Swindon Company’s exhibition on their plans to emblandise Regent Street, I learned a new bit of developers’ fake psychology. What the man from their consultants said was that the current paving in Regent Street — and elsewhere in the town centre for that matter — is too ‘busy’. Apparently, it’s too distracting and takes people’s attention away from the shops. By making it blander, they think people will look more at the shops and their ‘interesting’ architecture, and go in to buy something. This does, of course, presuppose that there are rather more shops open in Regent Street than there are at the moment. It also presumes an interest amongst shoppers in paving that, I suspect, only a street designer would have. And it’s surely only such a designer that could convince themselves that something — lighting in this case — is ‘inspired’ by a tramway, simply by virtue of being in a straight line.

This exercise in repaving — like others before it — is expected to achieve a miraculous transformation.

The concept design for Regent Street aims to provide a vibrant, accessible street scene, encouraging visitors and shoppers to come to Swindon town centre as an exciting destination in its own right as well as for its many shops.

That, you may notice, is what was said about repaving Canal Walk.

So next time you’re wandering along Regent Street, engrossed by the paving, please look up. The street designers expect nothing less of you.

Consultant speak

The scene: an office near the end of the working day, with one Deloitte consultant talking to a fellow Deloitte consultant.

Hilary: Is that a new laptop carrying capability you’ve got there?
David (preparing to leave): Err?
Hilary (pointing): Your bag, is it new?

(Overheard today, and spoken without even the faintest hint of humour or sarcasm. Names may have been changed to protect the parasite over-paid innocent.)

Who is he representing?… again

It really is time that Mr Montaut remembered that he is a councillor for Central ward and should be representing the interests of the people that live there. Not for the first time, central Swindon’s clown councillor seems to be putting political interests before those of his ward. Given the choice of putting a Christmas tree on the Magic Roundabout, or putting it somewhere else, Mr Montaut prefers the somewhere else option.

There are other parts of the town that could benefit from something like this and I think the money would be better spent in those areas.

With representatives like this, who needs enemies? Mr Montaut also seems to know some giant football hooligans.

There is also the possible problems you could have with the sad minority of people who go to football matches to cause trouble – it could be seen as a trophy to opposing fans.

It’d take a rather substantially built hooligan to carry away a 49 ft tree as a trophy… but apparently in Monty’s fantasy world, anything is possible.

Too much of a good thing

Swindon Borough Council must design their plant pots very precisely. It’s a pity that those delivering a Christmas tree to the magic roundabout didn’t weren’t so careful.

What’s an extra 10 ft of Christmas tree between friends? Enough to convert a good idea into a farce. No doubt the critics of this bit of decoration are sharpening their prose already….

Crossing the road

It seems some people in Pinehurst are surprised to discover that, if you break parking regulations, you might be punished. In one case, even after fifteen parking tickets in just over one year, the message has not got through.

It’s really irritating people now. Where are we supposed to park? If we park on our side of the road we get tickets.

Clearly, not on their side of the road, which has double yellow lines. Nor for that matter on the footpath, as appears to be the case in the Adver’s photograph.

It’s strange as well as someone seems to be blacking out these double yellow lines. Then the council comes out and paints it up again.

What do they expect? An approach where anyone with a pot of black paint and a brush can park wherever they like?

The residents on the other side of the road can park outside their homes but we can’t. I really hope a solution can be found.

Try crossing the road. This isn’t the densest area of housing and most houses in the street — including some in this terrace — have off-road parking. A quick look at some aerial photographs shows a relatively clear street, except for this little group with their cars parked up on the footpath.

Labour invisible around town

Whilst browsing the local red nest’s website, I came across a page titled ‘Labour Party across Swindon’ which is ‘dedicated to the work that happens across the borough, containing news and views of members and activists who engage in important work within your community’. It seems they’re not doing very much work: the page is blank.

Picture this

It seems strange that, when police and public are becoming increasingly paranoid about anyone with a camera in any urban location that’s not a tourist trap, 24/7 CCTV surveillance is regarded as essential in protecting Swindon from terrorists. A consultants report for Swindon Community Safety Partnership — the organisation that brought us lollipops as a remedy to drunken brawls — has raised concerns about the uncoordinated approach to CCTV. A report to the next cabinet meeting of Swindon Borough Council concludes

The Town Centre systems that exist are not currently monitored 24/7. The effect of this is that there is no pro-active CCTV cover at peak times. Similarly, if a major incident occurred in the Town Centre, coordination of the existing systems to monitor the incident and response is likely to be difficult.

Hmm… and permanently monitored CCTV would solve that? To quote another part of the same report,

Government’s national CCTV strategy identifies that an estimated 80% of data from CCTV is of questionable quality.

So the report is recommending investing in a central control room, to monitor at all hours CCTV footage that is acknowledged to be of questionable value. It makes as much sense as hiring a conductor for an orchestra where all the instruments are out of tune. It’ll look impressive and coordinated, but the overall result will be barely distinguishable from the chaos that went before.

Fighting drugs with mugs

Just three months ago there was that most ‘innovative’ campaign in Fleet Street, using lollipops as an antidote to drunkenness. Now, in yet another great medical advance, a unit of Swindon Borough Council is reported to be attempting to fight drug addiction by handing out mugs and pens.

I think I might set up a consultancy business, advising councils on how to reduce gun crime by handing out chocolate biscuits. With councils like Swindon’s around, I’m sure I’d make a fine profit….

Evasive action

If a lorry hits a house, set back from the road, so hard that it takes two hours for rescue teams to remove and afterwards the house has to be supported by six steel props, you’d suspect that something very serious must have happened to make the lorry come off the road. The police comment in the Adver’s report on such an incident in Stratton suggests not.

The lorry had to take evasive action from a parked car on the road, before it struck a lamppost and struck the house. There was also rain on the road with a puddle on the bend.

Someone in the local constabulary’s clearly striving hard to win an award for po-faced understatement.

A landlocked isle

Marks & Spencer seem to have got themselves a little confused geographically. Search for a branch near Swindon and the first three results are, not unreasonably, their not yet opened (for at least another seven weeks) Swindon Orbital Centre branch, their Swindon town centre branch and their Swindon Outlet Centre branch. Next comes Marlborough and then… Guernsey, then Cirencester! Follow the link for the Orbital Centre branch and you get a map… of Swindon town centre.

Not so much “More to explore at Your M&S”, rather a case of more to explore to get to M&S.

Lightly confused: an essay in little boxes part 13

Drivers delivering to the Wichelstowe development works may be somewhat confused when approaching from junction 16 of the M4. The last stage of their journey is along a road clearly marked as ‘Unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles’. Perhaps the houses with which Swindon’s Front Garden is to be filled will just be rather lightly constructed….

A double deck imagination

Always ones to make a crisis out of a drama, the Adver have excelled themselves, allowing one woman’s imagination to turn a minor accident (one wheel of a bus going off the road) into a near tragedy.

Melody Lyall, the landlady at the Red Lion Pub, in Castle Eaton, said it was a very near miss. “The only thing that kept that bus upright was a small wall that it wedged itself against, otherwise it would have tipped over into a flooded field. Because both the front doors were on that side things could have turned very bad very quickly. It was quite dramatic. I was in my conservatory drinking my morning coffee and I witnessed the whole thing. The field on the other side is flooded at the moment – it is under several feet of water. You can imagine the outcome if it had toppled over…. I would have said they were pretty lucky as it would have been tough to get them all out of that bus without it going over on its side.”

Wow! Children safely alight from a bus with one wheel in a ditch. Whatever next? I dropped a slice of bread on the floor recently. Perhaps I should ask the Adver round to see how close I came to starvation in the time it took me to cut another slice….

Spot the birdie

Not for the first time, building work in Swindon has been interrupted by a nesting bird. Whilst, naturally, komadori feels he should defend the right of other feathered creatures to nest where they feel it is appropriate, there are limits…. Delaying work on Swindon’s new library for one collared dove (out of a mainland population of over 200,000) is beyond that limit. The law that requires builders not to disturb any nesting bird is, though well-intentioned, distinctly bird-brained.

Relocation, relocation,… removal

Whilst others may be concerned about the disappearance of a cinema from one of the town centre redevelopments, there are other, smaller things that developers would like to remove elsewhere. It seems, if the supporting documents to their planning application are to be believed, that the Outlet Centre has previously been given planning permission for more shop space than their buildings can actually contain. Their proposal to get round this (as opposed to replacing some of the office and other non-retail space) is to remove — or as they put it relocate — the children’s play area.

Erection of a glazed enclosure and removal of existing canopies to provide additional retail area and relocation of the play area.

If you’ve got a spare half hour or so, have a look at their plans, in particular the ones labelled ‘Plan-Play Area Relocation’ and see if you can find where the play area has been relocated to. It is noticeably absent. The drawings do show an anonymous red rectangle on the east side of the centre that might be it, but there is nothing saying so. If it is, then it’s a small fraction of the size of the existing play area.

As an aside, I hope the Outlet Centre’s designers’ ability at building design is much better than their website design, where one has to chase a floating circle around the screen in order to navigate the site. There is an important balance that should be maintained between creativity and practicality. Sadly, it’s one that some architects and designers seem never to learn.

An invisible town

I don’t like the idea of 750 houses being built around Coate Water any more than Ms Saunders does. However, I do find some of her reasons for wanting to protect the area from development a bit odd.

The council also has to consider the beautiful views from Liddington Hill and the area of outstanding beauty. These views are equally as important as the views from Coate Water.

Ms Saunders seems to be suffering from an affliction common amongst campaigners: an inability to see existing large developments. For those that haven’t noticed, if one looks from Liddington Hill in the direction of Coate Water, rather prominent in the background is a town called ‘Swindon’. In comparison with that backdrop, another 750 houses are not going to change the view from the hill that much.

Be aware, be very aware

Yet another bright idea from Swindon Community Safety Partnership has been announced today, just a week after their last act of genius. Their latest idea is to give revellers boozing themselves to oblivion on Friday and Saturday nights a pack containing a bottle of water, a lollipop, a personal attack alarm, condoms and flip-flops. This ‘survival kit’ will, if the title of the news item on Swindon Borough Council’s website is to be believed, increase said inebriated revellers’ awareness of the effects of alcohol. According to Mr Lovell,

This project is a demonstration of the holistic approach we take when dealing with the night time economy in Swindon to ensure it is a safe place to enjoy.

I have an alternative suggestion for making the Fleet Street area of Swindon safe. The pubs could, as licensing law requires, stop serving those that are clearly drunk, and the local judiciary could take a more serious approach to those found guilty of drunken violence. Just those two things would be far more effective in making people feel safe than a lollipop and bottle of water ever will.

The chill wind of reality

It’s difficult to know where to start when attempting to comment on the campaign by Joanna Lambert against a new windfarm… especially when plenty of others have already subjected her to plentiful dose of ridicule. Never mind, I’ll try.

When Watchfield air base was started it was a heavy drop air base, and the reason for this was that they found there were exceptionally low wind levels around Watchfield.

Remind me of that later please….

My reaction when I came over the hill on Friday to see they had gone up was that they are so much bigger and more dominating than I imagined.

So dominating that you didn’t see them until you went over the hill. Massive, then.

I was someone who thought they wouldn’t be awful, but they are and have completely devasated the landscape.

Err… to the west, Swindon; to the east, Didcot power stations. Blinkered vision is a dreadful impediment.

They are so enormously tall and move all the time so the eye is drawn to them, not like a building which is static and you learn to look beyond it.

So you’d prefer five 50 metre high blocks of flats to be built there would you? No? Thought not.

Millions of people over the last 4,000 years must have walked along the Ridgeway marvelling at the intimate beauty of the Vale.

For most of the last 4000 years, walking was more a necessity than a leisure activity. I suspect they had more pressing thoughts on their mind than “Isn’t it pretty here.”

Until that awful day ten days ago the walker’s eye drifted to the church towers, to the tall poplars and oaks.

And to the six cooling towers of Didcot A power station in the background.

Yet now five massive industrial turbines with angry noisy blades cutting the air will dominate the landscape for decades to come, and shatter the peace and serenity for those around.

I’d never realised the traffic on the A420 and the trains on the Great Western mainline were so quiet until you mentioned it. And what was it you said about it being an air base? Guess those aircraft were silent too. Oh yes, and did you say something about there not being much wind? That’ll be the meek and quiet variety of ‘angry noisy blades’ then.

Even when the blades are turning, electricity is not necessarily being generated unless the wind blows at the right speed. Because of this irregularity this plant will have to be inefficiently backed up by fossil fuel power.

It’s fortunate that we’ve got Didcot power stations sitting so prettily in the background then, isn’t it?

It seems a cruel trick that 10 to 20 per cent of all our energy bills in future will be a hidden levy to fund this ongoing rural destruction without any serious clean electricity produced

I trust you’ll be submitting a letter in support of a Watchfield nuclear power station then? No?

All campaigns need publicity. I suspect this sort of attention wasn’t quite what Ms Lambert had in mind.

Thamesdown in clean bus shock

If I were responsible of publicity at Thamesdown Transport, rather than making a fuss in the local press about the fact that they now clean the interiors of their buses more than once a day, I’d be rather ashamed that they’ve been allowed to run in such a filthy state for so long. The drivers of buses of some other companies (admittedly not local ones) have swept their buses regularly between journeys for many years. In comparison with the cost of a new bus, a broom and a couple of minutes of driver time would be insignificant.