Tendring Topics…..on Line
The Problem of Jaywick
The Problem of Jaywick
For some years Jaywick has been listed as the third most deprived area in England. Now it has been promoted (or should it be 'demoted') to ‘the most’. When ‘Jaywick’ is spoken of in this context it is usually not the whole of Jaywick that is meant, but the Brooklands Estate. There is certainly no air of deprivation about the roads and avenues on Grasslands, the Tudor Estate and the large area of Jaywick before one reaches Brooklands. Brooklands itself on the other hand, has narrow streets (all named after cars!) with broken surfaces and an uncared-for look.
They are uncared for because they are ‘unadopted’ roads, never having been taken over by the County Council as Highway Authority. The maintenance of such roads is legally the responsibility of the owners of the properties on each side of it. When they bring such a road up to a reasonable standard, the Highway Authority will usually adopt it and thus become responsible for future maintenance. A glance down any of the Brooklands roads will make it obvious that the property owners there have no hope of ever of bringing them up to standard.
The housing consists for the most part of cheaply built structures intended in the first instance, for short-term holiday accommodation, not permanent homes. When I first came to Clacton in 1956 there were neither taps nor wcs in most of these homes. Water supply was from an outside stand-tap (as a public health inspector I had to take samples of water from these taps from time to time to test the water’s purity) and there was a ‘nightsoil’ collection service to empty the latrine buckets from each home. Appalling? But those homes were originally meant for holiday accommodation for a week or a fortnight for people from the towns who wanted an economic seaside holiday. For many it was a fairly comfortable alternative to camping. And, although these services would be considered unacceptable even on a camp site today, in the late 1930s they would have been thought to be perfectly acceptable for temporary use during the holiday season.
Now they are nearly all used for all-year habitation. A study of the houses for sale in the local newspaper will reveal that they exchange hands for what, for most properties, would seem an absurdly low price. They can be a last refuge for families facing homelessness since (thanks to the iniquitous ‘right to buy’ legislation) there is a woefully inadequate amount of ‘social housing’. Some of these homes are dilapidated ruins. Some have been demolished and their sites have become depositaries for rubbish! Some though have been extended and modernised by their owners who understandably are fiercely protective of homes that they have created, often with their own hands.
What’s to be done about it? The former Clacton Urban District decided to try to solve the Brooklands problem in the final years of their existence by declaring it to be a ‘Clearance Area’ under the Housing Acts. Had this been confirmed, house owners would have been paid compensation up to the value (determined independently) of their houses, the Council would have found accommodation for those who needed it (this was in the olden days when councils could build their own houses where they were needed!;) and the whole area would then have been flattened and redeveloped. What a valuable development it would have been too, immediately behind one of the best beaches in eastern England!
It didn’t happen. There was fierce opposition from the house owners, particularly of course, those who had bought their own homes, and had turned them into very pleasant villas beside the sea. There was a public enquiry and the council was defeated. I reckon that the same thing would happen if a similar attempt were to be made today.
Nobody yet has found a satisfactory answer to the Jaywick problem. The residents seem to think that bringing the roads up to standard, providing proper street lighting and ‘investing in the area’ (but on what?) would solve their problems. I doubt it. I think that a great many of those ‘holiday homes’ need to be demolished to make way for new development. Large-scale redevelopment is likely to be strongly resisted, not by irresponsible residents who are content to live in a slum and whose life-style makes it even slummier, but by worthy and responsible people; those who do whatever they can to improve the local environment and who have made their seaside homes ‘desirable residences’. They don’t want to see them demolished to make room for a new development however beneficial it might be. Who can blame them?
Mr Douglas Carswell, Clacton’s MP says that ‘Jaywick is very wealthy in terms of Civic pride and community spirit’. Sadly that isn’t a kind of wealth that can be put in a bank. He claims that the area has been ‘impoverished by poor decision making, by remote officials and statutory bodies for years. We need to remove many of the obstacles that have trapped Jaywick in a downward spiral’. I take it that ‘the obstacles’ to which Mr Carswell is referring are the planning laws which the present government would to like to see scrapped ‘to free enterprise from strangling red tape’. It is strange if he does think that, because it is obvious to me that if the planning laws had been stronger and/or more rigorously enforced, a colony of holiday homes intended only for short-term summer use, would never have been permitted to develop into cheap residential accommodation used all the year round. Today’s Jaywick problem simply wouldn’t have arisen.
National politicians and the popular press seem to imagine that if only Tendring Council were to adopt a Can do! attitude they would solve the Jaywick problem with no trouble at all. The fact is that restrictions on local authorities’ freedom of action imposed by governments of both main parties over the years, have made sure that regenerating Jaywick is a strictly Can’t-do task. Possibly Mr Carswell, as well as telling us how the Jaywick situation arose (the phrase about teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs comes to mind!) can offer one or two practical, and legal, ideas about how to solve the problem of its redemption. I am quite sure that the Council would be prepared to listen to him.
They are uncared for because they are ‘unadopted’ roads, never having been taken over by the County Council as Highway Authority. The maintenance of such roads is legally the responsibility of the owners of the properties on each side of it. When they bring such a road up to a reasonable standard, the Highway Authority will usually adopt it and thus become responsible for future maintenance. A glance down any of the Brooklands roads will make it obvious that the property owners there have no hope of ever of bringing them up to standard.
The housing consists for the most part of cheaply built structures intended in the first instance, for short-term holiday accommodation, not permanent homes. When I first came to Clacton in 1956 there were neither taps nor wcs in most of these homes. Water supply was from an outside stand-tap (as a public health inspector I had to take samples of water from these taps from time to time to test the water’s purity) and there was a ‘nightsoil’ collection service to empty the latrine buckets from each home. Appalling? But those homes were originally meant for holiday accommodation for a week or a fortnight for people from the towns who wanted an economic seaside holiday. For many it was a fairly comfortable alternative to camping. And, although these services would be considered unacceptable even on a camp site today, in the late 1930s they would have been thought to be perfectly acceptable for temporary use during the holiday season.
Now they are nearly all used for all-year habitation. A study of the houses for sale in the local newspaper will reveal that they exchange hands for what, for most properties, would seem an absurdly low price. They can be a last refuge for families facing homelessness since (thanks to the iniquitous ‘right to buy’ legislation) there is a woefully inadequate amount of ‘social housing’. Some of these homes are dilapidated ruins. Some have been demolished and their sites have become depositaries for rubbish! Some though have been extended and modernised by their owners who understandably are fiercely protective of homes that they have created, often with their own hands.
What’s to be done about it? The former Clacton Urban District decided to try to solve the Brooklands problem in the final years of their existence by declaring it to be a ‘Clearance Area’ under the Housing Acts. Had this been confirmed, house owners would have been paid compensation up to the value (determined independently) of their houses, the Council would have found accommodation for those who needed it (this was in the olden days when councils could build their own houses where they were needed!;) and the whole area would then have been flattened and redeveloped. What a valuable development it would have been too, immediately behind one of the best beaches in eastern England!
It didn’t happen. There was fierce opposition from the house owners, particularly of course, those who had bought their own homes, and had turned them into very pleasant villas beside the sea. There was a public enquiry and the council was defeated. I reckon that the same thing would happen if a similar attempt were to be made today.
Nobody yet has found a satisfactory answer to the Jaywick problem. The residents seem to think that bringing the roads up to standard, providing proper street lighting and ‘investing in the area’ (but on what?) would solve their problems. I doubt it. I think that a great many of those ‘holiday homes’ need to be demolished to make way for new development. Large-scale redevelopment is likely to be strongly resisted, not by irresponsible residents who are content to live in a slum and whose life-style makes it even slummier, but by worthy and responsible people; those who do whatever they can to improve the local environment and who have made their seaside homes ‘desirable residences’. They don’t want to see them demolished to make room for a new development however beneficial it might be. Who can blame them?
Mr Douglas Carswell, Clacton’s MP says that ‘Jaywick is very wealthy in terms of Civic pride and community spirit’. Sadly that isn’t a kind of wealth that can be put in a bank. He claims that the area has been ‘impoverished by poor decision making, by remote officials and statutory bodies for years. We need to remove many of the obstacles that have trapped Jaywick in a downward spiral’. I take it that ‘the obstacles’ to which Mr Carswell is referring are the planning laws which the present government would to like to see scrapped ‘to free enterprise from strangling red tape’. It is strange if he does think that, because it is obvious to me that if the planning laws had been stronger and/or more rigorously enforced, a colony of holiday homes intended only for short-term summer use, would never have been permitted to develop into cheap residential accommodation used all the year round. Today’s Jaywick problem simply wouldn’t have arisen.
National politicians and the popular press seem to imagine that if only Tendring Council were to adopt a Can do! attitude they would solve the Jaywick problem with no trouble at all. The fact is that restrictions on local authorities’ freedom of action imposed by governments of both main parties over the years, have made sure that regenerating Jaywick is a strictly Can’t-do task. Possibly Mr Carswell, as well as telling us how the Jaywick situation arose (the phrase about teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs comes to mind!) can offer one or two practical, and legal, ideas about how to solve the problem of its redemption. I am quite sure that the Council would be prepared to listen to him.
Speed does kill!
Do you remember the elation of a vociferous part of the ‘motoring lobby’ when last year several Highway Authorities switched off all their speed cameras in an attempt to save money. ‘It’s not speed that kills!’ they insisted. Those cameras were simply another way in which Councils extracted money from the pockets of ‘persecuted motorists’. They did nothing for road safety. They probably caused accidents as drivers were looking for speed cameras rather than keeping their eyes on the road ahead.
Well, that's what those opposed to speed cameras said.
It seems though that removing those cameras may well have saved money – but has cost lives! Oxfordshire and East Midlands are two highways authorities that are replacing and reactivating their speed cameras because they had found that, since they were switched off, there has been a substantial increase in the number of road deaths. That is surely what common sense would have told us was the likely outcome of removing the cameras.
Well, that's what those opposed to speed cameras said.
It seems though that removing those cameras may well have saved money – but has cost lives! Oxfordshire and East Midlands are two highways authorities that are replacing and reactivating their speed cameras because they had found that, since they were switched off, there has been a substantial increase in the number of road deaths. That is surely what common sense would have told us was the likely outcome of removing the cameras.
Right and Wrong
One item of national news that caught my eye last week appalled me. The ‘morning after’ contraceptive pill will now be dispensed free of charge from Welsh pharmacies to girls below the age of sixteen, provided they can persuade the pharmacist that they know exactly what they are doing!
I am well aware that a very different standard of behaviour was expected in the mid twentieth century (in which I spent my childhood and youth) from that of the early 21st century. I have no wish to lead, or join, ‘a back to the ‘50s!’ campaign. Goodness knows, there were plenty of things wrong with the mid-ywentieth century! Surely though, the fact that a child of fourteen or fifteen needs a ‘morning after’ pill is strong evidence that a criminal offence has taken place – or is having sexual intercourse with a child under the ‘age of consent’ no longer a criminal offence? Ought it not to be reported to the Police? Nowadays it seems, we don’t teach children at school that promiscuity, and sexual activity before physical and mental maturity, are foolish, irresponsible, dangerous, and anti-social. We do teach them how to avoid some of the consequences, by explaining and demonstrating modern contraceptives and telling them that the penultimate line of defence is the ‘morning after’ pill! Penultimate? of course - there's still termination (somehow that doesn't sound quite so bleak as abortion)
In the 1930s there was a George Formby film in which the hero was always getting into trouble because he couldn’t tell right from left. He had a little song (accompanied by his banjo) about this inability that contained the lines:
I may not know my left from right, But I do know right from wrong.
Now that is precisely what young people, and quite a few older ones, don’t know these days. I suppose that to teach them would be considered to be bigoted, judgemental and sectarian and would, without doubt, infringe their ‘human rights’. There’s a rather stark Spanish proverb that comes to my mind.
‘Take what you want’, says God, ‘Take it – and pay for it’.
We imagine that with our antibiotics, our contraceptives, our ‘morning after’ pill, and abortion more-or-less on demand, we have escaped the need for that payment. I wonder?
The continuing Libyan saga
The Libyan situation changes almost daily but it gives me no satisfaction whatsoever to see my gloomiest predictions being fulfilled.
A disorganised and undisciplined rebel army, however numerous and however enthusiastic, can never hope to defeat a disciplined modern army equipped with heavy weapons and a clear command structure.
On the other hand the rebels cannot be finally defeated while they have the support of allied air power.
Support for Gaddafi may be crumbling - but it hasn't yet crumbled! Those cheering crowds in Tripoli shown on tv seem genuine enough. They probably believe that Gaddafi is the last bastion against thieving western infidels who want to steal their oil!
Like Iraq and Afghanistan Libya is proving to be a conflict in which it was easy enough to become involved but from which it will prove very difficult to withdraw. Give the rebels weapons? Not really much use unless you also train them to use those weapons - and that would involve having troops on the ground, specifically forbidden by the UN resolution.
From my own memories of conflict in the Libyan desert. I warned of the danger of casualties from 'friendly fire' because of difficulties of identification in a barren desert terrain. It has already happened, with NATO planes bombing and straffing a rebel convoy including Red Cross vehicles. I had forgotten the practice of wasting valuable ammunition by firing small arms uselessly into the air - in celebration? It happened in Afghanistan and it is happening in Libya. You can hardly blame the crews of allied aircraft flying overhead, from imagining that that small arms fire is aimed at them - and taking retaliatory action.
There was, I believe, far more justification for our involvement in Libya than there had been for invading Iraq but it is proving even less popular with the public and the electorate!
It is costing us thousands, perhaps millions of pounds at a time when most of us are suffering financial hardship. It may well cost David Cameron an election!
I am well aware that a very different standard of behaviour was expected in the mid twentieth century (in which I spent my childhood and youth) from that of the early 21st century. I have no wish to lead, or join, ‘a back to the ‘50s!’ campaign. Goodness knows, there were plenty of things wrong with the mid-ywentieth century! Surely though, the fact that a child of fourteen or fifteen needs a ‘morning after’ pill is strong evidence that a criminal offence has taken place – or is having sexual intercourse with a child under the ‘age of consent’ no longer a criminal offence? Ought it not to be reported to the Police? Nowadays it seems, we don’t teach children at school that promiscuity, and sexual activity before physical and mental maturity, are foolish, irresponsible, dangerous, and anti-social. We do teach them how to avoid some of the consequences, by explaining and demonstrating modern contraceptives and telling them that the penultimate line of defence is the ‘morning after’ pill! Penultimate? of course - there's still termination (somehow that doesn't sound quite so bleak as abortion)
In the 1930s there was a George Formby film in which the hero was always getting into trouble because he couldn’t tell right from left. He had a little song (accompanied by his banjo) about this inability that contained the lines:
I may not know my left from right, But I do know right from wrong.
Now that is precisely what young people, and quite a few older ones, don’t know these days. I suppose that to teach them would be considered to be bigoted, judgemental and sectarian and would, without doubt, infringe their ‘human rights’. There’s a rather stark Spanish proverb that comes to my mind.
‘Take what you want’, says God, ‘Take it – and pay for it’.
We imagine that with our antibiotics, our contraceptives, our ‘morning after’ pill, and abortion more-or-less on demand, we have escaped the need for that payment. I wonder?
The continuing Libyan saga
The Libyan situation changes almost daily but it gives me no satisfaction whatsoever to see my gloomiest predictions being fulfilled.
A disorganised and undisciplined rebel army, however numerous and however enthusiastic, can never hope to defeat a disciplined modern army equipped with heavy weapons and a clear command structure.
On the other hand the rebels cannot be finally defeated while they have the support of allied air power.
Support for Gaddafi may be crumbling - but it hasn't yet crumbled! Those cheering crowds in Tripoli shown on tv seem genuine enough. They probably believe that Gaddafi is the last bastion against thieving western infidels who want to steal their oil!
Like Iraq and Afghanistan Libya is proving to be a conflict in which it was easy enough to become involved but from which it will prove very difficult to withdraw. Give the rebels weapons? Not really much use unless you also train them to use those weapons - and that would involve having troops on the ground, specifically forbidden by the UN resolution.
From my own memories of conflict in the Libyan desert. I warned of the danger of casualties from 'friendly fire' because of difficulties of identification in a barren desert terrain. It has already happened, with NATO planes bombing and straffing a rebel convoy including Red Cross vehicles. I had forgotten the practice of wasting valuable ammunition by firing small arms uselessly into the air - in celebration? It happened in Afghanistan and it is happening in Libya. You can hardly blame the crews of allied aircraft flying overhead, from imagining that that small arms fire is aimed at them - and taking retaliatory action.
There was, I believe, far more justification for our involvement in Libya than there had been for invading Iraq but it is proving even less popular with the public and the electorate!
It is costing us thousands, perhaps millions of pounds at a time when most of us are suffering financial hardship. It may well cost David Cameron an election!
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