Tendring Topics.......on Line
Happy Easter!
I wish a very Happy Easter holiday to all readers of this blog. If it remains true to form the Clacton Gazette when it is distributed (the day after the publication of this blog) will include an exciting list of things to do during the Easter Holiday. Again, if true to past form, these will not include going to church, chapel or meeting house to give thanks for the events, some 2,000 years ago, that make Easter the most important of the year’s Christian festivals.
I see Jesus Christ’s resurrection on that first Easter morning as God’s demonstration of the ultimate triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness. There are those who claim to try to follow Christ’s teaching and example but can’t accept the fact of the resurrection. Believe me, had there been no resurrection we would know nothing of his teaching and example. Jesus of Nazareth would have been just another failed prophet (there have been plenty of them!) who came to an unpleasant end sooner than most. He would not have been mentioned, even as a footnote, in the history of the Roman Empire and of humankind.
So, break new ground. Go to a place of worship and give thanks for the spring flowers, for a future of hope for us all, and for what Eleanor Farjeon refers to in her poem (and hymn) Morning has broken as, ‘God’s recreation of each new day’. In Clacton I have a personal acquaintance of St James Church of England Church, Christ Church United Reformed Church and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) – three very different Christian traditions but each offering visitors and newcomers a warm and friendly welcome. I am sure that all the other Christian churches in our town and district do the same.
Although ‘going to church’ is not likely to be listed among things to do during the Easter Holiday, there will be a list of local churches further on in the Clacton (or Frinton and Walton) Gazette giving their locations and the times of their Easter services. Why not look in on one of them? You never know – you might enjoy it, make new friends and begin to look at life in a new and more hopeful way.
‘Local’ Control over Town and Country Planning?
Speed seems to be a first priority of our present government. All child adoptions, they say, should be settled within two years. I expect that two years is plenty of time in which to investigate and approve (or refuse) most adoptions – but speed shouldn’t be the primary consideration. Bearing in mind that one third of adoptions fail, it is surely more important to reduce that failure rate than to hurry things along, even if the investigation takes a few months longer.
Now there’s planning law. Legislation is in place to speed up the granting of planning permission and allow the developers to build badly needed homes where they are needed. The most controversial part of the legislation is the assertion that the scales should be weighted on the side of the developer with the presumption that future development will be permitted. This, the government claims, is handing power to the local community!
It is surely doing the reverse. Most local communities are bitterly opposed to large housing, commercial or industrial development taking place in their areas. Round the parish pump ‘nimby’ rules! We have an example of that in the Tendring District. Residents oppose large-scale housing development in the village of St Osyth Clacton-on-Sea and St. Osyth bitterly (and wrongly in my opinion) oppose the installation of wind turbines in their neighbourhood.
In Northamptonshire local communities, district councils and the county council were strongly opposed to their area being used for the disposal of nuclear waste. This unanimous local objection was simply ignored by central government which approved the project.
I am sure that there are occasions when regional or national considerations must over-ride local concerns. If local communities were always assured of having the last word on planning and development there would be no sewage treatment works, no recycling centres, no refuse incinerators or controlled refuse tips, no abattoirs, no power stations, no on-shore wind turbines, no large housing estates and probably no crematoria! Sometimes it is, and will be, necessary to over-rule the wishes of local people in the regional or national interest. When this has to be done, for goodness sake let it be done honestly – not in the midst of a smokescreen of propaganda about the ‘empowerment of local communities!’
A cautionary verse
Writing about speeding up planning decisions brought to my mind a poem by poet laureate the late Sir John Betjeman, about an unconventional means of speeding up the approval of development plans. It’s called Executive. Below are a few lines from the end of the poem. A particularly obnoxious young man is discussing a source of his conspicuous wealth. He explains:
I do some mild developing, the kind of thing I need
Is a little country market town that’s rather gone to seed.
A luncheon and a drink or two, a little savoir faire,
Will fix the Planning Officer, the Town Clerk and the Mayor.
And if some conservationists should try to interfere,
A ‘dangerous structure’ notice from the Borough Engineer
Will settle any buildings that are getting in the way –
The modern style sir, with respect, has really come to stay.
References to the Town Clerk and the Borough Engineer make it clear that the situation in the poem was the one existing before the local government reorganisation of 1974. The poem is still relevant today though – and its relevance is a great deal wider than the development of gone-to-seed little country market towns.
You will note, for instance, that there is no suggestion of bribery and corruption; no question of money or the promise of money changing hands. It is just ‘a luncheon and a drink or two, a little savoir faire’ – straightforward friendliness and hospitality to which surely no-one could take exception. It achieves its purpose though of mellowing the Council’s decision-makers and making them more receptive of their host’s proposals.
It is precisely that kind of ‘nudge in the right direction’ that millionaires hope to achieve when they gain friendly access to top members of government and (just to be on the safe side) of the opposition, or offer them hospitality in their country mansions or on their luxury yachts. No-one would be so crass as to make an overt threat or offer a bribe. I think it likely though that those multi-millionaires manage to make it clear how sorry they would be if circumstances compelled them to take their wealth elsewhere, and those who control the news media discreetly draw attention to their ability to influence the minds of voters!
Local thoughts
When I hear of highway problems I don’t immediately think of congested motorways with mile-long queues of cars progressing at a snail’s pace along crowded motorways in the ‘rush hour’ Nor do I think of single carriageway A or B roads, full of blind bends, with motorists and – in particular motorcyclists – using them as though they were race tracks.
No, I think of the deep pothole in the road near my bungalow in Clacton-on-Sea , and other deep potholes in and around the town. They have already been there for two winters, getting a little deeper and a little wider as each month passes. I’d like to see them filled in at least before the onset of yet another winter.
I’d like too, to see Clacton ’s outlying street pavements relaid so that they are as safe to walk on or ride over on a mobility scooter as those recently laid in the seaward end of Pier Avenue and Station Road . Move just a few hundred yards from those favoured town-centre spots and you’ll find broken and uneven paving that must be a potential minefield for folk with impaired vision and are a source of extreme discomfort to mobility scooterists like me. Believe me, no-one rides on (or should it be ‘drives’?) a mobility scooter for pleasure. Our ‘iron steeds’ react to every fault or unevenness in the pavement’s surface and transmit that reaction to our spines! Not one of us who uses a mobility scooter would want to be without it. Without mine I would be completely housebound. They are though, strictly a means of getting from one place to another. They’re not for joy riding or sight-seeing!
Our Highway Authority, responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of both our carriageways and our footpaths, is the Essex County Council. A fortnight ago I said in this blog that ‘Essex works’ as far as getting me a hand-rail was concerned. I wish that I could say the same about the performance of their highway responsibilities.
A Catastrophic Blunder
I find it difficult to believe that any group of politicians could have been so totally stupid as to act in the way that members of our government have in connection with the fuel crisis - a fuel crisis that they have managed to transform from a mole hill into a mountain!
A majority of members of the Unite Union had voted for strike action if negotiations (not about pay but largely about health and safety considerations) with the employers failed to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Those negotiations had barely begun. There was as yet no strike and there was at least a reasonable possibility that there would not be one.
Yet our Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office Minister both assumed that there would be a strike – probably over Easter. They urged motorists to keep their tanks topped up with petrol at all times and the Cabinet Office Minister added the potentially lethal idea of keeping a jerrican or two filled with petrol in the garage. Neither of these gentlemen would have been likely to handle the petrol themselves. They’d simply say to the chauffeur, ‘Oh Smith (or Jones or whatever) make sure that there’s enough petrol in the garage to see us through any crisis’. They possibly regarded regulations relating to petrol storage as pettifogging rules (probably emanating from Brussels
I just wonder if the Government’s catastrophic over-reaction to the possibility of a strike was a deliberate attempt to divert public interest and anger from the millionaire-friendly budget and the scandal of super-wealthy business men buying social access to the Prime Minister to the Unite Union and its contribution to the Labour Party’s finances? If so, it was a ploy that went disastrously wrong.
Birth of a New Word
In the Egyptian/Libyan desert in the winter of 1941/1942 the British 8th Army, of which I was an insignificant member, transported petrol in flimsy rectangular pressed steel containers that were difficult to carry, easily damaged and often leaked. The German army opposing us used substantial reusable steel containers, virtually damage and leak proof, with useful handles and a convenient size and shape to carry. Any that were captured were eagerly used by the British unit that then possessed them to replace their own pathetic containers.
Someone back at the base in Cairo decided that this practice should be regularised. An order was issued to all units of the 8th Army. ‘Captured German petrol containers will henceforth be referred to as Jerrycans*’.
And a new word was born into the English language!
*That was the original spelling. It has since evolved into Jerricans.
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