Tendring Topics………on line
Those
of us who complain about the increasing crime rate are often assured that it’s
all just an illusion. ‘There’s a perceived increase in crime brought about by sensational press
reports and by politicians with an axe to grind. The fact is that there is a
steady decrease in reported crime. Year by year Britain
This may well
be true in most of the country but it certainly isn’t in north-east Essex . In Clacton-on-Sea there were 38 robberies in the town during
April, May and June compared with only 15 in the corresponding months last
year. In Colchester (which I certainly
never think of as being ‘safer’ than Clacton )
there was also a rise in robberies but only from 8 to 15. Elsewhere throughout Essex ,
just as the wiseacres insist, the number of robberies and other crimes did fall.
I am disturbed
by the knowledge that part of that north-east Essex crime wave is taking place
uncomfortably close to my home in Clacton ’s Dudley Road . It’s not so long ago that a knife attack took
place within view of my front door. Had
it not been for a neighbour giving first aid and summoning an ambulance and the
Police it would have resulted in a violent death and a murder charge. More recently
there has been a mugging involving ‘grievous bodily harm’ in Old Road , only a few hundred yards away
from my home. Even more disturbing to me
personally was a report in last week’s Clacton
Gazette of a man who had withdrawn a three-figure sum in cash from
Magdalene Green Post Office at 9.30 am one morning.. As he walked home along Coppins Road in
broad daylight, three men attacked him and robbed him of his money. It is from that same Post Office that I sometimes
draw three figure sums of money from my bank account. I too travel home along Coppins Road on my mobility scooter!
Recently
elected Police and Crime Commissioner Nick Alston is reported as saying that Clacton ’s problems arise from. ‘a toxic mix of multiple occupancy, alcohol, people choosing to live
here or being placed here, and unscrupulous landlords’. Well, yes, but he might have added that
another very potent ingredient of that toxic mix is the very high, and still
rising, level of unemployment, and the virtual impossibility of unskilled
new arrivals in the town finding work.
Social Deprivation
The local
daily Gazette reports the finding of
the Centre for Social Justice that 54
percent of those aged between 16 and 64 in Clacton ’s
Pier Ward, are on unemployment benefit, the fifth highest percentage in the
country. That’s at the very centre of
the town which one might have thought would be its richest area! In Jaywick,
part of which is officially Britain ’s
most deprived area, 35 percent of working age people claim unemployment benefit
and 54 percent of the over-16s have no educational qualifications. They are not alone. In Clacton
overall 41 percent of adults, over twice the national average, have no
qualifications! Nearly one in three
Clactonians, the fifth highest in the country again, claims a state pension.
I’m one of those one-in-three and I hope that, at 92 and having been a taxpayer
for some seventy of those years (and I still am!), no-one grudges my claiming it.
Councillor
Peter Halliday, the Council’s leader, is reported as saying that it is
important to understand what is causing these problems and how to address them. He says that high unemployment in the town
has been exacerbated by a high number of benefit migrants moving to cheap
accommodation either in Jaywick or in one of the old bed-and-breakfast boarding
houses being converted into night shelters.
He said that more needed to be done to encourage working people to live
in Clacton , rather than the unemployed.
The fact is,
of course, that many, perhaps nearly all, of those unemployed ‘benefit
migrants’ would very much like to become ‘working people’. They don’t come to Clacton
because it’s easier to get ‘benefits’ here.
They come because the cap on benefits and the ‘bedroom tax’ have made it
almost impossible for unemployed – and many low-paid working people – to live
in the London
area. It’s a short train-ride from London to Clacton . It’s usually possible, if you’re patient and
try really hard, to get some sort of employment in London .
Incomers don’t realize – or don’t believe – that the employment
situation is much worse here.
Many of those
who survive on benefits and seem content to do so, have tried in vain so many
times to get work that they have given up trying. Meanwhile, as a result of the government’s
austerity cuts and in the interests of ‘efficiency’, machines are replacing
flesh and blood, employers are ‘down-sizing’ and ‘rationalising’ and there are
fewer and fewer jobs for unskilled or semi-skilled workers to do. The reason why, as Councillor Halliday
suggests, we are short of ‘working people’ is that we are desperately short of work for them to do.
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Younger son (Andy) enjoying himself on Clacton beach half a century ago!
Meanwhile, at
least during this extraordinarily hot and sunny summer, Clacton-on-Sea
appears on the surface to be flourishing.
Visitors (mostly day-visitors it’s true) are enjoying safe sea bathing
from our sandy, gently sloping beaches, strolling through our colourful cliff-top gardens and having seaside fun on the reinvigorated pier. The till-bells of pubs, restaurants
and town centre shops are ringing merrily!
I doubt if any of the visitors who throng Pier Avenue , High Street and Station Road in the
August sunshine would believe that they are enjoying themselves in a ‘benefit
ghetto’! Those of us who have made our
homes here (I have lived in Clacton for nearly
sixty years so I surely qualify as a native) wouldn’t wish to live anywhere
else. Here in Clacton-on-Sea it is
rarely quite so cold, quite so unbearably hot, quite so wet, quite so overcast as other parts of the UK . No other
seaside resort in Britain
has as low an average rainfall as Clacton-on-Sea ,
Brightlingsea, Frinton-on-Sea, Walton-on-the-Naze and Dovercourt. The driest spot in the UK is officially St. Osyth – just
two or three miles as the crow flies from my front door.
Elder son Pete busy with his school
homework almost fifty years ago.
Clacton is a
wonderful place in which to live and to bring up children – but we do need
better schools for them (like the ones we had here half a century ago!) and much better career opportunities for them as they grow up. They shouldn't need to go to London, or even to Colchester, Chelmsford or
Ipswich, to get a worthwhile job. Both my sons took it for granted that there
would be no satisfying employment locally for them and that they would have to
go to London to
further their careers
Human Resource Units (or Children of God?)
Not everyone is clever or skilled. There needs to be adequately paid jobs for
those who are willing enough to work, but lack any particular skill. Public authorities once met that need but do
so no longer. Do you remember the time
when there were uniformed porters at railway stations, conductors on buses and
important looking uniformed ‘commissionaires’ at the entrance of cinemas and
theatres? They weren’t very important or very well-paid people
but they provided a uniformed ‘presence’ that deterred vandals and hooligans,
they answered people’s questions, and they generally made life easier for the
rest of us. Nowadays there’s often
no-one manning the ticket office at Clacton Station! There is a ‘ticket machine’ and notices
warning of the penalties resulting from travelling without a ticket. What more can travellers possibly want?
Officials who are responsible for the work-force of any organisation used to be known as
Personnel Managers or perhaps Staff Managers.
Have you noticed that nowadays they’re known as Directors of Human
Resources? That job title effectively
puts men and women, whom we Christians believe to be the children of God, on the same level as cans of beans, bags of
cement and gallons of petrol; Human Resource Units (HRUs). From time to time, like bags of cement and
gallons of petrol, they become surplus to requirements and can be discarded
when cost effectiveness, productivity and profitability (the three ‘persons’ of
Mammon’s Unholy Trinity) demand it. The
maximising of profits is best ensured by Zero Hours Contracts which mean that
workers are always available to
perform any task required – but the employer has no obligation to provide them
with work or to pay them a retainer while they are idle. The main purpose of any public utility company
is no longer to serve the public – but to maximise the dividends of the
share-holders.
There
surely must be a better way of organising society than that!
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