Thursday, June 28, 2007
DT being crass
A DT editorial caught my eye yesterday. A propos of Iraq it says: "... failure ... to ensure there was a sustainable plan for the occupation was a critical failure, for which this country is paying a terrible price". On the assumption that the 'this' refers to the UK, floating the notion in passing that our losses, which might amount to a hundred or something, are a terrible price - without mentioning the half million or so excess deaths that our intervention in Iraq has resulted in, struck me as remarkably crass.
Intrigued by the AA-Saga saga. Bit of a mystery how the boys in the city can talk the combined value of these companies up enough in three years to extract £2bn or so profit - in cash mind, not promises for the future - out of a total of £10bn or something. OK so the sharp minds of private finance might be bringing a breath of fresh management air, but I find it hard to believe that they can make so much differance so quickly. And the explanation in both the DT and the Guardian failed to throw any light for me on the mystery. Maybe it really is all down to fancy cooking of the books and tax evasion.
The residents of Epsom continue to fret over who is going to provide land for all the houses that we seem to need (not least for all the Poles who will no doubt mostly work hard, prosper and want to move on from the shacks, sheds or squats they are living in now). As ever, the answer seems to be not here.
But I do worry about my allotment. The square allotment field takes about a quarter out of a large field - presumably a bit of Epsom Common cut off by Christchurch Road - the rest of which is owned by the local school. The whole lot was probably allotments during the last war and is there for all to see on Google Earth. But the local school only uses about a third of its three quarters and the allotment field includes an access to Christchurch Road. Now having two allotments is a very nice thing, but the £40 a year or so which I pay for each of my 300 sq metre allotments bears no relation to the cost of building land around here. I would have thought the council could make quite a strong case in equity to grab most of it to help meet whatever quota has been set by the busies in Whitehall. It would also enable them to sort out the parking mess with all the mum-driven Epsom tractors. But there would be much squealing - maybe even some from me as I should be very sorry to pack up vegetable gardening - and it might even turn out that the council has a duty to provide allotments within reasonable distance of where people live. Maybe it is green belt which is still fairly sacred. Maybe they should move out onto one of the nearby farms - which presumably only hang on in expectation of a development windfall and who would presumably be delighted to collect and move on to Majorca.
If the allotments and the last hospital site further up the road went for high density housing, the next step would be to make Christchurch Road a lot wider to cope with all the extra traffic - maybe a few more roundabouts to keep the council roundabout nut happy - and generally moving it in the general direction of the Chessington end of Hook Road - that is to say pretty grotty. Where will it all end?
Intrigued by the AA-Saga saga. Bit of a mystery how the boys in the city can talk the combined value of these companies up enough in three years to extract £2bn or so profit - in cash mind, not promises for the future - out of a total of £10bn or something. OK so the sharp minds of private finance might be bringing a breath of fresh management air, but I find it hard to believe that they can make so much differance so quickly. And the explanation in both the DT and the Guardian failed to throw any light for me on the mystery. Maybe it really is all down to fancy cooking of the books and tax evasion.
The residents of Epsom continue to fret over who is going to provide land for all the houses that we seem to need (not least for all the Poles who will no doubt mostly work hard, prosper and want to move on from the shacks, sheds or squats they are living in now). As ever, the answer seems to be not here.
But I do worry about my allotment. The square allotment field takes about a quarter out of a large field - presumably a bit of Epsom Common cut off by Christchurch Road - the rest of which is owned by the local school. The whole lot was probably allotments during the last war and is there for all to see on Google Earth. But the local school only uses about a third of its three quarters and the allotment field includes an access to Christchurch Road. Now having two allotments is a very nice thing, but the £40 a year or so which I pay for each of my 300 sq metre allotments bears no relation to the cost of building land around here. I would have thought the council could make quite a strong case in equity to grab most of it to help meet whatever quota has been set by the busies in Whitehall. It would also enable them to sort out the parking mess with all the mum-driven Epsom tractors. But there would be much squealing - maybe even some from me as I should be very sorry to pack up vegetable gardening - and it might even turn out that the council has a duty to provide allotments within reasonable distance of where people live. Maybe it is green belt which is still fairly sacred. Maybe they should move out onto one of the nearby farms - which presumably only hang on in expectation of a development windfall and who would presumably be delighted to collect and move on to Majorca.
If the allotments and the last hospital site further up the road went for high density housing, the next step would be to make Christchurch Road a lot wider to cope with all the extra traffic - maybe a few more roundabouts to keep the council roundabout nut happy - and generally moving it in the general direction of the Chessington end of Hook Road - that is to say pretty grotty. Where will it all end?
# posted by Jim @ 11:15 AM 
