3 December 2001
UN bid to sort out hotspot in town
Several people have pointed out that the United Nations has a presence in North Walsham.
A UN vehicle, which is presumably engaged in peace-keeping activities, is parked in a garage on the Norwich road.
While not widely known as a hotbed of unrest, North Walsham is, I am told, seething under the surface.
This may mean that Seething is correspondingly north walsham deep down, but this is a moot point. However, rumours of feuds between local warlords such as the Houseagos and the Hicks are accelerating. Veteran campaigner Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago agreed yesterday that there “had been incidents”, but his aunt, Mrs Hicks of nearby Erpingham, refused to comment.
Mrs Hicks spends much of her time in Little London, near Corpusty, where she is said to be mayor, but witnesses have placed her at North Walsham on several occasions.
Another Little London is situated on the Bacton side of North Walsham, and it is feared that Mrs Hicks may be launching a takeover bid. A spokesman said that all Little Londoners should be united, and everyone else thrown out. Mr Houseago, who is well used to repulsing expansionist plans – mainly from great crested newts – said he would stand firm.
Meanwhile great crested newts, backed up by Austrian cave salamanders, are believed to be lying low in a protected enclave adjacent to the A11, where dualling work is under way. Fencing has been erected for their own safety, but also to protect nearby residents from possible expansion. No one from the United Nations was available for comment.
Mysterious movements on Riverside
I hope readers were able to catch city councillor Eamonn Burgess’ fairly helpful letter to the EDP last week, in which he explains the new Riverside complex and the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge.
However, he may not have quite got to grips with the nature of the problem I outlined last time.
Clearly I know that Riverside contains something other than huge retail warehouses, and that these smaller places are accessible fairly easily on foot. This, I am happy to agree, is a Good Thing.
I am also aware that another bridge will be built much closer to the city centre. This too is a Good Thing and makes sense.
What is less clear is why it remains unbuilt, when it would link a part of the site that is already fully functioning with a spot quite close to the city centre. The current delightfully proportioned bridge links a muddy and unkempt part of Riverside (at present) to the end of Rouen Road. Mr Burgess, interestingly, regards that as the city centre.
To say Riverside is on the ring road is a trifle misleading. A small part of it stands adjacent to the ring road but is not accessible from it by car. The rest of it is accessible by vehicle at one point only on the inner link road.
The result is obvious: even more congestion, together with pollution. Lovely.
As to the 50 buses he sees going on or near the site every hour, he will have to forgive a hollow laugh. Only one bus route goes on to the complex as far as I know, and his definition of “near” must be as bizarre as his definition of “city centre” or “hour”.
But since buses would bring even more pollution and congestion, this is probably just as well. On a point of detail, I did not, as Mr Burgess states, “wonder why the council doesn’t put a bus station on site”.
What I do wonder is why a bus station was not an integral part of the site from the outset. Blaming the Tories because they are now back in control of the county council is not so much thin as transparent. Since Jasper – sorry, Eamonn – is such a busy man I completely understand his getting my first name totally wrong throughout his letter (it was kindly corrected by the sub-editor).
Quite unimportant in itself, but it is a little disturbing that someone so used to dealing with planning matters should be so imprecise about something in large print immediately in front of him.
Bid to track down missing Church land
News that the Church of England has in the course of the last 100 years mislaid about 1.5 million acres of its land, worth up to £10 billion, has shocked some people.
Whole food chef Len “Kissme” Hardy, of Hindolveston, has already put together a working party to look for it and was last seen heading south towards the mysterious area known as The Saints, where he feels almost certain that some of the land may have ended up.
I’m not worried. A vicar I know describes the Church of England affectionately as a joke, and it is a good joke indeed if it has been surreptitiously preaching the Gospel all along, and not guarding its worldly wealth at all.
Slow mud hazard resurfaces
I am sorry to have to report the return of an old hazard to life on the roads of Norfolk and Suffolk. Slow mud has been sighted near the border, and reader Paul Garton of Wingfield is understandably concerned, especially as the sighting – usefully signposted – was only 20 miles south-east of the Autonomous Republic of Hingham.
Prof V A R Scheinlich, a Hingham-based expert in all supernormal activity, says there may be some connection with the “enormous” traffic reported in Norwich during the run-up to Christmas.
He feels that larger than normal traffic may be evolving naturally in order to deal with the mud menace more easily. Of course, being enormous, it could hit things coming the other way. In that case the fittest traffic would no doubt survive