26 July 2004
Wonderland vision of a bizarre future
Not long ago a letter appeared in the Eastern Daily Press, Norwich (UK), portraying two visions of Norwich in 2040. Without repeating it here, it is hard to convey the sheer unreality of it. But let’s try.
One vision included the city surrounded by a motorway and two three-lane ring roads; most people with two cars; respiratory disease rampant; smog; and tornados resulting from climate change. This, we are told, is what will happen if we opt for a northern distributor road.
You may laugh. I hope you do.
Why should anyone want two cars? If for some reason they do, they can only drive one at a time; so it is irrelevant. There may be an increase in respiratory diseases, but this is nothing to do with cars, and nor is smog, which was far, far worse in my childhood when cars were far, far fewer. Perhaps it’s global warming? That has nothing to do with cars, either: even proponents of man-influenced global warming accept that if we all stopped driving tomorrow it would make no perceptible difference. And even if Norfolk gets noticeably warmer, there is no reason at all that this should produce more tornados than we get now.
As for a motorway and two three-lane ring roads around Norwich, this is the same bizarre vision that the letter-writer would no doubt have produced for 2004 if he had been writing in 1970. The only major difference from that date is the southern bypass, which is scarcely mentioned by anti-road campaigners because it is so obviously successful: it is not crammed full of cars and it is not surrounded by ugly development. It just makes travelling easier.
Roads alarmists like to put about wild-eyed predictions which even they must realise are far from the truth. What they do not say is that less than one per cent of our still lovely countryside is covered by roads – and that includes London. Even if you include wildlife-inhabited verges, it is still a long way under two per cent. Compared to other European countries, we are failing abysmally to provide enough motorways – let alone other roads – to cope with increased traffic. In terms of numbers of inhabitants, we are third lowest after Greece and Ireland. In terms of area, we are sixth lowest. Holland, often praised for its cyclist-friendly streets and certainly not covered in tarmac, has four times as many motorway miles as we do.
If we had been just competent in this area, we would not have to be scrabbling around now looking for methods of road-charging to prevent gridlock. I suspect that the dossier that advocates this has rather less intelligence behind it than came out of Iraq before the war. It is noticeable that some of the most vociferous opponents of the northern distributor road are from places far removed from it, like the Suffolk border. People to the north of Norwich need it: it will make their environment cleaner, quieter and friendlier.
Why anyone should be against this is beyond me. Why they should exaggerate the effects to such an Alice-in-Wonderland extent is unfortunately fairly clear.
Council keeps quiet over 'appalling shambles'
In this brave new era of public consultation, the last thing that many local authorities want to do is talk to a member of the public. Systems are in place to prevent this wherever possible.
This is what a Norwich woman, Betty Distill, found when Norwich City Council spent £137,000 on making her street more dangerous, installing high kerbs and preventing safe parking – a process described by a former city councillor as “the appalling North Park Avenue shambles”.
She was so frustrated at the lack of any intelligent response from the council to her repeated letters that she withheld £87.41 council tax in protest – and ended up in Norwich Magistrates’ Court in February, where her case was postponed until the council’s scrutiny committee had looked at the issue.
She was back at court again, as requested, recently, by which time the scrutiny committee should have met. Strangely, it hadn’t, and the council was suddenly more than eager to forget its £30 costs if Mrs Distill would pay her outstanding tax.
Being a law-abiding person – she is a former probation office administrator – Mrs Distill had no intention of withholding the tax permanently. But she used the opportunity to tell the court about the council’s reprehensible behaviour in robbing residents of “what was pleasant and peaceful living”, as well as its arrogance, mismanagement and failure to follow proper procedures.
The council did not respond to this.
But in the end it may have to, because Mrs Distill’s complaints are now being investigated by local MP, Education Secretary Charles Clarke. Perhaps the council will condescend to talk to him.
Draconian bid to restrict bird movements
Norfolk campaigner Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, who has moved to Cromer following a fall, has hit out at a new European directive restricting the activities of certain birds.
Mr Houseago, now 105 and a veteran of the Wymondham Newt Wars, has access to a number of leaks from the European Commission and has as a result become a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (Vicarage Road Division).
“One document left me fuming,” he reported yesterday. “It stated that restrictions would be placed upon certain birds so that they could be more accurately identified by European observers.
“Reed warblers would in future be confined to reed, whereas sedge warblers would only be allowed to inhabit sedge.
“House sparrows must at all times be within reach of a house (as the crow flies), whereas hedge sparrows have to stay close to field edges. I don’t have to tell you how difficult that is. As for Arctic terns, they are going to be banned from the United Kingdom altogether, except in very bad weather.
“The only good thing is that if the directives go through, our commons are going to be covered with birds of many different kinds.”
A twitcher was unavailable.
Quote
There is now a multi-million-pound revenue stream that depends on the indiscriminate infliction of unreasonable laws by unreasonable people on largely law-abiding motorists who are punished disproportionately for what are predominantly minor indiscretions.
Philip Johnston, Daily Telegraph