28 November 2005
Slow, slow, slow results of public consultation
Another interesting example of public consultation is due to come to fruition next week, when Suffolk County Council will decide speed limits on the A140 where it passes through their territory.
Over the past 18 months an experimental maximum speed limit of 50mph has been imposed, with fascinating little sections at 40mph and 30mph. Some would say this is obviously nonsense for what should be a trunk road between the two centres of population in Norfolk and Suffolk. Suffolk County Council, on the other hand, wouldn’t. They think slower is safer, despite solid scientific research which indicates that people driving slightly faster than average are the safest on the roads, and the slowest drivers – together with those who speed excessively – are the most dangerous. In an attempt to get popular backing for their shaky position, they carried out a public consultation exercise – only to find that about four out of five people who responded wanted the 60mph limit reinstated. You want precision? All right, it was 79 per cent.
Overwhelming enough, but if what a correspondent told me is true, a good number of those voting to retain the experimental limits were rounded up by her to bolster the council’s case. So the “true” 60mph vote may be a little higher.
No surprise there, especially when you consider the words of an experienced traffic policeman who spent 30 years dealing with accidents on the A140. He describes the experimental limits as unnecessary and frustrating for drivers – which must be risky, since he puts virtually all the accidents he has dealt with down to human error.
The slower speed limits, he says, “are part of what is seen as a policy to reduce vehicle speeds throughout the county regardless of the need for them to be reduced”. And he should know. He is an expert.
He goes on to say that what is really needed are bypasses and dual carriageway stretches to enable safe overtaking – something that should have been done by the Highways Agency before it abdicated responsibility and detrunked the road.
As another expert – a former transport operations and traffic planner – puts it: “All around regulations are being tightened almost to the extreme to ensure only the qualified can build, repair, modify and teach, in most instances to protect life and limb. Yet the untrained and often biased can influence, set and modify almost at will any speed limit in the land without regard to the consequences.”
If the public consultation is to mean anything, on December 8 Suffolk County Council will reinstate the 60mph limit. But don’t hold your breath. What has become known as the Hingham Principle of local democracy – ask the public and then ignore them – is very tempting for would-be dictators.
Even if they one day have the problem of explaining to their electors why they bothered spending money on consultation at all.
Sail or return? Birthright at stake
Just because the people of Cromer seem to be almost 100 per cent hostile to the exciting new sail-shaped apartment building planned for their clifftop by developer Richard Davies, we should not assume that they are in some way lacking in aesthetic appreciation – or standing back from the cutting edge of archaeological innovation.
The point about this proposal is not love or hate for the proposed design, as Mr Davies and others seem to imagine. The crux of the issue is something quite different: the demolition of the universally loved building which it would replace – the beautiful flint-faced North Lodge.
Of course the listed North Lodge has drawbacks: you can’t fit lots of rich people into it and persuade them to either buy or rent the space. But to many generations of Cromer residents and visitors this pleasant and peaceful part of the town is something to be treasured.
It is a birthright of Cromer people, and not one that should be thrown away for what the Bible calls a mess of pottage –later reworded brilliantly by a perceptive poet as a pot of message. The mess or pot in this case is money; the temptation is the free accommodation offered to the town council by Mr Davies.
To retain their integrity councillors must stand firm for the views of their electors and not be lured like lemmings to the soft ground of the glittering edge, or no-one will mourn when they collapse – or leap – into the sea.
Steady on, Mr Starling
Residents of Worstead, in North-East Norfolk, may be interested to hear that it is exactly 130 years since a Reading Room opposite the church became “an accomplished fact”.
The Parish Chronicle for November 1875 reports that the Daily Press was one of the papers available for perusal, and that there was a good fire. (Probably no connection.) The parish, we are told, was “striving hard to cater for the intellectual wants of her children” while recognising their graver and more material needs.
Closely involved in this venture was a Mr Starling – undoubtedly the same man who the following month who was involved in opening the Manor Court of Worstead St Andrew by “sonoriously enunciating O yea, O yea”.
Sadly one or two old ladies were “somewhat scandalised” by this behaviour, but the Chronicle rushes to Mr Starling’s defence. “We hasten to place on record our emphatic contradiction of the slander,” it says. “Mr Starling was talking French.” Whatever next?
How to save money painlessly
Lisa Christensen, Norfolk County Council’s director of children’s services, is about £50,000 short on a savings package she is trying to deliver. What to do?
It’s obvious, isn’t it? A spending squeeze: staff must cut down on photocopying, paper, travel costs and letters – oh, and home-to-school transport rules must be rigidly enforced. Just the kind of pettyminded things that raise morale and get people working enthusiastically. Not.
I have another suggestion. Why don’t the county council’s ten most highly paid officers each give up £5000 of their salary? I’m sure they wouldn’t notice the difference, and the frontline staff would enjoy it so much they’d probably save another £50,000 without even meaning to.
Shock ingredient of Skye salmon
You may have read recently about the dangers of contaminants in some Scottish salmon. I did not take this too seriously until I was preparing to eat a packet of Skye smoked salmon the other day and caught sight of the allergy advice: “Contains fish.” But I ate it anyway.