2 May 2005
Range wars break out in North Norfolk
The right to roam may be the brave new clarion call in most of the country, but in North Norfolk things are not quite so advanced. Range wars have broken out again, and fences are being erected.
Hanworth, near Cromer, may not have quite the ring of Dodge City, Deadwood or Tombstone, but the age-old struggle being re-enacted there is evoking the kind of Western anger that brought in gunfighters to settle matters.
One complication in this 21st century face-off is that the farmer and the cowman are the same person – Robert Harbord-Hammond, who also, apparently, has his eye on a neighbouring piece of open land at Roughton.– and the big guns are deadshot solicitors Farrer & Co. The free rangers are the villagers of Hanworth, who claim the land in question is common land and should be open to all. Mr Harbord-Hammond says it is his and wants to graze his cattle on it. Naturally he does not want them to stray off to Arizona or be rustled by Indians, so he has erected a barbed wire fence.
Ownership of the land will have to be settled legally, but my heart warms to the sheriff, in the guise of Graham Bull, corporate director of North Norfolk District Council, who has come riding in and had a shot at removing the barbed wire, which he says should not be there whoever owns the land. I also find myself drawn to the outlaw who lifted out the barbed wire and then turned himself in to “test the water”.
Barbed wire is one of the most unsightly things in the countryside, and while it may sometimes be necessary, I would like it to be restricted to absolutely essential use. I also have a soft spot for open village commons.
Things could be worse, of course. Not so long ago, the head teacher at the school in neighbouring Erpingham was one Wyatt Earp. He would probably have felt compelled to deputise a few teachers and mosey over to take a look.
Make my day, Teletubby
The employment of an image from the film Reservoir Dogs to encourage people to use a new Norwich park-and-ride service showed an unexpected splash of humour, as well as perhaps a glimpse of how hard-line the authorities would like to be about it.
I expect this trend to continue, possibly with adapted clips from Dirty Harry (“You want to drive through Norwich? Make my day, punk.”), Speed (buses hurtling through the city, trying to keep above 50mph while motorists doing 35mph are caught by speed cameras) and Unforgiven (when you park in a restricted area by mistake). Readers may have better ideas, in which case I would like to hear them. Meanwhile the thrill-a-minute Liberal Democrats would, according to their transport spokesman on the council, have preferred Teletubbies, which – curiously – are barely coherent, witless blobs. He also objected that the colours of the Norwich buses did not correspond to the colours used by the characters in Reservoir Dogs, which is a rare oversight on the part of Mr Tarantino.
Felthorpe has furry eye on the future
A resident of Felthorpe, north of Norwich, has taken issue with the theory put forward last time by noted Norfolk explorer Richard “Volcano” Meek, who suggested that Felthorpe was once on the coast and moved inland because of slow Norfolk drift.
Lindy Platten-Jarvis is less than convinced. She says: “You've got it wrong. Felthorpe is future-focused and anticipating global warming and the Norwich northern bypass.
“Did Mr Meek travel along Beech Avenue? Did he notice Beech Tree Farm? Felthorpe is well into energy renewal. Did he notice lots of Tree Farms in Felthorpe, such as Yew Tree Farm? Did he notice all the home names with a tree theme? Does he know about the famous Felthorpe Woods – and did he see the Shoe Trees there? “One of the early exotic species to invade Norfolk has been blossoming in Felthorpe for several decades already.”
Convincing enough, but she has a clincher: “Did he notice the village sign that anticipates global warming to the extent that it features the future northern advance of the African elephant – with a nice furry coat to withstand the cold winds from Siberia that Norfolk knows only too well?”
Mr Meek was unavailable for comment.
Dangerous bunches avoid road improvement
Interesting how studiously all political parties have eschewed an obvious vote-winner: roads and transport. Drivers all over the country are sick and tired of the mercenary pretence that speed is a major cause of accidents.
As one correspondent puts it, “considering the percentage of the population that are motorists, if the Conservatives would come up with a sensible plan for taxation for the roads, spend the money on the roads, make sensible laws and apply them sensibly, they would win the Election in a landslide”.
Presumably the politicians are afraid of all the bullying that would descend on them from the usual suspects if they took up the drivers’ cause. If so, they have miscalculated badly.
In 2003 there was a 44 per cent rise in “speeding” offences, with nearly two million drivers being caught by scameras. We shall no doubt see more of the same – and more digital cameras like the one that netted £4 million at the expense of 76,000 motorists. We shall continue to put up with deliberate congestion engineered by anti-car councils, and poor quality roads delayed or obstructed by any ill-informed or ill-motivated individual who feels like it.
We shall watch the authorities ignore common sense by putting speed cameras on the M4 and causing “dangerous bunching”, just as every experienced driver predicted.
Suffolk County Council will go on pretending that its ludicrous speed limits on the A140 make sense, despite a traffic officer’s observation that they induce frustration and “no-one is happy”. Suffolk says there has been a “small drop in accidents and a reduction in speed”. If this is the best they can come up with (speed limits causing a reduction in speed, for heaven’s sake), the true effect must be poor indeed.
Going ahead on red
You may have noticed that a great deal of time is wasted and pollution caused when drivers are held up at light-controlled pedestrian crossings where there are no pedestrians in sight.
A possible solution to this unnecessary congestion presents itself when you realise that pedestrians quite happily cross on red when there is no traffic coming, as do cyclists. It must be logical, then, to allow drivers to cross on red when there are no pedestrians around.
Obviously they should do this only at walking pace and no faster – certainly not as fast as cyclists do it, which could be dangerous.