27 June 2005

on 29 June 2005 at 12:37

Drivers' fault for wanting to go shopping

Sensitive readers have been shocked to discover that the new Chapelfield shopping development in Norwich, due to open in three months’ time, may cause traffic problems in the city.

You might think that it would have been possible to predict this some time ago, but no, it seems to have come as a surprise to Norwich City Council. And of course it’s not their fault.

Whose fault is it? Well, as usual it’s the drivers, just as it was when the city gridlocked in a bit of snow, and everyone took what seemed the sensible decision to leave for home early. Now it will be the drivers’ fault for attempting to drive to Chapelfield when they could walk or take a bus.

The 1000-space car park at Chapelfield has of course been designed to encourage bus use. Why can’t car drivers see that?

If Chapelfield turns belly up it will be a disaster for Norwich, and one way of courting such a disaster is to make it highly undesirable to use. Presumably the retailers like cars, because you can pile more purchases into cars than you can get under your arms, so you would expect the city council and their colleague on the joint highways committee to make sure that cars could be used easily.

But no, of course not. The city council is renowned for making car use harder and increasing congestion by closing alternative routes in the city. What are they doing about Chapelfield? Not a lot.

“I am sure it will sort itself out,” said city councillor Judith Lubbock – presumably her slogan when she stands for re-election. Tony Adams, chairman of the highways committee, was not convinced by this. “It’s going to be bad whatever you do,” he said last week. But it’s going to be a damn site worse if we do nothing.”

A retail development expert said some time ago that “Chapelfield might drown in its own success and blight its own profitability by causing traffic gridlock, giving many drivers another valid reason to avoid the rest of the city. “We need action to have an alternative and quickly implementable traffic plan in place.”

Various methods of fiddling while Norwich burns have been suggested, including rephasing the lights on Grapes Hill roundabout and drawing yellow boxes on the roads. This is not enough, and it may be too late to put things right, even given the will that city councillors clearly do not have.

They will just wait until the city grinds to a standstill or people just give up and go elsewhere to shop. What will they do then? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Put up the car park prices.

Removal of cats' eyes: the real explanation

Almost thousands of people have been asking me why so many cats’ eyes are being removed from roads across the county.

In the past I have speculated on the cruelty of such measures and the names of the cats involved, but so persistent were the inquiries that I thought I would take a revolutionary step and ask someone who knew.

It turns out that it is all to do with the route hierarchy review, a fascinating document which I imagine would be a big seller, given the right impetus.

The idea of the review is to channel traffic on to the more important roads, so that all the congestion happens in one place. The less important roads then lose their cats’ eyes, which are not thrown away but recycled on to new major routes, such as bypasses.

So we should end up with safety features such as cats’ eyes concentrated in places where they are most needed, and I am told that efforts are being made to ensure everything is in good order by next winter.

Some readers may feel that they would like cats’ eyes retained on as many roads as possible, but as with so many road safety measures, the money is not available. I expect it was all spent on speed limit signs.

Time and jumbo problems at North Walsham

Following the recent revelation that there is a lost mammoth herd roaming in Felthorpe Woods, it comes as little surprise to find relatives of the woolly beasts in other odd places. Noted Norfolk explorer Richard “Volcano” Meek tells me that he has spotted “Jumbows” in North Walsham Market Place, on an egg stall.

This is not altogether surprising, since North Walsham sometimes rivals the Autonomous Republic of Hingham in its disregard for the normal niceties of reality. Even time and space vary, as was apparent from a recent notice on the Cromer road, which read boldly: “Afternoon car boot 11am today”.

A lovely woman

My mother-in-law died a fortnight ago. She was not famous: she had rarely travelled outside her native Norfolk and never outside the UK. Born in Hempstead in 1920, she moved to Banningham when she was still a young child, and eventually settled in North Walsham when she married. She lived there the rest of her life, apart from a year or so in Cromer at the end.

Her name was Dorothy Cousens, and she was one of the very, very few really good people that I have met: loving, self-effacing, eager to put others first and always seeing the best in everyone. Other than marrying her daughter, one of the most fortunate things that has happened to me was to be her son-in-law.

Since she died, many people have remarked on “how lovely she was” – the sort of obituary that most of us would die for, as it were. It’s not likely to happen to a newspaper columnist, of course. My wife, who has many of her mother’s qualities, is in the habit of moving things around the house and leaving them in odd places. When questioned, she says: “It’s on its way somewhere.”

This, I have decided, is the best I can hope for on my tombstone: “He was on his way somewhere.” It’s unlikely that Norfolk’s road system will improve enough for me to actually get there.

13 June 2005

on 13 June 2005 at 04:00

Going over the top in the transport war

There are no winners in the transport battle: just miles of trenches containing grim-faced soldiers in for a long slog, ready to go over the top at the slightest provocation. Such is the animosity that even a football match in no-man’s land seems out of the question.

Sometimes ground that has been fought over, won and lost has to be fought over again. Park-and-ride, for instance. This was meant to keep cars out of cities, and it did: but what was the cost?

Bang! More buses in cities, for a start – and buses are bigger and dirtier than cars. Bang, bang! Some said park-and-ride encouraged greater car use, because people who had been taking a long, meandering bus ride from their home town into the city would find it more convenient to drive directly to the fringe and get a quick-fix ride in.

Bang, bang, bang! Others realised that there was huge scope for cashing in, once people had got used to park-and-ride and abandoned the alternatives.

But most people in and around Norwich grew to accept the jolly, bright-coloured teletubby buses, and many found them useful. There was a temporary ceasefire.

Now someone has noticed that these huge car parks on the edge of the city actually look pretty ugly, rather like those dreary caravan parks west of Cromer and Lowestoft’s grey industrial coastline. Bang! The Campaign to Protect Rural England is concerned that countryside is being eaten up and green belts are disappearing.

One is tempted to ask what they expected from a scheme that required people to leave their cars outside cities? Did they expect them to magically disappear? Or is this yet another case of environmentalists demanding something without working out the obvious implications?

During the early exchanges someone who saw rather more clearly than most suggested that park-and-walk would be a better idea, with smaller car parks closer to the city centre But this was brushed aside, and car parks that would have fit the bill were closed. At the same time the Castle Mall was built, encouraging drivers into the very heart of the city, and now Chapelfield will do the same. It’s all a bit of a mess, rather like the first world war. Does anyone know what’s going on?

Not the road sign we really wanted

The problem with most of our road signs is not that they’re unnecessary, but that they’re boring.

A friend on holiday in Australia was delighted when she came upon a sign that read “This is not the road to Crystal Bay” and found that indeed, it wasn’t. I feel sure that East Anglia could benefit from that kind of approach.

“This is not the road to Hemsby” is an obvious winner, although environmentalists might object that it would attract new traffic. Readers may want to suggest other possibilities, though I hesitate to invite this, as the response when I asked for film titles that could be used by Norwich City Council was rather lacking in imagination.

Not as lacking in imagination, though, as Norfolk County Council’s well-worn “Byway”, designed to confuse rural motorists into giving up trying to find any small village not on an A-road. They could replace that with “This is not the road to Nutwood, and if it was we wouldn’t tell you, so there. In fact it may not be a road at all”.

And if you think motorists wouldn’t have time to read all that as they flash past at up to 25mph, try reading one of those yellow rectangles that tell you “This road will be closed for 35 essential weeks from June 23 except alternate Sundays from 2pm till 4.30am, even when there are no workmen here, so you’ll have to go 20 miles out of your way but it serves you right because you’re driving a car”.

Of course, not being boring isn’t everything.

Want to speak to the police? Sorry, long number

Norfolk police are anxious that we should not dial 999 unless there is a real emergency, and in case we are not clear what a real emergency is, they have explained that it is “a crime happening now or someone in immediate danger”. Helpfully they give examples of things that are not emergencies, like “a noisy gang of teenagers outside”. This probably fails their test on both counts, but you can’t blame them for trying to stop us hassling them. After all, who wants to rush out and confront a crowd of yobs when you could be taking non-urgent phone calls?

Finding a dead body is presumably not an emergency either, which is bad news for Morse, Frost, Holmes, Creek, Marple, Dixon and Dalgliesh, among many others. It is understood that Michael Buerk is planning a TV programme called 0845 456 4567 which, in case you had neglected to stick it to your phone, is the Norfolk police number for non-emergencies.

For those not mathematically inclined, I can reveal that this is very nearly four times as long as 999. Perhaps they think we’ll give up in the middle.

Newts reject referendum for Erpingham

Asked whether they planned a referendum in Erpingham on the controversial scheme to forge a super-state out of the disparate communities of North Norfolk, a consortium of great crested newts said last night that this would not happen, because the super-state idea had been rejected by both Cromer and Sheringham.

But this move was attacked by local legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 106, who said the people of Erpingham had a right to be heard, and in any case he did not trust the newts, who would probably bring the super-state in by the back door, side window or cellar.

A newt spokesamphibian said this was not their intention, though there were elements of the super-state that would sit very well in Erpingham, and these should not be “thrown out with the bathwater”. Demands that Erpingham should be allowed to vote were dismissed by the newts, who are believed to be forging an alliance with the Liberal Democrats. “Of course, if it’s pretty certain the villagers would vote yes, then we would certainly have a referendum,” they added. “We call it the Blair approach.”