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MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Happy New Year? ACCORDING to one in New York where an armed Yankee cop a really big boost by waiving charges of our local weekly snapped: “Go get a watch.” How we throughout the day for shoppers? papers a Mendip howled with laughter when we heard this They can afford it. My mole in the police chief is getting news; how we pitied the poor Americans Shepton Kremlin tells me that from the his truncheon in a with their distant, dour law enforcers. 1999/2000 financial year till 2006/7 the twist because And how wrong we were to believe that takings rocketed from £1, 003,000 to members of the our happy circumstance would continue £2,233,000. Scarier still, it is rumoured public have had the on this once sceptred isle. in the corridors of greed, it will whack By ALAN audacity to claim it is On the rare occasions now that you see up to something approaching £2.7m in GOODE near impossible to get police on the beat they are invariably in the current 12 months. any communication with the two’s and spend the whole time talking And as if that isn’t bad enough, I hear constabulary. to each other and ignoring everybody and the council’s politburo has appointed a His answer seemed to be that on the everything around them. Working on the caucus of trusties to come up with more one hand the police are very busy and on assumption they might just be looking swingeing increases in the months to the other we should all turn up to things for the public to make the first approach, come. called Partnership and Community the other week I said a very cheery What the hell do they do with it all? Together meetings so we can no doubt be “good morning” to a pair in one of our told face-to-face the myriad of excuses town centres. Mind you there doesn’t seem to have for not getting the style of policing we The one nearest turned, glared been much Christmas cheer for the poor want and deserve. suspiciously at me under hooded eyelids devils in Wells who have to go to the The sad thing is I can remember the and muttered a surly reply. I fear I can West Mendip Hospital at Glastonbury. time when we didn’t need meetings; only conclude our police now go to the The bus service, promised when the those were the far off days when bobbies same charm school as the Yankee cop Wells hospital closed down, has been at all levels took a pride in maintaining mentioned earlier. unceremoniously axed. close contact with the communities they Sadly, I fear, this has had two effects: Which proves that in 2007 you should served. since our police with their fancy ideas never, ever believe what any councillor Those were the days when villages had above their station (sorry for the pun) or official tells you or any longer rely on their own constable and towns had police and above their brainpower decided they councils to meet their social obligations. stations that were manned 24-hours a were not a force but a service virtually Still, look on the bright side, maybe it day, seven days a week and when you every aspect of enforcement has gone as will be better in 2008 (although my walked in or rang up there was someone well as service values. advice is: don’t hold your breath). there willing to listen and, when I don’t blame our Mendip policeman Happy New Year to you all. necessary, take prompt action. because he’s too young to remember the Now you can go months or years old ways and too inculcated with the without seeing a policeman in your new. But the truth is that his superiors, village and at the same time the number not just locally but nationwide, have of police stations has been slashed in our become so self-obsessed that they have towns. In most cases, those that remain disappeared up their own politically- spend most of their time shut and correct fundaments. unmanned, all calls being diverted to other parts of the county. Whilst on the subject of self If your grandmother gets hit by obsession, I see the twonks on Mendip burglars over the back of the head with a District Council seemingly went all piece of lead piping you’ll be lucky if festive and provided pre-Christmas free anyone comes out but if you throw darts parking in our towns from 3pm onwards at the dragon on a Welsh flag our from December 10 to Christmas Eve. perfectly PC PCs will turn up en-masse Now, before you rush to send them a to arrest you on the laughably spurious Thank You card and a big box of chocs, grounds that your actions were racist. you might stop to ponder firstly just how In the far off days to which I have big a present is this considering the cash alluded an enterprising journalist asked car parks take from our pockets an unarmed London copper the time and throughout the year; and secondly why was courteously given it. He then tried it didn’t they give us and our town centres Alan Goode has spent his life working in newspapers and is now very active in the local agricultural community. We look forward to hearing more from him in the coming months. Do you agree, or disagree with him? You can have your say by writing to Mendip Times, Coombe Lodge, Blagdon, BS40 7RG or e-mail [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you on this or any other issue. MENDIP TIMES • JANUARY 2008 • PAGE 35 COMMENT Mark my words . WELL, you may not hours”, though the business park could can’t just blame the supermarkets. There are believe this but I really charge for longer but at the same rates as local butchers and farmshops who can’t sell did make a New Year the district council’s tariff. you a pound of sausages unless they in are resolution to lay off for Of course, this basically amounts to “stuff quadruple wrappings of cling film. a bit on the subjects of publicopinion and the publicgood” so We keep hearing that steps are being supermarkets in adding to the uneasy feeling that the twonks taken to cut down on this ocean of waste general, Tesco in seem hell-bent on being fairy godmother to but I’m damned if I can see any decrease. particular, fat-cat Tesco, Argos, Woolworth and the like So when is action going to take place By ALAN development whilst at the same time playing wicked before we all drown in paper, plasticand GOODE companies and the uncle to independent commercial activity cardboard? That’s what I want to know. twonks who run Mendip District Council. and consumer choice. And isn’t it funny, don’t you think, that But the Old Year had not even gone out Frankly, they don’t seem to see or care years ago in a non-recycling age we had when the resolution ended up in the bin of that there will be precious little time to get such things as returnable glass bottles for discarded good intentions after I read that down to the High Street after shoppers have items like milk, beer and pop and now, in dear old Shepton Mallet, the Sad Man of visited the outlets on the business park, or an allegedly recycling age, we throw the Mendips, had once again been given the that a 70p for an hour parking charge is a everything away? rough end of the ragman’s trumpet. disincentive for people to support local Once again this latest farcical farrago traders, or that they have driven another G And talking of funny, I’m reminded of a involves the district council, Tesco and a stake into a town’s High Street’s heart. story I heard over the New Year which development company. And once again the Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it involved a participant at a local corporate hope of a future for a traditional shopping again. Wells, and the other shopping centres pheasant shoot. You know the kind of shoot centre is put in serious jeopardy. on the Mendips, would do well to take heed I mean; one where townies dressed in a And bear in mind this is not any old of the results of the actions in Shepton and hundred yards of expensive tweed come out centre. This is the shoddiest, near lifeless the council’s kissy-kissy, cuddle-bundle of the cities once a year to kill more remnant of past commercial glory of any on love affair with Tesco and property pheasants in one day than the average local the Mendips. This is the place, more than developers. Because, mark my words, no shoot manages in a month or more. any other, which needs the seed corn of good will come of it. Well, apparently, this one felt a sudden resurrection. call of nature and went to the edge of the Yet the fact is that shoppers at the new G And now I turn to another hideous blight field to relieve himself. The trouble was he Tesco-dominated Townsend Business Park on our lives. I refer to the continuous obviously couldn’t tell the difference were suddenly hit over the Christmas avalanche of recyclable materials that hit between an electric fence and a hawthorn period by a two-hour waiting restriction.