News roundup, week ending 16 August

Well, here I am, back in town rested after my break on the Côte d’Emeraude.  (Do not fret Nick - it was only a holiday)  The weather was fabulous – sunny most of the time and not much rain or wind.  One should not have too high expectations of north Breton weather if one is not to be disappointed, but the scenery is always breathtaking and I can look at it for hours, even through the rain.

Being August, there has not really been all that much going on, but a little.  The Haslemere Herald reported in its 2^nd August edition on road safety in Kings Road following the introduction recently of the residents’ parking restrictions there:

 

 

Well, the Herald can always be relied on to misrepresent a story in its headline, although even they do not usually dare to falsify the body copy of the story itself – as can be clearly seen here, Mrs Berry is pointing the finger not at the resident’s permit restrictions, but at the lack of restrictions, eg double yellow lines, further along the road where commuters might be expected to move if they are willing to walk the extra distance to the station.  And Mrs Barton can’t resist the temptation to say “I told you so”, although I would bet my pension that had the SCC proposals been to double-yellow along towards the Robertet/Herons stretch of Kings Road, the HAGs would have howled in protest – see below on the subject of Tanners’ lane.

Moving, for a moment, away from the Herald, Mrs B has again emerged briefly from her estivation* with her “Councillor Update from Recent Weeks” (whatever happened to those fortnightly reports eh, Nikki?) reporting among other things on Parking in Kings Road:

Concerned residents in Kings Road have been in contact about the hazard presented by the growing number of cars parked on the bend of Kings Road by the industrial estate.  SCC Highways are planning double yellow lines via a temporary traffic enforcement notice that should be in place by the end of August.

The Kings Road parking situation is the result of inevitable car displacement following recent additional yellow lining and the introduction of resident only parking schemes in Haslemere. SCC Highways are planning to assess the impact of the schemes in the autumn before the December parking review.

To be fair, her reportage is fairly neutral, although she gets in a dig at the end of her piece about empty ROP bays.  (Again, more on this re Tanners’ lane below)

*    Archaic English word.  Kind of the opposite of hibernation, ie tuning out for the summer.

So, to Tanners’ Lane.  Someone (or two) called Anonymous has commented on my last post, to observe that the ROP bays opposite railway Cottages have lain empty, apparently not taken up by the Cottage residents.  Instead it seems they avoid the need to buy a ROP permit by parking further up the lane towards the green, where in the view(s) of Anonymous, the lie of the road makes this unsafe.

I guess this is only a natural reaction – why pay if you can park for free a few yards away?  I am inclined to agree with Anonymous about the dangers of parking closer to the green – certainly when I cycle through here en route to the shops of a weekend I feel a little nervous about this bit – but it should be noted that the original SCC proposal for Tanners’ Lane envisaged that apart from the Railway Cottages ROP bay, the whole of this stretch would be double-yellowed, and it was one of the HAG’s small victories that this did not happen.

Finally on this subject, Mrs B refers to the impending review ahead of the December local committee meeting (will Mrs B manage to make that one?).  As one of those to raise questions about this at the last meeting, I was disappointed by the response I got but it has to be said that the review is not intended to be a revisiting of the entire scheme, simply a technical appraisal of how it is operating in its early days.  Evidently one resident has already made her point about the Kings Road situation and it looks like SCC is responding promptly to that.  This is not an opportunity to object to, or support, the schemes as though the November 2012 consultation was being re-run, but if you have any detailed comments of this nature, do make sure to bring them to the attention of the parking officers at SCC - david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk.

Before I move on chronologically (and before I get on to fracking, a theme throughout the period) here is another thoughtful contribution from independent Farnham councillor David Beaman:

 

One thing Mr Beaman doesn’t comment on is this:  it is not just a question of how many homes need to be built in our area over the ensuing years, but what type.  A shortage of supply not only denies people, especially younger people, a place of their own to live, it also forces up prices through the well-established effect of supply and demand.  However, housebuilders only want to build what they want to build, which normally means tightly packed but nevertheless detached “executive-style” houses, because that is what is most profitable to build.  They only want to build on Greenfield sites, or even better on what I will call “beige-field” sites (brownfield, but without the real issues about site clean-up and ground pollution etc of a real factory site) as planning consents are perceived to be easier for those.  Dunsfold is a beige-field site.

What young people however want, and what entry-level buyers want, is a home of their own, never mind whether it is detached, or terraced, or indeed not even a house at all.  Indeed, there are distinct advantages to apartments in terms of security and maintenance.  They also, by and large, want to live near town centres, with easy access to clubs and bars, shops and jobs, and the transport links to London.  They want to be able to have a night out without worrying about how they're going to get home.  (Unlike, perhaps, their parents' generation, which is not nearly queasy enough, even now, about driving home having consumed a few) 

 

Will they get them?  Not unless the housebuilders are forced in that direction.  In that context, I was recently pointed towards this excellent entry in Wikipedia about the Israeli Social Justice Protests of 2011.  One of the areas of protest was about availability and affordability of homes.  Interestingly, the government response to this complaint was to promote the building of more smaller homes and apartments, incentivising builders by supplying them with government land with a 50% reduction in the land price if they agreed to build small apartments there.  (Cynics might say they solved their housing shortage by stealing more Palestinian land.  I couldn’t possibly comment)

 

Now, to fracking.  The last three issues of the Herald have featured stories, or letters, or both on this subject.  Opinion is clearly divided.  It is also quite evident that you don’t have to be a bearded leftie to be uneasy about the process – our own Waverley Council leader and Haslemere WBC councillor Robert Knowles is uncomfortable about it.  Michael Edwards, a local resident safely tucked away in Tennyson’s Ridge, where the big trucks will not be going past with their loads of sand and chemicals or tanks of liquefied natural gas extracted, and where it does not appear that any wells are proposed, has had the indulgence of the Herald in being permitted to write three times on this subject, in support of fracking.  Graeme Spratley contributed an excellent letter with some interesting technical information about the process,

and the Herald indulged me this week by publishing my thoughts on the diversion this causes from addressing our long-term energy security problems.  (Having spent three weeks just a few miles from the world’s first industrial-scale tidal generation facility, the “Usine Maremotrice de la Rance”, I am keen to advocate serious research into the potential of tidal power, as it is the one truly predictable renewable energy source).

 

Meanwhile, I read  today that water companies have concerns about contamination of their resources by the chemical used in the process.

“Nick” left a comment on my past post urging us to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Fernhurst, and to set aside our differences about car parking to be united on this.  I agree, although sadly it is not a matter on which local government has much power to promote, or prevent it happening.

 

And finally, back to parking (the end-note for this week, I promise).  The Herald has picked up on a report by the RAC foundation to get back on its hobby-horse about parking charges.  As ever, their reporting is fair and balanced:  

Do they?  I doubt it:  they are reporting on an entire nation’s local authority parking accounts and while I dare say they highlight the larger cases like Westminster, I can’t imagine Waverley merits special mention.  Indeed, their press release for their report, dated 1 August, cites the top ten local authority parking surpluses but the lowest of these, Hounslow, makes more than three times what Waverley made.

As ever, the body of the report contains a little more of the truth.  Professor Stephen Glaister, the chairman of the RAC Foundation, remarks that many councils make deficits on the parking current accounts, and even those which make surpluses may not be in the black after including their capital accounts.  I don’t know whether they mention the authorities’ fiduciary duty  to manage public assets properly, but Waverley’s car parks represent extremely valuable real estate, on which any private landlord would expect to make an appropriate rental yield – how would our parking objectors react if they were to start letting council housing tenants live rent-free?

Mind you, in places the article is economical with the actualité, as Alan Clark once put it:

Oh yes?  Forum?  It’s a long while since they have accepted contributions to their website, and comments are no longer welcome.  Comments were only ever welcome if they agreed with them, as a number of dissidents found out when they tried to post, and did not see their comments get through the “moderator”.  I managed to get a few through – I think they must have had their guard down when I registered – but even then I had to challenge them more than once about suppression of contributions.  As the contributions in question were pointing out potential defamatory statements they were making about other individuals, their response was not to post the correction, but simply to remove the offending original article.

And, to wrap up:

The “cash cow” argument is the hoariest chestnut in the cabinet.  Motorists are being charged for a service.  The charges are almost invariably lower than would be sought by a private car park operator.  They represent a return on capital invested for the landlord, and are a fiduciary obligation (balanced against legitimate governance matters like promotion of local trade) of the local authority as custodian of our assets.  Surpluses from parking fund other council expenditures and so help to limit the general council tax precept – it is swings and roundabouts for most Waverley residents as most have cars, but it also maintains the principle that one resident should not be called upon to unduly subsidise another through his council tax.  Especially when that resident is elderly, or prevented from driving by disability, or unable to afford to run a car of their own, while the motorists are (on balance) likely to be healthier, wealthier, and younger than the non-motorists. 

 

Amen