It looks like my two most recent posts have been removed. Does that mean I'm banned! There was nothing offensive in either of them but maybe these days it's hard to tell.
It looks like my two most recent posts have been removed. Does that mean I'm banned! There was nothing offensive in either of them but maybe these days it's hard to tell.
Looking over the tables, I note that the of the 8 best 3rd placed teams, only Ghana and Paraguay are still in, and only because they haven't played their R32 matches yet.
I think Ghana is the only one with a realistic chance of progression.
48 teams is simply too many teams for a tournament.
Depends a bit what the tournament is for. If it's to find the best national football team in the world, it's silly and wasteful of everyone's time. If it's to have a simply ginormous football party, bigger is better. Plus, the telly rights are presumably still selling well.
Looking over the tables, I note that the of the 8 best 3rd placed teams, only Ghana and Paraguay are still in, and only because they haven't played their R32 matches yet.
I think Ghana is the only one with a realistic chance of progression.
48 teams is simply too many teams for a tournament.
Depends a bit what the tournament is for. If it's to find the best national football team in the world, it's silly and wasteful of everyone's time. If it's to have a simply ginormous football party, bigger is better. Plus, the telly rights are presumably still selling well.
Ultimately, it is a bit of fun.
Sure, and mostly the matches are watchable.
But if that is the point, why not go the whole hog and abandon qualifiers?
Looking over the tables, I note that the of the 8 best 3rd placed teams, only Ghana and Paraguay are still in, and only because they haven't played their R32 matches yet.
I think Ghana is the only one with a realistic chance of progression.
48 teams is simply too many teams for a tournament.
Depends a bit what the tournament is for. If it's to find the best national football team in the world, it's silly and wasteful of everyone's time. If it's to have a simply ginormous football party, bigger is better. Plus, the telly rights are presumably still selling well.
Ultimately, it is a bit of fun.
Sure, and mostly the matches are watchable.
But if that is the point, why not go the whole hog and abandon qualifiers?
Go like Wimbledon and have the top 128 teams in the first round, and knock-out throughout.
This pub furniture on the Thames path in Strand-on-the-Green is a story that could go on a bit, as it is culture war plus local councillors who really do not like each other, and local politics in Chiswick is quite vigorous anyway. I lived on Park Road down there for about 3 years in the early 2000s, in a slightly expensive but very enjoyable one bedroom flat.
(One note: take care not to confuse your Hiltons. I think the protagonist is Alistair Hilton, who is claiming the Green Councillor set the police on him and to my eye overegging his pudding a little - it could go legal, with Adrian Hilton, who is in the debate but is I think the former "Archbishop Cranmer" blogger.)
The basic issue is about unlawful obstructions (the pub outdoor tables and chairs) on a public highway - the Thames Path, which here is either a Public Footpath, or an Adopted Highway in the relevant places. Two pubs, as 'landowners', seem to feel that that, and that they have been doing it for some years, means they should be able to continue to do it without a pavement license.
The local Conservative Councillor (and the Telegraph and the Standard and GB News) have weighed in in support of the pubs (and their customers who like sitting on the Thames Path), and it was a Green Councillor who made a report to ask that it be looked at, around accessibility for less mobile pedestrians to Pass and Repass along the Thames Path unobstructed.
Given my penchant for removing obstructions from public highways so mobility aids can use them, it will be clear where I stand - as long as the path is fully accessible (and there are endless technicalities about how wide it is, and what type of highway it is in each place) and easily useable, they can put their tables there provided there is a license and no obstruction. IMO here the clear path should be 4m wide.
The Council Officers were abrupt in their demands for removal, and after a word from the local councillor have now backed down to say "you can keep your tables whilst we thin about it), which is how it should have been in the first place.
The various bits of media are trying to make this about authoritarian Councils and Councillors banning outside drinking (which is afaics a lie, not that that will stop them), and police vs freedom of speech (around Hilton's twitter comments).
This could run and run. My prediction is that the pubs will cathc up to what the law requires, and then the seating will continue with appropriate adjustments.
All the pubs are recommended. I used to go on riverside dates down there.
4m wide seems very wide for a pathway. Presumably that to allow (for example) two wheelchair users to pass each other, but wouldn’t it be better to have passing bays? Otherwise I doubt that any riverside path in the country will be compliant with your demands
I promise not to take you down a rabbit hole but I'll put a bit of information on the bone !
We have a disease in this country of taking pedestrian space down to the absolute minimum, which makes using footpaths unpleasant when there is a fair amount of foot traffic, and that causes conflict which no one wants. The attitude is nasty, and small minded, and I hate it.
But we have several different recommended widths (Inclusive Mobility, LTN 1/20 and others), depending on volume, transport mode, and purpose. As a matter of principle, the space on a public highway belongs to the public, not to a private business who want to put their stuff on it for their own benefit. Landowners are always trying to do that, and they need to be less selfish. 4m is roughly where it is for a high foot fall environment, and I am making it slightly wider than minimum because using a footpath includes stopping to take in the view, to sit on a bench for a rest, and so on, which I think are common in Strand-on-the-Green.
The required width for a mobility aid to travel safely and comfortably is 1.5m width unobstructed, since the things themselves are up to about 1.0m, sometimes 1.2m, and extra width is required simple eg wheelchairs require width for hands outside to do wheeling. For two way that is 3.0m, minimum. And I don't accept lamp posts, sign posts, pedestrian cages, litter bins, cross pathway advertising hoardings where phone boxes used to be, Horse's f*cking Brobdingnagian phone masts, and all the rest as not being obstructions; they should be off the clear footway - but that is a slightly different tack !
On passing places, I reject the idea out of hand - except for special circumstances such as a pre-existing constraint. We build our normal carriageways for vehicles to be 5.5m width, so two can pass, except where eg we need traffic calming because many drivers cannot control themselves. The principle is precisely the same for footpaths and footways - imo if we think it through, that is a very basic, unarguable implication of Equality Law. Why should we make wheelchair users use passing spaces in everyday travel, when we do not do so for people who are less marginalised, and the facilities for pedestrians cost such little money?
We had an interesting debate the other week about Delivery Robots, which I have been feeding back as "expect serious resistance if you try to prevent these without a very carefully argued case". The association has a new Chairman, who did a very interesting presentation about developing values and a strategy for their centenary, here - provocative, but not especially radical:
But just to focus on the passing places. Let’s say that you have a riverside path that is 5m wide. I’m guessing you need about 2.5m to accommodate a table and two chairs.
But under your approach that is unacceptable in case there is a scenario where two wheelchair users need to pass each other. So the vast majority of people don’t get to enjoy the path.
My approach represents a reasonable accommodation; create a passing place so wheelchairs don’t lose the ability to pass each other, but also enable to space to be shared by others. But apparently that is so unacceptable as to be “rejected out of hand”
Thanks for elaborating. I disagree with your suggestion, but finding an accommodation is why we have local licenses, laws, and committees and councillors to consider needs and the law, and to come up with such an accommodation - which can then be appealed (i think) or challenged in court by either side if it is thought problematic.
The primary value I try and think from in this is equality. We do no allow pubs to spread their tables and chairs across the public highway ie the carriageway on your road or my road, and make all the cars wait in a passing place to wait and squeeze through one by one. Why should we impose that on mobility aid users of the public highway? I see no difference in principle.
Practically a passing place will not work - outside a pub it will have half-drunk people standing in it much of the time. There will be some who think it funny to poke, prod, throw beer, call them a spaz or similar, or do other things. And even sober people are fairly often abusive or threatening or even violent when asked to accommodate. Try asking some selfish parents parking on the yellow zigzag lines outside a primary school to drop off children, putting the other children at risk, to stop doing it (school staff will be abused if they try to act), or ask someone blocking a Zebra zig-zags or a drop kerb to move, and see what the response is. Mobility aid users will not often do that, because they have been verbally abused before and cannot run away - they are vulnerable.
Yes - 4.5m is ambitious, albeit arguable from national guidelines, but one always gets less than asked for so it is good to start thinking from the actual recommendations for good practice. Often much more is possible by being innovative than one expects.
In the case of the City Barge in @Malmesbury 's photo there is 4.25m from the face of the pub wall to the railing on the river edge. The tables take up ~2m perhaps with an extra chair on the end, and I think a shelf on the railing, which would have 0.6-0.8m of people leaning on it. That leaves about 1.5m.
I'd say a practical answer here could be French style 0.8m round cafe tables against the pub wall, taking up 1.2m max, a clear 3m path marked with a line, no shelf on the railing, and moveable chairs and tables if wanted placed on the concrete (?) tidal apron when the tide is out - which in that part of Chiswick is a lot of the time.
But that’s exactly the point. On narrow roads we *do* use passing points for cars.
It’s simply a question of utility. Your suggestion is not a compromise. It’s an insistence on an outcome that gives you all you want and prevents anyone else sharing the space in a reasonable manner.
I was proposing a 4.5m pathway with 2.5m for the table and chairs and 2m to allow full mobility. The only constraint there is when two full width mobility devices need to pass each other. In reality how often does that happen?
In my view there are serious conceptual and legal problems with this idea.
The Thames Path is not analogous to an unclassified single track road somewhere in back end of Shropshire, or one of my backland routes into Derbyshire - it is the most important public footpath in London.
I think in my view you are proposing a compromise with a business that has no reasonable expectation of a compromise since their obstruction of the public highway is unlawful, and you therefore giving away far more than is reasonable. Why should a private business be able to annexe more than half of a public highway for their own purposes? We do not compromise with Travellers who want to camp in our parks, and I would not be allowed to extend my garden across 60% of the road outside because I want space for my children to have a trampoline.
And I don't see the difference - there is no "both sides" to this. This is pedestrian space - essentially full stop, and a pub obstructing it is in the same category as a farmer blocking a public footpath with his tractor or his haystack, or me blocking the road outside with an extension to my garden.
A pavement license is a limited and privileged exception to the legal rule, and I see no reason why there should be any compromise of the lawful public use of the ROW beyond the minimal, if any at all. I do take a moderately strong stance on this, since there is a hell of a long way to push the pendulum back to create a balanced culture around these questions.
We'll see where the Council come down.
PS You may enjoy this account of what happens if pavement tables go too far. A friend went into a shop in York after wheeling along the pavement, and by the time she came out the pavement in both directions was entirely blocked by cafe tables they had put out on both sides, and she was trapped.
Point of order, the Thames Path is a public footpath but it is not a public highway in the way you are intimating. As such the rules about blocking it do not apply as they do on the road. There are rules about maintaining access including disabled access but the analogy with blocking either a road or a pavement alongside a road is not correct. There are different rules for each
Thanks a for the reply and the POI. I think you may be drawing a distinction without a difference, though I welcome the opportunity to explore a little further.
According to Hounslow Council, the particular section of Thames Path we are discussing, which is the Strand-0n-the-Green section, is an "Adopted Footway" (in the category "Highway Maintainable at Public Expense"), from when it leaves Thames Road to follow the riverbank to when it rejoins Thames Road (according to the map linked below *). There is a narrow section outside Ship Cottage, and another narrow section marked City Barge pub (27 Thames Street), which are marked as "Unadopted Public" and the one at the City Barge has been occupied by eg with balconies. Their tables are on the "Adopted Footway".
The public (including users of Classified Mobility Aids ** ) have a right to pass and repass over Adopted Footway such as the SOTG riverside path, and it is in the same category as a footpath alongside a carriageway. The same S137 of the Highways Act also applies to it aiui, according to various references.
So I think my analogy holds, in the absence of further detail.
** Don't ask for detail; this is Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 Aids, but others do *not* strictly have that right since the law is 55 years out of date. Wheels for Wellbeing just spent months on a consultation on this and sent in a dense 27,000+ word submission. Printed out, it rolls up like a Millwall Brick.
Senior officials in President Trump’s administration have privately warned that appointing Ed Miliband as chancellor would be a “mistake”
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Breaking: FIFA announce England's game against Mexico has been moved to 1st December to give Keir Starmer time to decide what time pubs should shut during the game.
Comments
Ultimately, it is a bit of fun.
But if that is the point, why not go the whole hog and abandon qualifiers?
Goalhanger...
According to Hounslow Council, the particular section of Thames Path we are discussing, which is the Strand-0n-the-Green section, is an "Adopted Footway" (in the category "Highway Maintainable at Public Expense"), from when it leaves Thames Road to follow the riverbank to when it rejoins Thames Road (according to the map linked below *). There is a narrow section outside Ship Cottage, and another narrow section marked City Barge pub (27 Thames Street), which are marked as "Unadopted Public" and the one at the City Barge has been occupied by eg with balconies. Their tables are on the "Adopted Footway".
The public (including users of Classified Mobility Aids ** ) have a right to pass and repass over Adopted Footway such as the SOTG riverside path, and it is in the same category as a footpath alongside a carriageway. The same S137 of the Highways Act also applies to it aiui, according to various references.
So I think my analogy holds, in the absence of further detail.
* Enter Address: W4 3PH to find it into the interactive map.
https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/roads-streets/public-rights-of-way
** Don't ask for detail; this is Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 Aids, but others do *not* strictly have that right since the law is 55 years out of date. Wheels for Wellbeing just spent months on a consultation on this and sent in a dense 27,000+ word submission. Printed out, it rolls up like a Millwall Brick.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
EXCLUSIVE:
Senior officials in President Trump’s administration have privately warned that appointing Ed Miliband as chancellor would be a “mistake”
High-ranking US officials have told their counterparts in Britain, as well as senior Labour figures, that they are concerned about Miliband’s opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea
Half time
Good effort by CPV so far