It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is lovely. Limestone, fields and gardens with a background of the Cuillin.
Like you, I can't believe Ardnamurchan is busy. How is that possible? You used to be able to spend a whole day on the magnificent beach at Sanna and see 3 people if you were unlucky.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
Our parish council cuts the grass verges for £80 a year...
In pb.com electoral news regular viewers of the Dura Ace Show will remember that Mrs DA encouraged me to run for the parish council. I suspect to get me out of the house on an evening. The tory dropped dead during the campaign and the lib dem smelt of piss and had dementia so I was duly elected with a thumping 111 votes on a platform of Eco Anarchism.
I have not attended any meetings or replied to or otherwise acknowledged a single piece of correspondence. That's anarchism.
...The tory dropped dead during the campaign ...
Not revolutionary anarchism, I hope ?
Some sort of arsehole cancer I believe. I did not inquire beyond that stark fact.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
You're describing Pennon.
Pennan is 7 miles away - amazing place. Next to Pennan is Troup Head and the RSPB site - amazing place. Next to that is Crovie - like Pennan only so narrow a shelf that you have to leave your car at the top and walk down - unbelievable place. Next to that is Gardenstown, slightly bigger but still bonkers. You can walk Gardenstown to Crovie to Troup Head to Pennan.
These are the kind of crazy places I used to do roadtrip holidays to visit. Now I go for a stroll after work. Its bliss
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Oh dear, going to Skye in a few weeks, then down to Mull.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is "Gaelic-speaking" solely because of the influx generated by Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college. It survives, sort of, as a community language only in the Trotternish and Waternish peninsulas in Skye. Frankly, the language seems doomed as it is in rapid decline even in the Western Isles.
But you're right, Sleat is lovely.
Yes, the language has been ‘artificially’ reintroduced, but so have red kites in southern England, and they’re glorious. I love hearing people speak Gaelic in the isleornsay pub. It’s a pretty, liquid language. And if you hear it sung by old women in churches in Harris in that special line singing nasal a capella style, oh my word
I hope it survives. Hebrew was artificially reinvented in Israel and it was a great success.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
Comments at parish level = input to planner (note I say comments pointing out it would impact xyz would actually be way more useful than a yes or no without reasoning).
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
Eek has it.
Where is this country where Planning Apps have to be submitted to a Parish Council?
Similar others are Rail Network Operators, Historic England and the Canal and Rivers Trust.
Quite how the Gardens Trust made it onto that list is baffling.
Wait to you start dealing with farms - the environment agency now need to handle methane in a different way (which means you need to know total number of cows in an x mile radius) - and no-one has the data, nor really a clue how to get it.
Oh and if it's over a certain number is automatic refusal - without appeal as it's not a planning issue..
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
The North Coast 500 has been a disaster, aided and abetted by Covid and, frankly, by idiots in the various tourism organisations looking for something to promote. It's heaving with campervans and, remarkably, a surprising number of supermarket delivery wagons.
Meanwhile the promotion of the "Snow Road" in the East has led to a spate of fatalities caused, largely, by motorcyclists using it as a race-track.
'One used to visit for glorious silence and peace.'
How much of that was due to enforced Clearances?
Probably quite a lot, but subsistence crofting would always have come to an end. Other parts of Britain were also cleared but rebuilt their populations and the clearances have been long since forgotten. In the Highlands and Islands, the results are all too clearly evident in the empty glens.
Yes; that was Thatcher's big mistake. (Yes, I know). The mines were closed and the was often no alternative employment. When the glens were cleared, the populations were sent to Glasgow, Australasia and Canada.
Okay, I'll bite. There are various problems with that statement. Firstly, why was it just Thatcher's big mistake, when governments before and after hers closed mines, and employment in the mines was falling from 1960 onwards (and that was a plateau from a much higher peak in 1920). Secondly, what was the alternative? Doing a Canute and keeping the mines open?
As I said in an anecdote the other day, lots of people working in mines were generally unqualified for other work - a failing of the education system. (*) Worse, the work was well-paid, which made the closures all the more painful as alternative work often was not.
(*) Not all; I knew one man - a mechanic - who readily got work in a very different area. But being a mechanic is a much more transferrable skill than (say) driving a coal loader.
Sweeping generalisations are generally a mistake. We, though, I think, are more or less on the same page. My point was that while coal mining was coming to the end of it's life, little or nothing, as you suggest, was done to provide opportunities for successor employment. The Hoover plant in Merthyr was OK-ish but the Revlon factory???? To be fair, the Nissan plant in Washington was a good move, but as you say the education system didn't help. My grandfather, in the thirties, went from miner to dairyman to insurance agent, but there's only so many of each of the latter two jobs needed to cope with a mining community.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
The North Coast 500 has been a disaster, aided and abetted by Covid and, frankly, by idiots in the various tourism organisations looking for something to promote. It's heaving with campervans and, remarkably, a surprising number of supermarket delivery wagons.
Meanwhile the promotion of the "Snow Road" in the East has led to a spate of fatalities caused, largely, by motorcyclists using it as a race-track.
'One used to visit for glorious silence and peace.'
How much of that was due to enforced Clearances?
Probably quite a lot, but subsistence crofting would always have come to an end. Other parts of Britain were also cleared but rebuilt their populations and the clearances have been long since forgotten. In the Highlands and Islands, the results are all too clearly evident in the empty glens.
Yes; that was Thatcher's big mistake. (Yes, I know). The mines were closed and the was often no alternative employment. When the glens were cleared, the populations were sent to Glasgow, Australasia and Canada.
Okay, I'll bite. There are various problems with that statement. Firstly, why was it just Thatcher's big mistake, when governments before and after hers closed mines, and employment in the mines was falling from 1960 onwards (and that was a plateau from a much higher peak in 1920). Secondly, what was the alternative? Doing a Canute and keeping the mines open?
As I said in an anecdote the other day, lots of people working in mines were generally unqualified for other work - a failing of the education system. (*) Worse, the work was well-paid, which made the closures all the more painful as alternative work often was not.
(*) Not all; I knew one man - a mechanic - who readily got work in a very different area. But being a mechanic is a much more transferrable skill than (say) driving a coal loader.
Because often Mrs Thatcher's pit closures left whole towns without work. Because her closures were the result of political spite rather than coal seams being exhausted.
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
Our parish council cuts the grass verges for £80 a year...
In pb.com electoral news regular viewers of the Dura Ace Show will remember that Mrs DA encouraged me to run for the parish council. I suspect to get me out of the house on an evening. The tory dropped dead during the campaign and the lib dem smelt of piss and had dementia so I was duly elected with a thumping 111 votes on a platform of Eco Anarchism.
I have not attended any meetings or replied to or otherwise acknowledged a single piece of correspondence. That's anarchism.
You remind me of the first aider at Aber walking club who was elected despite a promise in his manifesto that he would never, ever administer first aid, and that if you felt him touching you after an accident, he was just looking for your money.
He still won in a landslide.
What I have learned is that daft old tories will even vote for somebody as manifestly unsuitable for public office as me if I billed myself as Cdr Dura Ace, RN. Also they all really like my wife
More importantly, how is Mrs DA taking the failure of her "get DA out of the house" plan?
She'll come up with something else. Hope never dies.
The problem is that you are now seen as that retired colonel/wing commander/commander old buffer who spends too much time on the golf course rather than at council meetings and before long people will have it that you are in fact a committed Kipper who drives a jag.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is lovely. Limestone, fields and gardens with a background of the Cuillin.
Like you, I can't believe Ardnamurchan is busy. How is that possible? You used to be able to spend a whole day on the magnificent beach at Sanna and see 3 people if you were unlucky.
After lockdown last year, a friend and his family went on a road trip on the NC500. I have walked a bit in that area, and have many fond memories. IMV they saw very little of the 'real' coast; just sped through and stopped for photos at the touristy places.
It's undeniably good for the region's economy, but I hope I'll be able to find *that* vantage point of the magnificent Kylesku Bridge without loads of cars or campervans in view. The solitude is blissful.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is lovely. Limestone, fields and gardens with a background of the Cuillin.
Like you, I can't believe Ardnamurchan is busy. How is that possible? You used to be able to spend a whole day on the magnificent beach at Sanna and see 3 people if you were unlucky.
Yes exactly. I remember when I reached Sanna it felt like the ends of the earth. With that sublime view of the Small Isles
Overcrowded?! I’m actually a little bit skeptical. But then I didn’t believe the reports of Slye being rammed until it took me about 2 hours to drive from Kyle to Portree
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Report from Spain - Face masks compulsory everywhere except in the open air when you can ensure 1.5m distance. Large areas with night curfews, limits on all indoor hostelry. Talk of reintroduction comlulsory masks at all times. Around 50 % fully vaccinated and cases continuing to grow. Signs of pressure on hospitals/ICU. Last time I looked Spain was in the EU.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Before you go it's worth reading Callum's Road by Roger Hutchinson. Callum was the islander who, singlehandedly, built the road that runs the length of the island. It's a good read.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
Our parish council cuts the grass verges for £80 a year...
In pb.com electoral news regular viewers of the Dura Ace Show will remember that Mrs DA encouraged me to run for the parish council. I suspect to get me out of the house on an evening. The tory dropped dead during the campaign and the lib dem smelt of piss and had dementia so I was duly elected with a thumping 111 votes on a platform of Eco Anarchism.
I have not attended any meetings or replied to or otherwise acknowledged a single piece of correspondence. That's anarchism.
...The tory dropped dead during the campaign ...
Not revolutionary anarchism, I hope ?
Some sort of arsehole cancer I believe. I did not inquire beyond that stark fact.
Jeez, you can get cancer from just being an arsehole now?!
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Raasay is beautiful, and I only explored a wee bit of it on foot from the ferry terminal
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Hence as I also said earlier town and parish councils will replace district councils as the council most residents consider to be the main one for their local area rather than a unitary council based often at the other end of the county
Okay, I'll bite. There are various problems with that statement. Firstly, why was it just Thatcher's big mistake, when governments before and after hers closed mines, and employment in the mines was falling from 1960 onwards (and that was a plateau from a much higher peak in 1920). Secondly, what was the alternative? Doing a Canute and keeping the mines open?
As I said in an anecdote the other day, lots of people working in mines were generally unqualified for other work - a failing of the education system. (*) Worse, the work was well-paid, which made the closures all the more painful as alternative work often was not.
(*) Not all; I knew one man - a mechanic - who readily got work in a very different area. But being a mechanic is a much more transferrable skill than (say) driving a coal loader.
Because often Mrs Thatcher's pit closures left whole towns without work. Because her closures were the result of political spite rather than coal seams being exhausted.
Have you considered that that was because she was left holding the hot potato? Mines had been closing all over the country for decades. Many miners could move to other mines in the area (although even then mining employment numbers were plummeting), but suddenly there were no mines in the area. It was not just her actions: it was those of her predecessors and successors. This Thatcher-hatred over the mines is quite hilarious given the wider history of coal mining.
The reason they closed was often because they were uneconomic (a fact often not helped by the coal strike). What was your alternative? Keep them going? Why just that industry?
Also: it can be argued that closing the coal mines was good for the environment. Whilst gas is not a green energy source, it's a heck of a lot better than coal. If they (wrongly) blame Thatcher for closing all the mines, then they should be lauding her for helping the environment.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
That sounds like one for an Episode of Clarkson's Farm.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is "Gaelic-speaking" solely because of the influx generated by Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college. It survives, sort of, as a community language only in the Trotternish and Waternish peninsulas in Skye. Frankly, the language seems doomed as it is in rapid decline even in the Western Isles.
But you're right, Sleat is lovely.
Yes, the language has been ‘artificially’ reintroduced, but so have red kites in southern England, and they’re glorious. I love hearing people speak Gaelic in the isleornsay pub. It’s a pretty, liquid language. And if you hear it sung by old women in churches in Harris in that special line singing nasal a capella style, oh my word
I hope it survives. Hebrew was artificially reinvented in Israel and it was a great success.
The problem with ensuring its survival is that there is not enough focus on sustaining it in its core areas. Gaelic-medium schools in Glasgow are all very well, along with bilingual roadsigns, but what you really need are Gaelic-proficient teachers in the islands.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
Really, my wife has a few friends who are policy planning officers, they would love to delegate their work to the district councillors to write the actual report.
As district councillors as you personally write the plan do you also check the law and other constraints to ensure the local plan is legal?
Once again councillors don't do that, they have an input and will eventually be one of the organisations that approve the final Local Plan
"@alisonkilling NEW: China has built enough space to detain 1 million Muslims. After locating the network of camps in Xinjiang last year, we got China’s prison building regs and began to reverse engineer what they had built. By @meghara and me."
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
Has Starmer worked out his position on vax passport yet after yesterday's 30 min U-turn?
Kwasi is confident the government has the vote in the bag so it does not really matter either way. That's the trouble with losing elections: insignificance.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Its a long way from Skipton to Scarborough.
But you can travel there in style on the "Scarborough Spa Express". A pair of 37s and a steam loco for haulage, while sat in a comfy Mark 1 carriage with windows that open to blow the virus away.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
Sat in a dune in the sun waiting for the ferry at Eriskay. Yes...
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
The North Coast 500 has been a disaster, aided and abetted by Covid and, frankly, by idiots in the various tourism organisations looking for something to promote. It's heaving with campervans and, remarkably, a surprising number of supermarket delivery wagons.
Meanwhile the promotion of the "Snow Road" in the East has led to a spate of fatalities caused, largely, by motorcyclists using it as a race-track.
'One used to visit for glorious silence and peace.'
How much of that was due to enforced Clearances?
Probably quite a lot, but subsistence crofting would always have come to an end. Other parts of Britain were also cleared but rebuilt their populations and the clearances have been long since forgotten. In the Highlands and Islands, the results are all too clearly evident in the empty glens.
Yes; that was Thatcher's big mistake. (Yes, I know). The mines were closed and the was often no alternative employment. When the glens were cleared, the populations were sent to Glasgow, Australasia and Canada.
Okay, I'll bite. There are various problems with that statement. Firstly, why was it just Thatcher's big mistake, when governments before and after hers closed mines, and employment in the mines was falling from 1960 onwards (and that was a plateau from a much higher peak in 1920). Secondly, what was the alternative? Doing a Canute and keeping the mines open?
As I said in an anecdote the other day, lots of people working in mines were generally unqualified for other work - a failing of the education system. (*) Worse, the work was well-paid, which made the closures all the more painful as alternative work often was not.
(*) Not all; I knew one man - a mechanic - who readily got work in a very different area. But being a mechanic is a much more transferrable skill than (say) driving a coal loader.
Because often Mrs Thatcher's pit closures left whole towns without work. Because her closures were the result of political spite rather than coal seams being exhausted.
You have to be realistic. The NUM was out to destroy her Government. It was them or us. And, let's face it, if there was plenty of coal Tony Blair could have re-opened the mines. He was a County Durham MP after all.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Parishes do not make decisions to be overturned, they are consulted. Double hatted members have to be very clear on that.
Has Starmer worked out his position on vax passport yet after yesterday's 30 min U-turn?
Kwasi is confident the government has the vote in the bag so it does not really matter either way. That's the trouble with losing elections: insignificance.
It would sort of be nice to know if her majesty's opposition had a position and if they had a sensible original thought about how to possibly do things better, given that in a couple of years they could be running the country....Starmer being a big brained forensic minded chap, rather than a part time game show host / writter of "witty" opinion pieces in the newspaper.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
Was that the one Sandi Toksvig stayed in on her Channel 4 series...
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
So just another lie because the virus POSSIBLY came from a lab and is today still 2nd favourite to natural. I've done the legwork now. The lab thesis cannot - must not - be mocked but to rank it as the most likely scenario is a bridge too far.
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
"@alisonkilling NEW: China has built enough space to detain 1 million Muslims. After locating the network of camps in Xinjiang last year, we got China’s prison building regs and began to reverse engineer what they had built. By @meghara and me."
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
The North Coast 500 has been a disaster, aided and abetted by Covid and, frankly, by idiots in the various tourism organisations looking for something to promote. It's heaving with campervans and, remarkably, a surprising number of supermarket delivery wagons.
Meanwhile the promotion of the "Snow Road" in the East has led to a spate of fatalities caused, largely, by motorcyclists using it as a race-track.
'One used to visit for glorious silence and peace.'
How much of that was due to enforced Clearances?
Probably quite a lot, but subsistence crofting would always have come to an end. Other parts of Britain were also cleared but rebuilt their populations and the clearances have been long since forgotten. In the Highlands and Islands, the results are all too clearly evident in the empty glens.
Yes; that was Thatcher's big mistake. (Yes, I know). The mines were closed and the was often no alternative employment. When the glens were cleared, the populations were sent to Glasgow, Australasia and Canada.
Okay, I'll bite. There are various problems with that statement. Firstly, why was it just Thatcher's big mistake, when governments before and after hers closed mines, and employment in the mines was falling from 1960 onwards (and that was a plateau from a much higher peak in 1920). Secondly, what was the alternative? Doing a Canute and keeping the mines open?
As I said in an anecdote the other day, lots of people working in mines were generally unqualified for other work - a failing of the education system. (*) Worse, the work was well-paid, which made the closures all the more painful as alternative work often was not.
(*) Not all; I knew one man - a mechanic - who readily got work in a very different area. But being a mechanic is a much more transferrable skill than (say) driving a coal loader.
Sweeping generalisations are generally a mistake. We, though, I think, are more or less on the same page. My point was that while coal mining was coming to the end of it's life, little or nothing, as you suggest, was done to provide opportunities for successor employment. The Hoover plant in Merthyr was OK-ish but the Revlon factory???? To be fair, the Nissan plant in Washington was a good move, but as you say the education system didn't help. My grandfather, in the thirties, went from miner to dairyman to insurance agent, but there's only so many of each of the latter two jobs needed to cope with a mining community.
Here it was call centres (mostly employed women, not really a replacement), and when they were outsourced to India, transport warehouses. Unfortunately the warehouses are mostly staffed by imported Eastern Europeans ('Speaking Russian an advantage') because that way the businesses get away with poor pay and conditions.
If you were surprised by people voting for Brexit in these circumstances, then you weren't paying attention.
When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
You know what the small print was, right?
In 2015 the EU re-opened Turkey's EU accession, in return for Turkey keeping some of the migrants on Turkish soil.
There was even a joint statement on it issued in March 2016, just a few months before the ref:
It has everything in that statement, including the removal of visa control on Turks - direct quote "The fulfilment of the visa liberalisation roadmap will be accelerated with a view to lifting the visa requirements for Turkish citizens at the latest by the end of June 2016".
It even says, "The accession process will be re-energised, with Chapter 33 opened during the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union and preparatory work on the opening of other chapters to continue at an accelerated pace".
So this wasn't about "some comments about Turkey joining in the past". It was very much in the present.
Now of course the EU might have been fibbing to the Turks in order to persuade the Turks to keep the migrants on their soil.
Where Vote Leave was clever was simply pointing out that the EU had re-opened talks with the Turks and daring Cameron, Merkel and co to say, "No, no, it's not true, Turkey is not going to join, we were just fibbing to manipulate them into helping with the Syrian migrants"
And of course they couldn't say that. So the EU was hoist on their own petard for issuing an official communique with the Turks, which they now claim was a tissue of fibs...
Question: did the EU even consult Cameron before issuing this statement in March 2016 as the ref campaign got underway? Or did Merkel as usual do her own thing without consulting anyone?
An interesting post with facts and detail that I (and I suspect 90% of the country) didn't know. However I'm not sure what point you're making? Is it that 70 million Turks were likely to have free entry into our country within a year or just that the EU were so deliberately opaque it teaches them a lesson?
That was really my point. We deserved to be given facts we could rely on. There were no neutrals. The press were never going to question what was being said-they were Leavers- and TV were virtually forbidden to do so which meant Cummings/Johnson could peddle what they liked and Cummings was bright and ruthless enough to know how to do it.
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
I love the way they said with a straight face that it shouldn’t be considered because they didn’t want to “politicise the investigation”
And that if people believe it was a lab leak perhaps they should investigate whether it escaped from one of their own labs first
Sweeping generalisations are generally a mistake. We, though, I think, are more or less on the same page. My point was that while coal mining was coming to the end of it's life, little or nothing, as you suggest, was done to provide opportunities for successor employment. The Hoover plant in Merthyr was OK-ish but the Revlon factory???? To be fair, the Nissan plant in Washington was a good move, but as you say the education system didn't help. My grandfather, in the thirties, went from miner to dairyman to insurance agent, but there's only so many of each of the latter two jobs needed to cope with a mining community.
I'd argue things were put in place. An anecdote. When John Merrill walked the NE coast back in ?1977?, he reported of massive conveyor belts hauling coal waste off the cliffs into the North Sea. Another walker, ten or so years later, reported wasteland. When I walked past 25 years later, the area was green (*), and the coal waste cliffs were being eroded away. Inland were largish buildings - distribution centres etc. I saw some of the last living pit ponies nearby.
Then remember the way she encouraged Nissan to the NE.
But it takes time: decades, even. The problem is that too many areas had well-paid mining jobs as their central focus, with precious other industries (aside from ancillaries) present. You cannot just wave a magic wand and do this instantly: the areas should have been diversified from the 1960s onwards.
There were issues though: some places had coal was too central an industry - I'd argue some places in the Welsh Valleys, such as Merthyr, fall into that category. Too remote connections-wise to attract largescale alternative industries.
(*) Underneath the cliffs was interesting, though. Dipples in the beach contained water that was either black or orange-red, colours I associated with working in a chemical plant. People were fishing off the beach.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
Comments at parish level = input to planner (note I say comments pointing out it would impact xyz would actually be way more useful than a yes or no without reasoning).
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
Eek has it.
Where is this country where Planning Apps have to be submitted to a Parish Council?
Similar others are Rail Network Operators, Historic England and the Canal and Rivers Trust.
Quite how the Gardens Trust made it onto that list is baffling.
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
Two unitaries for Nottinghamshire -
Newark, Ashfield, Mansfield and Worksop could work as a unitary (HQ Mansfield) "North Notts", and Nottingham council simply expand to pick up the rest of the county (Rushcliffe/Broxtowe), "Nottingham and South Nottinghamshire" (South Nottinghamshire outside Nottingham doesn't have any massive population centres)
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
I can see a point where things are too big for unitary, but to date it has been a great development that should continue to happen.
The issue is that it's too big - County Durham is too big and I can get from one side to the other in 90 minutes. It's 3 hours for North Yorkshire.
I am surprised that one is happening.
You are not the only one - the sane approach seemed to be a east / west split using the A1 as a rough boundary but I believe there was problems with that approach...
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
Sat in a dune in the sun waiting for the ferry at Eriskay. Yes...
North Uist's "drowned" landscape is remarkable. It's well worth walking up Eaval for the view. It's only about a 1,000 feet above sea level but provides a superb panorama.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
Really, my wife has a few friends who are policy planning officers, they would love to delegate their work to the district councillors to write the actual report.
As district councillors as you personally write the plan do you also check the law and other constraints to ensure the local plan is legal?
Once again councillors don't do that, they have an input and will eventually be one of the organisations that approve the final Local Plan
I know a lot of councillors at many levels, mostly very good and hard working - they'd love to believe it was as simple on planning as hyufd paints, itd make life so much easier for them than the reality.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
Our parish council cuts the grass verges for £80 a year...
In pb.com electoral news regular viewers of the Dura Ace Show will remember that Mrs DA encouraged me to run for the parish council. I suspect to get me out of the house on an evening. The tory dropped dead during the campaign and the lib dem smelt of piss and had dementia so I was duly elected with a thumping 111 votes on a platform of Eco Anarchism.
I have not attended any meetings or replied to or otherwise acknowledged a single piece of correspondence. That's anarchism.
...The tory dropped dead during the campaign ...
Not revolutionary anarchism, I hope ?
Some sort of arsehole cancer I believe. I did not inquire beyond that stark fact.
Jeez, you can get cancer from just being an arsehole now?!
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Personally I'm about to jump into the sea on a gloriously sunny day in Whitstable, having stocked up for a barbeque at a Sainsburys on the Thanet Way with no visible shortages, with a nephew and niece who have probably started to burn slightly having just broken up from school, and watching a load of very happy Londoners decend onto the beach, having last night enjoyed a couple of pints in a mask free bar in Wye before heading into Canterbury for some more.
And to top it all off I am secure in the knowlege that I'm not a disingenuous shit stirrer like you are. So life is pretty fantastic thanks all the same.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also on of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
Sleat is lovely. Limestone, fields and gardens with a background of the Cuillin.
Like you, I can't believe Ardnamurchan is busy. How is that possible? You used to be able to spend a whole day on the magnificent beach at Sanna and see 3 people if you were unlucky.
Yes exactly. I remember when I reached Sanna it felt like the ends of the earth. With that sublime view of the Small Isles
Overcrowded?! I’m actually a little bit skeptical. But then I didn’t believe the reports of Slye being rammed until it took me about 2 hours to drive from Kyle to Portree
Sanna is gorgeous. I remember lying on the beach, with crystal clear waters and magnificent views. Being the height of summer, I was wearing a fleece to keep warm.
We've got a painting of the view from Sanna towards the islands, with the little lump of land in the foreground where sheep get stranded at high tide.
After a few days in Ardnamurchan, getting the ferry to Tobermory feels like you are in a metropolis.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Yes, but cllrs have a lot less wiggle room than theyd like, given parameters for that kind of work, so theres often not that much of a choice. Especially around individual local concerns they cannot unpick.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
I've heard that Calmac are booked out for the Outer Hebrides for non commercial vehicles until late autumn, so like so many things we'll all have to wait till next year
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Personally I'm about to jump into the sea on a gloriously sunny day in Whitstable, having stocked up for a barbeque at a Sainsburys on the Thanet Way with no visible shortages, with a nephew and niece who have probably started to burn slightly having just broken up from school, and watching a load of very happy Londoners decend onto the beach, having last night enjoyed a couple of pints in a mask free bar in Wye before heading into Canterbury for some more.
And to top it all off I am secure in the knowlege that I'm not a disingenuous shit stirrer like you are. So life is pretty fantastic thanks all the same.
The shortages weren't visible, supermarkets are very good at hiding gaps with upside down veg boxes and miles of shelves of bananas and oranges, unless you bought tinned.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Yes, but cllrs have a lot less wiggle room than theyd like, given parameters for that kind of work, so theres often not that much of a choice. Especially around individual local concerns they cannot unpick.
And under the new fast track approach councillors are going to get a very limited (if any) say.
A mixed bag of local by-elections today. Lab defences in Rhondda and Wirral, Con defences in Thanet and Dover, Green defence in Spelthorne. Then there are three complicated cases; North Somerset sees a LD defence but there is no LD candidate ( when the LD was elected there was no Green candidate). In Leicester it is technically an Ind defence but was elected as Lab. Finally there is a LD defence in Camden where Flick Rea is retiring after 34 years on the council - the other two seats in the ward are Labour.
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
So just another lie because the virus POSSIBLY came from a lab and is today still 2nd favourite to natural. I've done the legwork now. The lab thesis cannot - must not - be mocked but to rank it as the most likely scenario is a bridge too far.
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
It probably came from the lab
If it did not, all China has to do is publish all the Wuhan laboratory data it mysteriously ‘deleted’ in late 2019. Why did they delete it? Why will they not reveal it? They have everything to gain by exonerating themselves, yet they won’t, because, I suspect, they can’t
It amazes me how bien pensants like yourself are still so reluctant to go near this theory, even when they are quite happy to believe other unsavoury things about the Xi regime. eg the Uighur ‘genocide’. I am sure it is a mixture of anti-Trump hysteria (‘everything he said was a vile lie!) mixed with class-anxious bourgeois distaste for plebeian ‘conspiracy theories’ - you hate to be associated with anything working class, as you spent your life escaping it
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Hence as I also said earlier town and parish councils will replace district councils as the council most residents consider to be the main one for their local area rather than a unitary council based often at the other end of the county
Parishes are getting more pushed down to them, but I'd worry about the ones outside larger towns being capable of much. Tiny populated rural ones can be very good but highly dependent on individuals and for detailed technical stuff just won't have resource for that.
People have argued since their creation around parishes, what they can/should do, whether every parish should have a council (quite a few still do not, just Parish Meetings), how large is too large, grouping etc, so a bit like the unitary argument.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal
I seem to remember suggesting you keep quiet and you've just shown why I said as much.
Given that I can tie your PB account to you personally and thus to a particular council I wouldn't be posting things that were they passed to the ombudsman as a complaint of abuse of power - would confirm that was the plan.
Everyone knows it happens but most people are sensible enough not to publish the fact.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant considerations.
Cllrs do the best they can, and that keeps them busy enough without making everything about party politics. Yes, votes then split on those lines but similar calls happen whoever is in power, and some in their own groups get screwed.
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Hence as I also said earlier town and parish councils will replace district councils as the council most residents consider to be the main one for their local area rather than a unitary council based often at the other end of the county
Parishes are getting more pushed down to them, but I'd worry about the ones outside larger towns being capable of much. Tiny populated rural ones can be very good but highly dependent on individuals and for detailed technical stuff just won't have resource for that.
People have argued since their creation around parishes, what they can/should do, whether every parish should have a council (quite a few still do not, just Parish Meetings), how large is too large, grouping etc, so a bit like the unitary argument.
Most residents of towns and villages consider themselves residents of that town or village and want a council that represents it, not a unitary authority miles away.
In fact most would probably be happy with scrapping district councils and not replacing them with unitary authorities and just letting all local matters be decided at parish or town council level, some would even be happy with scrapping county councils too and devolving their powers to the parish or town council
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Yes, but cllrs have a lot less wiggle room than theyd like, given parameters for that kind of work, so theres often not that much of a choice. Especially around individual local concerns they cannot unpick.
And under the new fast track approach councillors are going to get a very limited (if any) say.
Our councillors are now into Year 11 of preparing the Local Plan, and just started again basically from scratch.
I think more pressure would bring certain benefits
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
I've heard that Calmac are booked out for the Outer Hebrides for non commercial vehicles until late autumn, so like so many things we'll all have to wait till next year
A bicycle is the way to island hop. Provided you don't mind headwinds...
The Spectator @spectator 'I now accept that when players start taking the knee again in a few weeks’ time it will not be because they’re rabid neo-Marxists.' Toby Young
Good morning fellow PBers. Your resident "soft-headed bigot" (copyright kinabalu) signing in for another day of robust debate about the issues of the day.
No-one thinks footballers "are" neo-Marxists - that would be absurd. Presumably, the reason some people do not support the taking of the knee at sporting events is because it adopts the symbolism of the BLM movement, which is, openly, a neo-Marxist organization. If one adopts the symbolism of an organization then it's reasonable to assume support for it.
Trying to explain that away by saying "no, no, we're not supporting the organization; we're just saying we're against racism" is problematic when there are perfectly good campaigns, such as "Kick It Out" and "Show Racism the Red Card", out there and doing a good job of highlighting the issue.
It's interesting that the FA and others have doubled down on the "taking of the knee" when they could have just as easily supported "taking a stand" or "turning a back" - which do not have divisive political overtones - instead. Personally, I'm not a fan of using sport for any political purpose but that's by the by - it seems it's here to stay.
Anyway, it sounds as if the likes of Topy Young are admitting defeat on this one, which is a notable development given that the underlying concerns about the association with BLM and it's objectives have not gone away.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
Interesting. I am currently in the middle of a large piece of employment tribunal litigation where my client is suing a local councillor personally for using much that logic.
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Yes, if my theory of Covid Always Punishing Smugness And Hubris is correct, then Sweden is about to be visited by an Epsilon Variant with an R0 of 27, a CFR of 57% and soon Stockholm will be inhabited solely by feral 12 year olds scavenging the last pickled fish
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant consideration.
Yep and an invalid local plan gives developers completely free reign to build what they want.
Which isn't a problem unless someone posted evidence that the local plan was based on invalid considerations for political advantage - so potentially rendering the plan invalid.
* potentially is used here because I don't care about the area HUYFD lives in. Developers who wish to build houses there (so may have different reasons and far deeper pockets) may take a very different viewpoint.
Question -for @Cyclefree if she is around were someone to admit to illegal activity do you need to find evidence to back it up or could the admission be enough?
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Yes, but cllrs have a lot less wiggle room than theyd like, given parameters for that kind of work, so theres often not that much of a choice. Especially around individual local concerns they cannot unpick.
And under the new fast track approach councillors are going to get a very limited (if any) say.
If the government holds its nerve against a revolt in the shires I'll be amazed. I'm already amazed they are still going.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant considerations.
Cllrs do the best they can, and that keeps them busy enough without making everything about party politics. Yes, votes then split on those lines but similar calls happen whoever is in power, and some in their own groups get screwed.
Just political reality, in my experience LDs tend to want most development in Tory rural areas, while Tories tend to want most development in parts of towns with LD councillors.
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Yes, if my theory of Covid Always Punishing Smugness And Hubris is correct, then Sweden is about to be visited by an Epsilon Variant with an R0 of 27, a CFR of 57% and soon Stockholm will be inhabited solely by feral 12 year olds scavenging the last pickled fish
The reality of covid is unless you operate a prison island, covid will eventually find you and by the time you think you might have a problem, you have a f##king massive problem.
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Hence as I also said earlier town and parish councils will replace district councils as the council most residents consider to be the main one for their local area rather than a unitary council based often at the other end of the county
Parishes are getting more pushed down to them, but I'd worry about the ones outside larger towns being capable of much. Tiny populated rural ones can be very good but highly dependent on individuals and for detailed technical stuff just won't have resource for that.
People have argued since their creation around parishes, what they can/should do, whether every parish should have a council (quite a few still do not, just Parish Meetings), how large is too large, grouping etc, so a bit like the unitary argument.
Most residents of towns and villages consider themselves residents of that town or village and want a council that represents it, not a unitary authority miles away.
In fact most would probably be happy with scrapping district councils and not replacing them with unitary authorities and just letting all local matters be decided at parish or town council level, some would even be happy with scrapping county councils too and devolving their powers to the parish or town council
Town Councils controlling schools, waste disposal and bin men, putting in pavement crossings for drives, safety on Main Roads and regulating the local airport (see North West Leicestershire)?
On the wider issue, Unitary Councils will work in some places, not in others - as @Cyclefree was pointing out wrt Cumbria.
I was working for a small LA in Shropshire when the awful Hazel Blears pithed localisation in England's most spread-out county.
Here in Notts there is Nottingham and a collection of towns nearly as big Nottingham together 20 miles North. The idea that the latter should be run from a Southern Suburb of the former is insane.
That exact issue is the one I've now posted about a few times on here regarding Bishop Auckland and County Durham. A council based on Nottingham (as Durham is to County Durham) will approve applications in those towns without thought to the town itself as 70%+ of the councillors won't know the local area nor care about it.
Hence as I also said earlier town and parish councils will replace district councils as the council most residents consider to be the main one for their local area rather than a unitary council based often at the other end of the county
Parishes are getting more pushed down to them, but I'd worry about the ones outside larger towns being capable of much. Tiny populated rural ones can be very good but highly dependent on individuals and for detailed technical stuff just won't have resource for that.
People have argued since their creation around parishes, what they can/should do, whether every parish should have a council (quite a few still do not, just Parish Meetings), how large is too large, grouping etc, so a bit like the unitary argument.
Most residents of towns and villages consider themselves residents of that town or village and want a council that represents it, not a unitary authority miles away.
In fact most would probably be happy with scrapping district councils and not replacing them with unitary authorities and just letting all local matters be decided at parish or town council level, some would even be happy with scrapping county councils too and devolving their powers to the parish or town council
They might, but my point was about how to make them capable of that (bear in mind some parishes have multiple settlements too, so might need further dividing under the extreme localism plan).
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant consideration.
Yep and an invalid local plan gives developers completely free reign to build what they want.
Which isn't a problem unless someone posted evidence that the local plan was based on invalid considerations for political advantage - so potentially rendering the plan invalid.
Enough tweeks are made after the Planning Inspector report to ensure the local plan remains valid and the party with majority control on the council will of course get its way
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Yes, if my theory of Covid Always Punishing Smugness And Hubris is correct, then Sweden is about to be visited by an Epsilon Variant with an R0 of 27, a CFR of 57% and soon Stockholm will be inhabited solely by feral 12 year olds scavenging the last pickled fish
The reality of covid is unless you operate a prison island, covid will eventually find you and by the time you think you might have a problem, you have a f##king massive problem.
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Yes, if my theory of Covid Always Punishing Smugness And Hubris is correct, then Sweden is about to be visited by an Epsilon Variant with an R0 of 27, a CFR of 57% and soon Stockholm will be inhabited solely by feral 12 year olds scavenging the last pickled fish
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Some of those recent posts, very recent in fact, about how certain US states have opened up but cases aren't rising now look extremely stupid.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
No food shortages No driver shortages No face masks (or rather extremely rare) Kids thoroughly enjoying relaxing laziness after a year of normal, undisrupted schooling Young adults partying just as hard as usual Summer Sweden as fantastic as ever Off to plunge off a 7m diving platform into the sea (water temp 22 degrees) Glorious suntans and happy faces abound Royal Norwegian and Danish yachts are docked down by the pulsing jetty
How’s your Summer of Discontent going?
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Yes, if my theory of Covid Always Punishing Smugness And Hubris is correct, then Sweden is about to be visited by an Epsilon Variant with an R0 of 27, a CFR of 57% and soon Stockholm will be inhabited solely by feral 12 year olds scavenging the last pickled fish
The reality of covid is unless you operate a prison island, covid will eventually find you and by the time you think you might have a problem, you have a f##king massive problem.
Indeed
And, worse, cruelly worse, by the time it reaches you it will likely have evolved into some hideous new variant, more dangerous and lethal than the first iteration you dodged
I just read that Melbourne has now been under pretty strict lockdown for six months, with more to come. Meanwhile my daughter north of Sydney is unable to see her friends, schools are closed...
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
So just another lie because the virus POSSIBLY came from a lab and is today still 2nd favourite to natural. I've done the legwork now. The lab thesis cannot - must not - be mocked but to rank it as the most likely scenario is a bridge too far.
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
It probably came from the lab
If it did not, all China has to do is publish all the Wuhan laboratory data it mysteriously ‘deleted’ in late 2019. Why did they delete it? Why will they not reveal it? They have everything to gain by exonerating themselves, yet they won’t, because, I suspect, they can’t
It amazes me how bien pensants like yourself are still so reluctant to go near this theory, even when they are quite happy to believe other unsavoury things about the Xi regime. eg the Uighur ‘genocide’. I am sure it is a mixture of anti-Trump hysteria (‘everything he said was a vile lie!) mixed with class-anxious bourgeois distaste for plebeian ‘conspiracy theories’ - you hate to be associated with anything working class, as you spent your life escaping it
Ditto Brexit
Chinese information paranoia isn't really evidence either way for the lab leak hypothesis. They are are totalitarian regime who simply won't accept any external investigation or any obligation to provide evidence to the international community.
There's very good evidence for what they're doing to the Uighurs which dispels any reasonable doubt. That kind of evidence simply doesn't exist for the lab leak; it's possible, but is not proven. And there's considerable biological evidence consistent with a natural origin.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal
I seem to remember suggesting you keep quiet and you've just shown why I said as much.
Given that I can tie your PB account to you personally and thus to a particular council I wouldn't be posting things that were they passed to the ombudsman as a complaint of abuse of power - would confirm that was the plan.
Everyone knows it happens but most people are sensible enough not to publish the fact.
I am not a district councillor so nothing to report as I have no involvement in the local plan but it happens in every council, including in Oxfordshire where the LDs have control and I spend half my time.
The Ombudsman would have to stop every local plan in every council in the country if he was going to stop the majority party from trying to avoid most development in the areas they have most councillors
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
I've heard that Calmac are booked out for the Outer Hebrides for non commercial vehicles until late autumn, so like so many things we'll all have to wait till next year
A bicycle is the way to island hop. Provided you don't mind headwinds...
True enough for you hardier souls, I'm more of a bike in the boot of the car and a gentle pedal to the Rodel and back kinda guy.
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Some of those recent posts, very recent in fact, about how certain US states have opened up but cases aren't rising now look extremely stupid.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
Dunno about the last bit. Delta appears able to outcompete the more vaccine resistant Beta.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Yes, but cllrs have a lot less wiggle room than theyd like, given parameters for that kind of work, so theres often not that much of a choice. Especially around individual local concerns they cannot unpick.
And under the new fast track approach councillors are going to get a very limited (if any) say.
If the government holds its nerve against a revolt in the shires I'll be amazed. I'm already amazed they are still going.
There are 2 different areas where the Government is looking to simplify / fast track things.
Local plans is one of them, development control is the other.
Given how old a lot of local plans are (part of the South Lakes plan is from 2008) you can see why speeding things up is desirable.
As with a lot of things I suspect all the complaints being received will be regarding the DC changes and the policy ones will sail through.
Looking at the pingdemic stats, the rate of ping growth has slowed down a lot. I expect by the time we get to next weekend there will be fewer people entering the 10 day pingsolation than will be leaving it. Which sort of matches up with the slowdown in case growth.
I'd actually like for the government to be much more vocal and robust about the potential vaccine pass in the next few weeks as well to get an additional 3-4m people into the vaccine programme. We have got somewhere in the region of 8m Moderna doses and 4m Pfizer doses sitting in fridges and freezers because there's no demand for first doses and we're rate limited by the 8 week gap on second doses. Every single minister should be out there suggesting that people who aren't double vaxxed by September 30th will be unable to go to pubs, bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres or live sports. Even if we only get to an additional 2m from that drive it would take us to ca. 49m people which would be 72% of the population. If we got 3.5m from such action it would be just under 75% of the population. With either of those number the need for the vaccine passport goes away by the time we get to September 30th.
It's a shitty way of doing it but at the same time, there's just too much inertia among young people "I'll get it whenever" seems to be quite a common sentiment on the Instagram Index™. By making September 30th a hard deadline to be double vaxxed whenever becomes tomorrow for a huge proportion of the 5m under 40s who are yet to be vaxxed.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
Interesting. I am currently in the middle of a large piece of employment tribunal litigation where my client is suing a local councillor personally for using much that logic.
It really doesn't surprise me - I believe that side of the Barnard Castle Town Clerk case I linked to earlier is still on going.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant considerations.
Cllrs do the best they can, and that keeps them busy enough without making everything about party politics. Yes, votes then split on those lines but similar calls happen whoever is in power, and some in their own groups get screwed.
Just political reality, in my experience LDs tend to want most development in Tory rural areas, while Tories tend to want most development in parts of towns with LD councillors.
Of course no one wants development in their own patch at all, but in my experience party label doesnt affect that - it unites Tory LD and labour councillors in a town for instance, or indeed any candidates.
My town has gone from LD to Con to LD, and things have changed in many areas, but the views on development have been pretty uniform the whole time.
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Some of those recent posts, very recent in fact, about how certain US states have opened up but cases aren't rising now look extremely stupid.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
Dunno about the last bit. Delta appears able to outcompete the more vaccine resistant Beta.
Do we get a beta wave in the winter once delta is finished ?
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
So just another lie because the virus POSSIBLY came from a lab and is today still 2nd favourite to natural. I've done the legwork now. The lab thesis cannot - must not - be mocked but to rank it as the most likely scenario is a bridge too far.
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
It probably came from the lab
If it did not, all China has to do is publish all the Wuhan laboratory data it mysteriously ‘deleted’ in late 2019. Why did they delete it? Why will they not reveal it? They have everything to gain by exonerating themselves, yet they won’t, because, I suspect, they can’t
It amazes me how bien pensants like yourself are still so reluctant to go near this theory, even when they are quite happy to believe other unsavoury things about the Xi regime. eg the Uighur ‘genocide’. I am sure it is a mixture of anti-Trump hysteria (‘everything he said was a vile lie!) mixed with class-anxious bourgeois distaste for plebeian ‘conspiracy theories’ - you hate to be associated with anything working class, as you spent your life escaping it
Ditto Brexit
Chinese information paranoia isn't really evidence either way for the lab leak hypothesis. They are are totalitarian regime who simply won't accept any external investigation or any obligation to provide evidence to the international community.
There's very good evidence for what they're doing to the Uighurs which dispels any reasonable doubt. That kind of evidence simply doesn't exist for the lab leak; it's possible, but is not proven. And there's considerable biological evidence consistent with a natural origin.
As I understand it, there is near-zero direct evidence for natural zoonosis. They’ve tested a trillion animals. Nowt
What there is, is historical precedent. Most new viruses naturally emerge from animals. And that is no small thing
However there is great circumstantial evidence pointing to lab leak. And this evidence grows. Is lab leak certain? No. Is it probable? To my mind (and many others, now) - yes
The tragic thing about China’s duplicity and obfuscation is that it means we will probably never know for sure the origins of a novel virus which is killing many millions and decimating economies. Which is a big problem. To avoid further plagues we will have to act as if both hypotheses are true - ie shutter wet markets and impose new rules on animal care - worldwide - and also shut down gain of function research and really think hard about locating BSL4 labs in the middle of enormous cities. Madness
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Some of those recent posts, very recent in fact, about how certain US states have opened up but cases aren't rising now look extremely stupid.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
Dunno about the last bit. Delta appears able to outcompete the more vaccine resistant Beta.
Do we get a beta wave in the winter once delta is finished ?
Beta's been here since February and failed to take off. Ditto Metropolitan France - Delta is outcompeting it. Even in SA Delta is taking over.
Reminds me of the pictures of the czechs last summer....or Florida a couple of months ago ...
Some of those recent posts, very recent in fact, about how certain US states have opened up but cases aren't rising now look extremely stupid.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
Dunno about the last bit. Delta appears able to outcompete the more vaccine resistant Beta.
Do we get a beta wave in the winter once delta is finished ?
Doubtful, all of the vaccines are pretty handy against beta as well according to the Canadian study. >90% efficacy against severe disease for Pfizer, AZ and Moderna and >80% for J&J. We'll also be well into the booster programme by then so any loss in binding efficiency will be made up for by the 10-12x increase in neutralising antibodies the booster dose gives people in the early studies.
It is no surprise that we are falling off a cliff. In fact it's to be welcomed so we can start mending fences as quickly as possible..
Apart from the headline stuff Cummings explained in some detail how the UK was manipulated into leaving the EU when even he (as chief manipulator) doubted it was in our best interest. When Laura K asked him why he and his (imbecile) front man told so many lies ie.Turkey were poised to join the EU he glibly replied that it wasn't his job to explain the small print.
It was chilling. Ruthless ambition by the puppet and puppet master meant no holes were barred. From an advertising perspective the technique was as simple as it was wretched as he couldn't resist explaining......
People with a slight prejudice had it aroused until it became a fear which as the campaign wore on became an all consuming fear. The reasons for choosing Turkey were as calculated as they were insidious
It was impossible to refute because Cameron in the past had said Turkey joining was 'a long term aspiration' and he didn't wish to offend the Turks by resiling from it. They also had an irresistable number of Muslims living there....
'if we remained in the EU 70 million Turks could be on our doorstep within a year and we could do nothing to stop them' became a virtual slogan..... Cummings in front of Lara K could hardly hide his gloat
No need to explain why this wouldn't have passed any advertising code known to man. Only the dimmest wouldn't know and they don't post here. But those now in power and those who put them there have shown how easily a country-even a reasonably civilised one-can be manipulated when there are no rules. And even questioning is severely restricted
The disappointing part is that in many ways it's the fault of the advertising industry. We've become accustomed to believing what advertisers tell us because they are obliged not only to tell the truth but to be able to substantiate all claims. There is no such thing as 'small print'
PS. I saw a 60's press ad for a Porsche 911 yesterday. Above a photo of the car were two lines
'Small Penis?
Have we got the car for you!'
Catchy post with a strong central point. Here's OJ musing on similar lines but in more of an OJ than a Roger way -
One thing I've picked up over the years, (from Cummings, Trump and elsewhere) is if you are going to make stuff up in an ad / post leave other things to argue about.
Turkey joining the EU and the £350m a week are great examples of this. There is enough element of truth in it that even if they argue the point (it's £350m total but we get £200m back) it just re-enforces the core message.
Yep. Although I'm not as livid about those 2 examples as many of my Remainer compadres are. Brexit is an act of economic and cultural vandalism. It's being done for reasons that are the opposite of noble. The better side of our nature lost to its darker twin. But Leave won fair and square as far as I'm concerned. I actually think the 52/48 understates the mood of the country. Makes it appear a finer judgment than it really was. In FPTP terms it was a landslide. Almost anywhere you go in England outside London, a majority wanted out of the EU. So out we have come. Democracy.
Trump, different story. Everything that issues forth from his odd pouting mouth is both nasty and a lie. I both disagree with what he says and would totally NOT defend to the death his right to say it. Deplatform and cancel is the way forward there, for me. Preferably written into law. A bespoke and carefully worded piece of legislation applying purely to him, hence dealing with the 'slippery slope' objection.
But this is not the case
I despise Trump, and loathe his malign influence on US politics, but he said some sane, truthful stuff amidst the weird gibberish
eg he was the first big global politician to say the virus probably came from a lab. God knows why he said it. The week before he was praising Xi. A week later he was on to something else. Likely it just jumped out of his crazy head, after an intelligence briefing
But what he said was true and important. Unfortunately the fact that HE said it meant the lab leak hypothesis then became toxic and was effectively suppressed for a year
I note that today China has outright refused to co-operate with the next stage of WHO’s investigation of coronavirus and its origins
So just another lie because the virus POSSIBLY came from a lab and is today still 2nd favourite to natural. I've done the legwork now. The lab thesis cannot - must not - be mocked but to rank it as the most likely scenario is a bridge too far.
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
It probably came from the lab
If it did not, all China has to do is publish all the Wuhan laboratory data it mysteriously ‘deleted’ in late 2019. Why did they delete it? Why will they not reveal it? They have everything to gain by exonerating themselves, yet they won’t, because, I suspect, they can’t
It amazes me how bien pensants like yourself are still so reluctant to go near this theory, even when they are quite happy to believe other unsavoury things about the Xi regime. eg the Uighur ‘genocide’. I am sure it is a mixture of anti-Trump hysteria (‘everything he said was a vile lie!) mixed with class-anxious bourgeois distaste for plebeian ‘conspiracy theories’ - you hate to be associated with anything working class, as you spent your life escaping it
Ditto Brexit
Chinese information paranoia isn't really evidence either way for the lab leak hypothesis. They are are totalitarian regime who simply won't accept any external investigation or any obligation to provide evidence to the international community.
There's very good evidence for what they're doing to the Uighurs which dispels any reasonable doubt. That kind of evidence simply doesn't exist for the lab leak; it's possible, but is not proven. And there's considerable biological evidence consistent with a natural origin.
An acquaintance of mine is very pro-Palestinian and (he claims) pro-Muslim. He helps groups of immigrants, thinks Russia is hard-done by, and denies Assad ever used chemical weapons. He has also started posting things denying what China is doing to the Uighurs.
I'd never say this to him, but he's not pro-Muslim. He's anti-western. The Uighurs are, sadly, the 'wrong' sort of Muslim.
It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
Here in Buchan we have had a long warm spell and some seriously warm and sunny days, but no heatwave. As someone who dislikes extremes of weather I have no problem with missing out on the "extreme heat warning" just as I had no problem staying dry whilst southern England was drowned during the Euros.
Traditionally, my family holiday in the western Highlands and Islands, but I am seriously considering breaking that tradition and going for the east coast for our next but n ben.
I adore the north west. I have said "Skye is Scotland" before. But, the NW is biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists. The NE is blissfully free of all that. OK so the mountains are off in the distance rather than up close and personal. But we have amazing sandy beaches, rugged cliffs with insane villages nestled at the bottom, gorgeous little towns and villages, castles, stone circles and The Queen.
Spot on.
“ biblically wet, infested with midge bastards and overrun with tourists”
I used to deeply love Ardnamurchan, Mull, Moidart, Appin etc, and further north up to Sutherland, but I’m afraid things have changed. It has been tragic to witness. One used to visit for glorious silence and peace. And the kind hearted locals. Good luck with that now.
My usual route to N.Uist includes the stretch between the Skye Bridge and Portree; Cuillins apart, I've come to dread it.
Skye is now overrun, it’s rather sad. That road you mention is particularly grim.
Like others I can remember when it was magnificently lonely.
There is one corner which is still fairly tranquil - and lovely. The Sleat Peninsula in the south. It’s also one of the most interesting bits - Gaelic speaking
I am amazed to hear that even Ardnamurchan is overcrowded. Ardnamurchan??!
I keep meaning to fit in a trip to Raasay (birthplace of the great Gaelic bard Somhairle MacGill-Eain of coure) but never quite manage to get round to it. I'm sure there are still lots of relatively untouched places out there, largely down to how inconvenient it is to get to them and lack of boutique accommodation.
Anecdata on Skye accommodation. A friend of mine owns a handsome Croft on a tiny offshore island. He’s done it up in fine style and turned it into ultra-luxury self catering. Very very expensive. Despite the price he’s had excellent publicity and reviews - and now it is fully booked, winter and summer, until... 2023
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
I've heard that Calmac are booked out for the Outer Hebrides for non commercial vehicles until late autumn, so like so many things we'll all have to wait till next year
A bicycle is the way to island hop. Provided you don't mind headwinds...
True enough for you hardier souls, I'm more of a bike in the boot of the car and a gentle pedal to the Rodel and back kinda guy.
I had a great holiday some years ago in the Loire Valley. I had thought I would go in a car meandering from village bar to village bar before I realised that if I was going to drive into a hedge blind drunk it would be best for me not to be motorised.
Was fantastic. They took your bags to a different hotel each day which were anything from 5-10 miles apart so you could cycle as much or as little as you wanted. Hardly saw a car the whole time. Plenty of chateaux with shabby chic chateaux owners.
Two-tier is just daft. This is the right way to go.
Though in reality it is really moving from 3-tier, county, district and town/parish councils to 2-tier, ie just unitary and town/parish
parish don't do anything and have zero real say in things (unless strangely you are within a National Park, where they have representation)..
They do if you live in a village, they run the cemeteries, village fete, manage war memorials, public toilets, greens and playing fields, village halls, rights of way, allotments, planning permission etc ie many of the key aspects of village life.
Plus they do neighbourhood plans now too.
Under unitary authorities parish and town councils will become more important as district councils and county councils are scrapped as the only layer of local government under unitaries in rural areas and market towns
I don't think Parish Councils decide on planning applications (which is the responsibility of the Borough/District) though they are an important consultee. In areas where the Community Infrastructure Levy has been adopted, the Parish should receive quite a chunk of cash.
All planning applications have to go to Parish or Town committee first, though the district (or unitary increasingly) can overturn their decision.
Parish and Towns also get a precept of the council tax as well as the Community Infrastructure Levy
Once again you haven't a clue what you are talking about but are posting as if you did.
Parish and Town councils are asked to comment on applications - that's it.
The final decision will then be made by the council or planners depending on delegation rights (the absolute most an parish council objection will do is route the case from delegated to a planning committee decision).
Yes I do, I am a town councillor and now on the planning committee.
All applications have to go to the planning committee first, then go to district.
However the chair of our planning committee is also a district councillor
And you don't because you are looking at the process from how you view it rather than what the process actually is.
Applications have to be processed within 12 weeks, so if a parish council doesn't respond to a planning application within the consultation period that doesn't stop it moving to the next step..
And a rejection at parish council level doesn't result in an application being refused - it's merely an input into the planners final decision.
Now that decision may be delegated refusal - in which case you seem to assuming that the parish council had final say in the matter, but that really isn't the case.
Yes but all applications still have to be submitted to the parish council.
A rejection at parish council level if upheld by district does lead to an application being refused unless the developer wins on appeal at the Inspector
Let's try that again shall we
A rejection at parish level = input to planner.
Planner makes decision with documentation - if delegated decision sent and made.
- if not delegated then passed to committee for decision.
If appealed by developer - off to the inspectorate.
There are very important nuances you are missing here - because as I've stated above you are observing a black box (based on your experiences) and using that as the basis of your knowledge instead of looking at the real processes as set out by law.
If a rejection is made at Parish level then it is likely then it will go to district planning committee but either way the Planning Officer works for the district council anyway.
If appealed after then off to the Inspector, so no different to what I said
Planning officers are not servants of councillors - they can influence the local plan but at a development control level the job is ensuring that the application meets the law and (assuming its valid) the contents of the local plan. It requires district level approval for decisions to be made outside of that.
There are a few councils where planning departments have had to be removed from the local authority because of successful ombudsman complaints (regarding undue influence of development control work) so I would be very careful with your comments above.
Who creates the local plan? District councillors, with input from parish and town councillors via the neighbourhood plan
I wouldn't say councillors 'create' the local plan. I'd say planning officers 'create' the plan and councillors 'approve' it (or not). Though clearly they have to create a plan that the councillors will approve.
Councillors from the majority party decide which areas of the local authority get the most development, often in areas where an opposing party holds the council seats.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
I dont know any cllrs who would admit to that logic. And if they do it speaks very Ill of them as it is entirely improper to make decisions based on irrelevant considerations.
Cllrs do the best they can, and that keeps them busy enough without making everything about party politics. Yes, votes then split on those lines but similar calls happen whoever is in power, and some in their own groups get screwed.
Just political reality, in my experience LDs tend to want most development in Tory rural areas, while Tories tend to want most development in parts of towns with LD councillors.
Of course no one wants development in their own patch at all, but in my experience party label doesnt affect that - it unites Tory LD and labour councillors in a town for instance, or indeed any candidates.
My town has gone from LD to Con to LD, and things have changed in many areas, but the views on development have been pretty uniform the whole time.
That's the thing - the options are usually reduced to 1 before you even begin. Say you need to build 1700 homes well the only choices are (at best) a choice of 2 possible directions in which you can expand the town. The other area will be built on the only thing the decision is making is delaying it 5 years.
Round here this local plan expends the town to the A1M. The next will expand it towards Staindrop / Barnard Castle (as that's the remaining site). Then in 10 years time once the new bypass is built it will expand to the North for the following 15 years.
Literally the only decision to be made was which fields would be built on in which order (and as the council owned the fields by the A1 that prioritised that work)
On topic, twelve items weren't delivered in our weekly home delivery yesterday.
Have to admit the Sainsbury's and Waitrose on Western Road in Brighton have been very empty during the last week.
I had to buy Waitrose's own brand water earlier on this week, it is the end of the days.
I was buying a new pair of trail running shoes yesterday, and the shop said they had a small choice because of supply chain issues. Still bought a nice pair of black-and-red ones though. I seem to be getting through them at an alarming rate: the dewy grass and weeds at this time of year just rip normal running shoes to shreds.
Comments
Like you, I can't believe Ardnamurchan is busy. How is that possible? You used to be able to spend a whole day on the magnificent beach at Sanna and see 3 people if you were unlucky.
These are the kind of crazy places I used to do roadtrip holidays to visit. Now I go for a stroll after work. Its bliss
I hope it survives. Hebrew was artificially reinvented in Israel and it was a great success.
Oh and if it's over a certain number is automatic refusal - without appeal as it's not a planning issue..
We, though, I think, are more or less on the same page. My point was that while coal mining was coming to the end of it's life, little or nothing, as you suggest, was done to provide opportunities for successor employment. The Hoover plant in Merthyr was OK-ish but the Revlon factory???? To be fair, the Nissan plant in Washington was a good move, but as you say the education system didn't help.
My grandfather, in the thirties, went from miner to dairyman to insurance agent, but there's only so many of each of the latter two jobs needed to cope with a mining community.
It's undeniably good for the region's economy, but I hope I'll be able to find *that* vantage point of the magnificent Kylesku Bridge without loads of cars or campervans in view. The solitude is blissful.
Overcrowded?! I’m actually a little bit skeptical. But then I didn’t believe the reports of Slye being rammed until it took me about 2 hours to drive from Kyle to Portree
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/22/china-refuses-further-inquiry-into-covid-19-origins-in-wuhan-lab
Have you considered that that was because she was left holding the hot potato? Mines had been closing all over the country for decades. Many miners could move to other mines in the area (although even then mining employment numbers were plummeting), but suddenly there were no mines in the area. It was not just her actions: it was those of her predecessors and successors. This Thatcher-hatred over the mines is quite hilarious given the wider history of coal mining.
The reason they closed was often because they were uneconomic (a fact often not helped by the coal strike). What was your alternative? Keep them going? Why just that industry?
Also: it can be argued that closing the coal mines was good for the environment. Whilst gas is not a green energy source, it's a heck of a lot better than coal. If they (wrongly) blame Thatcher for closing all the mines, then they should be lauding her for helping the environment.
As district councillors as you personally write the plan do you also check the law and other constraints to ensure the local plan is legal?
Once again councillors don't do that, they have an input and will eventually be one of the organisations that approve the final Local Plan
NEW: China has built enough space to detain 1 million Muslims. After locating the network of camps in Xinjiang last year, we got China’s prison building regs and began to reverse engineer what they had built. By @meghara and me."
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-camps-prisons-xinjiang-muslims-size
My ambition is to go to the southern end of the western isles - Uist, Barra, Eriskay. They sound dreamy
It also ticks the "nasty" box in his case. His motives for pushing the lab - and in fact bioweapon - notion were 100% sordid.
So there we go - another nasty lie sliding from the mean little mouth of Donald J Trump to join the 156,648 others. And counting if he ever gets his platform back.
If you were surprised by people voting for Brexit in these circumstances, then you weren't paying attention.
That was really my point. We deserved to be given facts we could rely on. There were no neutrals. The press were never going to question what was being said-they were Leavers- and TV were virtually forbidden to do so which meant Cummings/Johnson could peddle what they liked and Cummings was bright and ruthless enough to know how to do it.
And that if people believe it was a lab leak perhaps they should investigate whether it escaped from one of their own labs first
Then remember the way she encouraged Nissan to the NE.
But it takes time: decades, even. The problem is that too many areas had well-paid mining jobs as their central focus, with precious other industries (aside from ancillaries) present. You cannot just wave a magic wand and do this instantly: the areas should have been diversified from the 1960s onwards.
There were issues though: some places had coal was too central an industry - I'd argue some places in the Welsh Valleys, such as Merthyr, fall into that category. Too remote connections-wise to attract largescale alternative industries.
(*) Underneath the cliffs was interesting, though. Dipples in the beach contained water that was either black or orange-red, colours I associated with working in a chemical plant. People were fishing off the beach.
Newark, Ashfield, Mansfield and Worksop could work as a unitary (HQ Mansfield) "North Notts", and Nottingham council simply expand to pick up the rest of the county (Rushcliffe/Broxtowe), "Nottingham and South Nottinghamshire" (South Nottinghamshire outside Nottingham doesn't have any massive population centres)
(sorry, i'll get my coat...)
And to top it all off I am secure in the knowlege that I'm not a disingenuous shit stirrer like you are. So life is pretty fantastic thanks all the same.
We've got a painting of the view from Sanna towards the islands, with the little lump of land in the foreground where sheep get stranded at high tide.
After a few days in Ardnamurchan, getting the ferry to Tobermory feels like you are in a metropolis.
Planning officers merely ensure it can be implemented and is legal and do the detail
If it did not, all China has to do is publish all the Wuhan laboratory data it mysteriously ‘deleted’ in late 2019. Why did they delete it? Why will they not reveal it? They have everything to gain by exonerating themselves, yet they won’t, because, I suspect, they can’t
It amazes me how bien pensants like yourself are still so reluctant to go near this theory, even when they are quite happy to believe other unsavoury things about the Xi regime. eg the Uighur ‘genocide’. I am sure it is a mixture of anti-Trump hysteria (‘everything he said was a vile lie!) mixed with class-anxious bourgeois distaste for plebeian ‘conspiracy theories’ - you hate to be associated with anything working class, as you spent your life escaping it
Ditto Brexit
People have argued since their creation around parishes, what they can/should do, whether every parish should have a council (quite a few still do not, just Parish Meetings), how large is too large, grouping etc, so a bit like the unitary argument.
Given that I can tie your PB account to you personally and thus to a particular council I wouldn't be posting things that were they passed to the ombudsman as a complaint of abuse of power - would confirm that was the plan.
Everyone knows it happens but most people are sensible enough not to publish the fact.
Cllrs do the best they can, and that keeps them busy enough without making everything about party politics. Yes, votes then split on those lines but similar calls happen whoever is in power, and some in their own groups get screwed.
In fact most would probably be happy with scrapping district councils and not replacing them with unitary authorities and just letting all local matters be decided at parish or town council level, some would even be happy with scrapping county councils too and devolving their powers to the parish or town council
I think more pressure would bring certain benefits
No-one thinks footballers "are" neo-Marxists - that would be absurd. Presumably, the reason some people do not support the taking of the knee at sporting events is because it adopts the symbolism of the BLM movement, which is, openly, a neo-Marxist organization. If one adopts the symbolism of an organization then it's reasonable to assume support for it.
Trying to explain that away by saying "no, no, we're not supporting the organization; we're just saying we're against racism" is problematic when there are perfectly good campaigns, such as "Kick It Out" and "Show Racism the Red Card", out there and doing a good job of highlighting the issue.
It's interesting that the FA and others have doubled down on the "taking of the knee" when they could have just as easily supported "taking a stand" or "turning a back" - which do not have divisive political overtones - instead. Personally, I'm not a fan of using sport for any political purpose but that's by the by - it seems it's here to stay.
Anyway, it sounds as if the likes of Topy Young are admitting defeat on this one, which is a notable development given that the underlying concerns about the association with BLM and it's objectives have not gone away.
Which isn't a problem unless someone posted evidence that the local plan was based on invalid considerations for political advantage - so potentially rendering the plan invalid.
* potentially is used here because I don't care about the area HUYFD lives in. Developers who wish to build houses there (so may have different reasons and far deeper pockets) may take a very different viewpoint.
Question -for @Cyclefree if she is around were someone to admit to illegal activity do you need to find evidence to back it up or could the admission be enough?
That would be interesting.
It really does amaze me how little countries learn from one another, it seems that almost all governments and peoples have the ability to rationalise some reason why "it won't happen here".
Delta is on its Grand Tour of planet Earth, coming to all corners eventually, and the worrying thing is that Delta is unlikely to be the pinnacle of the virus, it is probable the virus will get fitter. So that it will be some other variant tearing through the unvaccinated in 2022.
And, worse, cruelly worse, by the time it reaches you it will likely have evolved into some hideous new variant, more dangerous and lethal than the first iteration you dodged
I just read that Melbourne has now been under pretty strict lockdown for six months, with more to come. Meanwhile my daughter north of Sydney is unable to see her friends, schools are closed...
No longer quite such a Lucky Country
There's very good evidence for what they're doing to the Uighurs which dispels any reasonable doubt. That kind of evidence simply doesn't exist for the lab leak; it's possible, but is not proven. And there's considerable biological evidence consistent with a natural origin.
The Ombudsman would have to stop every local plan in every council in the country if he was going to stop the majority party from trying to avoid most development in the areas they have most councillors
Local plans is one of them, development control is the other.
Given how old a lot of local plans are (part of the South Lakes plan is from 2008) you can see why speeding things up is desirable.
As with a lot of things I suspect all the complaints being received will be regarding the DC changes and the policy ones will sail through.
I'd actually like for the government to be much more vocal and robust about the potential vaccine pass in the next few weeks as well to get an additional 3-4m people into the vaccine programme. We have got somewhere in the region of 8m Moderna doses and 4m Pfizer doses sitting in fridges and freezers because there's no demand for first doses and we're rate limited by the 8 week gap on second doses. Every single minister should be out there suggesting that people who aren't double vaxxed by September 30th will be unable to go to pubs, bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres or live sports. Even if we only get to an additional 2m from that drive it would take us to ca. 49m people which would be 72% of the population. If we got 3.5m from such action it would be just under 75% of the population. With either of those number the need for the vaccine passport goes away by the time we get to September 30th.
It's a shitty way of doing it but at the same time, there's just too much inertia among young people "I'll get it whenever" seems to be quite a common sentiment on the Instagram Index™. By making September 30th a hard deadline to be double vaxxed whenever becomes tomorrow for a huge proportion of the 5m under 40s who are yet to be vaxxed.
My town has gone from LD to Con to LD, and things have changed in many areas, but the views on development have been pretty uniform the whole time.
What there is, is historical precedent. Most new viruses naturally emerge from animals. And that is no small thing
However there is great circumstantial evidence pointing to lab leak. And this evidence grows. Is lab leak certain? No. Is it probable? To my mind (and many others, now) - yes
The tragic thing about China’s duplicity and obfuscation is that it means we will probably never know for sure the origins of a novel virus which is killing many millions and decimating economies. Which is a big problem. To avoid further plagues we will have to act as if both hypotheses are true - ie shutter wet markets and impose new rules on animal care - worldwide - and also shut down gain of function research and really think hard about locating BSL4 labs in the middle of enormous cities. Madness
I'd never say this to him, but he's not pro-Muslim. He's anti-western. The Uighurs are, sadly, the 'wrong' sort of Muslim.
Have to admit the Sainsbury's and Waitrose on Western Road in Brighton have been very empty during the last week.
I had to buy Waitrose's own brand water earlier on this week, it is the end of the days.
Hence I signed up for a week of "Cycling for Softies" (google note: I see they are still in existence).
Was fantastic. They took your bags to a different hotel each day which were anything from 5-10 miles apart so you could cycle as much or as little as you wanted. Hardly saw a car the whole time. Plenty of chateaux with shabby chic chateaux owners.
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, varying shades of rank incompetence.
The news about the latter two countries' rugby league teams pulling out of the World Cup is the icing on the cake of a truly embarrassing saga.
Round here this local plan expends the town to the A1M. The next will expand it towards Staindrop / Barnard Castle (as that's the remaining site). Then in 10 years time once the new bypass is built it will expand to the North for the following 15 years.
Literally the only decision to be made was which fields would be built on in which order (and as the council owned the fields by the A1 that prioritised that work)