Merely the enfranchisement of women and the end in theory of male domination of the political process. Not very important really as few men or women seem capable of actually using it wisely.
Regards Capitol
I get the feeling that both of the above posters believe in telling other people how to live their lives. How sad, and what poor examples of true humanity they seem to represent.
Regards Capitol
It is only in your opinion that a pvc door is ugly. More people would probably opine that a pvc door is far more attractive and practical than a wooden, aluminium or steel one. You are back to telling other people how to live their lives again.
Regards Capitol
Particularly if you are also married! ( The single parent numbers in Scotland have apparently risen by 25% since Nu Labur came to power)
Regards Capitol
Not quite Andy. The reason is that there was too much money available for the council to spend. This means that more unnecessary people are employed to harass the rest of the taxpayers. First steps in any bloated business are to reduce the budget, then the headcount. progress follows.
Regards Capitol
Ooh, touchy. Taste being a matter of opinion and fashion, some people have it and some don't. IMO, you easily fall into the latter category. Conservation areas for your enlightenment, are not owned as I described. Mainly "wanna be's" IME buy a house in a conservation area. They're too busy being image conscious to have any brave new ideas of their own. They also tend to be Guardian readers, described as "the newspaper for people who don't know how to think for themselves". "dIMM" reads it!
LOL Regards Capitol
Christian McArdle wrote: They came with a 100 year guarantee.
Worthless, they'll be dead by then. Also the manufacturer will have gone out of business within 5 years.
Regards Capitol
I for one, wouldn't Toby
There is every ground for complaint. This is an arrangement that is rotten to the core.
It's simply another illustration of a jobsworth using legislation inappropriately in an attempt to wield power over others.
If he thought for 500 milliseconds (or perhaps two weeks), he would realise that his salary is being paid for by the very people he is seeking to obstruct. In essence, they are his customers. He is using the comfort of protected employment to abuse them.
Has he asked the people in the community whether they would rather have an access ramp or an old brick wall? Certainly one would expect the churchgoers to be in favour of the ramp. I suspect that a survey of the rest of the local community would give answers mainly in the positive to disinterested range in favour, and one or two wanting it to be kept the way it is.
I see your point. However, with the exception of a few professionals such as building control officers, who do seem to know their stuff quite well and to behave sensibly; most of the other departments seem to attract those who are unable to do a real job of work.
Actually, I'd start with reducing the headcount and putting a hatchet through their pension schemes. Drastically. Then there would be ample funds to spend on worthwhile things that people actually want. Better yet; don't take the money from them in the first place and let them decide for themselves.
Nope. They're still around. They are manufactured and fitted by the same company.
Christian.
OK, let's hear some of your brave new ideas....
cheers, Pete.
I worked in building control at a time when we were constantly having staff cuts and frozen vacancies, with the effect that lots of work went uninspected - on new houses it would be foundations, drains, dpc and completion, probably nothing else. In that time personnel and management services expanded from a handful of people to half a floor, and they were never subject to similar stringencies when it came to appointing staff.
This was 1996. The original wall (mid Victorian) had the gates at one end next to the church door, thus preventing the construction of a ramp, and had originally been a low wall with railings. In the last war the railings had been removed and the spaces bricked in with non matching bricks leaving a wall about 5' high which was unattractive and not very reassuring to walk by after dark.
The new wall
But the LB Richmond planners were determined to fight it all the way, first claiming that if the original architect had wanted gates in the middle he would have done so (there was probably a tree there in
18xx) and secondly claiming that the mismatched wartime infill was part of our heritage and 'told a story'. After going to meeting with them and hearing this and their "stuff the disabled" comment I was fuming. A bit of work in the library revealed a relevant law case, South Lakeland DC v. Sos, so I wrote back to the planners quoting this, asking them to determine the application forthwith, and saying that if it was refused I would appeal and ask for costs. The approval came back a week or so later.But of course the truth is that none of this should have been necessary: if I had been acting as a fee-charging professional for a client they would have ended up with a four-figure bill.
But this is not untypical: back in 1991 Chartered Surveyor was telling readers planning schemes in LB Richmond to "assume you're going to appeal before you put in the application'
Noted. However, the event you refer to happened fifteen years ago and has little relevance to the situation today. There has, quite rightly, been a major change in attitudes to, and legislation regarding, disability since then. To use this incident as though it typifies current practice is disingenuous. Of course there are individual planners who behave in the wrong way just as there are wrongdoers in any profession. Having said that in the case under discussion I have seen no published evidence to suggest that this is the case. In fact the reverse is true because although a criminal offence was committed when the door was replaced without permission the local authority has given the woman repeated opportunities to put matters right. The only reason they have prosecuted is that she has flatly refused to rectify matters. Having exhausted all reasonable avenues the local authority it is difficult to see what other course of action the could take. Not to do so would be to open the floodgates for other unauthorised alterations to listed buildings. The fact that the culprit is disabled does not excuse breaking the law. As others have said there are several other ways in which her difficulty in opening the door could have been achieved. Furthermore the problem could have been solved for much less cost than the fine and costs she has already incurred. To sum up she has brought the whole problem on herself by her intransigence and stupidity.
Peter Crosland
What complete nonsense. Large numbers of houses had their railings nicked by the government for WW2 munitions etc. The reality was that large amounts of them sat rusting in railway yards for years until eventually they were disposed of for scrap.
I've heard this from numerous people in numerous towns.
In most cases, replacement, if it happened was with small walls and fences.
Excellent. These people, with their arbitrary behaviour based on nothing of value should be put in their place. Great job.
Frankly, I would have done it and also made sure that their misbehaviour was exposed to the widest extent.
This is not the behaviour of a professional person in any sense of the word. Frankly, to give any planner or conservation officer the apparently exalted position of "professional" other than that they take money for their day's activities demeans the broader definition of professional as someone who provides a worthwile service.
There are no matters to rectify. The law was applied arbitrarily and inappropriately.
The correct action would have been to have done nothing. Resignation would have been even better.
No it doesn't. Anybody with common sense and who is in touch with the community who pays their salary would have acted far more sensitively and simply ignored the issue. Had all of the neighbours or even one neighbour complained it would have been a different matter. This came to light years after the event because a jobsworth was watching the TV.
The use of the word "culprit" is an unnecessary insult.
The true culprits here are the jobsworths in local government and those who would seek to support their bureaucratic nonsense come hell or high water.
The only stupidity is the conflict of laws and the empowerment of inappropriate people to uphold them.
>
Exactly. I have talked to people in various departments in local authorities and the situation you describe is widespread.
Certainly every BCO I've talked to is a helpful source of how best to tackle an issue without imposing unnecessary cost or unreasonable restriction. When one considers that they have to work with relatively generalistic legislation plus some guidelines that aren't always completely sensible, I think that the results are pretty fair and reasonable.
I have already made the point that minority opinions are equally valid.
Today, I happened to go through the East End of London to the West end. 90% of the victorian/Edwardian houses have been fitted with pvc double glazing and look much better for it. Nuff said. The west end, of course, to Christians disappointment, is a demonstration of the benefits of applying stone cladding to unattractive brick and concrete buildings. Incidentally, I prefer 2M steerable satellite dishes to fixed Sky ones. The programme content is much more informative and free.
Regards Capitol
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